I Built a $20K/Month Mobile App: Here’s My Entire Playbook

I launched my app 6 months ago and now it makes over 20K a month. This is Matt, a regular guy who changed his life by building an app with AI. It took me 3

days to code the app with AI. But this

is not a story about how to build. It's

a story about how fast apps can grow if you focus on the right things. I asked

Ma to come on to the channel to break down exactly how he did all of this in just 6 months. And in this video, he breaks down exactly how he built a

mobile app in 3 days with AI, the specific marketing strategy that got him his first few hundred paying users, and the playbook that ultimately scaled him

to over $20,000 a month. Guys, this is an episode that you cannot skip. I'm Pat

Walls, and this is Starter Story. Real

quick before we get into the interview, guys, now is about to break down what's actually working right now when it comes to building and growing an app in 2026.

and beyond. And if you're ready to build your app, I put a link in the description right there where you can get started right now building your thing. I'll talk about that a little bit

thing. I'll talk about that a little bit more later, but let's get into the interview. All right, Mal, welcome to

interview. All right, Mal, welcome to the channel. Tell me about who you are,

the channel. Tell me about who you are, what you built, and what's your story.

My name is Mal Baron, and I built a Christian app that makes over 20K a month. In only 6 months, I've

month. In only 6 months, I've accumulated over 58K downloads, 6.7K reviews, and a 4.9 star rating on the App Store. All right, Mal, before we get

App Store. All right, Mal, before we get it all into that, what you built and everything, first I'd love if you could share a little bit about your business model. Pull up some of your revenue and

model. Pull up some of your revenue and analytics so we can really see this thing.

My app is called Prayer Lock. It

basically just blocks your phone until you pray. When you try to open one of

you pray. When you try to open one of them, we ask you through questions and based on that, you get a dedicated AI generated prayer. You recite it and

generated prayer. You recite it and you're good to go. You can scroll away.

It's a subscription based app. I charge

$49.99 a year or $9.99 a week. And in

terms of monthly revenue, we closed December at $21,000 in sales. A previous month was at $15K

in sales. A previous month was at $15K and October was at 10K. We've been

growing at over 50% a month. In total

downloads, we have right now close to 58,000 downloads. We have a conversion

58,000 downloads. We have a conversion rate of 43%. Our proceeds for paying user is $23.6.

Our total proceeds have been 41,000. So,

my app right now probably has one of the best onboarding rates in the world. Our

review rate is over 12%. We have 6.7K ratings with less than 60K downloads. In

November, Prayer Lock reached number 22 in the reference category. Okay, cool.

Well, thanks for showing your dashboards so transparently, showing you all the numbers. That's amazing. We're going to

numbers. That's amazing. We're going to get into all how you built this, grew this, and even a little bit of paid ads, which I'm excited about. But before, I know you started it this year, which is insane that it's grown this much. I'd

love if you could give me a little bit of background on how you get here, how you decide to start building apps. How

do you get to this point?

I actually don't come from a tech background. I actually majored in

background. I actually majored in finance, but I discovered the original Codex model back in 2022 when I saw that I just completely fell in love with AI and technology and I decided that's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

So, I taught myself about AI, about how to code. I have been building tech and

to code. I have been building tech and AI businesses ever since. Back in

January of 2025, I was actually building an adult content AI app, but when I finished it, I just felt completely like disgusted and disappointed with myself.

So, I decided to make the weirdest pivot in history and turn into the Christian space to try to reconnect with my faith.

And after about 3 months of building apps nobody wanted, I came across this app called Praycreen that blocked your phone until you prayed. And with the new insights I had, I looked at the design, I looked at the features, the way they

were executing their distribution, and I said, you know what, I can do a better job than them. And so that's how Prayer Law came to life. Well,

that's awesome. I think what the most interesting thing there that I heard is that by doing this, you were able to get closer to your customers and truly understand them, which led to this massive success that you're now seeing.

Now, I think there's a little secret there. I want to switch to topics a

there. I want to switch to topics a little bit and get into the building of this app. You did this yourself, right?

this app. You did this yourself, right?

So, how did you do that? I built Prayer Lock back in June. I literally just use cursor and chat GPT. Like that's it.

With cursor, I mainly use Sonnet as my daily driver and then I use chat to ask questions and apply simple code changes with the Mac desktop app. And so yeah, it took me 3 days to code the app and

over a week to actually get it approved on the app store. But honestly, it's never been easier to build an app than now. That's insane that you built it in

now. That's insane that you built it in basically 3 days. Obviously, there were previous apps before and you probably had tried and had starts and stops before, but once you found your idea that you really felt confident on,

you're able to build it in basically 3 days. Do you have any tips for anyone

days. Do you have any tips for anyone watching here on how other people maybe they have a little bit experience, maybe no experience at all, how to build apps with AI in 2026? First of all, what I

always say is do not design any mock-ups. Instead, study the best apps

mock-ups. Instead, study the best apps in your niche and study the best apps in other niches with tools like screens design and just go straight into coding.

In my case, I actually created a Canva file where I laid out all of the best onboarding screens of the apps I liked and of my competitors and I literally just chose the best onboarding screens and apply that to my own app. Also, try

to use different tools for different purposes. for example, like cursor as

purposes. for example, like cursor as your daily driver, Codex CLI, which I love for more complex tasks, chat GBT for questions and easier problems. And the reason you want to do this, at least if you're in my position, I was broke.

So, you don't want to be wasting hundreds or thousands of dollars on tokens. In doing this, you will

tokens. In doing this, you will diversify your token expenditure, right?

Another thing is do not try to oneshot your apps. AI isn't there yet where you

your apps. AI isn't there yet where you can just say like, "Hey, make me a mobile app. Make no mistakes. Don't

mobile app. Make no mistakes. Don't

hallucinate like that. That won't work at all." What AI is really good at doing

at all." What AI is really good at doing is if you break down your app into blocks and then of course you can oneshot a feature here, you can oneshot a design or a screen here. Next thing is authentication honestly isn't even

needed for modern apps. Like mine

doesn't have authentication or a database and I'm printing money. The

reason I made it this way is for two reasons. I wanted to reduce friction as

reasons. I wanted to reduce friction as much as possible. I don't want my users wasting time on signing up. And the

other reason was to save costs. There's

no reason to pay for a database when you can just save it all on device. And

people might say, "Hey, like when I switch my phone, I'm going to lose my information." Nobody thinks about that.

information." Nobody thinks about that.

Like literally, that's that's a very like niche case. So Ma's story is incredible. He built and grew his app to

incredible. He built and grew his app to $20,000 a month in just a few months. If

you stick around to the end, you're going to get the full story on exactly how he did it. But before we get there, I do want you to think about the app that you've been meaning to build. You

probably already know how to use these AI tools or tried them out. You followed

tutorials and probably even built pieces of different things. But what usually stops people from actually launching isn't the building part. It's picking

something that's actually worth finishing and then taking it all the way to real users that can give you real market feedback. Well, that's exactly

market feedback. Well, that's exactly what Starter Story Build is designed for. In just a few days, you will choose

for. In just a few days, you will choose an idea that makes sense, build it end to end, and actually launch with structure, momentum, and other builders doing it alongside you. If you're tired

of halffinish projects, well, the link is in the description if you want to get started right now. All right, let's get back to the interview. I'm going to switch topics now to the growth because everyone knows who's watching this.

You'll read all the comments. They'll

say, "Okay, you don't talk about the marketing enough. Building stuff is easy

marketing enough. Building stuff is easy now, but as I understand, you were the builder and the marketer and the growth person. You did all this by yourself.

person. You did all this by yourself.

What I want to understand is how did you actually grow this thing and get users?"

In the beginning, I didn't know what worked. So, I literally just tried a

worked. So, I literally just tried a bunch of different formats and I started posting around 40 times a day on 12 different accounts. Volume really

different accounts. Volume really matters here. What ended up working for

matters here. What ended up working for me was the classic, you know, GC girl reaction video with a demo on it. That's

what one of my biggest competitors doing and they were just killing it with it. I

was broke so I couldn't pay for clips. I

couldn't pay for another creator. So, I

just told my girlfriend at the time, now wife, to help me record some reactions herself and she honestly killed it. We

started posting twice a day. It wasn't

until after 40 posts that I finally found a hook that worked and I knew I just needed to spam that in both Tik Tok and Instagram. When you start seeing

and Instagram. When you start seeing that a format starts to work, put all your energies into that. That alone with only that account, I was getting around 10k views a day, which was all I needed

to get to my first 1K a month. With

that, I immediately reached out to my friends and I wanted to scale this and I hired another UGC creators. It was

honestly very hard to get her account.

this other creator's account going on both Tik Tok and Insta. But after 14 days, we finally cracked one video which organically got around 20K views.

Knowing how views convert to downloads is very tricky. In my case, 10K views a day was getting me around 2 to 300 downloads a day. But this is because

this specific format is very optimized for downloads. With those two accounts,

for downloads. With those two accounts, with my wife's account and this other girl creator, I was now doing 1.5K in July and 2.4K in August. What's cool

about that, as you said, is that I think a lot of people think, okay, I got to be posting on Tik Tok and YouTube and X and personal brand, but no, you only need to really be on one platform. For you, it

was Tik Tok or reals. And then you really only need one format that you just do lots and lots of videos over and over again. So, I think that's a great

over again. So, I think that's a great lesson there. Once you started getting

lesson there. Once you started getting organic to work, what was next? Cuz

obviously you were doing like 1 2 3k a month, but now you're doing 20k. So, how

do you get there? I hired an influencer.

That flop didn't go well. But after that experience, I said, I want to try something else. The only other route was

something else. The only other route was paid ads. When I tried them, I

paid ads. When I tried them, I completely failed. I optimized for

completely failed. I optimized for downloads instead of trials. I had a just a very bad onboarding. It was

trash. I upgraded my onboarding from 5 minutes to 15 minutes. And generally the longer you're onboarding, as long as it's adding value and telling a story,

the better. I immediately saw my organic

the better. I immediately saw my organic conversion rate more than 3x organically without paid ads. With my new knowledge, I said, you know, let's try this again.

I now have a better conversion rate. I

started with Meta and I started spending $20 a day. This was giving me, you know, respectable decent results. $10 per

trial started. Then I decided to try Tik Tok ads and honestly this changed everything. I created a super broad

everything. I created a super broad campaign without any audience controls, nothing. I only specified the location

nothing. I only specified the location to US and inserted a bunch of my top UGC girl reaction videos from before.

Started doing $20 a day only. And the

results were way better. They were

insane. I was getting $4 per trial started when my yearly subscription cost 50. And I said, you know what? Let's go

50. And I said, you know what? Let's go

all in. I'm going to throw all my savings into this around $4,000 into the ads. And that's when I closed October at

ads. And that's when I closed October at 10K only with these UGC reaction videos.

Now with a little more budget scrolling on Tik Tok, I came across Matthew, this cracked 15-year-old UGC creator. And the

minute I saw like the first 3 seconds of his video, I was like, I need to work with him. So I reached out and we

with him. So I reached out and we started working together and he very quickly organically got us to consistent 10K views per video. I was thinking of him as only a JVC creator. But you know,

one day I decided, you know what, maybe I should try Spark Ads on his videos as well. see how this does. The results

well. see how this does. The results

were absolutely insane. With his videos, I started getting $3 per trial started and I realized, hey, I can get into debt and pay all the debt completely with my

next Apple Payoff. So, I threw another 6K into ads into his videos, which got us to 15K for the month of November.

Following the same strategy, increasing the ad spend regularly each week, we close December at 20K, and we're probably going to close January at 40K a month. Well, on that note, for anyone

month. Well, on that note, for anyone watching this, if they were starting over with an app or they had an app, they're ready to start growing the app.

What would be your playbook if you had to start over in 2026? If I was starting over in 2026, this is exactly what I would do. Step one, look for niches with

would do. Step one, look for niches with apps doing over 50K a month, use Sensor Tower to get a revenue estimate for the apps. And then step two, find an app you

apps. And then step two, find an app you like and improve it substantially. Step

three, code it out in less than 2 weeks.

This is very important. Set that as your limit cuz otherwise you'd want to improve the product. I've been there, trust me. Step four, do not touch your

trust me. Step four, do not touch your app. Obsess over distribution. I haven't

app. Obsess over distribution. I haven't

touched my app in over 3 months now.

Just copy the working formats in your niche and start posting at least 20 times a day. Like that's what you should be aiming at at least. And step five, iterate on your onboarding like crazy.

Be a maniac. Improve the onboarding until you've at least have a 10% download to trial conversion rate. Later

on, you want to do paid ads and you need at least a 10% download to conversion rate. Step six, place ad spend on your

rate. Step six, place ad spend on your organic videos doing more than 10k views. And for this, I'd recommend Tik

views. And for this, I'd recommend Tik Tok spark ads more than meta or any other platform. I love that playbook.

other platform. I love that playbook.

Hopefully, a lot of people watching this will go and do the same. We didn't

really talk too much about what your app does. I really wanted to make this about

does. I really wanted to make this about the build, the growth, and the paid ads, but I would love if you could give me a little demo of what your app does, how simple it is, and how it actually works.

Super simple. You just go into the app, you choose the apps to block, just block everything, and then you go into the home screen, and when you try to open one of your apps, you'll realize that they're blocked. So, you open it and it

they're blocked. So, you open it and it prompts you to pray. That will open up the prayer lock app and ask you two questions. How's your relationship with

questions. How's your relationship with God today? You indicate it. And then,

God today? You indicate it. And then,

how are you feeling today? Based on

that, you're going to get an AI generated prayer that you have to recite in order to unblock your apps. And once

you're done reciting your prayer, you press I've prayed today. You choose your next block schedule, which can be the automatic next block schedule, or you can like customize it for 50 minutes or an hour. Once you're done, you get your

an hour. Once you're done, you get your streak. And finally, a very beautiful

streak. And finally, a very beautiful Bible verse of the day, and you can doom scroll away or use your phone as you will. It's insane that the super simple

will. It's insane that the super simple app can make so much money, but that's something I've learned. Like the key is in simplicity and actually adding value to your users. Now, I'm curious, how did you actually build this app? Could you

walk me through your stack and then also some of the tools you use to grow and do paid ads as well? Cursor for coding and development and that's $20 a month. And

Cad GPT for questions and coding and then also of course codec cli which is included in the subscription. So that's

$20 a month right now I'm using a lot for quick design iteration $25 a month.

Then post hawk for analytics that's around $10 a month. Super wall

definitely for pay walls and revenue analytics which is 20 cents per conversion. Then Singular as your MMP,

conversion. Then Singular as your MMP, which is basically the software that you use to make paid ads. That's 5 cents per conversion after 15K free conversions.

And then for all my backend services and hosting my web pages and everything, I use AWS. That's around $2 a month. Then

use AWS. That's around $2 a month. Then

for the AI inapp services, I use Google Gemini Flash 2.5. It's around $9 a month. Yep, that's pretty much it. That

month. Yep, that's pretty much it. That

kind of brings the next question of profits and how much are you actually spending on ads to grow this thing?

Could you walk me through some of that?

Yeah, of course. So, uh, paid ads are definitely a little pricey, but they are profitable, so it's worth it. So, right

now, I'm spending $360 a day. If we go to the last 30 days, for

a day. If we go to the last 30 days, for example, for the month of December, which I closed at pretty much 20K, I spent around 9K. Basically, my my cost

per trial right now is at $1.88.

Thanks for sharing that and being super transparent, showing me all those paid ads numbers. Last question that we ask

ads numbers. Last question that we ask all founders who come on to starter story, if you could go back in time to 6 months ago before you started your app or even before that when you were trying to figure out what idea could actually

work, what advice would you have to young Mao or to anyone watching this that wants to build apps in 2026 and really crush it like you? I wasted years building stuff nobody wanted. And the

reason is because I mean you have so much to learn. So literally do not waste time trying to build the app of your dreams at first. Instead, improve an already successful app. Add your

personality. Copy others distribution strategies. And only once you've

strategies. And only once you've acquired some experience with apps and distribution, then jump onto even more ambitious things. Thanks, Ma, for coming

ambitious things. Thanks, Ma, for coming on. This is amazing. It's super cool to

on. This is amazing. It's super cool to see without a crazy developer background, be able to build something, figure out content even if you didn't have a content background, and then do paid ads, which you didn't even have

background there. That's the reality in

background there. That's the reality in 2026 is that this is possible. Your

story is amazing and it was so awesome to have you on and share all of this. I

think people are going to love it.

Thank you. It was my pleasure. Thanks to

Mao for coming on. This is an amazing story. Really hope you are still here

story. Really hope you are still here watching this right now. If you are, you're one of the OGs. This is one of those stories that it happened just a few months ago, so you know what he's saying is working right now. It's not

outdated information. This is super helpful. It shows the power of apps and

helpful. It shows the power of apps and how fast apps can truly grow. He built

it without developer experience. He

created content without content experience. And then he started crushing

experience. And then he started crushing paid ads without experience. He learned

all these things on the fly. This is the power of AI tools, not just for building, but for learning and for executing. If you're ready to build your

executing. If you're ready to build your app, again, shameless plug, definitely check out Starter Story Build. If you're

serious about actually building something, want to come up with a good idea, execute it on it, and ship it to real users to get real feedback, that is the only thing that matters. If you're

serious about it, check it out. I put it in the link in the description. You can

get started on your app right now. Okay,

that's it for this episode. Thank you

guys for watching. We'll see you in the next one. Peace.

next one. Peace.