I built an app that makes $2K PER DAY — Transcript

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1. 0:00It's my first iOS app. It took roughly 3
2. 0:02weeks. It's currently averaging around
3. 0:052-3,000 dollars a day.
4. 0:07>> This is Rasty. A few months ago, he had
5. 0:09never built an iOS app in his life.
6. 0:12Until he decided to build something to
7. 0:14solve a very simple problem. In the
8. 0:16first month, the app made just $66. But,
9. 0:196 months later, it made $41,000
10. 0:23in a single month. [music] But, here's
11. 0:25the thing. The app he built is crazy
12. 0:27simple.
13. 0:28>> I literally haven't written single line
14. 0:30either of code or the text on the web.
15. 0:32>> The reason you want to watch this
16. 0:33episode is to learn about how he grew
17. 0:36it. Which, no, it wasn't posting on
18. 0:38TikTok and it wasn't doing any paid ads.
19. 0:40I asked Rasty to come on to the channel
20. 0:42and actually break this down. And in
21. 0:44this episode, we're going to dive into
22. 0:46the simple app he built that made
23. 0:47$41,000 in a single month, how he's
24. 0:50taking on really big competitors in a
25. 0:52very crowded space, and the {quote}
26. 0:55outdated growth strategy that is working
27. 0:58really well for him in 2026. All right,
28. 1:00guys. This is one that you cannot miss.
29. 1:02I'm Pat Walls.
30. 1:03>> And I'm Gus.
31. 1:04>> And this is Starter Story.
32. 1:07All right, Rasty. I'm pumped to have you
33. 1:10here on the channel. Welcome to Starter
34. 1:11Story. Tell me a little about who you
35. 1:12are, what you built, and what's your
36. 1:14story.
37. 1:14>> Well, I'm Rasty Turek. I built Vault
38. 1:16Air, which is iPhone app that encrypts
39. 1:18the storage and allows people to store
40. 1:20encrypted files and photos. It's my
41. 1:22first iOS app, mostly thanks to the
42. 1:25Coding Agents. It took roughly 3 weeks.
43. 1:27The first month, it made $66. Got a
44. 1:31couple of downloads. It's currently
45. 1:33averaging around 2-3,000 dollars a day.
46. 1:35>> Wow. Rasty, this is awesome. Off camera
47. 1:38before they said you started this in
48. 1:39March, so it's only like 6 months, which
49. 1:41makes this even more amazing. But, let's
50. 1:43talk about Vault Air. Can you just
51. 1:45explain what the app is, who your users
52. 1:48are?
53. 1:48>> Well, it's very simple. It's very, very
54. 1:50similar to Dropbox with the one caveat
55. 1:53that it is essentially encrypted. It's
56. 1:55encrypted on device. There's no servers,
57. 1:57no shared keys. I have no access to it,
58. 1:59neither does Apple or anyone else. And
59. 2:01so it's actually there's no way to
60. 2:03recover anything. The app is free. In
61. 2:05fact, I was going to put it completely
62. 2:07free app and then literally the day
63. 2:09before I just decided that maybe due to
64. 2:12some advanced features, if users start
65. 2:15sending me support requests, I just
66. 2:17don't want to be bothered as much. So I
67. 2:18literally just set few dollars here and
68. 2:20we'll see. Honestly, majority of my
69. 2:22purchases are for lifetime. I will say
70. 2:25good 60% at this point. They also
71. 2:27accounts for majority of the revenue,
72. 2:29north of 80% I think. And then I just
73. 2:31passed uh 60,000 overall downloads. And
74. 2:34one very different thing about this app
75. 2:37versus others, a lot of the trendy apps
76. 2:39that are very focused on like they have
77. 2:41to convert you immediately. So like Call
78. 2:42AI, like if they don't convert you
79. 2:44immediately, you will never pay. Mine is
80. 2:45the opposite. Like I have the lowest
81. 2:47conversion day one and I have the
82. 2:48highest conversion like day 60.
83. 2:50>> Real quick, what I love about Rasty's
84. 2:52story is that his app is crazy simple.
85. 2:55One of the reason why it works is that
86. 2:56it's just a proven category. People want
87. 2:59to download this app and pay for this.
88. 3:01An app like this and a founder like
89. 3:03Rasty is proof that you do not need a
90. 3:05brand new or complicated idea to win.
91. 3:07Which is why we put together an actual
92. 3:09database of simple app ideas like this
93. 3:12that are making tons of money right now.
94. 3:14Every idea in this database comes with
95. 3:16real revenue numbers. These are real
96. 3:17apps with real pricing models and growth
97. 3:19tactics that you can check out. Just
98. 3:21head to the first link in the
99. 3:22description if you want to download this
100. 3:23database 100% for free. Start browsing,
101. 3:26maybe get an idea and get building. All
102. 3:28right, let's get back to the episode.
103. 3:29>> This is really impressive. I mean,
104. 3:30especially on an app that, you know, you
105. 3:32could potentially use some of it for
106. 3:33free. That's really good.
107. 3:34>> And then finally, could you just pull up
108. 3:35your like analytics, revenue dashboards,
109. 3:38just show to the audience, you know,
110. 3:40this thing is real.
111. 3:41>> Yeah, so this is the App Store
112. 3:42analytics. As you can see, my MRR is
113. 3:45quite low because most people opt in for
114. 3:48the lifetime plans. So daily downloads,
115. 3:51currently as I said, around depending on
116. 3:53the day. So, this is what
117. 3:55>> And that huge spike.
118. 3:56>> Yeah, I have no idea. This is the source
119. 3:58is Apple search. However, what is weird
120. 4:01about it, it doesn't correlate to
121. 4:02revenue. See?
122. 4:04Daily revenue is like hovering around
123. 4:06$2,000 these days. It's like slowly
124. 4:09increasing. This is what we talked
125. 4:10about. Like as you can see, my download
126. 4:13to paid is only 5.47%
127. 4:15on day one, but day 35, it actually
128. 4:18grows. It's weekly is $1.99, annual is
129. 4:22$19.99, and lifetime is $39.99.
130. 4:26>> So, I mean, these numbers, Rusty, are
131. 4:28crazy. Like this growth channel that's
132. 4:30been working for you. That is growing
133. 4:31like really nicely, really linearly. You
134. 4:33have this amazing download to conversion
135. 4:36rate. You're doing over 40,000 a month.
136. 4:38This is soon going to be a
137. 4:39million-dollar per year business.
138. 4:40Congrats for providing a lot of value to
139. 4:42people, which we're going to talk about.
140. 4:44But before we do, I want to learn about
141. 4:45your background cuz I know that you've
142. 4:46done startups before. This isn't your
143. 4:48first business that you started, but you
144. 4:50did way different stuff. So, how do you
145. 4:51get to this point where you have this
146. 4:53awesome $2,000 a day app that you built?
147. 4:55>> Well, my road is pretty windy. I grew up
148. 4:59in Slovakia in a tiny, tiny village of
149. 5:01700 people. After high school, I moved
150. 5:04to Boston to work for a security company
151. 5:07that got acquired by Google. And so, I
152. 5:08worked at Google. I worked on a chunk of
153. 5:10the Gmail where I sat on the Gmail team
154. 5:12and then left and started a couple of
155. 5:14startups. Mostly, the first one started
156. 5:17in security because that was my
157. 5:18background. Then I moved to
158. 5:19entertainment. I built a company.
159. 5:22Company got acquired by Amazon and they
160. 5:23use some of the tech to this day. My
161. 5:25last large-scale one, and this is
162. 5:27venture funded, was Pics, which was kind
163. 5:29of a sassy copyright as a service for
164. 5:32entertainment, mostly focused on music.
165. 5:34And then we sold that last year.
166. 5:36>> That's awesome.
167. 5:37>> So, that leads naturally into how do you
168. 5:39find this idea? How do you build a
169. 5:41encryption utility app?
170. 5:42>> You like if you deal with crypto, a lot
171. 5:45of people have wallet keys stored in all
172. 5:48sorts of places and it's very hard to
173. 5:50put it somewhere close to the device but
174. 5:52also have it available. This was my
175. 5:54solution for it. Especially pictures of
176. 5:56IDs, birth certificates. And as I said,
177. 5:59I was not planning to make this paid. I
178. 6:01didn't even know if anyone is ever going
179. 6:03to use this. So like I put it out with
180. 6:05the idea is like I will have it it will
181. 6:07be there.
182. 6:08>> Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit more
183. 6:10about that growth thing. We talked about
184. 6:12this a little earlier before but you're
185. 6:13not spending money on ads, you're not
186. 6:15paying people to create content for the
187. 6:17app. You're kind of just growing through
188. 6:18SEO and you know, if you go online these
189. 6:20days everyone's saying SEO is dead. SEO
190. 6:22is dead. [music] You got to do something
191. 6:24else but this is clearly working for you
192. 6:25and it's growing really nicely. So, can
193. 6:28you tell me a little bit more about
194. 6:29that? Like what's been your approach for
195. 6:31this?
196. 6:32>> Most of the apps in this area are 15
197. 6:34years or older. They have millions of
198. 6:37users a lot of downloads so Apple
199. 6:39prioritizes them and like I will have
200. 6:41zero chance to get there but they
201. 6:42completely ignore but because you know,
202. 6:45they don't have to. They can have money
203. 6:46and just don't care enough. And so my
204. 6:49approach was like what if I try to pull
205. 6:51in every keyword that is out there that
206. 6:53essentially points to the same thing as
207. 6:55an app store but on the web. And so my
208. 6:57first foray into this was like a basic
209. 6:59marketing site which is outlines of all
210. 7:02of the features and then building series
211. 7:05of guides that was like how do I store
212. 7:07my photos on iPhone? And when I say I, I
213. 7:10literally haven't written single line
214. 7:12you know, of code or the text on the
215. 7:14web. Everything is done by one of the
216. 7:16coding agents. Over time this is like
217. 7:18gaining a lot of authority and with that
218. 7:22comes a lot of traffic and then I focus
219. 7:24on the conversion. So like I tell the
220. 7:26coding agents like make sure that the
221. 7:28CTA structure that that essentially has
222. 7:30the person A somewhere in the article
223. 7:32wherever people are like commonly
224. 7:34ending. I want them to be able to go
225. 7:36through the app and so I have around 10%
226. 7:38conversion from the web and the web is
227. 7:41the majority of traffic at this point.
228. 7:43>> Wow. So, you essentially have a whole
229. 7:46content marketing and conversion team
230. 7:49that's working for you, but there's not
231. 7:51an actual team. You just have some sort
232. 7:53of agent running that's always improving
233. 7:55your SEO. Tell me more about how you set
234. 7:57up something like that. Like what tools
235. 7:58are you using?
236. 7:59>> It's honestly basic cloud or codex. I
237. 8:02wrote this library called gum. It's just
238. 8:05open-source command line tools with MCP
239. 8:09at top of all Google services including
240. 8:11Google search and Google keyword
241. 8:12planner. And so, what it does it runs
242. 8:15through keyword planner every single
243. 8:16morning, looks at all the traffic,
244. 8:18identifies keywords that are being
245. 8:21surfaced but not essentially being
246. 8:23driven to the site. So, like you can see
247. 8:25your site was showed 16,000 times for
248. 8:27this keyword, but no clicks because you
249. 8:29are like number 50. And so, then it
250. 8:31takes that and optimize creates this
251. 8:33guide, and then the guide is essentially
252. 8:35published. It takes roughly 3 to 4 days
253. 8:37for Google to register, and I optimize a
254. 8:40lot of internal links. And so, the
255. 8:42internal links from existing traffic
256. 8:44point to the new guides, and that's how
257. 8:46Google essentially prioritizes it, and
258. 8:48then you can see the correlation with
259. 8:50that essentially growing the traffic,
260. 8:51and then the traffic it converts into
261. 8:53dollars. And essentially publishing one
262. 8:56a day, and that's it. Google likes the
263. 8:58fact that there's like not a lot of
264. 8:59content coming, but the content is like
265. 9:01high-quality. Like I make sure that the
266. 9:03content is not just like vomit of words.
267. 9:06>> I think you mentioned one thing that I
268. 9:07really liked is that like you're
269. 9:08actually not publishing that much.
270. 9:10Sometimes you hear where people will
271. 9:11automate their SEO, it's just like a
272. 9:12bunch of AI slop. They push out a
273. 9:14thousand articles in a day, but you
274. 9:16actually mentioned that you only do one
275. 9:18article a day, which maybe you think
276. 9:20that Google really likes that. And I
277. 9:21think I want to get you back on the
278. 9:23channel maybe in 6 months and see where
279. 9:25your revenue is because I think this
280. 9:26focus on providing valuable content to a
281. 9:29very niche audience. Maybe they care a
282. 9:30lot about security, they care a lot
283. 9:32about this very niche thing that you
284. 9:33have. I think this is actually going to
285. 9:35benefit you even more because you're
286. 9:37going to get start getting shown in
287. 9:38LLM's. As the more traffic you get, the
288. 9:40more Google likes you, the more Gemini
289. 9:42likes you, the more AEO search overviews
290. 9:45like you, all this attention coming to
291. 9:47your app. So, I'm excited to see where
292. 9:48you are in 6 months, especially because
293. 9:50it's growing so fast already.
294. 9:51>> Rasti, you mentioned that you have kind
295. 9:53of a light tech stack. A lot of this is
296. 9:55profit. So, what are the tools that you
297. 9:56use on a regular basis to run this
298. 9:58business?
299. 9:59>> Well, I mean, the app is Swift with UI
300. 10:02Kit. There's really nothing else. It
301. 10:04uses a lot of the iCloud features, but
302. 10:07everything is native to the app. I use
303. 10:09extensively Codex and Claude, and I have
304. 10:12also local models that I utilize for
305. 10:14myself, but I will say at this point,
306. 10:1799% of the stuff that is left to be done
307. 10:20is Claude waking up every morning and
308. 10:23then running the guide, and that's kind
309. 10:24of it. For measurements, I use Posthog.
310. 10:27It's free. So, one of the nice things
311. 10:29about this is like I don't have enough
312. 10:30traffic or enough users because they
313. 10:32don't measure anything. These days, like
314. 10:34you can really run things for free. You
315. 10:36know, there's like nothing to break,
316. 10:38which is really nice. Like as long as
317. 10:39Apple is up, the app works.
318. 10:41>> All right, so Rasti, real quick. I mean,
319. 10:43we kind of talked about what your app
320. 10:44does. It's encryption for your photos,
321. 10:46but I'd love to just see it. Can you
322. 10:47show me the app that you built that made
323. 10:50over $40,000 last month? Like how does
324. 10:53the app work? What does it do? Can you
325. 10:54give us a little bit of a demo?
326. 10:55>> Yeah, it's the great person makes a
327. 10:57pattern. Any any pattern opens a vault.
328. 10:59So, there's roughly 52 billion potential
329. 11:02vaults, and then they just add files to
330. 11:04it. So, what's interesting about this is
331. 11:06there's no way to find out
332. 11:08>> [music]
333. 11:08>> how much data or what is in there. And
334. 11:10so, it actually accumulated to a really
335. 11:12interesting story. So, on a Friday, I
336. 11:15got a call from FBI agent. They caught
337. 11:17someone that they believe used the app,
338. 11:20opened a vault to record some sensitive
339. 11:23information, and so they believe the
340. 11:25person done it, and they want my help.
341. 11:28And there's no way to figure it out. The
342. 11:29app is built such way that I can't tell
343. 11:31if the person ever had anything in
344. 11:34there. And so the agent was pretty upset
345. 11:36about it, but that's what the app does.
346. 11:38>> That's amazing. I mean, that's literally
347. 11:40the point is to encrypt it. That's why
348. 11:41people use it because no FBI agent can
349. 11:44call the founder of the app and get the
350. 11:46information. So that's super cool. Last
351. 11:48question that we ask all founders who
352. 11:49come under Starter Story, and I know
353. 11:51you've built a bunch of awesome startups
354. 11:53and you're doing great for yourself,
355. 11:55obviously. What advice would you give
356. 11:56someone watching this? Maybe they're
357. 11:58about to start their first company or
358. 11:59they're about to start an app, like
359. 12:00you've built a utility app even. What
360. 12:02would be your advice to them?
361. 12:03>> I mean, start. That's the hardest part,
362. 12:06right? Like I have at least two dozen
363. 12:08projects that are somewhere in me ready,
364. 12:11but they're not out there. And as long
365. 12:12as they're not out there, they don't
366. 12:14exist. And then, honestly, like people
367. 12:16overthink how things too should be done.
368. 12:19Like none of these came out of years of
369. 12:21experience because my experience is in
370. 12:23B2B and enterprise. And so like I really
371. 12:25didn't know anything about this. So if I
372. 12:26can learn, anyone can. And so like as
373. 12:28long as you have open mind and, you
374. 12:30know, how to put one foot in front of
375. 12:31the other and every day just be slightly
376. 12:33better than the day before. And that's
377. 12:35kind of all I care about.
378. 12:36>> Well, that's great advice. Thank you,
379. 12:38Rasty, for coming on. Super cool app.
380. 12:39Thanks for being so open about sharing
381. 12:41it and all your SEO experiments and all
382. 12:44that. Super cool. Thanks for coming on.
383. 12:45>> Yeah, thanks for having me.
384. 12:47>> All right, Gus, co-host and producer of
385. 12:49Starter Story. What did you think of
386. 12:51Rasty and his app?
387. 12:52>> When I first talked to him, I knew it
388. 12:54was going to be awesome. He reminded me
389. 12:55of Do you remember that guy we
390. 12:56interviewed a while back? The He's from
391. 12:58Australia. He had like a His name was
392. 13:00Mike Hill. Yeah.
393. 13:02He did like the seven SaaS thing. The
394. 13:04similarities between the obviously
395. 13:06besides their demeanor was like I feel
396. 13:08like they kind of have a really It's
397. 13:10simple but not easy, but simple approach
398. 13:11to like how they do things. That's what
399. 13:13I really liked about everything he was
400. 13:15saying was like, you know, all the app
401. 13:16guys we bring on are like Tik Tok and go
402. 13:19viral and all that stuff obviously
403. 13:21works. We have plenty of examples. But I
404. 13:23thought it was cool that he was just
405. 13:24like, I do one article a day. I try to
406. 13:26like eat up the competition, and that's
407. 13:28my strategy. Yeah, that's my first
408. 13:29thought. Yeah.
409. 13:30>> The vibe is like no It's kind
410. 13:31of just like, I don't know, a guy in his
411. 13:33I'm not sure how old he is, but let's
412. 13:34say he's in his 40s. There's a
413. 13:35difference between a guy in his 40s and
414. 13:37a kid in his 20s. You know, he's not
415. 13:39coming on here talking about the latest
416. 13:41greatest growth hack. You got to do
417. 13:42this, you got to do that. It's more just
418. 13:43like put one foot in front of the other.
419. 13:45I think there's a lot to learn from this
420. 13:46interview just seeing how someone like
421. 13:48him carries himself, uh, which is a
422. 13:50little different than the typical
423. 13:51interviews we do. Yeah.
424. 13:52>> I agree. Yeah, what do you think about
425. 13:54like the whole SEO play that he's doing
426. 13:56and um, I think he even said there in
427. 13:58the interview like everyone says SEO is
428. 14:00dead or whatever, you know. What do you
429. 14:02think?
430. 14:02>> I still think SEO is dead, whatever you
431. 14:04want to call that. But the the reason
432. 14:06why I think it works for him is that
433. 14:07it's super super niche. It's like a very
434. 14:10specific app that does a very specific
435. 14:12thing. He's not going to get a million
436. 14:14people visiting his website every day.
437. 14:16And I think he's probably getting a lot
438. 14:17more traffic from recommendations, word
439. 14:20of mouth, and LLMs than he knows already
440. 14:23cuz he's letting us know you couldn't
441. 14:24really track these things because he
442. 14:26doesn't want to put analytics on it cuz
443. 14:27it's privacy focused.
444. 14:29>> Yes, it started with the SEO. It started
445. 14:30with writing the content, but it's
446. 14:32actually going to grow a lot more just
447. 14:33because he's putting that out there.
448. 14:35Yeah. The other thing that I love about
449. 14:37his app is that it's so simple. You
450. 14:39watch the demo, you're literally
451. 14:41encrypting some files. There's not a
452. 14:43thousand features. They make them easy
453. 14:45to market. We have a bunch of other
454. 14:46examples like this, real actual simple
455. 14:49apps that are making money right now. We
456. 14:51put them all into a database of all the
457. 14:53people that we've interviewed
458. 14:55>> and researched and found a bunch of cool
459. 14:57simple apps that are making money right
460. 14:58now. Check that out in the description
461. 14:59right there. It's all free. Hope you
462. 15:01guys enjoy. Thank you for watching.
463. 15:02We'll see you in the next one. Peace.