This crazy simple app makes $50K/month — Transcript

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1. 0:00What if you could change your life in
2. 0:01just 6 months? And what if all it took
3. 0:04was a simple idea and the willingness to
4. 0:07put in the work? Well, I want you to
5. 0:09meet Lino.
6. 0:10>> I launched my first app AbMax about 5
7. 0:13months ago, and now we're on pace to hit
8. 0:1560K this month. And I didn't even know
9. 0:17how to write code. I didn't even know
10. 0:19how to prompt.
11. 0:19>> 6 months ago, he had never built an app
12. 0:21before in his life. And in fact, he'd
13. 0:24never even written a single line of
14. 0:26code. But, he just started learning from
15. 0:29people in the app space, shipped his
16. 0:31first app, and today that app that he
17. 0:33built is about to hit $60,000 a month.
18. 0:36[music]
19. 0:36>> Our product is super niche, which is why
20. 0:39I think we're performing extremely,
21. 0:41extremely well.
22. 0:42>> So, I asked Lino to come on to the
23. 0:44channel and break down exactly what he
24. 0:45built and how he did this. In this
25. 0:47episode, we're going to dive into his
26. 0:49dead simple app that now makes $60,000 a
27. 0:51month, how he went from zero users and
28. 0:54no distribution to thousands of
29. 0:56downloads, and his very simple advice
30. 0:59for how to build a successful app in
31. 1:002026. Guys, this one you are not going
32. 1:03to want to miss it. Let's dive in. This
33. 1:06is Starter Story.
34. 1:08All right, Lino. Welcome to the channel.
35. 1:10I'm pumped to have you on here. Let's
36. 1:12get into it. Tell me about who you are,
37. 1:14what you built, and what's your story.
38. 1:15>> So, I'm Lino Leiden. I launched my first
39. 1:18app AbMax about 5 months ago, and now
40. 1:20we're on pace to hit 60K this month.
41. 1:22Today, I'm excited to share more about
42. 1:24the process of how I was able to scale
43. 1:26to these kind of numbers in such a short
44. 1:28amount of time with literally zero
45. 1:30coding experience and absolutely not
46. 1:32technical at all.
47. 1:33>> Let's get into the business and the app
48. 1:36itself. So, just explain what AbMax is
49. 1:39in a few sentences and then pull up your
50. 1:41RevenueCat dashboards to show off the
51. 1:43revenue and show us that this thing is
52. 1:44legit.
53. 1:45>> So, AbMax is basically an app to help
54. 1:47people achieve their best abs. And
55. 1:49basically, what we do is we have users
56. 1:51fill out some basic info about their
57. 1:52fitness journey, and we tailor them a
58. 1:54custom abs plan specifically for each
59. 1:57user, alongside pre-made training
60. 1:59programs and workout program
61. 2:01specifically targeting their abs. Okay,
62. 2:03yeah, so our monthly revenue is just
63. 2:05about $55,000 this month, and we are
64. 2:07currently have 16,000 downloads in the
65. 2:10past 28 days, and we have just over
66. 2:123,000 active paying customers.
67. 2:14>> Cool, so how do you come up with this
68. 2:16app idea?
69. 2:17>> Yeah, so actually I was back in back in
70. 2:19February, and I went to the gym with all
71. 2:21my friends. Everyone kept comparing
72. 2:23about who has better abs. So like, oh, I
73. 2:25have better abs than you. I have better
74. 2:26abs than you. And I just kept that kept
75. 2:28thinking like everyone cares about their
76. 2:30abs. And then I started to do a little
77. 2:32research, and then I found out that the
78. 2:34if someone wanted to get abs in 2026,
79. 2:37there was absolutely no place for them
80. 2:39to go. So I thought of a good solution
81. 2:41where why don't I make an app that helps
82. 2:43people achieve abs and help them get
83. 2:45visible abs. Yeah, and that's basically
84. 2:47how I came up with AbMax.
85. 2:49>> All right, what I love about Lena's
86. 2:50story is that he changed his life in
87. 2:52just 6 months. He found a really smart
88. 2:54category, built his simple app, and now
89. 2:56today that app makes $60,000 a month.
90. 2:58And the way he found his app idea was
91. 3:00really simple. He looked at stuff that
92. 3:01was already working, and kind of remixed
93. 3:03it for 2026. And that's exactly why we
94. 3:05put together this free database of iOS
95. 3:07app ideas that are already making money.
96. 3:08Every idea in this database comes with
97. 3:10real numbers, revenue, pricing models,
98. 3:12growth tactics, all from real app
99. 3:14founders that have built successful
100. 3:15[music] app businesses. So, if you're
101. 3:17looking for your next app idea, it might
102. 3:19be hiding right here in this database.
103. 3:21Just head to the link in the description
104. 3:23and grab it 100% for free. All right,
105. 3:25let's get back to Leno.
106. 3:26>> 100%.
107. 3:28This is what I love about what you
108. 3:29built. And I remember 20, 10, 20 years
109. 3:32ago when I was a kid just like watching
110. 3:34TV, they would have these ads for like
111. 3:375-minute abs. And you'd buy some sort of
112. 3:39device or some sort of workout thing.
113. 3:42Back then it was like Bowflex or
114. 3:43something like that, but they would
115. 3:44market it specifically for if you want
116. 3:46abs for the summer. You're essentially
117. 3:48doing this in, you you a modern social
118. 3:51media way. So I think that's amazing.
119. 3:54That's actually a super super smart
120. 3:56insight. If you went and just built the
121. 3:58total workout tracker, yes, there are
122. 4:00successful versions of those, but it's
123. 4:02way better to niche down. The next thing
124. 4:03I want to ask you about is how you built
125. 4:05this cuz we were chatting earlier.
126. 4:07You're 18 years old. You have no
127. 4:09technical background. You told me you
128. 4:10don't know anything about how to build
129. 4:12apps. For the people who are that are
130. 4:13watching this on here, I want to hear in
131. 4:15just the 5-6 months that this app has
132. 4:17grown [music] and become successful, how
133. 4:19did you actually build this? What was
134. 4:20the actual build journey? How did you
135. 4:22originally build it? What tools did you
136. 4:24use? And how did you build this thing?
137. 4:25>> Yeah, so I originally built this in
138. 4:27Lovable back in February. And this is
139. 4:29when I didn't even know anything about
140. 4:31apps. I didn't even know what RevenueCat
141. 4:33was. I didn't even know what an
142. 4:34onboarding was. And I spent 2 months
143. 4:36manually prompting this old project in
144. 4:39Lovable. After 2 months, I was ready to
145. 4:42launch. And just before launch, I was
146. 4:44like, there's absolutely no way I can
147. 4:46release this. This is This is terrible.
148. 4:48So, I decided to rebuild the entire
149. 4:50thing back in Vork. And this is when I
150. 4:53started to get onto X and starting to
151. 4:55follow all these other successful app
152. 4:57founders. And I picked up a lot of great
153. 4:59advice about not only how to vibe code,
154. 5:01but also some like onboarding tactics,
155. 5:03how to market, all like the insider
156. 5:06advice you need that is working for
157. 5:08their apps. I put that advice and put it
158. 5:10towards my app. And I I was able to
159. 5:12build AppMax V2 basically in Vork in 1
160. 5:16month. And I was ready to ship. And then
161. 5:18after the first month, we did just over
162. 5:20$7,000 in revenue.
163. 5:22>> Could you walk through like what your
164. 5:23actual tech stack looks like right now?
165. 5:25Like if you had to start over, what's
166. 5:27the tech that you're using? What tools?
167. 5:29>> I keep it super simple. I have Supabase
168. 5:31for authentication. I use VorkMax for
169. 5:34the development. I use Sensor Tower
170. 5:36basically for competitor and idea
171. 5:37research. I use sign.com for creator
172. 5:40contracts and agreements. And I use
173. 5:42Posthog for internal analytics.
174. 5:44>> Okay, so you mentioned something earlier
175. 5:46you use sign.com for creator contracts.
176. 5:49I'm guessing that may be how you've
177. 5:51grown this thing cuz, you know, anybody
178. 5:53can build an ad maxing app, but is it
179. 5:56going to get any downloads if you don't
180. 5:57do any marketing or advertising?
181. 5:58Probably not. So, let's talk about this.
182. 6:00First, I want to hear from you, when you
183. 6:02just created the app, how did you go
184. 6:03from zero to the first 10K per month?
185. 6:06What was the overall marketing strategy
186. 6:08and what really like worked for your
187. 6:09app?
188. 6:10>> I started running UGC with these big
189. 6:12influencers in the fitness niche, which
190. 6:14is probably one of the biggest mistakes
191. 6:16I've ever made. We were blindly going
192. 6:18into this. We didn't even have a winning
193. 6:19format or a winning content strategy to
194. 6:22offer these influencers before spending
195. 6:24thousands of dollars for each video. So,
196. 6:26that's probably the biggest mistake. And
197. 6:28so, alongside that, we were also running
198. 6:30faces TikTok slideshows, which I was
199. 6:32manually posting on my own. The big UGC
200. 6:34deals alongside these TikTok slideshows
201. 6:36helped us get up to 3 to 4K in revenue,
202. 6:39but the problem was our margins were
203. 6:41terrible. We were running at like 5 to
204. 6:4310%, which is why I came up with the
205. 6:45idea and we partnered up with a big
206. 6:47fitness influencer on social media in
207. 6:49return for some equity, which helped us
208. 6:51get the ground running off the start,
209. 6:53which I would recommend to any
210. 6:54inexperienced founders who are looking
211. 6:56to get the ground running off launch.
212. 6:57[music]
213. 6:58>> I think that's actually really smart.
214. 6:59Instead of going to all these little
215. 7:02creators and making these small deals
216. 7:04and maybe one of them works, but most of
217. 7:06them don't. You just said screw that,
218. 7:07instead I'm just going to find an equity
219. 7:09partner who has some skin in the game
220. 7:11and then all the ads are essentially
221. 7:13free and they have like more incentive
222. 7:15to actually make this thing work. So,
223. 7:17that's pretty much the secret to how you
224. 7:19got to 10K. Go find someone with
225. 7:21distribution who is good at social media
226. 7:23content. Then, how do you take it from
227. 7:2510K a month to 60K a month? Were you
228. 7:27just doubling down on that or like what
229. 7:29was working?
230. 7:30>> Yeah, so basically, we cut out every
231. 7:32single UGC deal, every influencer deal,
232. 7:35and we started to double down on what
233. 7:36was working for us. And we found out
234. 7:38that our meta ads were running at like a
235. 7:40two two to 2.5x ROAS, and they were
236. 7:43extremely profitable. So, we just
237. 7:45started doubling down on Meta Ads, and
238. 7:47we only stuck with our one big creator
239. 7:50that we gave equity to, and he would
240. 7:51just create content for us, and we would
241. 7:53just run paid ads behind it strictly
242. 7:55through Meta. As well, during that
243. 7:56process, we decided to take all of our
244. 7:58creatives from Meta and move them over
245. 8:00to TikTok ads alongside that, and for
246. 8:03some reason they performed five to six x
247. 8:06better. The same exact creatives were
248. 8:08able to we were able to get four to five
249. 8:10x ROAS on the same creatives. Mainly
250. 8:12because on TikTok, it targets a younger
251. 8:14audience, and Meta's more of an older
252. 8:16audience. So, our target user is
253. 8:18anywhere from 15 to 30 years old, and
254. 8:20with TikTok, we were able to resonate
255. 8:22and target with that specific user
256. 8:24extremely well.
257. 8:25>> But I what I want to ask you is, you
258. 8:27know, you you've done this so fast in
259. 8:29the past 6-7 months, you went from zero
260. 8:31to six almost 60k per month, and
261. 8:33obviously growing more. There's lots of
262. 8:34people who watch this channel who, you
263. 8:36know, want to change their lives as fast
264. 8:38as you did. If you were starting over,
265. 8:40trying to find an idea, build it, what
266. 8:42steps would you take to to make that
267. 8:44happen all over again?
268. 8:45>> Yeah, so first thing, hands down, is to
269. 8:47get inside of the X app community and
270. 8:49start following these top founders
271. 8:51there. All these founders give out so
272. 8:52much sauce and advice there for
273. 8:54literally free. Then, I would go on to
274. 8:56Sensor Tower and start looking up some
275. 8:58ideas you have for apps and start trying
276. 9:00to find the hot niche right now. The way
277. 9:02to find this is by looking up potential
278. 9:04app ideas in there, and if there are a
279. 9:06ton of apps in that niche consistently
280. 9:08doing over 10k a month, then that's a
281. 9:10niche you want to build in. Yeah, so
282. 9:11step two is post before building. Once
283. 9:14you have your app idea, if you want to
284. 9:15validate it even more before you even
285. 9:17start building it, I would make a
286. 9:18faceless TikTok page and start promoting
287. 9:21your app through organic TikTok
288. 9:22slideshows and start posting three to
289. 9:24four times a day. However, since your
290. 9:26app is not built, instead of giving them
291. 9:27a CTA on a specific slide, I would
292. 9:30replace the CTA with comment app, and I
293. 9:33will send it to you. Like, for example,
294. 9:34if If building a calorie tracking app,
295. 9:36the first slide would have to be five
296. 9:38ways to improve your life, let's just
297. 9:40say. Slide one, walk 10,000 steps a day.
298. 9:43Slide two, work out seven times a week.
299. 9:45Slide three, eat extremely clean. Slide
300. 9:48four, use this app blank to help you
301. 9:51blah blah blah. Comment app and I'll
302. 9:53send you it. And if you're posting three
303. 9:55or four three or four of these a day,
304. 9:56and after seven days you start seeing a
305. 9:58bunch of comments, people commenting
306. 10:00app, that means there's serious demand
307. 10:01for this product and you're now you're
308. 10:03able to spend the time and build the
309. 10:04product and go all in because the idea
310. 10:06is 100% validated. Step three, ship in
311. 10:09seven days. I would build out the
312. 10:10product in Roark or whatever tool you
313. 10:13prefer, and I would try to ship in seven
314. 10:15days or less. The biggest mistake I see
315. 10:17is founders overly obsessing over the
316. 10:19product and spending two to three months
317. 10:22to launch, which I personally
318. 10:23experienced myself. You can always
319. 10:25improve the product later after launch.
320. 10:27Just try to get it out there and start
321. 10:29optimizing for your metrics and start
322. 10:31marketing and start bringing in revenue
323. 10:33before you start adding that extra
324. 10:35leader board feature or the extra sound
325. 10:38app. Yeah, so step four, I would look
326. 10:40for micro influencers. Now, once you're
327. 10:42in the app store, now what I would do is
328. 10:44look up keywords in your niche on
329. 10:46Instagram and TikTok and try to find
330. 10:48smaller creators who have 500 to 1,000
331. 10:50followers who post consistently. I would
332. 10:53reach out to them and pay them like $100
333. 10:55for 10 videos and have them test out a
334. 10:57bunch of different hooks, formats, and
335. 10:59CTAs for my app. The goal would be for
336. 11:01this is just to find your winning
337. 11:03content style before putting any serious
338. 11:05money behind it. Step five would be
339. 11:07scaled marketing. Now, once you found
340. 11:09out which style performs the best, I
341. 11:11would start running a UGC campaign
342. 11:13either through SideShift Tribe, or you
343. 11:15can even manually source creators and
344. 11:17manage them separately, which I would
345. 11:18highly recommend. For UGC, I would
346. 11:20highly recommend hiring a VA on Fiverr,
347. 11:23which is extremely inexpensive, and have
348. 11:25him cold DM hundreds of creators in your
349. 11:27niche who fit your criteria. And for me,
350. 11:29my criteria was anywhere from 5 to
351. 11:3250,000 followers, they post
352. 11:33consistently, they show their face, and
353. 11:36they have an active comment section.
354. 11:37Those are all like the checklists. Now,
355. 11:39once you're sitting at around 10 to 15
356. 11:41creators posting consistently, and you
357. 11:43have a bunch of creatives, now you can
358. 11:45start running paid ads behind those
359. 11:47creatives. So, once your UGC and paid
360. 11:49ads are stable and profitable, I would
361. 11:50go back and completely revamp the
362. 11:52product and try to make it correct where
363. 11:54you can hire a developer or a product
364. 11:57engineer or something along those lines.
365. 11:59Now, you can obsess over the product
366. 12:00once your marketing is stable and you're
367. 12:02at 5 to 10k per month.
368. 12:05>> Okay, cool. Lino, thanks for sharing
369. 12:06that playbook. What I'm curious to see
370. 12:08is the actual app that you built. I'd
371. 12:11love to see the app, Max app, how it
372. 12:13works, what it does, how fancy it is.
373. 12:16Would you be able to show me the app
374. 12:17that made over $50,000 a month?
375. 12:20>> Yeah, so if you go over here, you're
376. 12:22actually able to scan your abs and get a
377. 12:24whole breakdown of like your lower ab
378. 12:26score, your body fat percentage, and
379. 12:28find out like exactly what's holding
380. 12:30back your abs, whether it's body fat
381. 12:31percentage, whether it's a muscle, your
382. 12:33lack of muscle. And then from here, we
383. 12:35have a bunch of pre-made workout plans
384. 12:38and training programs you can follow. Me
385. 12:40personally, I've been following the
386. 12:41summer ab shredder, which is like a
387. 12:4330-day plan that you can follow to help
388. 12:45you get shredded for the summer. Yeah,
389. 12:47so that's pretty much Ab Max, super
390. 12:48simple. And I was actually the first one
391. 12:50to come up with this idea, believe it or
392. 12:52not, and there's zero competitors in
393. 12:54this niche, which is kind of crazy.
394. 12:57>> You mentioned that, you know, you were
395. 12:58the first to come up with this app idea.
396. 13:01Here's the thing, anybody can build an
397. 13:03Ab Max app, right? Building it is not
398. 13:05the hard part. Hopefully, if you're
399. 13:06watching this video right now, you're on
400. 13:08YouTube watching this, and you've made
401. 13:10it this far, and you understand that the
402. 13:11secret sauce has nothing really to do
403. 13:13with how you built it. It's it's the
404. 13:14marketing strategy, it's the
405. 13:15distribution, it's everything that you
406. 13:17figured out at such a young age. So, my
407. 13:19last question for you, if you could give
408. 13:21some advice to the people watching this
409. 13:23right now trying to figure out how to
410. 13:25not only just build apps, but actually
411. 13:27build an app that is crushing it and
412. 13:29making a lot of money like yours. What
413. 13:30would that advice be?
414. 13:31>> This kind of goes for any business. It's
415. 13:34simply just do not give up and stop
416. 13:37comparing yourself to all these people
417. 13:39you see on social media who are doing
418. 13:40six figures, seven figures. Don't
419. 13:42compare your level two or your level
420. 13:44three to someone else's level and just
421. 13:46focus on your path and what's ahead and
422. 13:49what's the next step for you. You're
423. 13:50going to go through some tough times
424. 13:52where you literally think your life is
425. 13:54over. Like I experienced it. I thought
426. 13:55my life was over. Looking back on it
427. 13:57now, it was no big deal. But you just
428. 13:59have to keep going and as long as you
429. 14:01never give up and you show up every day
430. 14:03and you continue getting better, it's
431. 14:04physically impossible for you to lose.
432. 14:06Like it's physically impossible for you
433. 14:08to lose as long as you simply just never
434. 14:10give up and get better every day and
435. 14:12keep on showing up.
436. 14:13>> Well, that's great advice, Lino. You're
437. 14:15crushing it. You're not even in college
438. 14:19or you decided not to go to
439. 14:20>> I dropped out after my first semester of
440. 14:22freshman year, actually. So
441. 14:23>> Yeah, you you realized that you can do
442. 14:25this, watch a YouTube video, go on X,
443. 14:28meet with founders, and you can build
444. 14:29stuff that changes your life in six
445. 14:31months, which is what you did. Hopefully
446. 14:33people watching this are still watching
447. 14:34this by now to show that this is
448. 14:35possible. Lino, what you built is
449. 14:37awesome. Thanks for coming on. Thanks
450. 14:38for sharing everything so openly, even
451. 14:40though you're probably have a few
452. 14:41copycats. Thanks for coming on.
453. 14:43>> Thank you for having me.
454. 14:45>> All right, Gus, producer and co-host of
455. 14:47Starter Story. What do you think about
456. 14:48Lino and the app Max app?
457. 14:51>> I hope people can really start to
458. 14:53understand through all of our interviews
459. 14:54like there's so many app ideas out there
460. 14:56that like are making money. It's a It's
461. 14:58It's so crazy to me. It's just like an
462. 14:59app Max idea seems just so like almost
463. 15:03unbelievable and yet he's still very
464. 15:05successful. And he's so young. And so
465. 15:06those are some of the things I'm
466. 15:07thinking about is like, man, you can
467. 15:08really make money with anything.
468. 15:10>> No, I agree. It's uh It's not that
469. 15:12complicated, you know? Like um there's
470. 15:14not some crazy marketing strategy to
471. 15:17take away from this. It's just like take
472. 15:19action, move forward. If someone like
473. 15:21Lino, who's 18, 19 years old didn't go
474. 15:23to college, not technical. If he can do
475. 15:25it going online and learning, watching
476. 15:27videos like Starter Story and going on X
477. 15:29and connecting with founders and
478. 15:31building an app that maxes your abs out,
479. 15:34you know, there's nothing there's
480. 15:35nothing complicated here other than this
481. 15:37guy just isn't scared to take action and
482. 15:39put himself out there and and fail.
483. 15:41>> Yeah, that's what he said to me on the
484. 15:42phone when I when I talked to him and I
485. 15:44told asked him a little bit more about
486. 15:45his background. He was just like, "Yeah,
487. 15:46I saw I thought I thought this was
488. 15:48cool." Like I thought I saw these people
489. 15:50sharing these apps on X and I thought,
490. 15:51"Man, this is really cool. I want to do
491. 15:52that, too." And he just kind of went for
492. 15:53it and I thought that was I was really
493. 15:55impressed with that.
494. 15:56>> The other thing that I think is kind of
495. 15:57cool about his app is that
496. 15:59it is like a recreation of a marketing
497. 16:03concept that's is old as time, which is
498. 16:05to get overnight abs, right? Like
499. 16:07everyone wants abs, everyone wants abs
500. 16:09for the summer. There's going to be a
501. 16:10summer every year and everyone wants to
502. 16:11go look good at the beach and whether
503. 16:13it's a
504. 16:14you know, a VHS that you buy online or
505. 16:17an app that solves that problem, that
506. 16:18problem will never go out of style. So,
507. 16:20I think that's cool. There's tons of
508. 16:22more ideas like this. As I mentioned
509. 16:24earlier, we have our iOS app ideas
510. 16:26database, which you can click through
511. 16:28right now if you go click that link in
512. 16:29the description and you can see a bunch
513. 16:31of iOS app ideas that are making money
514. 16:33or could potentially make a bunch of
515. 16:35money if you go and execute just like
516. 16:37Lino did. So, I'll put that in the
517. 16:38description. Thank you guys for
518. 16:39watching. We'll see you in the next one.
519. 16:41Peace.