My hyper-niche apps make $120K/year

This is Pre. This year, he's already launched three apps that are making over $10,000 a month. We've gone from zero to 120K in the past year. His strategy is simple. Find a personal problem and

simple. Find a personal problem and build an app that solves it. That's it.

That's why I think we have top apps in the space of our niches. He's already

built three successful apps with a strategy and plans to do it over and over. I asked Pre to come onto the

over. I asked Pre to come onto the channel to break down his playbook of building a portfolio of hyper niche apps. And he shared everything,

apps. And he shared everything, including how to find great app ideas, why building multiple apps is way better than building just one, and his step-by-step playbook for how anyone can

do the same from scratch right now. If

you care about it, ship it. Even

crazier, he did this entire interview while walking on a treadmill, which is absolutely insane. This one was fun.

absolutely insane. This one was fun.

Let's get into it. I'm Pat Walls and this is Starter Story.

All right, welcome Press to the channel.

I see you're on a treadmill right now, which I have no idea why you're doing that, but tell me about who you are, what you built, and what's your story?

>> Yeah, I am on a treadmill. Just got to keep it on brand. We make health and wellness apps, so I figured jump on the pod while walking on a treadmill. I'm

Pre and I built the wellness company. We

make health and wellness apps. So, I

have three apps right now in the app store. Our earliest app was launched 10

store. Our earliest app was launched 10 months ago and we've gone from zero to 120K ARR in the past year and all focused in health and wellness.

>> Cool. So you have three different apps that you've basically launched in the last 10 months. I think that's kind of a cool strategy and we're going to get into the apps that you actually built.

But before we do, I want to understand a little bit more about the numbers behind these apps and the numbers behind the business. Our total monthly revenues are

business. Our total monthly revenues are 10.4K and these are all subscription based revenue. Total downloads are over

based revenue. Total downloads are over 20,000. Most of this is organic from app

20,000. Most of this is organic from app store and organic search. We have over 1,500 paying subscribers. And right now our freeto paid conversion is around 8% which is around the higher side just

because these are niche apps. And our

day 30 free to paid retention is 61%.

Okay. So can you give me a little breakdown of what these apps do and what niche you're building for all these apps? Our first app that we launched is

apps? Our first app that we launched is called Go Polar. It's an app to track your cold plunge and your sauna sessions using your Apple Watch or your iPhone.

The next app is called SunSeek. It's an

app to help your sleep and circadian rhythm by showing you and telling you when to get sunlight and also helps you get your vitamin D. And then the third app is Posture AI. It helps you correct your poor posture that you likely get

from sitting at a desk, mostly targeting desk workers. And then we have a new app

desk workers. And then we have a new app coming out, Tempo, which is a health aggregator. kind of collects all of your

aggregator. kind of collects all of your health wearable data, puts them into a nice interface and allows you to have a companion that guides you through your health, focusing on your one main health goal. Whether that's trying to lose 10

goal. Whether that's trying to lose 10 lbs or maybe you want to climb Kilamanjaro, that will help you do that.

Our three apps all focus on health and wellness. So, we're very niche, but

wellness. So, we're very niche, but there's a very large audience overlap.

So, we'll have some Go Polar users that are also Sunseek users that are also posture AI users, and hopefully also we'll become Tempo users when we launch that. The reason we target the same

that. The reason we target the same audience is because of the overlap. So

users of our one product, we don't have to remarket and create a new audience and list to target. We already have that and that exists in our other app. And

then when we market to them, it's not marketing cold. They already use our

marketing cold. They already use our products and it's a new product that is most likely exciting for that user.

Okay, cool. I really like that idea of building a portfolio of apps, but not just a bunch of random stuff, but actually all the products serve the same audience, which gives you opportunities to market new apps and products to the

same customers. We're going to get all

same customers. We're going to get all into that, but first before we do, I do have to get into your background. How do

you get to this point where you have three successful apps that are making money in the app store? I actually went to college for business. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. But after

first year, I quickly realized that school was not for me. And I really just wanted to build things, create things, and get started working. So after first year, I actually dropped out of school.

And I didn't have an idea that I wanted to pursue at this time. I knew I wanted to build things. I also knew I wanted to learn. So I sent an email to different

learn. So I sent an email to different entrepreneurs and investors that I had come across on Twitter or podcasts. One

of them was an angel investor. Long

story short, I get a job. I end up working there for 7 years. So during my time at launch, I got to see all these thousands of founders. I'd be on calls with them. They'd be showing me their

with them. They'd be showing me their products, what they built, how they built it, how they got their first users. And from that point, I learned

users. And from that point, I learned that I could be doing the same thing.

This inspired me to start creating my own products on the side while working at launch before deciding to go full-time on the wellness company.

Really learned the ins and outs of what it takes to build a company, ship a product, and through that got the confidence to know that I could be one of these founders and create my own thing and ship it. I always have been building in health and wellness just

because that's where I care most deeply about. I grew up with my mom teaching me

about. I grew up with my mom teaching me about meditation and different wellness tools that I could do to feel better and think clearly. And so I knew I always

think clearly. And so I knew I always wanted to build in the space. Okay. So

you see lots of people building apps.

You realize you can do it too. How do

you then find the idea for what to work on? How did you decide on what to build

on? How did you decide on what to build for your first app? I personally love to track my activities just to see how they measure up against different metrics that I'm tracking through my wearables.

And so I looked at the app store. There

wasn't a great app that tracked your specific niche activity like a cold plunge, like a sauna, like a cold shower. And I figured I could build this

shower. And I figured I could build this experience. And so that's the first

experience. And so that's the first version of Go Polar, which was just solving a personal need of wanting to track that activity. And there was no great app to do that. And from there, we had new ideas. And now the app is one of

our main apps for the wellness company.

Okay, cool. What you mentioned there is actually really important. I really like that. Is that this was a personal

that. Is that this was a personal problem that you experienced. Is this

sort of part of your strategy for finding other ideas in your niche or how does that work? That was part of the main idea. If I experienced this pain, I

main idea. If I experienced this pain, I could build a better product than my competitors. Also, I would care more

competitors. Also, I would care more about it. And building apps is hard.

about it. And building apps is hard.

Like nothing about it is really, really easy. But if you love what you're

easy. But if you love what you're building, you'll put in the effort and put in those extra details to craft a better experience. And then that will

better experience. And then that will just compound into getting more downloads, getting more revenue.

>> Press didn't just build three apps. He

built a real business. Running a

business isn't just about selling more.

It's about everything that comes with it. When your business takes off, you

it. When your business takes off, you unlock a new set of problems that can slow you down and even threaten your success. And what I'm talking about

success. And what I'm talking about right now is sales tax compliance.

Thousands of rules change constantly across states and countries and the last thing that you want is your product launch to be interrupted by a letter from the state. Well, that's where

Avalara Avatax comes in. Avatax tracks

your sales history in real time and alerts you when you're getting close to economic nexus thresholds so you can act before it becomes a problem. No

spreadsheets, no frantic searches, and no late night wait are we compliant in Illinois moments. And that's because

Illinois moments. And that's because Avitax maintains more than 900,000 tax rules and 82,000 rates, all updated automatically. It works with the systems

automatically. It works with the systems you already use with more than 1,400 signed integrations, including Shopify, Netswuite, and QuickBooks. You also get audit ready reports, so small issues

don't become big ones. More than 43,000 customers in over 75 countries use Avalara to handle the complex parts of compliance so they can focus on growing their business. With Avalara, you'll

their business. With Avalara, you'll protect your time, your focus, and your ability to keep growing. If you're

serious about scaling, do not let compliance slow you down. Take a

self-guided tour of Avalar Avitex at the first link in the description to see how it works for your business. Thank you to Avalara for sponsoring this video. Let's

get back into it. I talked to a lot of people through the channel that want to start stuff, and I always say the same thing is why start something in a space you don't know anything about? you're

going to have to spend years learning about that space, learning about the problem, or you can go and build something that you know a lot about and you're going to save a lot of time and build something probably better. So, I

think that actually is really smart. I

think a lot of people watching this want to do the same. They want to build an app around something that they're passionate about or a space they know about. You've done this and you've done

about. You've done this and you've done this multiple times. So, my question for you would be, what would be your playbook for doing this from scratch today? Okay, so here's my step-by-step

today? Okay, so here's my step-by-step playbook for how I think about this.

Step one, you probably have a passion or deep interest in something. Figure out

what that passion or deep interest is.

So for me, it's always been health and wellness. Just because when I focus on

wellness. Just because when I focus on my health, I feel better throughout the day. I have better energy. I sleep

day. I have better energy. I sleep

better and my life becomes more fulfilling. Step two, once you figured

fulfilling. Step two, once you figured out that passion or interest, what problem do you encounter within that?

And the way you find problems actually will come organically to you. If you do the activity naturally, there's always something in the back of your head that could be improved. And you just have to open your mind to paying attention to what that could be. And step three, once

you found that problem, now it's time to build the solution. And you want to build this quickly, which means not spending too much time overthinking, overanalyzing what the solution is, but just trying to solve it quickly by

building an MVP with a tool like Lovable or Replet or Bolt. Step four, you want to think about distribution on day zero before you even launch. And there's

always a creator in your niche. if there

isn't. The great thing about solving for a problem that you yourself encounter is that you can create the content. You

know exactly why you're building this product. And so just talk about it on

product. And so just talk about it on these platforms and you'll start to build an audience. And step five, put in the reps. It takes reps to build a

the reps. It takes reps to build a really great product. And the faster you can ship, the closer you'll get to that winning product. Most founders and

winning product. Most founders and company's first product don't break out, but it's that third, that fourth, that fifth iteration that really builds a great experience. The reason I started

great experience. The reason I started the wellness company as a product studio was because I didn't know what that one winner was going to be. I launched Go Polar as one product. Then we launched another one and another one and another one. But I treated each app as a

one. But I treated each app as a different repetition of building product. The next product after Goar was

product. The next product after Goar was Sunseek and Sunseek was crafted better than Grow Polar on day one because of those reps that I had taken. And there

aren't any shortcuts around this. You

have to put in the reps. You have to build the product and you'll just get better over time. So yeah, that would be my five-step process if I were to start over again.

>> Okay. Thank you for sharing that playbook. Now, I want to dive into like

playbook. Now, I want to dive into like actually what you built. I know you have three apps. Could you actually show me

three apps. Could you actually show me those apps and what they do? All right.

So, here on the bottom left, we have Go Polar. This is the first app that I

Polar. This is the first app that I launched. I'm going to open up here. You

launched. I'm going to open up here. You

see I have a nice dashboard of my cold activities, my hot activities. You can

see the list here of all my cold plunges and sauna activities. And I can go inside an activity and see finer details like my heart rate trend and the water temperature, etc. Next, we have sunseek.

This is the morning light exposure and vitamin D app. So you can see right here, this morning I had zero minutes of morning light exposure. And I have a progress bar here showing me the minutes that it's captured. Today it's at zero cuz I didn't go out and get it. I can

also see the list of my activities here of the sessions of morning light exposure. And then here we have a fun

exposure. And then here we have a fun little lux calculator. If I point this at the sun, I can get a lux measurement here. And that fits into the app and

here. And that fits into the app and experience as well. And here we have posture AI. So this is our posture

posture AI. So this is our posture correction app. The main feature of it

correction app. The main feature of it is taking a scan of the user. And so

here you see me, but I would put this phone down against the wall and it would scan me and give me a posture scan result. So here I have a poor reading

result. So here I have a poor reading and you can see it highlights areas of improvement here. So I might have a head

improvement here. So I might have a head tilt likely from sitting at a desk too long and it'll give me an analysis and report of how to fix that. And here we have the latest app, Tempo, which we're launching in a few weeks. The idea

behind this is it takes all your wearable data and your blood tests, etc., and puts it into a health span score. So you can see I've got a 81 here

score. So you can see I've got a 81 here and I can see what markers are affecting that score and what I might need to improve. I can also chat with my health

improve. I can also chat with my health here since it has all the context of my changing data and my labs. I can get better answers from the AI. So all these apps make us about 120k ARR. All right.

Well, cool. Thanks for sharing that. I

want to switch topics a little bit and talk about how you built these. What's

the tech stack behind all these apps?

How do you build apps? We use a bunch of tools inside the wellness company. Figma

for all things design. Cloud code and Xcode for our mobile app development.

Superbase for backend and database.

iMessage for customer support. Keep it

easy. Revenue cap for subscriptions and paywall. Sentry for crash logs and error

paywall. Sentry for crash logs and error monitoring. Post hog for analytics.

monitoring. Post hog for analytics.

Since we have so many different apps, we need to stay organized and linear helps us do that. Chat GPT for just general business thinking and app thinking and feature development. Cap Cut for editing

feature development. Cap Cut for editing videos. Framer for landing pages. And

videos. Framer for landing pages. And

Lovable for testing MVP ideas before we go out and build the app. Okay, cool.

And on that note, what does it cost to run a business like this and what do the margins look like?

>> So, the total cost for our tools is about 300 a month and Apple takes their 15% cut if you make under a million dollars. So, our margins still stay

dollars. So, our margins still stay close to that 80 85% range. Thanks for

sharing that and being transparent about the numbers. The last question that I

the numbers. The last question that I have for you and that we ask everyone who comes on the channel, a lot of people watching this want to build a bunch of different cool apps in a space that they're passionate about. What

advice would you have for anyone watching this that wants to do the same?

If you care about it, ship it. Ideas

were meant to be shared. If you have any single idea that you think is worth pursuing, it is and you should build a product around it and ship it. And also

motivation and energy is fleeting. So

when you have that idea, when you have that energy, take the first step to build that thing. And any idea is worth taking that first step if it brings energy to you. Thank you, Pre, for coming on the channel. I love what you built. All these different apps. I'm

built. All these different apps. I'm

sure they're going to grow to be huge.

Thanks for coming on. Thanks for sharing everything. Thanks, Pat. What I really

everything. Thanks, Pat. What I really love about his businesses is that he built apps that solved personal problems for him. He was on a treadmill while he

for him. He was on a treadmill while he did this. He's clearly passionate about

did this. He's clearly passionate about health and wellness. And all of his apps sort of solve problems in that domain.

Cold plunges, sunlight therapy. This all

works because he's serving the same customer instead of building random apps that all do different things in different categories. Every app he

different categories. Every app he builds gets better and can be sold to this larger group of customers that he has. That I think is the secret to

has. That I think is the secret to building multiple apps. And his skills prove it. On the same topic of skills,

prove it. On the same topic of skills, this is why we launched Starter Story Build. In Starter Story Build, we will

Build. In Starter Story Build, we will give you the skills to help you turn your ideas and your passions into real apps using only AI tools. If you're

ready to get off the sidelines, launch your project, do it the right way, then head to the first link in the description to check out Starter Story Build. All right, guys, that's it for

Build. All right, guys, that's it for this episode. Thank you for watching.

this episode. Thank you for watching.

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