whenever I launch a new app, I usually start with at least $1000 on Apple Ads
for iOS apps Apple Ads is still one of the best channels
you can test a lot at the same time
product quality
ASO
onboarding
paywall
pricing
there’s no complicated learning phase like Meta or Google
You have $0 for marketing.
How do you get users?
What I’d do:
1. Learn ASO.
Localize the app into every language you can support and optimize pricing. Your first $100 can come from organic traffic alone.
2. Write a Reddit posts.
There are plenty of subreddits where you can share your story. Make it interesting, good posts can drive real users.
3. Build a simple website.
Ask Claude or ChatGPT to help with SEO copy, review it, publish it, and add product screenshots.
4. Start creating short-form videos. TikTok, Reels, Shorts. Post everywhere. A video that gets 500 views on TikTok might get 100k on Instagram.
5. Share your journey on X.
People love following builders. One of my launch tweets reached 600k views and brought a meaningful amount of traffic.
None of this costs money.
It costs consistency.
MrBeast says he helped a friend go from $20k to $400k a month in revenue just by telling him the truth once a week
"I mentored this one guy just for fun. He was doing like $10,000 on one channel and $8,000 a month on another channel. And this month he actually just had his highest revenue month ever. He did $400,000 in revenue. Just by listening to what I taught him we were able to 20x his revenue. Just me once a week telling him he was an idiot and what to do."
"A lot of times people, oh boy, they think their videos are better than they are."
MrBeast: "Tell them Jimmy, tell them, they do."
Coffeezilla: "And they have horrible friend groups. A lot of times I'm just like, what you're saying is wrong, who told you this? They're like, oh this guy. And it's like, well they're wrong. So it's getting people with the right YouTuber friend group that will actually tell them when their content's bad and actually roast it."
"Usually it's hiring an editor, uploading less videos, just making them better. It's much easier to get five million views on one video than 50,000 views on 100 videos."
"A lot of people aren't willing to put in ten-hour days because they don't like what they're doing. It's a long grind, you're doing this for years not months. So the first thing is figuring out what are the things you're currently doing that you don't want to do, and let's figure out a way to get someone else to do it, so you actually get out of bed excited."
your iPhone scans QR codes for free.
has since 2017.
These 4 apps do the same thing.
charge for it.
$1.85M/month. combined.
and you're still overthinking your idea
Screen Time tells your kids they spent 6 hours on their phone. they don't care.
what if the whole family competed for the lowest screen time? weekly leaderboard. winner picks friday dinner.
suddenly everyone cares.
Last time I showed you apps with 50–95 step onboarding making $$$.
Now here's the opposite: 10 apps with 0–1 step onboarding doing the same.
VPNs. Editors. Scanners. Calculators.
The difference? The product doesn't need explaining ↓
you’re overthinking. just build a micro-app for dog owners. they spend money.
1. "can my dog eat this?" (camera scans food -> safe/toxic)
2. dog age in human years (widget)
3. puppy potty training timer
you have no excuses.
Imagine making $100,000/mo from an alarm clock. Your phone already has a built-in one for free, but this app won't turn off until you complete a task.
Wayk has a 34-step onboarding…for an alarm clock. and 50K people download it every month.
- you pick a "mission" to dismiss your alarm-sleep
- science terminology upfront to explain why you can't wake up
- calculates how many hours you'd gain waking up earlier.
- makes you DRAW your signature on a commitment pledge
- camera + mic permissions requested RIGHT on the paywall
- product demo before seeing actual price + “Try For $0.00”
- 3-day trial timeline
- $9.99/mo monthly next to $2.50/mo yearly. monthly is the decoy
- ask to invite friends even before you use the app
- day streaks and badges to keep you coming back
the meditation app market is worth $6B+. Headspace and Calm dominate. both rely on streaks and badges.
nobody made meditation feel like a journey you can SEE.
the app: every minute of meditation moves a tiny climber up a mountain path.
5 min = base camp. 10 = ridge. 20 = summit.
different meditation types = different mountain ranges. build a range over months.
Bond Touch sells a bracelet that lets long-distance couples send each other vibrations. 1 million+ sold at $69 per pair.
nobody built the phone version yet.
the app: you miss someone. long-press your phone. they feel a vibration and a notification: "[name] sent you a hug."
no text. no call. just a vibration that means "I'm thinking about you."
NYC issued 1.8 million street cleaning tickets last year. that's $117M in one category alone.
ParkMobile has 50M+ users but it only works for metered parking. nobody built the app for the thing that actually gets you ticketed, STREET CLEANING.
snap a pic of the sign. 12-hour warning before you need to move your car.
a habit tracker making $250K/mo...
not a meditation app. not a fitness app. a habit tracker that plays like an RPG.
56 onboarding steps. and people love it.
- social proof before anything: "1M+ installs." account created before you even realize you're in a 50+ step questionnaire
- asks you to describe your life satisfaction. then asks WHY you want to reset. now you're emotionally invested
- "choose your character." your progress maps to RPG stats: Wisdom, Strength, Discipline
- calculates how much time you waste per day and turns it into dollars: "$43,680/year in Potential Return"
- the subscription isn't a cost. it's a "financial rescue"
- real user stories with before/after photos. proof this works
- "Vow" sequence. intense questions. ends with a sustained FINGERPRINT HOLD on screen. not a tap. a hold. physical commitment manufactured
- iOS rating prompt hits at peak inspiration. reviews farmed perfectly
- 30 min countdown + "Claim Limited Discount" screen BEFORE the paywall
- paywall: $17.99/mo as a decoy. $69.99/year shown as $5.83/mo. pre-selected
- close the paywall? retro gift card animation. drops you into $39.99/year one-time offer
56 steps and every single one is designed to make you feel like quitting isn't an option.
study this.
"productivity app blockers" is a breakout search term on tiktok. current blockers are too easy to turn off.
someone build this: an app blocker where you have to pass a quiz on your own study notes to unlock Tiktok, or pay a $1 penalty.
MrBeast says the goal isn't one good video, it's making people binge 10 in a row and need a week to recover.
"Most people, when they watch your video, they go, okay, that was good, but like, that's enough of you for the day. Like, it was all right, right?"
"Whereas what you want is them to go, holy crap, that was crazy. Oh my God, what's that? Holy crap, that was crazy. And they watched 10 videos, not one, and then need like a week break because it was so, eh, that they have to recharge."
"That's what you're going for, that data can't describe. I've never heard anyone talk about that, but that is it. That's how you get these high view counts, because people watch 10 videos, not one."
A faceless YouTube channel pulls a million views a month in the financial niche. At a $20 CPM that's about $20,000 a month from ad revenue alone.
The videos look like a kid drew them in Microsoft Paint. Wobbly black outlines, stick figures, dot eyes, white background.
The creator in this video rebuilt the exact style with Claude Code and Higgsfield, no editing skills required.
He copied a title from a video sitting at 1.7 million views in three months, ran it through an AI script writer, transcribed the voiceover to get timestamps, then handed Claude Code one master prompt: one image per timestamp, intentionally bad paint-style drawings, consistent throughout.
Claude Code wrote 98 image prompts and generated every frame through Higgsfield's Nano Banana Pro. Total image cost: $7.84 for a 10-minute video. Then it compiled the images against the voiceover into a finished file, voiceover synced, zero seconds of manual editing.
Swap Nano Banana Pro for Seedream 4.5 and the same video drops to $7.40 with twice the scene changes. Add Claude compute at roughly $12 and the full video lands under $20.
Run 12 videos a month: $180 in generation, a $19 Claude plan, a $59 Higgsfield plan. $258 a month for a working YouTube business. Sell one $500 course twice and the margins go vertical.
A nine-minute, 57-second video. He didn't trim a single clip.
It’s 2027. You’ve got:
- A YouTube channel making money daily
- Freedom to work from anywhere
- A job that’s optional
- Zero financial stress
Here's how you set this up using AI:
There are people making $1.2 million selling YouTube channels they built in under 18 months.
Not selling products through YouTube. Selling the channel itself. The subscriber base, the video library, the brand, and the monthly revenue stream. Packaged as a media asset and sold to private equity.
A guy I talked to last month built a channel about World War II history. No face on camera. AI-generated narrator. A kid editing for $100/video. Total operating cost over 14 months: about $41,000.
He sold the channel for $1.2 million to a PE firm that now operates it like a rental property. Consistent monthly cashflow, low maintenance, appreciating asset.
The buyer's math: channel does $11,400/month in AdSense + sponsors. That's $136,800/year. They paid roughly 8.7x annual revenue. They'll make their money back in under 9 years and the channel keeps growing.
The seller's math: $41,000 in. $1,200,000 out. 14 months.
Private equity has spent over $4 billion buying individual YouTube channels in the last 5 years. They treat them like digital real estate. Buy the asset, plug in an operations team, collect the cashflow.
But here's what most people don't realize. The channels that sell for the HIGHEST multiples are the ones where no specific person's face is on camera.
A channel built around one person's face is worthless to a buyer. If that person leaves, the audience leaves. The asset dies. No PE firm touches that.
A channel built around a concept, a character, or a format where the owner can walk away and nothing changes? The videos keep earning. The subscribers keep watching. The buyer plugs in their team and keeps uploading.
That's the whole insight. If you're building a YouTube channel with your face as the product, you're building a job. if you're building one without your face, you're building an asset you can sell for 7 figures.
The highest-value channels being acquired right now: history, geopolitics, true crime, finance explainers, health for older demographics. All aimed at 45-65 year old viewers in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. High ad rates, long watch times, loyal audiences that stick for years.
Boring niches. Massive exits.
And the game shifted again in the last 12 months. There are AI tools now that generate a consistent host character for your channel. Same face, same voice, every video. A real-looking person that doesn't exist. The audience builds a relationship with the character. The character is an asset you own. Not a person who can quit.
A YouTube channel with a consistent AI host, documented systems, and 12+ months of stable revenue is the most sellable digital asset on the internet right now. And almost nobody is building them because almost nobody knows this market exists.
We built Subscribr to build these channels from scratch. Niche, character, script, finished video. The entire pipeline designed to produce a sellable asset from day one.
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