[JOURNEY] $2,000/Month Building iOS Apps

[shiplog]

Hey everyone,

I've been lurking on this forum for a few years now and today I finally decided to create an account, get started and document my journey here. I was inspired by nakamura's journey Building an iOS & Android App Empire.

Goal

• Make $2,000/month to cover my living expenses and focus on this full-time.

Current progress

• Defined my first app idea (It's a health & fitness app. Something I wanted to build anyway, since I'll use it myself to reach my own fitness goals.)
• Got the Claude Code Max subscription for $200 for coding
• Set up Xcode on my MacBook to start developing iOS apps

Next steps

• Design mockups for the first screens, then start implementing them in code

Since I believe consistency is key, I'll try to post an update every day.

 

[MrFuture]

It is good to hear you got inspired by someone and started your own project. Hope you will do your best. Best of luck. Keep sharing your experience

 

[shiplog]

It is good to hear you got inspired by someone and started your own project. Hope you will do your best. Best of luck. Keep sharing your experience

Thanks so much, I really appreciate it. Honestly, I just needed to start doing and putting it out there publicly is my way of staying accountable.

 

[shiplog]

Day 1

Today I spent most of my time researching and figuring out what kind of tools and tech stack I'll need, so that I have more of a plan and can tackle the next tasks. I came up with the following:

• Mockups: Claude Design
• IDE: Xcode & Claude Code
• Programming Language: Swift
• Backend: Firebase
• Code Repository: GitLab
• Task Tracking: GitLab Issue Board
• In App Subscriptions: RevenueCat

One nice thing: All of these tools are free to get started with (except Claude). Please let me know what you think about my setup and whether you know of any better approaches or tools.

During my research, I also came across Apple's new Foundation Models, which sound interesting. They let you run an LLM locally on the iPhone. This could potentially be useful for privacy focused apps or simply for saving money on external LLM costs.

 

[shiplog]

Day 2

Today wasn't as productive as I'd hoped. Still, here's what I got done: I finished setting up the complete development environment and defined all the features I'll ship in the first release, along with a list of future features I'll tackle later on.

For now, I want to release a simple, lean version. The plan is to have the first version ready by the end of next week. I'm noticing that this is harder than expected and takes considerably more time than I thought.

 

[TKV AGENCY]

Every new journey inevitably encounters difficulties; however, I believe that with persistence, you will succeed.

 

[shiplog]

Every new journey inevitably encounters difficulties; however, I believe that with persistence, you will succeed.

Thanks! Yeah, I think working on it a little bit every day brings so much more. Consistency > perfection (or however the saying goes).

Day 3

Today I tried out Claude Design. Insanely cool tool that lets you create canvas mockups for all kinds of designs (e.g. websites, apps, etc.). Tomorrow I won't have as much time, but I'll try to start with the actual development.

 

[Adult-HTML]

Sounds interesting, keep us posted!

 

[dwillglobal]

Hows your Journey goin?