Honest Conversation With A Solo Dev Who Made $30K In 3 Months With 1 Viral App

Your Average Tech Bro

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Video Summary

The conversation explores the journey of an app builder, highlighting the strategy behind launching and growing a product. The speaker shares his experience creating a screen time app, "Brain Rot," which visually represents phone usage by showing a brain rotting over time. He discusses the inspiration behind the app, stemming from his own struggles with excessive phone use as a content creator. The speaker also details his approach to marketing and growth, emphasizing the power of founder marketing and building a personal brand through consistent content creation, even while maintaining a full-time job.

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around the unconventional but effective marketing strategy of building hype through sharing the development process, including app store rejections. The speaker advocates for not quitting one's day job to pursue app building, stressing the importance of learning entrepreneurial skills on the side and mitigating financial risk. He also touches upon the tech stack used, opting for native iOS development in Swift to navigate the complexities of screen time APIs, and argues against over-engineering for cross-platform compatibility early on.

The conversation further delves into the idea that competition in app development is less about technological innovation and more about effective distribution and founder marketing. The speaker suggests that building products in proven, albeit crowded, markets is a viable strategy, as a strong brand and compelling narrative can cut through the noise. He emphasizes action over perfection, encouraging aspiring developers to start building and iterating, as the journey itself provides invaluable lessons and can spark further innovation.

Short Highlights

The speaker, an app builder and content creator, launched a screen time app called "Brain Rot" to address his own excessive phone usage.
He advocates for "founder marketing," using content creation to build a personal brand and generate hype around an app, even sharing challenges like app store rejections.
The speaker recommends continuing with a full-time job while building an app on the side, emphasizing risk mitigation and learning entrepreneurial skills without immediate financial pressure.
He chose native iOS development in Swift for his app to better handle specific APIs, arguing against premature cross-platform development.
The strategy for success in app building is not necessarily unique technological innovation but effective distribution and a compelling founder story in a proven market.

Key Details

App Introduction and Personal Brand [2:46]

The speaker, Yonyi, creates short-form videos daily on social media, documenting his life as an entrepreneur.
This daily content creation approach has helped him build a following, which was instrumental in launching his consumer mobile app, "Brain Rot."
He sees his content as a low-production quality, mini vlog or devlog, offering a glimpse into his entrepreneurial journey.

My shtick is that I post a video every day and it's like a mini little vlog devlog day in the life. I think of it as a low production quality TV episode of my life as a scrappy entrepreneur.

The Power of Founder Marketing and Social Media Growth [4:25]

The speaker felt compelled to make videos daily to overcome his fear and discomfort with being on camera.
He was inspired by Peter Levels, a "solopreneur" who built a significant following and leveraged it for product launches, like a simple flight simulator that grossed $70K.
Starting with zero followers on a new Instagram account, he posted daily without a grand plan, treating it as a way to conquer his fear of "cringe."
His first video to go viral, on day 19, was about putting an offer on an investment property, gaining 100,000 views and a few thousand followers, though initially reaching an unexpected demographic of older women.
This experience highlighted the randomness of algorithms but also the potential for content to reach large audiences.

Super afraid of making videos and, you know, super cringey. So, I just made a new Instagram account last summer.

"Brain Rot" App Concept and Development [7:52]

"Brain Rot" is a screen time app that visually represents phone usage with a cartoon brain that "rots" the more time spent on the phone.
It functions as a visual log of historic "brain rot" and allows users to set rules to block specific apps.
The inspiration stemmed from the speaker's personal struggle as a content creator getting "sucked in" by social media notifications and dopamine hits.
He built the app over a couple of months using AI coding tools like Cursor, Wind Surf, and Cloud Code, acknowledging that two months might have been longer than necessary for an MVP.
The app faced multiple rejections from the app store, but sharing these rejections in his content led to viral videos, demonstrating the value of pre-launch hype and raw, authentic storytelling.

Brain rot is a super simple concept. It's a screen time app that shows a little cartoon of a brain that rots the more time you spend on your phone.

App Launch and Product Hunt Success [9:39]

The app's launch saw a few thousand downloads on the first day.
Launching on Product Hunt resulted in a significant surge of 15-20,000 downloads in one day.
This success was significantly boosted by being featured prominently in Product Hunt's daily newsletter with the subject line "Cure Your Brain Rot."
This newsletter feature, along with organic upvotes, propelled the app to the top of Product Hunt, generating approximately $10,000 in revenue from that platform alone.
In less than three months, "Brain Rot" had generated about $40,000 in revenue, with most of it attributed to founder marketing and distribution efforts rather than paid advertising or influencer relationships.

So like the intro paragraph, the subject line and the whole first spotlight was all about me. It looked like they wrote an email about me and they sent that out in the morning.

Tech Stack and Platform Choice [11:46]

The app was built natively in Swift for iOS, primarily because of the need to access specific screen time APIs.
The speaker opted for native development over cross-platform frameworks like React Native or Flutter to avoid layers of bugs associated with third-party wrappers for these APIs.
He acknowledges that the screen time API itself is known to be buggy and difficult to work with.
As a self-proclaimed "chronic side hustler," he prioritized simplicity and avoided over-engineering, not wanting to make the app cross-platform compatible initially, as he viewed it as a potential failure.

So I just wrote it in Swift. And honestly I'm a kind of chronic side hustler. I've launched dozens of failed products.

iOS vs. Android for App Development [13:45]

The speaker and the interviewer agree that focusing on iOS first is often more strategically sound for mobile app development.
They cite data suggesting an 80/20 split in favor of iOS revenue compared to Android, even with fewer downloads on iOS.
Examples like Duolingo, which makes significantly more revenue on iOS despite more Android downloads, are used to illustrate this point.
The complexity of handling various Android devices, screen sizes, and resolutions is a deterrent compared to the more streamlined iOS ecosystem.
The consensus is that if an app gains enough traction to warrant an Android version, that becomes a "great problem to have."

Pretty famously it's 80/20 split for apps that have both between iOS and Android.

The Value of Iterative Building and Founder Marketing [15:26]

The speaker emphasizes building hype before the app is launched, sharing the development journey and any challenges encountered.
He argues that viral content can gain traction regardless of the creator's initial follower count, especially when the content is engaging and relatable, like sharing app store rejections.
The process of building an app and documenting it can double a creator's following, as seen when his follower count went from 80,000 to 160,000 during the development of "Brain Rot."
The core message is to start building and sharing the process immediately, rather than waiting for a perfect, finished product.

Don't wait until your the app is finished and perfect and has no bugs. My app still has bugs.

The "Side Hustle" vs. "Burn the Bridges" Debate [16:47]

The speaker strongly believes in building an app or business on the side while maintaining a day job, contrasting this with the popular "burn the bridges" mentality.
He argues that quitting a job impulsively without financial security or a solid plan is often fueled by "influencer guru hype" rather than practical reality, especially for individuals with financial responsibilities like families or mortgages.
He posits that if one can succeed on the side, they can likely succeed full-time, and that the day job is rarely the sole barrier to achieving goals unless under extreme circumstances.
The risk appetite of individuals is a key factor, but quitting is a "two-way door," and valuable entrepreneurial lessons can be learned while still employed.

This has no practical implications in like how you're going to pay your rent.

Coding vs. Business Acumen in Startups [18:47]

The speaker believes that many software engineers, including himself early on, mistakenly think that coding proficiency alone is sufficient to build a successful business or startup.
He contends that building the app is typically not the hardest part; rather, it's the business aspects, marketing, distribution, and customer acquisition that pose the greater challenges.
The act of "cosplaying as a founder" is prevalent, with some creators building MVPs primarily for content series without genuine ambition to scale.

But I'm sure that you can attest to this as well. But that is just like a tiny like it is important.

The Pitfalls of Rapid, Low-Quality App Creation [21:30]

The speaker critiques the trend of creating numerous apps rapidly, often with AI tools, describing much of it as "slop" or "garbage."
While Peter Levels' "12 Startups in 12 Months" challenge was significant in its time, the current accessibility of tools allows for faster iteration but can lead to a flood of low-quality products.
He notes that many creators "pump out 50 billion apps" that generate zero revenue and lack real users, with their entire brand built around the act of app creation rather than the product itself.

Maybe it's good for getting the reps in, but this is mostly slop.

Building in Proven Markets and Standing Out [22:28]

The speaker addresses the common question of why build in a crowded market, stating that if a business model and market demand are proven, it's viable to enter.
The internet offers infinite space, and distribution strategies, especially through social media, are key to capturing consumer attention.
When users encounter an app through compelling content, they are less likely to evaluate it against competitors; they are captured by the initial hook and the app's presentation.
The focus should be on having a "viable" product that converts users within the app's flow, rather than solely on competing feature-for-feature.
He notes that niches like screen time apps can be lucrative, citing an example of an app making $600K a month, and emphasizes that competition is less of a concern for bootstrapped businesses aiming for a specific revenue target.

The internet is infinitely large. And also nowadays distribution strategy is you need to go I mean for the most part this is my distribution strategy.

Founder Marketing as a Differentiator [25:31]

In an era where software development is becoming increasingly accessible, the speaker believes that founder marketing and the story behind the product are becoming crucial differentiators.
He draws an analogy to restaurants, where consumers choose based on preference and attachment, not just objective quality.
The power of founder marketing can lead to customers choosing an app simply because they like the founder, especially as the cost of code approaches zero.

And one of the biggest powers of founder marketing is often times I think there's a really big possibility that in the end where software becomes so cheap to build, it's just going to be about who built it.

The Importance of Action and Minimalist Approach [26:51]

The speaker stresses that for those who haven't shipped an app with users or generated internet revenue, cloning or taking inspiration from existing successful products is a strong starting point.
Building a minimal version of an existing app allows for gaining first customers and experiencing the possibility of online revenue, which can then fuel further development and innovation.
He emphasizes that "action is by far the most important thing" and encourages starting today, one step at a time.