[Journey] Building an iOS & Android App Empire

[Yuu]

hey nakamura, loving the hustle and mindset. you're already on the right path, but let me drop some nuggets that might light up your journey even more. remember, the app game is like a chess match, and while everyone’s playing checkers, you're here strategizing moves ahead.

you’ve got the fundamentals down, but have you ever thought about leveraging the power of psychological triggers in your apps? subtle cues can skyrocket user retention and engagement. think about how massive apps keep users hooked—there’s a method to the madness, my friend.

since you're steering clear of blackhat, play the long game. focus on whitehat tactics that give you a solid foundation. but hey, don’t forget that sometimes, bending the rules (not breaking) can give you that edge. google might have a zero tolerance policy, but understanding their algorithms is a game changer. trust me, it’s all about perception vs. reality.

and while you're banking on ads, consider planting seeds for future in-app purchases—strategic planning now will pay dividends later. also, app marketing is evolving—perhaps consider influencer collaborations for a quick visibility boost.

you’re on the path, and remember, the empire you’re building today will be the legacy you leave behind. keep pushing, keep hustling. the gold mine is just a few taps away. if you want to chat more about those psychological triggers or marketing hacks, slide into my dm. let’s level up together.

stay legendary,
your friendly neighborhood app whisperer

 

[maxibrian]

Nakamura master,
What is your most used technology stack for your iOS apps? I saw some posts ago u mentioned Flutter but I'm not sure if you mentioned it as your go to tool for iOS or for Cross.Also, do you mind sharing your Ai model?
Thanks!

 

[nakamura]

hey nakamura, loving the hustle and mindset. you're already on the right path, but let me drop some nuggets that might light up your journey even more. remember, the app game is like a chess match, and while everyone’s playing checkers, you're here strategizing moves ahead.

you’ve got the fundamentals down, but have you ever thought about leveraging the power of psychological triggers in your apps? subtle cues can skyrocket user retention and engagement. think about how massive apps keep users hooked—there’s a method to the madness, my friend.

since you're steering clear of blackhat, play the long game. focus on whitehat tactics that give you a solid foundation. but hey, don’t forget that sometimes, bending the rules (not breaking) can give you that edge. google might have a zero tolerance policy, but understanding their algorithms is a game changer. trust me, it’s all about perception vs. reality.

and while you're banking on ads, consider planting seeds for future in-app purchases—strategic planning now will pay dividends later. also, app marketing is evolving—perhaps consider influencer collaborations for a quick visibility boost.

you’re on the path, and remember, the empire you’re building today will be the legacy you leave behind. keep pushing, keep hustling. the gold mine is just a few taps away. if you want to chat more about those psychological triggers or marketing hacks, slide into my dm. let’s level up together.

stay legendary,
your friendly neighborhood app whisperer

Thanks a lot!

Nakamura master,
What is your most used technology stack for your iOS apps? I saw some posts ago u mentioned Flutter but I'm not sure if you mentioned it as your go to tool for iOS or for Cross.Also, do you mind sharing your Ai model?
Thanks!

Before it was purely SwiftUI.

Then I would add different SDKs:

- RevenueCat
- Google Mobile Ads
- Firebase Analytics, Remote Config, Firestore, App Check, Storage
- Meta / Facebook SDK
and some others as well depending on what I need. For example video player, image cropping, etc.

But now I have switched to Flutter to build for iOS, Android and Web at the same time. I have a SEO background so its smart for me to make a website and also offer a Web App / SaaS and get organic traffic from SEO.

 

[inspectorgad]

Hey Nakamura,

I've not bought your ebook yet as Im concerned around the value of your guidance on the 'researching and choosing the right app to develop' could you provide any insight into the level of detail your ebook goes into this? I guess im worried that I'd buy it and it would explain how good things but overall I'd still be pretty clueless on how to quantify what app ideas are worth the time investment into developing.

P.S Any update on the new ebook timeline?

P.P,S - Have you discovered the 'Ralph Wiggum' approach to using AI coding tools? If not, google "Claude+Ralph Wiggum" and you'll find a dev .to article explaining it. It's honestly game changing and makes 'vibe coding' even better!

 

[nakamura]

Hey Nakamura,

I've not bought your ebook yet as Im concerned around the value of your guidance on the 'researching and choosing the right app to develop' could you provide any insight into the level of detail your ebook goes into this? I guess im worried that I'd buy it and it would explain how good things but overall I'd still be pretty clueless on how to quantify what app ideas are worth the time investment into developing.

P.S Any update on the new ebook timeline?

P.P,S - Have you discovered the 'Ralph Wiggum' approach to using AI coding tools? If not, google "Claude+Ralph Wiggum" and you'll find a dev .to article explaining it. It's honestly game changing and makes 'vibe coding' even better!

new ebook will be released asap. Currently I was too busy testing different methods. But I hope to finish this weekend or within next week.

i also write about how to find and validate a niche.

first time I hear of ralph wiggum approach. i checked it and i did something similar before. I made different agents which keep checking up on each other and tell each other to not stop coding until its done.

 

[nakamura]

Update:

In January 2026 I had by far the best month ever.

I made roughly $32k through IAP and $3k through ads.

This app alone: https://verified.revenuecat.com/bhw made me around $30k. Keep in mind it says 28 days and not 31 days.

For February I want to scale even harder and try the same marketing strategy for two of my other apps, but first I need to update them!

All in all, it could be possible that in February I will even more money, maybe 2x or even 3x.

 

[MgicalaEarner]

Update:

In January 2026 I had by far the best month ever.

I made roughly $32k through IAP and $3k through ads.

This app alone: https://verified.revenuecat.com/bhw made me around $30k. Keep in mind it says 28 days and not 31 days.

For February I want to scale even harder and try the same marketing strategy for two of my other apps, but first I need to update them!

All in all, it could be possible that in February I will even more money, maybe 2x or even 3x.

What type of app is this?

 

[nakamura]

What type of app is this?

consumer app.

but honestly, its not about what type of app it is. It is about the marketing

 

[antderdog72]

new ebook will be released asap. Currently I was too busy testing different methods. But I hope to finish this weekend or within next week.

i also write about how to find and validate a niche.

first time I hear of ralph wiggum approach. i checked it and i did something similar before. I made different agents which keep checking up on each other and tell each other to not stop coding until its done.

Has the new ebook been released? And where can I buy it?

 

[nakamura]

Has the new ebook been released? And where can I buy it?

I am working on it. I wanna finish it asap.

Update:

Wonders do happen once in a while. I just woke up and found an email from Microsoft Azure. They sent me an exclusive invitation code for $25.000 credits. This is huge for me because Azure features almost all OpenAI models. So bascially its like an OpenAI $25k account. They also feature many other models.

But the real deal here is the cashflow. It gives me months of free AI / API usage. Enough time to earn as much money as possible to scale and also to have a positive cashflow.

Because there is one problem you guys might also face: Apple payout takes around 45 days. The money you earn in January will be sent to you in March / April. Google Play is a little bit faster. For Google Play, they will send you the generated money on 15th of the next month. So you receive the money you earn in January on 15th February.

Cashflow can be a real trap. You have ongoing expenses, but you receive the money after 1,2 or even 3 months. So you basically cant pay the bills.

Thats why applying for these Start Up programs (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, etc.) is so important. It helps you in the early stage

 

[inspectorgad]

Can't wait for the new ebook, you'll have a customer from me as soon as it's released

 

[nakamura]

Update:

I have been to South Korea for a couple of days and almost couldn't work at all, now I am back in the office.

As you can see in my apps link: https://verified.revenuecat.com/bhw

I am sharing this link with you guys to let you know this is not bs. There are a lot of people out there, also here on BHW, with the wildest claims, but lets be honest: Screenshots and stats can be faked. This right here is verified by RevenueCat, its a realtime tracking link of the earnings and subscriptions.

And I want to say something else: If you read this thread from the beginning, you will see I had a lot of trouble with Google, accounts and apps kept getting terminated and I was f*cked. One morning I woke up and Admob terminated my account just an hour before usually sending the payout. The payout was like $5k or more. It made me feel so bad I had to throw up and spent the remaining day in bed. I kept working anyway. No matter in what bad situation you are in, if you just got f*cked over by something or something, just continue, believe in yourself, do not stop. I wrote it somewhere in the thread: If they terminate one of my accounts, I will find a way to make two new accounts.

Fast forward and 6 years later (crazy, right?), I had the best weekend ever making around $2500 per day with this single app. Keep in mind, this is just one app, but right now it makes roughly 90% of the earnings. Right now I have another app in the pipeline which will (I hope) blow up as well, maybe even crazier.

Btw. these earnings you see in the link: $0 paid ads! Everything organically.

By the way guys, I mentioned it before. Until Apple and Google sends you the payout there might be a delay of 30/45 days. Google is a bit faster, but the majority of money/sales comes from Apple. If your app blows up and goes viral and you have API costs in any way, you might run into a cashflow problem. You have to pay for the API, but you didnt get the payouts yet. It can be a huge problem to the point where your app might not work anymore. So this is somthing you definitely have to keep in mind.

About my ebook:

Almost done. But things are evolving so damn fast, that I keep have to add new things or change text. For example, since I started writing the ebook there has been Claude Opus 4.6 released. ClawdBot (or whatever is the name now) also got released and blew up. So whenever I think I finished writing the ebook, something new happens. I wanna give you guys the latest info and how to use it.

 

[WarlordYT]

@nakamura i have put more than 30 videos on tiktok getting 300-1000 views on US feed , but not a single one want to buy sub on my app
what should i do ?

 

[manishjaggal]

@nakamura i have put more than 30 videos on tiktok getting 300-1000 views on US feed , but not a single one want to buy sub on my app
what should i do ?

you have hard paywall? offer free trial or maybe a little of free use if you don't have big api cost.

 

[nakamura]

@nakamura i have put more than 30 videos on tiktok getting 300-1000 views on US feed , but not a single one want to buy sub on my app
what should i do ?

you have hard paywall? offer free trial or maybe a little of free use if you don't have big api cost.

hard to judge without seeing anything. i would first improve the hook to get more views

 

[FrancisCopper]

I have been following this thread and it's still inspiring! So I tried 3 years ago to build mobile apps but I was really serious about it so I only had one app generating ~$30 per month sometimes. Lately, I have rebuilt the app and I have a $400MMR so it's getting pretty good!

Now I'm waiting for the approval of another app this week or the next week and I try to finish another app that I expect to generate way more money than the app 1.

All the trafic is organic for my first app because it's not possible to make ads or talk about it easily on the social network. I'll try to use more Instagram and Tiktok for the latest app.

Ad Mob is working weirdly. It was generating a constant ~$10 per month and during 2 months, it was generating ~$70 then it drop to $0. I'm too tired to look at it, I really don't understand what to improve. I'd probably tried to use a mediation network if I feel it's worth it.

For a future "social network" app, I'll build a bot fleet that will automatically create posts and conversations to simulate life. That's a common problem with those app, it's empty so new people are speaking alone and then, they leave.

 

[PolskiKrot]

Are you considering to have someone who could drive viral and organical traffic through social medias on YOUR apss? We would be interested.

 

[nakamura]

Are you considering to have someone who could drive viral and organical traffic through social medias on YOUR apss? We would be interested.

yes, please send me all details including price and strategy via PM

 

[Dank19]

How strict is Apple these days?
The last app i published was Aug 2025 and I was publishing 1 app a month with no issues.

Are they cracking down on mass production due to "Ai Slop" apps?

 

[gokublk]

Update:

I have been to South Korea for a couple of days and almost couldn't work at all, now I am back in the office.

As you can see in my apps link: https://verified.revenuecat.com/bhw

I am sharing this link with you guys to let you know this is not bs. There are a lot of people out there, also here on BHW, with the wildest claims, but lets be honest: Screenshots and stats can be faked. This right here is verified by RevenueCat, its a realtime tracking link of the earnings and subscriptions.

And I want to say something else: If you read this thread from the beginning, you will see I had a lot of trouble with Google, accounts and apps kept getting terminated and I was f*cked. One morning I woke up and Admob terminated my account just an hour before usually sending the payout. The payout was like $5k or more. It made me feel so bad I had to throw up and spent the remaining day in bed. I kept working anyway. No matter in what bad situation you are in, if you just got f*cked over by something or something, just continue, believe in yourself, do not stop. I wrote it somewhere in the thread: If they terminate one of my accounts, I will find a way to make two new accounts.

Fast forward and 6 years later (crazy, right?), I had the best weekend ever making around $2500 per day with this single app. Keep in mind, this is just one app, but right now it makes roughly 90% of the earnings. Right now I have another app in the pipeline which will (I hope) blow up as well, maybe even crazier.

Btw. these earnings you see in the link: $0 paid ads! Everything organically.

By the way guys, I mentioned it before. Until Apple and Google sends you the payout there might be a delay of 30/45 days. Google is a bit faster, but the majority of money/sales comes from Apple. If your app blows up and goes viral and you have API costs in any way, you might run into a cashflow problem. You have to pay for the API, but you didnt get the payouts yet. It can be a huge problem to the point where your app might not work anymore. So this is somthing you definitely have to keep in mind.

About my ebook:

Almost done. But things are evolving so damn fast, that I keep have to add new things or change text. For example, since I started writing the ebook there has been Claude Opus 4.6 released. ClawdBot (or whatever is the name now) also got released and blew up. So whenever I think I finished writing the ebook, something new happens. I wanna give you guys the latest info and how to use it.

How much are the API costs if the app goes viral?