[Journey] Building an iOS & Android App Empire
- Thread starter nakamura
- Start date
darshanright
Regular Member
- Jan 22, 2015
- 275
- 54
Basically, what type of apps are all these? I'm not asking for a direct app, but asking for a niche, because you are using an API. That's why I'm asking.
GIDEON6155
Newbie
- Apr 30, 2024
- 37
- 13
Please just a Niche brother
AllOutAnime
Power Member
- Oct 15, 2007
- 589
- 502
Do you know a way/mcp to give the coding agents access to a phone so they can test/debug the functionality they built?
Everything I found takes forever and the agent takes 10 minutes to perform some action that would take 10 seconds by a human.
Is there nothing faster?
Everything I found takes forever and the agent takes 10 minutes to perform some action that would take 10 seconds by a human.
Is there nothing faster?
- Mar 22, 2013
- 6,272
- 10,983
they are all consumer mobile apps
but honestly, all kinda different niches.
guys, there is no sense in finding my niches. dont waste your time. even if you find it, then what? it wont change anything for you personally.
just focus on building apps. its super easy to find popular niches. go on twitter, check different subreddits like viral apps, go on producthunt, etc. you will get unlimited ideas.
making the app is no problem. the real deal is distribution. there are guys earning 100k per month on "Stone Identifier" AI apps or "lookmaxxing apps". Its just about marketing.
never forget there are also people here on BHW who paid for a paypal money generator
Not specifically because I do this stuff all myself. most of these tools do a screenshot - describe - reason - tap cycle that burns tokens and take a long time for each step.
usually what i do is I built everything, make sure it builds correctly, and then i do final testing and add improvements.
GIDEON6155
Newbie
- Apr 30, 2024
- 37
- 13
Got it, thanks brothey are all consumer mobile apps
but honestly, all kinda different niches.
guys, there is no sense in finding my niches. dont waste your time. even if you find it, then what? it wont change anything for you personally.
just focus on building apps. its super easy to find popular niches. go on twitter, check different subreddits like viral apps, go on producthunt, etc. you will get unlimited ideas.
making the app is no problem. the real deal is distribution. there are guys earning 100k per month on "Stone Identifier" AI apps or "lookmaxxing apps". Its just about marketing.
never forget there are also people here on BHW who paid for a paypal money generator
Not specifically because I do this stuff all myself. most of these tools do a screenshot - describe - reason - tap cycle that burns tokens and take a long time for each step.
usually what i do is I built everything, make sure it builds correctly, and then i do final testing and add improvements.
AllOutAnime
Power Member
- Oct 15, 2007
- 589
- 502
I saw astro has some mcp so I thought about building an agent system that automatically does some research, builds the apps until they are production ready.
I suppose for that I would need them to run on a phone to perform the tests and improvements.
If there is no solution, I probably need to build my own mcp for this. Since with the agent it could be slow, I will try to run a small sub-agent directly on the phone.
The coding agent could run the sub-agent on the phone with task "buy premium and use the product", the sub-agent could do it fast and report back the result to the main agent that could iterate on it.
soa0611
Elite Member
- Apr 20, 2015
- 2,790
- 2,542
nice to see you still stick to this journey! impressive resultsthey are all consumer mobile apps
but honestly, all kinda different niches.
guys, there is no sense in finding my niches. dont waste your time. even if you find it, then what? it wont change anything for you personally.
just focus on building apps. its super easy to find popular niches. go on twitter, check different subreddits like viral apps, go on producthunt, etc. you will get unlimited ideas.
making the app is no problem. the real deal is distribution. there are guys earning 100k per month on "Stone Identifier" AI apps or "lookmaxxing apps". Its just about marketing.
never forget there are also people here on BHW who paid for a paypal money generator
Not specifically because I do this stuff all myself. most of these tools do a screenshot - describe - reason - tap cycle that burns tokens and take a long time for each step.
usually what i do is I built everything, make sure it builds correctly, and then i do final testing and add improvements.
i have one question - as i understand all your apps are iOS/Android but iOS makes like 90% of income?
i am going to start developing one cool app but not sure if Android version is even worth to be coded
- Mar 22, 2013
- 6,272
- 10,983
yeah iOS revenue is significantly higher.
however, i changed my approach to offer everything: iOS, Android, Web App.
Everything makes money.
Its like this (just example)
iOS: $50k
Android: $7k
Web: $2k
However, Web income heavily depends on Google rankings, and so on. So if I increase the rankings and get more organic traffic, the web income would skyrocket.
soa0611
Elite Member
- Apr 20, 2015
- 2,790
- 2,542
i assume with subscription model (comparing to ad banners) iOS app is even more profitable?
- Mar 22, 2013
- 6,272
- 10,983
i dont do ad banners at all. super low ecpm + they are annoying + its the number 1 pitfall for getting your admob restricted. i only do rewarded ads (highest ecpm) and sometimes interstitials.
subscription models are by far the most profitable. can not even compare to ads.
not even a single premium purchase. just do yearly subscription. if you are lucky you will get the same amount after one year.
soa0611
Elite Member
- Apr 20, 2015
- 2,790
- 2,542
honestly did not get this phrase -you advice to have 1 year subscription as a main monetization model?
Elevate Studio
BANNED
- Jan 8, 2026
- 98
- 27
Solid plan love the focus on quality, retention, and keeping it fully whitehat
Really nice job, @nakamura. Thank you for sharing your story with the world. It’s truly inspiring. I actually created an account just to reply to this thread.
I’ll share my story too, because it’s very related, and hopefully someone else can relate to it as well:
A year ago, I built my first app, and I’ve been working on it full-time for around 6 months, trying to make it the best product in its niche. I’m not great at marketing, and even though I believe it’s the best product available, with outstanding reviews and all that, I still see new vibe-coded apps that could probably be built in a week getting more traction than mine.
Mine is a subscription app, and I’m currently at €5.5k MRR and €11k in revenue last month. I’m also spending a lot on ads, around €8k. I know paid ads are one of the most scalable systems, but they’re very hard to optimize and make profitable. After a lot of A/B testing and creative optimization, I’m finally getting close to profitability, but it’s been a long journey.
Recently, my girlfriend’s sister created a TikTok account and started posting very simple videos about the app, one per day, and many of them went viral. That’s when I discovered the “brand ambassador” concept, which seems to work really well for apps with a viral concept like mine. I started testing it with 4 ambassadors, and together they’re generating around 3M views per week, bringing in a lot of trials and, most likely, doing so more profitably and more easily than ads.
I wanted to ask: as I understand it, you’re doing marketing completely by yourself, managing the accounts and creating the creatives on your own. How do you do it? Are you using AI for video generation? How does TikTok handle that? Also, how do you manage running multiple accounts?
The kind of videos my brand ambassadors are making, the ones that are going viral, are super simple and seem like they could be easily automated. But I’m worried TikTok might ban or limit accounts if it detects AI-generated or partially automated content.
Thank you!!
I’ll share my story too, because it’s very related, and hopefully someone else can relate to it as well:
A year ago, I built my first app, and I’ve been working on it full-time for around 6 months, trying to make it the best product in its niche. I’m not great at marketing, and even though I believe it’s the best product available, with outstanding reviews and all that, I still see new vibe-coded apps that could probably be built in a week getting more traction than mine.
Mine is a subscription app, and I’m currently at €5.5k MRR and €11k in revenue last month. I’m also spending a lot on ads, around €8k. I know paid ads are one of the most scalable systems, but they’re very hard to optimize and make profitable. After a lot of A/B testing and creative optimization, I’m finally getting close to profitability, but it’s been a long journey.
Recently, my girlfriend’s sister created a TikTok account and started posting very simple videos about the app, one per day, and many of them went viral. That’s when I discovered the “brand ambassador” concept, which seems to work really well for apps with a viral concept like mine. I started testing it with 4 ambassadors, and together they’re generating around 3M views per week, bringing in a lot of trials and, most likely, doing so more profitably and more easily than ads.
I wanted to ask: as I understand it, you’re doing marketing completely by yourself, managing the accounts and creating the creatives on your own. How do you do it? Are you using AI for video generation? How does TikTok handle that? Also, how do you manage running multiple accounts?
The kind of videos my brand ambassadors are making, the ones that are going viral, are super simple and seem like they could be easily automated. But I’m worried TikTok might ban or limit accounts if it detects AI-generated or partially automated content.
Thank you!!
- Mar 22, 2013
- 6,272
- 10,983
do it like this:
- weekly subscription
- yearly subscription
and if you want, offer the premium/lifetime package as special offer.
example:
weekly: 7.99 USD
yearly: 39.99 USD
lifetime: 69.99 USD
thank you
hi, thanks for the message and compliment.
paid ads are the easiest way to get downloads. the only problem is the most users are low quality. they wont convert into paying users. also, there is a lot of bot traffic. many bots click on the ad to simulate real behavior but actually never download. thats a real problem.
the highest quality users are the ones actively searching for your app. high retention, willing to pay.
yes, UGC content is a real growth hack right now. I just work with a few creators, but most of the content I publish are AI generated videos and slideshows. Its all automatic. Soon I will overhaul this system and improve its quality.
Right now I am working on an app (ios, android, web) and then I will focus even more on content creation and auto posting. Right now I only auto post on instagram, pinterest and tiktok. but soon i will add even more accounts, post youtube shorts, etc.
navyraiser
BANNED
- Feb 29, 2024
- 589
- 489
You are crazy consistent with everything you do it seems good sir, hats off!
- Mar 22, 2013
- 6,272
- 10,983
thank you. consistency beats everything. its impossible to fail if you never stop trying
btw. guys, my current ARR is $550k + ads. If I would multiple this x4 it means this app business is valuated at around 2 million USD.
so I can proudly say in this app journey thread i made a million dollar app business. and i am far from stopping. quite the opposite. now i have so many funds that i can easily reinvest in ads, creatives, employees, etc.
right now i am a little bit asking myself the following question:
should i cash out some of the money and buy myself a condo in Thailand or somewhere else, or should I reinvest all the money?
i could also sell one of my apps that is making around $25k per month. would probably be able to sell it for $500k at least.
but right now i just continue to work like a donkey.
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navyraiser
BANNED
- Feb 29, 2024
- 589
- 489
True words, people like you motivate me to just keep going! Doesn't even matter what you do.
Really nice insights, thanks for sharing.
I wanted to ask you a bit more about the posts: how do you usually approach them? Do you try to make them feel very organic, or do you focus more on explaining your app’s features and use cases?
Also, are you using any software to manage multiple accounts and automate publishing? I’ve seen a few tools mentioned around the forum, so I was curious whether you’re using one of those or handling it in your own way. Do you have one account for each platform or multiple?
And finally, I’m also eagerly waiting for the ebook. I’m pretty sure I’ll get a lot of value from it.
That’s super impressive. Honestly, I’d probably keep pushing a bit longer now that you’ve literally built a money-printing machine.