I Built Two Apps That Make $120K/Month — Transcript

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1. 0:00Everyone wants to find the perfect app
2. 0:02idea. So, you spend hours researching
3. 0:04and scrolling YouTube for inspiration,
4. 0:06only to come out of the other side with
5. 0:09nothing. But, what if I told you there
6. 0:11was a better way? Meet Kyle. He finds
7. 0:14his app ideas hiding in plain sight, and
8. 0:16today those apps make over $120,000
9. 0:20a month. He doesn't chase trends or
10. 0:22shiny objects. He just looks at his own
11. 0:25hobbies, his own personal problems, and
12. 0:27builds stuff for himself. I think this
13. 0:30method is so cool that I asked Kyle to
14. 0:32come onto the channel to break down
15. 0:34exactly how he does it, and in this
16. 0:36episode, we'll dive into his two apps
17. 0:39that make over $1 million a year, why
18. 0:41your next app idea might be sitting
19. 0:43right in front of your face, and his
20. 0:45playbook he would follow if he had to do
21. 0:47it all over again in 2026. All right,
22. 0:50this is one that you cannot miss. I'm
23. 0:53Pat Walls, and this is Starter Story.
24. 0:57All right. Kyle, welcome to the channel.
25. 0:59Tell me about who you are, what you
26. 1:00build, and what's your story.
27. 1:02>> Yeah, my name is Kyle Fowler, and I
28. 1:05built two apps that make $120K a month.
29. 1:09I launched Card Stock 6 years ago, and
30. 1:11we went from three guys in a basement
31. 1:13making a few hundred bucks a month to
32. 1:15five guys traveling all around the world
33. 1:18making 1.5 mil a year. And today, I'm
34. 1:21excited to share more about how I turned
35. 1:23my hobbies and passions [music]
36. 1:25into a career and how anyone could do
37. 1:28the same thing.
38. 1:29>> Okay, cool. Before we get into the two
39. 1:31businesses that you built and more into
40. 1:33that, I want to understand a little bit
41. 1:34more about how these businesses work.
42. 1:36And if you could potentially pull up
43. 1:38some of your revenue dashboards, I want
44. 1:39to show the audience watching here that
45. 1:41this is legit. Could you pull up what
46. 1:42you built?
47. 1:43>> Yeah, of course. Card Stock is a sports
48. 1:46card value scanner. So, if you have no
49. 1:48idea what the value of your card is, you
50. 1:51can [music] use your phone's camera to
51. 1:53identify the card, find its value. You
52. 1:57can your cards to your collection
53. 1:59>> [music]
54. 1:59>> and track their value over time and it
55. 2:02really just helps uh collectors be able
56. 2:05to find valuable cards in their
57. 2:07collection and get what they're worth
58. 2:09from them. CardStock is sitting at about
59. 2:1215,000 [music] active subscriptions and
60. 2:15up to like 75k
61. 2:18monthly recurring revenue. We get about
62. 2:20like 13,000 downloads a
63. 2:23month. This is Scanemon. Basically the
64. 2:25same app but for Pokémon cards. We
65. 2:27launched it only a year ago but we've
66. 2:30been doing pretty good with it. It's
67. 2:32been slowly climbing. We're currently
68. 2:34sitting at about like 3,400 active
69. 2:36subscriptions, 17k monthly recurring
70. 2:39revenue, about 16,000
71. 2:42>> [music]
72. 2:42>> new customers a month, which is actually
73. 2:44more than CardStock, which is pretty
74. 2:46impressive given how long CardStock's
75. 2:48been around for.
76. 2:49>> I think that's super cool. Let's talk
77. 2:50about your background. How do you get to
78. 2:52the point where you have two apps making
79. 2:54over a million dollars a year?
80. 2:55>> Yeah, it's been a long process. I
81. 2:58definitely really always loved anything
82. 3:01coding development-related when I was
83. 3:03younger. My parents had me doing like
84. 3:06coding camps type of things. Found my
85. 3:08way into an iOS development course.
86. 3:12Decided it was boring and was just going
87. 3:13to try to make a game on my own. Making
88. 3:16a little iOS game called Snake In. That
89. 3:18was really fun. And then eventually
90. 3:21found my way into trying to make
91. 3:22CardStock. Trying to just like know that
92. 3:25I have a problem and looking for the
93. 3:27solution until I found it. And then it
94. 3:29grew and grew from there. When I started
95. 3:31CardStock, it was just me and I saw my
96. 3:35friends were going to have to work
97. 3:37stupid jobs at like Kohl's and a
98. 3:39restaurant. So, I asked them if they
99. 3:41wanted to come help and split the rev
100. 3:43three ways even though there was
101. 3:44basically no revenue and they didn't
102. 3:46know how to code very much. So, I taught
103. 3:48them how to do that. We spent like
104. 3:51two or three years doing that together
105. 3:53where I was, you know, taking 100%
106. 3:55ownership but like helping them.
107. 3:57>> Personally, I love Kyle's approach to
108. 4:00building. It's proof that the best app
109. 4:01ideas come from personal problems that
110. 4:04you notice in your own life. But most
111. 4:06people just scroll past these
112. 4:08potentially great ideas every single day
113. 4:10without realizing it. Well, this is
114. 4:12exactly why we put together the
115. 4:14million-dollar problems database. Inside
116. 4:16this database, you will find 90-plus
117. 4:18business ideas [music] that have real
118. 4:20revenue numbers behind each one. The
119. 4:22goal of this is to show you real painful
120. 4:24problems and the solutions that solve
121. 4:26them that are making over a million
122. 4:28dollars a year. Your next app idea might
123. 4:30be hiding right here in this database or
124. 4:33it may give you some ideas on what
125. 4:35painful problems are worth solving in
126. 4:36your life. Nothing to lose by
127. 4:38downloading that link right now
128. 4:39>> [music]
129. 4:39>> and get some ideas. All right, let's go
130. 4:41back to the episode. I think that's
131. 4:43super cool, but what I want to dive into
132. 4:44a little bit more is the actual build of
133. 4:46these apps that you built. How did you
134. 4:48actually go about building this and how
135. 4:49did you turn it into something that
136. 4:50millions of people have used?
137. 4:52>> So, Cardstock is built using
138. 4:55Swift and SwiftUI and it uses Core Data
139. 4:59for the storage of stuff. I built it
140. 5:02just mostly with Stack Overflow.
141. 5:05Eventually, we built out into adding
142. 5:07like third-party SDKs like RevenueCat
143. 5:09for subscriptions. When I did get there,
144. 5:12I needed a back-end server for the card
145. 5:15database. So, I did that on AWS EC2
146. 5:18server.
147. 5:18>> Walk me through like the actual like
148. 5:20timeline of that. Like how long did it
149. 5:22take to get to the place where someone
150. 5:24actually paid money?
151. 5:25>> I started building in winter of 2019
152. 5:31and so then I finished it and gave a
153. 5:33Reddit update post about having
154. 5:35completed it. And then so I got my first
155. 5:37downloads pretty quick immediately. I'd
156. 5:40say all in all probably like six months
157. 5:42from idea to completion with like a
158. 5:45three-month gap in the middle. When I
159. 5:47built Scanemon, it was really different
160. 5:49from Cardstock cuz I built Scanemon last
161. 5:51year in 2025. I tried to generate it,
162. 5:55basically have Cursors agent generate
163. 5:57everything, and it did insanely well.
164. 6:01The MVP for Scanemon I made in a day.
165. 6:04>> That takes me to my next topic here.
166. 6:06What's like the full tech stack of your
167. 6:07two apps?
168. 6:08>> The main things we use are Codex, so
169. 6:10like via ChatGPT subscriptions, Notion,
170. 6:14Cursor, Slack, Framer for our website,
171. 6:17Claude, mainly for co-work for me,
172. 6:19Supabase, Railway, Code Rabbit,
173. 6:23WhisperFlow, Granola, a lot of things.
174. 6:25>> Cool. All right, well, thanks for
175. 6:26sharing your tech stack. One reason why
176. 6:28I wanted to bring you on the channel is
177. 6:30that you built like these really cool
178. 6:31businesses from your hobbies. Can you
179. 6:32tell me more about how you came up with
180. 6:34the idea, validated it, and, you know,
181. 6:36were confident enough that this could be
182. 6:38a business idea that could make a lot of
183. 6:39money?
184. 6:40>> The way I thought about it originally is
185. 6:42I've been collecting cards since I was a
186. 6:43kid. I was just like, I want to catalog
187. 6:47my cards, and I want to sort them, and I
188. 6:49realized I would have no way to know
189. 6:52what card was which if I couldn't
190. 6:54physically be with my collection, no
191. 6:56matter how well I sorted them. And that
192. 6:58got me thinking of like, oh, okay, well,
193. 7:01I'm [music]
194. 7:01sure I could digitize this and put it on
195. 7:03my phone. There's got to be an app for
196. 7:05that. And so I went on the App Store,
197. 7:07and there was no app for it. So, I was
198. 7:10like, well, I want to build one. I've
199. 7:12just always wanted to work for myself
200. 7:14doing something I love, and what better
201. 7:16way than solving your own problems to do
202. 7:18that.
203. 7:19>> So, even though you have a couple really
204. 7:21successful apps under your belt, you
205. 7:23still can't guarantee success. I think
206. 7:25that's a good lesson for anyone watching
207. 7:27this that you still have to go through
208. 7:29all those learnings to figure out if
209. 7:31this thing can actually work.
210. 7:33>> Yeah, basically, regardless of whether
211. 7:35you make money after doing all these
212. 7:37steps and building your app, publishing
213. 7:40it, trying to market it, if you can
214. 7:42solve a problem for yourself, the odds
215. 7:44are other people have that problem. Now,
216. 7:46will they maybe pay for it? Like, I
217. 7:48don't know. But, either way, you if you
218. 7:50build an app for something you're
219. 7:51passionate about and solve through a
220. 7:53problem, you've won, no matter what, cuz
221. 7:56you've solved your problem.
222. 7:58>> Yeah. I want to dive a little bit more
223. 8:00into that. Give me the step-by-step
224. 8:01breakdown of like how you would find an
225. 8:04app that could potentially make a
226. 8:07million dollars a year.
227. 8:08>> Step one is to find a problem or
228. 8:11opportunity, create some sort of notes
229. 8:14document or anything in your phone where
230. 8:16you can write down ideas. If you don't
231. 8:18have problems in your life that you
232. 8:20realize you're doing some slow arduous
233. 8:22task that's repetitive, you are not
234. 8:25paying attention. Step two is to
235. 8:27determine a solution. The version that
236. 8:29solves the problem most minimally. Like,
237. 8:32what's the quickest solution? Step
238. 8:34three,
239. 8:35build it. Most people, I think, have
240. 8:37been overestimating how hard it is to
241. 8:39build apps, and AI just makes them
242. 8:40realize that it's actually easy. Once
243. 8:42you have a build, you probably want to
244. 8:45>> [music]
245. 8:46>> monetize it, and the best way to do that
246. 8:48is with something like Superwall or
247. 8:51RevenueCat. I'm almost certain that the
248. 8:53AI could just completely implement this
249. 8:55on its own nowadays. The AIs can even
250. 8:58drive your browser. I've been doing that
251. 8:59a lot lately. And so, they can probably
252. 9:02walk you through all the exact steps to
253. 9:03get your Superwall paywall set up. And
254. 9:06if not, there's wonderful people you can
255. 9:08reach out to there probably happy to
256. 9:10help you because you making any chance
257. 9:12of money helps them make money. So, I'm
258. 9:14sure their support lines would help, but
259. 9:17it's really not that hard.
260. 9:18>> Okay, so that's all on the build stuff,
261. 9:20which I think is awesome. How would you
262. 9:21think about marketing an app in 2026?
263. 9:24What would be your kind of step-by-step
264. 9:25there to figure that one out?
265. 9:26>> [music]
266. 9:26>> We've had so much success with TikTok
267. 9:28slideshows. They're very simple, they're
268. 9:30very repeatable. You come up with a
269. 9:32format, you find out what converts, and
270. 9:34[music]
271. 9:35you find out what gets views, and you
272. 9:36find the balance of those two things to
273. 9:39drive downloads and it's very hard to
274. 9:41attribute but if it's the only thing
275. 9:42you're doing it's very easy to
276. 9:43attribute. Use noise [music] it's a
277. 9:45platform that allows you to distribute
278. 9:48TikTok slideshows to creators.
279. 9:50>> [music]
280. 9:51>> They receive a template that they post
281. 9:53and you pay for the amount of views they
282. 9:56they get. [music] You can also start
283. 9:58with just TikToks on your own account or
284. 10:00making a few accounts and [music] seeing
285. 10:02if they get enough views and validate it
286. 10:04that way. And especially if you have
287. 10:06more time to burn that's a pretty good
288. 10:08way to validate it.
289. 10:09>> Let's switch topics a little bit and
290. 10:11show off your app. Show me how it works.
291. 10:12I'd love to just see like what you built
292. 10:14and you could do a quick demo for us.
293. 10:16>> Okay, so you can see when you
294. 10:19load the app you get a vision of
295. 10:21>> [music]
296. 10:21>> your scan, the card it matched, and
297. 10:24it'll show you the market value, all the
298. 10:25info. You can click on the market value
299. 10:28and see more info about the card along
300. 10:31with the most recent [music] sales which
301. 10:33is super important to collectors. And
302. 10:35then if the [music]
303. 10:37app didn't match for whatever reason you
304. 10:39can go edit the info actually and
305. 10:41[music]
306. 10:43the try to like identify a card that
307. 10:46like even wasn't [music]
308. 10:47found at all. And then from there you
309. 10:50can add it to your collection and see it
310. 10:53within
311. 10:54that part of the app and see all your
312. 10:56cards together in the lists and with the
313. 10:58values.
314. 10:59>> Okay, cool. I mean that app is awesome.
315. 11:01The last question that we ask all
316. 11:03founders to come on Starter Story. What
317. 11:04will be your advice to your younger self
318. 11:06before you started building or for
319. 11:08anyone watching this who wants to build
320. 11:10stuff, make money, and build cool stuff?
321. 11:13>> I think my best advice to myself in the
322. 11:17past would definitely be that people are
323. 11:21usually happy to help and share
324. 11:22information. People who do something
325. 11:25very successfully
326. 11:27love to talk about how they were
327. 11:28successful and how they did well. And
328. 11:31don't worry about bothering people and
329. 11:34they'll let you know if they're
330. 11:35bothered.
331. 11:36>> Well, that's great advice. It's the
332. 11:37exact premise behind all of Starter
333. 11:38Story. People like you don't have to
334. 11:40come on and share how they built their
335. 11:42app or how much money their app makes,
336. 11:44but they do even though you don't stand
337. 11:45to benefit a whole lot from it. You come
338. 11:47on here and you share everything that
339. 11:48worked and all of our other guests do
340. 11:51the same. Thank you for coming on and
341. 11:52sharing everything.
342. 11:54Uh let us know in the comments if you're
343. 11:55watching this if you made it to this
344. 11:56point and what you think uh about these
345. 12:00apps and everything that Kyle built.
346. 12:02Thanks for coming on Kyle and sharing.
347. 12:04>> Thank you.
348. 12:05>> Gus from Starter Story, what did you
349. 12:07think of Kyle and his two apps that are
350. 12:10making over a million dollars a year?
351. 12:11>> Yeah, I think I loved his vibe. You
352. 12:14know, I think we talked to a lot of guys
353. 12:16obviously and some of them are like
354. 12:19really analytical or really like I don't
355. 12:21know.
356. 12:22I don't want to say anal, but like
357. 12:24really like sort of anal about what
358. 12:25they're building or how they're finding
359. 12:27their ideas and Kyle was just like
360. 12:30I like I like cards and I mean he it
361. 12:32wasn't so simple as that. He was like,
362. 12:33"I like these cards. This is fun for me.
363. 12:35I'm having a good time and so that's
364. 12:36what I want to do."
365. 12:38And I just [music] loved that approach.
366. 12:40It's so like I don't know.
367. 12:42It feels so approachable, you know, like
368. 12:44anyone can think of like, "What do I
369. 12:45like? And let me see what I can build."
370. 12:47And I like I like what he said about
371. 12:48some of those things.
372. 12:49>> [music]
373. 12:49>> But yeah, that's kind of my first
374. 12:51impression.
375. 12:51>> Yeah.
376. 12:52No, it's
377. 12:54super spot on. A lot of people we talk
378. 12:56to, what I notice and just in founders
379. 12:58in general is like um there's a lot of
380. 13:00anxiety and stuff like that and I think
381. 13:03that's actually like a superpower for a
382. 13:05lot of people who are builders, but this
383. 13:07Kyle is like definitely the opposite of
384. 13:09that, like super chill, just like, you
385. 13:11know, like
386. 13:12it's not that complicated. I just build
387. 13:14this and I market it and that's that's
388. 13:17what I really like about
389. 13:19>> [music]
390. 13:19>> like his approach is that like he
391. 13:21doesn't overthink things, right? He just
392. 13:23kind of says, "All right, this is this
393. 13:24is what I'm doing."
394. 13:25>> Yeah, I think that's why I love I wanted
395. 13:27to bring him on is because it feels like
396. 13:29something
397. 13:31the way he talked about building and and
398. 13:33stuff just feels like something really
399. 13:34anyone can do and like like he said
400. 13:36during the interview
401. 13:39and he was just like yeah if you want to
402. 13:40go learn it you can go learn it ask AI
403. 13:42you know you can read read up on some
404. 13:44blogs and you can go do it.
405. 13:45>> Yeah, I mean building around your
406. 13:47hobbies I feel like right now is just
407. 13:49like one short window of time where
408. 13:51building something around your hobbies
409. 13:53can actually turn into a million dollar
410. 13:54business like it's kind of hard to do
411. 13:56some years ago and then in the future
412. 13:58when everything's automated I don't know
413. 14:00if it'll be possible but like AI has
414. 14:02enabled you to
415. 14:03have an like see a problem right now
416. 14:06that you're experiencing in your daily
417. 14:07life and ship it within a few hours and
418. 14:09then test it in the market and I think
419. 14:11that's like if you're watching this
420. 14:13right now just try it just get started
421. 14:15go through your day and write down a few
422. 14:17problems as Kyle said and see if you can
423. 14:19turn those into a real thing. If you're
424. 14:21trying to do the same check out the
425. 14:22description right now we have our
426. 14:23database of one million dollar problems
427. 14:26that are worth solving. If you can't
428. 14:27think of any problems right now check
429. 14:29that out you'll find a bunch of problems
430. 14:31that are actually worth solving I would
431. 14:32definitely recommend going down there
432. 14:34and checking that out and downloading it
433. 14:36for 100% for free.
434. 14:37>> [music]
435. 14:37>> All right guys thank you guys for
436. 14:39watching let us know what you thought
437. 14:40about this episode otherwise we'll see
438. 14:42you in the next one. Peace.