I vibe coded a $20K/month mobile app in 14 days

I'm 23 years old and my apps do over a

million dollars in sales a year.

>> This is Connor, a 23-year-old kid who

cracked the code on building apps that

actually make money.

>> I built my latest app in less than 2

weeks, 100% with AI.

>> To prove it, he joined a hackathon of

over 55,000 people, built an app from

scratch, grew it to $20,000 a month, and

won the entire thing.

>> The apps that I build are designed to

make money from day one. I asked Connor

to come on to the channel to break down

his entire playbook for building

money-making apps fast. And in this

episode, we will dive into how he finds

validated ideas that can make money from

day one. Exactly how he vibe codes these

apps quickly and his step-by-step

playbook on how to grow them into

money-making machines. Strap in because

this is an episode you cannot miss. I'm

Pat Walls and this is Starter Story. All

right, welcome Connor to the channel.

Tell me about who you are, what you

built, and what's your story.

>> Hi, uh, I'm Connor, and over the past

few years, I've built a handful of

mobile apps. These apps have done over a

million in revenue now. I really only

got into entrepreneurship roughly 3

years ago just by watching YouTube

videos and staying optimistic on what

I'm building.

>> Okay, Connor, that's amazing. Can you

share with me what types of apps that

you've built?

>> So, I've built a bunch of different

apps. I've probably got around six apps

now. My most recent app is called Payout

and this is one that I just recently

launched in the beginning of August and

just scaled it up to doing 20,000 a

month in revenue. The downloads is over

12,000 over,300 new subscriptions. One

cool thing is this is part of the

Revenue Cat Chipoton competition. It's a

hackathon that people can release new

apps to the app store. This year it had

over 55,000 entrance and it won first

place for the build and grow award which

has a total grand prize of $65,000 for

the app that has the most growth over

the two-month period. Before we get into

the app and how you built it, uh, I got

to understand a little bit more about

your background. I know you're only 23

years old and this is pretty impressive

what you've done. So, tell me how you

get to this place where you even start

building apps.

>> So, before I started building apps, I

was just, you know, any other kid

playing too much video games, staying up

late, no computer science background.

One night in the middle of the night, I

woke up and I just had a random app idea

and I wrote down the whole app idea in

my notes. You know, I'd never coded

anything. The next morning I woke up and

I just started watching YouTube videos

and I didn't have a MacBook at the time

and I really wanted to make an iOS app

and I didn't really have any money so I

started doing random tasks just like

selling random items around my room and

eventually like I got my hands on an old

MacBook. I started building a social app

called Hotspot Events. This app took me

6 to 8 months to build kind of failed. I

really had no idea what I was doing.

After that first app I quickly realized

that apps that are social are super hard

to scale. So I eventually moved on to

utilities and tools and these are much

more easy to scale as a oneman person.

This was all about three years ago and

since then I've scaled these apps to

doing over a million in subscription

revenue.

>> Okay. I mean that's amazing. I love that

you did this without having all the

crazy tools or anything like that. So my

next question for you is how do you

build these apps? What is your playbook

for building these apps? How do you

think about building an app from

scratch?

>> Yeah, before I get into how I do things

today, I think it's important that

people know that you know you don't need

all these fancy tools. I was just

watching YouTube videos and going on

Stack Overflow and now my process today

is pretty straightforward. I have a very

specific set of steps that I follow to

make sure that the app I'm building has

ability to convert, drive a lot of

sales, also have really good user

retention. My first step is that I'll go

and download a whole bunch of apps,

maybe 20 apps that are in the niche that

I'm diving into, as well as other apps

that I just think are beautiful apps

that I want to draw inspiration from for

their design perspective. The next thing

I do is screenshot every single page in

every single onboarding. And I take all

these screenshots and I'll put them all

on one big line in a Figma file so I can

see all of the onboardings, every

question they ask, every graph they

have. and I'll pick out all the ones

that I like and I'll grab some from one,

some from another, and then I'll

redesign them so all have my theme and

my aesthetic that I want for my app. I

think it's really important to have an

extensive onboarding. Realistically, 90%

of users will probably only ever see

your onboarding if you have a paywalled

section in your app. So, I think it's

really important that you spend a lot of

time on this, maybe even as much time as

designing the actual functionality of

the app. When it comes to the

onboarding, these are the most important

things that you want to do to make sure

that your app converts successfully. The

first one is you want to invoke emotion.

You want to make sure that when the user

is going through the onboarding, they

feel strongly about it. Most purchases

are made emotionally and are not logical

when it comes to consumers. You also

want to make sure that you show the

strongest incentives of your app, how

it's going to improve your users's life.

You want to make sure that they

understand the benefits and that it's

very simple for them to be able to make

that purchase. It's also important to

make sure that the app feels

personalized. In today's day and age

when there's so much competition, people

want to make sure that what they're

buying feels like it's meant for them

specifically rather than just like a

generally applicable app. Finally, you

want to make sure that you have some

sort of charts, graphs, something to

make the app feel more scientific.

People like to know that something that

they're using has been proven to work,

that other people have successfully used

it. And by adding these charts and

graphs, it'll make it so your app seems

very legitimate. The next step is you're

going to want to design your data

structures. This is very important

specifically for vibe coding. It's

important to know what your data is

going to look like, how it's shaped.

Because when you feed the AI, such as

cursor or claw, it'll make it much more

simple for the AI to know what exactly

you're trying to build so it doesn't

have to make any guesses on what you're

trying to make. I recommend making a

text document with an explanation as

well as some JSON data that explains

what your data actually looks like and

some information about each of the

attributes that you're going to have for

your data. By giving it this text

document in advance, it allows me to

code this thing very quickly. With this

prep done, you can actually start to

build the app. Usually, I'd start with

building the core functionality of the

app, skipping the onboarding and just

going straight for the main features of

the app. You can really just drop the

screenshots into Claude or Cursor,

whatever AI you're using. And because

it's now able to read the images and

understand what it's looking at, it'll

actually be able to write the code for

the full screen for you. When working

with AI, it doesn't always get

everything right on the first time. So,

sometimes you need to just continue to

work with it and eventually it'll get

the details correct. I don't recommend

being too picky because it's important

to get a version out quickly rather than

getting a perfect app out. As far as the

tools that I use now, I honestly just

use Claude. That's the only thing I'm

using for AI coding and it does

everything for me.

>> It is absolutely insane that Connor was

able to build and launch this app in

just a few weeks. I hope that his story

inspires a lot of people watching to get

started and vibe code stuff as well.

However, I need you to be careful. I see

a lot of people get into vibe coding,

try to oneshot something real quick, get

lost, not be able to deploy, and then

give up. Cuz here's the truth about

building with AI. You need to know how

to use these AI tools effectively. What

to build, how to ship fast, and how to

build something that actually works.

Well, this is exactly why we launched

Starter Story Build, which is our

program where you will learn how to

launch your project using only AI coding

tools and do it in just a couple weeks.

Once you understand how to actually

leverage these AI tools, you can build a

lot faster and save a whole lot of time.

So, if you're ready to learn how to

build apps the right way with AI. Well,

head to the first link in the

description to check out Starter Story

Build. Our next cohort is starting this

week, so definitely check out that link

and save your spot. All right, let's get

back to the video. The next question I

have for you is around validation.

You've built multiple apps that are

really successful, and I know you've

also built some stuff that wasn't

successful as well. Looking back, how do

you know if your app idea is validated

and it's worth taking it the distance?

>> So, the way I see it is there's two

different types of apps. There's

innovating new ideas and there's

modifying versions of existing ideas. If

you're creating a modified version of an

existing app, then congrats, your app is

already validated by other people. Now,

all you have to do is make some

modifications and make it so the app

feels like it's your own. The other

option is when you're making something

brand new. What I'd usually do when I'm

making something brand new is go look on

Tik Tok, Instagram, see if anyone's

talking about the problem that you're

trying to solve. You want to make sure

that there's an easy path for you to

market this app by looking at the

comments and seeing like are people

asking questions asking like how do I

solve this problem? Then now with the

current state of how fast you can build

apps, I actually will skip the

weightless steps and just go ahead and

build the app. I really believe that any

app can make thousands of dollars these

days. Your idea doesn't have to be some

crazy app that changes society to make a

couple thousand dollars. There's

hundreds of millions of people in the US

alone. And if you can even capture a

tiny grain of sand out of that, then you

can make more than enough to sustain

yourself.

>> I agree with that, too. There are so

many apps out there that are crushing it

that we don't even know about. It's

pretty insane what's possible today. But

as we know, building it is not enough.

We have to focus on one very important

thing, which is distribution. My next

question for you is around marketing.

What was your playbook to grow this app

from 0 to $20,000 a month in 50 days?

And what is your general playbook for

marketing apps? For this app, there was

a couple different tactics that I used

to get the app off the ground. The first

one was influencer campaigns. This is

when you work with an influencer and

have them promote the app or their

already existing audience. If you can

work with an influencer and get them to

promote your product, people already

have some degree of trust for that

influencer, then they're more likely to

listen to their recommendation. For this

app, I partnered with a content creator

that was already in the niche for the

app I was building, and his videos were

able to drive a bunch of traffic to the

app, like thousands of downloads. The

only issue with influencers, though, is

that they can be very expensive. My next

step will be to run organic UGC

campaigns on Tik Tok. This is basically

when you work with smaller creators who

come off as everyday people or you can

even make the content yourself. The goal

is to create relatable viral content

about your app that comes off as natural

and unprocessed. Once one of these

videos starts to perform well, you can

get more videos like that made with

other creators so you can have people

just repeat formats that are working for

you. One of the major benefits of

running these UGC campaigns is that as

these creators produce content, you're

building out a library of ads that you

can run in the future and you already

know relatively how good the performance

will be on ads based on how well it did

organically. Once some of those formats

start to consistently go viral and you

start to see some installs, you're ready

to start putting this video behind paid

ads. Which brings me to my final and

main channel. I use paid ads for every

single app and my goal is to always get

my app to the point where I can run paid

ads. It's the most consistent way to

drive revenue growth to your app.

Recently, the paid ads algorithm has

changed. Facebook is trying to balance

two things. They want to make sure that

the advertisers are happy with their

results while also keeping people on the

platform by making sure the videos are

entertaining. The more entertaining your

video is, the cheaper it'll be to get

your video put in front of people. But

you also want to make sure that you're

driving conversions. So, your ad has to

also make sure that it pushes your

product. So, it's important to find that

balance between having a video that's

very entertaining and also has the

potential to convert.

>> Thank you for sharing all those growth

tactics. I think that might be the most

important part. We haven't really talked

too much about what your app actually

does. Would you be able to show us a

quick demo of your onboarding and how

your app works?

>> So, my app is called Payout. It's a

class action lawsuit discovery app that

lets people find class action lawsuits

that they already are applicable for.

And this is basically just a way for

people to get some money from companies

that have done something wrong. So, for

the onboarding, I'll quickly run through

it here. Asking for activity

notifications. You can see the social

proof. Here's the payw wall. This payw

wall has been converting really well.

You can see that I have a weekly and a

yearly option here. And the goal is to

prioritize users to get the yearly

option since it has the highest lifetime

value per customer. Here's the main

feature of the app. It's a list of class

action lawsuits that you can check and

see if you're applicable for. For

example, this one is the NBA Top Shot

app. They had a privacy settlement over

the Metapixel being on their website.

You can see the description requirements

of who's applicable for this lawsuit.

You can press the get started button and

fill form. And this will take you to a

form that you can fill out, put all of

your information in, and have everything

ready to go to mail this in and claim

your class action settlement. And you

can see the app will prepare the PDF

ready for you to mail in. There's also

the wallet tab where you can keep track

of all the class action lawsuits that

you're applying for and your forms tab

where you can see all the forms that

you've already filled out.

>> Okay. I mean, that's a really cool idea

for an app. I think anybody watching

this right now probably wants to go on

there and check and see if they're owed

any money from these class action

lawsuits. What is it about this app that

really makes it work? Why do you think

it did 0 to 20k a month so fast?

>> I think the value proposition for this

app is just very obvious. There's some

core things that all people want. They

want to be healthier. They want to make

more money. They want to look

attractive. All sorts of things like

this. I like to make apps that tap into

these core human desires. And I think

that anybody that wants to build apps

should be doing the same. And this one

plays into people want to make more

money. So it's very easy for people to

invest money into an app that they know

will make them more money.

>> Okay. I want to change topics a little

bit and understand how you built this

app. What tech stack do you use and what

tools you use to run this business?

>> I use Figma for UI design, app store

screenshots, and making the app icon. I

use Mixpanel for analytics. I use Claude

Code for vibe coding. For the more

technical stuff, I'll use Nex.js and

TypeScript for my website and back end.

I use Versell for hosting. I use GitHub

for version control as well as making it

easier to host. I use Expo for

crossplatform build management. And I

use RevenueCap for subscription

analytics and pricing testing.

>> Okay, cool. Thanks for sharing. That's a

pretty simple stack you got there. I

like that. The last question that I have

for you that I ask everyone who comes on

to Starter Story. What advice would you

have for anyone watching this that wants

to build apps like you? You've built a

bunch of successful stuff. You built

some failed things. What would be your

number one piece of advice on getting

started today?

>> My number one piece of advice would be

to build something simple with a great

onboarding. A simple app can make lots

of money. You only really need one to

three good features and your onboarding

will pull most of the weight for you.

>> All right. Well, that's great advice.

Thank you, Connor, for coming on. I love

what you built. Amazing stuff you shared

here. Thanks for coming on and sharing

everything.

>> Yeah, thanks for having me.

>> All right, I want to thank Connor for

coming on to the channel. I hope this

video finally gives you the proof that

you can build apps in a matter of weeks

that grow really, really fast. This

video was the playbook here on how to do

it and we're showing you the real actual

app that he did it with. If you're ready

to launch your app, then definitely

check out Starter Story Build. We will

help take your idea, turn it into a real

app, get it in front of real people

using only AI tools. If you're ready to

get off the sidelines and launch, head

to the link in the description and check

out Starter Story Build. I promise you

won't regret it. All right, that's it

for this episode. Thank you guys for

watching. We'll see you in the next one.

Peace.