[Journey] Building an iOS & Android App Empire

[osxxen]

Update:

I mentioned to you guys before that I got contacted regarding selling one of my apps.

I signed an NDA and I can't get into details, but BHW is fam and my name on here is Nakamura, so I guess I am safe.

They offered me a sum of around 50k USD. Right now I am in talk with my co-workers Claude, Gemini and ChatGPT to discuss how much I should ask for return. I have never negotiated an app price before and I never sold one before as well. In this regard I am an absolute newbie.

I am seriously thinking about selling the app because it would give me and the cashflow such a big boost.

I wonder what the multiple is. For websites, it used to be 20x monthly if the earnings trend is flat/downwards and 30x+ monthly if it's upwards. If you do sell, have a specific plan how that money will help you scale. Maybe double down on promotion, or maybe start hiring "developers" like you. Split the work into modules and have people from Upwork use your workflow to commit them. You review commits, work on schedule and architecture, test and ship.

 

[nakamura]

I wonder what the multiple is. For websites, it used to be 20x monthly if the earnings trend is flat/downwards and 30x+ monthly if it's upwards. If you do sell, have a specific plan how that money will help you scale. Maybe double down on promotion, or maybe start hiring "developers" like you. Split the work into modules and have people from Upwork use your workflow to commit them. You review commits, work on schedule and architecture, test and ship.

To be honest, I didn't even really try to do a lot of marketing. I could have easily 10x my earnings if I would really go all in on marketing, especially organic marketing.

These guys probably know it and thats why they wanna buy my app. They know I miss the potential. But the thing is: I am just one person and I am incredibly busy with making new apps, etc.

Content creation, dealing with multiple social media accounts, etc. is so time consuming for me. I should have hired someone to do this, but also this needs a lot of time to find someone suitable. I already mentioned before I bought a couple of iPhones and created TikTok accounts, etc., but man creating high quality content takes time. If I publish low quality content it won't go anywhere and its basically a waste of time. But creating hq content for 15 accounts per day is tough af. So I either need to hire someone who does this job or I need to find a way to automate the entire process because doing it manually is extremely time consuming.

 

[Shwepps]

To be honest, I didn't even really try to do a lot of marketing. I could have easily 10x my earnings if I would really go all in on marketing, especially organic marketing.

Why don't focus on one app that you perceive to be a winner among many others?

 

[mrsocialselling]

Awesome, thanks for the recommendation. I spent hours reading through study cases and so on. Its really interesting, especially when it comes to mobile games. There are so many things to consider to make a decent game while optimizing ad earnings.
Thank you

 

[nakamura]

Why don't focus on one app that you perceive to be a winner among many others?

to find out a winner you first need to make many apps.

and one more problem is: AI, for example, keeps evolving and getting better. If I would just stick to one app that I made in 2023 I would miss out on a lot of potential revenue.

I need to find a way to do both things at the same time. Do the marketing and develop apps both at the very same time.

 

[Jerichomiles]

($25 for apple developer account. It's cheap in my local currency)

$25?? How can it be that cheap? What country is that. It's normally $99.

 

[UltraMaximus]

Good luck with your journey..

 

[meanyack]

$25?? How can it be that cheap? What country is that. It's normally $99.

Doesn't matter. The most expensive part is the hardware...

Regarding the app termination, I have heard many accounts terminated this week.
Never ever use a brand name like Veo, Sora, Nano Banana.
Apple has no joke. Dozens of accounts has been removed from the store in a single day.

 

[nakamura]

Doesn't matter. The most expensive part is the hardware...

Regarding the app termination, I have heard many accounts terminated this week.
Never ever use a brand name like Veo, Sora, Nano Banana.
Apple has no joke. Dozens of accounts has been removed from the store in a single day.

Apple won't terminate your account because of the app name. They will unpublish your app and tell you to change the name. For Google Play, they would probably terminate your account right away.

Do not use brand names in titles. For subtitle, the brands are very likely to reach out ot you directly. For example, I had "GPT" in the subtitle in one of my apps and someone from OpenAI sent me an email to remove it or to write "GPT by OpenAI".

Generally speaking its not a good idea to use other trademarks in your product or also domains.

 

[meanyack]

Apple won't terminate your account because of the app name.

They removed 18 accounts in my country last week because of this. I can send dm you a link.
Apple is becoming Google, they are getting harsh.
They started to give warnings about tactics like “apps gone free” promotion and delayed paywalls.
They might do another ban wave soon.

 

[WarlordYT]

They removed 18 accounts in my country last week because of this. I can send dm you a link.
Apple is becoming Google, they are getting harsh.
They started to give warnings about tactics like “apps gone free” promotion and delayed paywalls.
They might do another ban wave soon.

yes apple has started terminating because of this

 

[vin42]

They removed 18 accounts in my country last week because of this. I can send dm you a link.
Apple is becoming Google, they are getting harsh.
They started to give warnings about tactics like “apps gone free” promotion and delayed paywalls.
They might do another ban wave soon.

Seems they are getting stricter now

 

[conexur]

Apple won't terminate your account because of the app name. They will unpublish your app and tell you to change the name. For Google Play, they would probably terminate your account right away.

Do not use brand names in titles. For subtitle, the brands are very likely to reach out ot you directly. For example, I had "GPT" in the subtitle in one of my apps and someone from OpenAI sent me an email to remove it or to write "GPT by OpenAI".

Generally speaking its not a good idea to use other trademarks in your product or also domains.

GPT is a registered trademark?

No, "GPT" is not a registered trademark because the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has rejected OpenAI's application, deeming the term descriptive of the technology. The acronym "generative pre-trained transformer" describes the function and characteristics of the AI models, so it cannot be monopolized as a brand name by a single company.

 

[nakamura]

They removed 18 accounts in my country last week because of this. I can send dm you a link.
Apple is becoming Google, they are getting harsh.
They started to give warnings about tactics like “apps gone free” promotion and delayed paywalls.
They might do another ban wave soon.

In my opinion you are right. There has been a MASSIVE influx of apps since tools like Lovable, Cursor and so on. Many of the devs are mass publishing apps.

A great example was one account that when Google's Nano Banana released he made 20x the same app with a different title, literally naming it Nano Banana, BananaGPT, etc., account got removed then.

From my experience Apple has been really tolerant so far. Thats also why I never got any problem (unlike with Google!)

GPT is a registered trademark?

Oh thats good to know. WIll name my next AI app something with GPT then.

 

[nakamura]

Update:

The past few days I spent making the Android version of my most popular iOS app. I used Flutter to reverse engineer the entire app. I will also make a web version of this app in the next few weeks.

I really do not want to miss out on the Google Play traffic and also not on the Web traffic. The niche is huge.

Right now, I am working on high quality video ads for the app. I don't want to make paid ads with low quality ads. They should have the highest possible quality with the lowest CPI in order to scale the best possible way.

Whats next?

I will learn n8n to auto-create and auto-post content on all social media platforms (pinterest, instagram, tiktok, facebook,youtube shorts, etc.). After a few days of test-run, I will make even more social media accounts and start a farm to auto-post on it, especially on TikTok. Right now, it is probably the easiest way to get downloads if done right.


For this, I made some notes and also got some inspiration from twitter and so on:

app promotion videos for short form content:

→ Show the app for 3 seconds
→ Related to my apps niche
→ Show app within 10 seconds

for UGC:

- the shock
- the subtle placement
- the ragebait (to the exact audience)

user acquisition timeline:

1. stop the scroll
2. get them to watch long enough to know the video is about your app
3. intrigue with value, novelty, relatability, or strong emotions
4. make content so good they rush to comments
5. they see people talking about your app
6. they search app store
7. they install

This one below I saw on Twitter, maybe its worth sharing again with you guys:

<300 views → shadowban

if you're consistently seeing less than 300 views over 6 posts or more, do an account health diagnosis. recommend warmup post 2

300-800 views → hook failure

your first 5s suck. don’t touch anything else until you fix this. rework angle, visual, text, sound - everything.

800–2K views → content quality issue

the hook worked, but your story didn’t. people clicked, but they didn’t stay. focus on storytelling + deliver more value.

2K–10K views → engagement problem

you made good content, but it didn’t spark emotion/engagement. test formats that are funny, relatable, or novel. people share what aligns with who they are - or who they want to be.

10K+ views → gold

you found the formula. double down, replicate fast, keep the style and just tweak details. spark the post.

if you’re stuck at <800 views → it’s the hook. full stop.

don’t waste time on CTAs. don’t stress about product presentation.

fix. the. hook.

 

[Jerichomiles]

Doesn't matter. The most expensive part is the hardware...

It does matter because everywhere else charges $99. Why would it be a quarter the price? And yeah like you say, the hardware isn't any cheaper so why is the subscription cost? I searched and couldn't find anything about the Apple Developer Program being only $25 in certain countries. Very odd.

 

[meanyack]

It does matter because everywhere else charges $99. Why would it be a quarter the price? And yeah like you say, the hardware isn't any cheaper so why is the subscription cost? I searched and couldn't find anything about the Apple Developer Program being only $25 in certain countries. Very odd.

Did you check price on Apple developer mobile app? It’s generally cheaper.
I’m based in Turkey so they do regional pricing.

 

[Sharkneco]

Inspiring journey my friend, good luck

 

[Jerichomiles]

Did you check price on Apple developer mobile app? It’s generally cheaper.

Yep, the price is identical. Searching I couldn't find anything about it being cheaper with the app, doesn't seem logical that it would be anyway.

Still can't find anything about regional pricing. The only regional pricing I know of is that all Apple stuff, including the developer subscription are more expensive in the UK than the USA.. I guess because people in the USA earn more on average then people in the UK? Makes zero sense.

So literally all other Apple products aren't cheaper at all in Turkey? Also makes zero sense.

 

[meanyack]

Yep, the price is identical. Searching I couldn't find anything about it being cheaper with the app, doesn't seem logical that it would be anyway.

Still can't find anything about regional pricing. The only regional pricing I know of is that all Apple stuff, including the developer subscription are more expensive in the UK than the USA.. I guess because people in the USA earn more on average then people in the UK? Makes zero sense.

So literally all other Apple products aren't cheaper at all in Turkey? Also makes zero sense.

It doesn’t matter if it’s $25 or $200. Maybe there is a special agreement with government and govmt pays back the rest of it. You can make thousands of dollars with an Apple account so $100 is almost negligible. When I was making $5-6k, my server and tools cost was $500/month so I would never care about $100/year.