This summary covers concrete strategies for achieving $25,000+ per month in revenue from a mobile app. The core idea is to quickly turn a great idea into an app, filter for ideas with real market potential, focus on marketing and distribution before optimizing the app itself, maximize conversion by improving onboarding once you have sufficient user traffic, and finally drive sustained growth through product improvement and scaling.

1. The Opportunity in Mobile Apps — and the Most Common Mistakes 📈

We are living in the greatest era of opportunity to build serious wealth through mobile apps! Thanks to AI, apps can be built in days — the barrier to entry has never been lower, and the market has never been bigger. There are plenty of people making $20K, $50K, even $100K a month from a simple app they built over a weekend.

But most people will miss this opportunity. Not because they aren't smart or can't build apps — building an app has gotten easy — but because getting the word out about an app is still hard.

In this post, I'm going to share everything I learned scaling Prayer Lock to $25K/month with a 50% profit margin, holding nothing back. 🚀

The biggest mistake is building ten apps at the same time. That only lowers your chances of success. Other people may seem to be winning with multiple apps, but they all figured out how to succeed with one app first, then expanded. When you're a beginner, there's too much to learn and too many unexpected problems — splitting focus across multiple apps just creates chaos.

"You might look at other people's results and think you can easily replicate them (to some extent you can), but you need to realize they all share one thing in common: they cracked the code on a single app."

In a world of infinite software, making less is paradoxically more important than ever. Endlessly building apps is no different from chasing cheap dopamine. Building is easy; distribution can be scary. But that's the way the world works now — it can't be avoided. Anyone can build an app, so don't think of yourself as special. If you don't accept that reality, you'll regret it later.

2. What to Build — and When to Quit 🤔

So what should you build? And how do you know when to keep going with an app versus when to move on to a new idea?

Two ways to decide what to build:

1. Take a successful app and add your own personality: Simply cloning isn't great. Add your own personality, color, mascot — whatever makes the app feel like yours. 🤩

   • When we built Prayer Lock, we referenced the very successful Pray Screen app and made our own version. Looking back, the design philosophy is completely different and they look nothing alike.

   

2. Combine the core features of two successful apps: For example, Pray Screen combined the ideas of Opal and a prayer app; our new app Step Lock combines a walking app with Opal. This approach is harder, so if you're just starting out, go with the first method.

Use AI tools — Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Rork — and move as fast as possible. Speed matters: from idea to launch should take no more than two weeks. I won't cover app design, screenshots, and logo prep here, but let me know if you'd like me to!

How to know whether to keep going or quit:

Successful apps get traction on launch day. If you've launched multiple apps before, you know that most of them get zero response on launch day — even with Apple's initial boost. But an app that will succeed will generate one or five trials or direct conversions on day one.

In my case, I launched three religious apps before Prayer Lock with zero day-one conversions, even after going viral on TikTok. But Prayer Lock had five conversions on its first day.

"If you get no conversions on launch day, try going viral on social media. If you hit 100K views and still get zero conversions, move on to your next app idea."

3. An App Is a Funnel: Why Marketing Is Everything 🎯

An app is ultimately a funnel.

At the top of the funnel is distribution — eyeballs, social media views. At the bottom is actual conversion — people paying for the app.

When you're just starting out, there is absolutely no need to optimize anything below the top of the funnel. Improving animations, making the mascot cuter, changing colors, optimizing retention, adding new features, even optimizing onboarding — all of it is a waste of time at this stage.

"But Mau, if the app isn't optimized, won't conversions be low even when downloads are small?"

That's fine! With 100 downloads, there's nothing to optimize or change. You could even argue the same is true at 5,000 downloads. So don't touch the app at all until your distribution engine is working properly.

4. Four Distribution Strategies for Your App 📣

Here are four ways to distribute your app:

1. Make content yourself
2. Hire influencers
3. Hire UGC creators
4. Run paid ads

Which approach you take depends on how much money you can invest in the app right now. The more you invest, the faster you'll succeed.

It took me three years and ten attempts to reach $25K/month because I started with nothing. Others reached the same number in a few weeks because they had capital from previous ventures to invest.

If you have a technical background like me, you especially need to get comfortable spending money. Stop saving $9 a month on tools your business needs to grow. That mindset can persist until you need to spend thousands per week. Start investing now.

4.1. Make Content Yourself (Best for Beginners! 💡)

Whether you have no distribution experience or plenty of money to invest, making your own content is the best starting point. It builds your sense of what goes viral and gives you the foundation to know what to look for when you eventually hire influencers or UGC creators.

• Post 21+ times per day: Target at least 21 posts per day across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts. This sounds hard, but it means creating 7 posts a day and cross-posting them to each platform.
• Copy your competitors' content: What to create depends on your niche. Literally copy what your competitors are making. Use the same hooks, scripts, even the same call-to-action wording.

Content formats worth trying:

1. UGC Reaction + Demo

   • The most reliable format. This is how our app reached $2,500/month.
   • Buy reaction clips from friends or platforms like the Amazon Influencer Program, then stitch in an app demo.
   • The hook — the combination of the clip and any text overlay — needs to be excellent. Keep the demo under 8 seconds.

   

2. Slideshows

   • Another highly effective format. Many apps make $20K+ per month on slideshows alone. They also work well as ads.
   • Avoid letting the account turn into a random Pinterest feed of pretty but unrelated images.
   • Keep the slideshow account consistent, draw direct inspiration from competitors, and include a clear CTA driving app downloads. Build a brand identity around your slideshows.

   Example of a good slideshow account: consistent brand identity.

   Example of a bad slideshow account: no consistent format or brand identity.

3. The Jack Friks Method

   • Not the highest-converting format, but easy to produce in volume.
   • The headline presents a flattering or relatable identity label; four image cards show traits, hobbies, or behaviors that fit that label.

   

4. Video Hook + CTA

   • Not the highest converting format, but very easy to automate. We're on track to become the first mobile app to earn a YouTube Play Button entirely from fully automated content using this format.
   • The key is taking the first three seconds of another creator's viral video as a hook, then transitioning into a CTA for your app in a way that feels natural to the viewer.
   • We use a scraper to pull video hooks, then a Python script to stitch them together — 700 clips in 30 minutes, batch scheduled.

   Video hook + CTA example

5. Memes

   • Works well on Instagram but not the recommended format for a first attempt. Great for brand awareness, and effective when combined with Manychat automations and Instagram Stories to convert followers into app downloads.
   • Recommended approach: activate a meme account, copy viral meme clips, and add your own captions.

4.2. Hire Influencers (Great for Scaling! 🌟)

Influencers are a solid way to scale your app. Many great apps have grown through influencer partnerships — but running influencer campaigns properly requires real investment and effort.

• Minimum $10K budget: Many influencers won't deliver, so plan for at least $10,000.
• Send 100+ DMs per day: DM influencers in bulk. Most won't reply, so open with something that grabs attention like "Paid Promo Opportunity." Keep messages short and punchy.
• Pick the right influencers:
  • They should be in your app's niche or able to appeal to your target customers.
  • They should have high engagement rates.
  • Check the comment section to see if people genuinely care about this creator. The best influencers have followers who truly follow them.
• Don't reveal deal terms over DM: Sharing terms in DMs gives the influencer time to think and puts you at a disadvantage. Instead, get on a call as fast as possible — or at minimum send terms via text message.
• Target $1 CPM: Look for deals where the cost per 1,000 views is close to $1. We start with "trial" deals at 40% upfront for 300K views at $1 CPM, then move to $1.20 CPM ongoing.

4.3. Hire UGC Creators (The Holy Grail of Mobile App Scaling 👑)

Often called the best way to scale a mobile app today. You hire micro-influencers or emerging creators to make content exclusively for your app.

But successfully building an army of UGC creators is much harder than X (Twitter) makes it sound. Managing creators to produce on-brand content, constantly checking in, tracking performance, hiring new creators, firing fast, paying them — it's an enormously complex process.

For these reasons, I don't recommend UGC campaigns for new developers who have no distribution experience or no co-founder. A UGC campaign takes up most of your time and is essentially a full-time job in itself.

That said, if you pull it off, the results are extraordinary and you'll gain a skill that pays forever. For me, UGC campaigns are the Holy Grail of distribution — the hardest challenge with the biggest impact. (Our app doesn't currently run one, though I do have experience with them.)

• Same high-volume outreach as influencers, but slightly different: The first step is similar mass outreach, but you're looking for something different. For influencers, you mainly reach out via Instagram and email; for UGC creators, TikTok is the primary channel.
• Follower count doesn't matter: Don't care about it at all. Instead, find creators who have made two or three viral videos, have presence and charisma on camera, and communicate well. UGC campaigns are fundamentally about taste and a sense for what goes viral — which is what makes them interesting and difficult.

4.4. Paid Ads (Advanced Level 🚀)

This is my specialty and how I scaled Prayer Lock from $2,500/month to $25,000/month at a 50% margin.

Most people either ignore paid ads entirely or start them too late — or too early. I saved this channel for last on purpose. Do not start with paid ads.

Ads work best when you already have content that has proven itself organically. That content can be posts you made yourself, or content made by influencers or UGC creators.

So before jumping into ads, make sure your content system is already in place. You don't need a lot of content — five high-quality pieces per week is enough to begin ad testing. "High-quality" here doesn't mean great production or editing; it means content that works organically.

Don't make vague posts that convert only through the comment section. Your ads should be what I call "Organic Ads": posts with a very organic-feeling hook that feel like genuine organic videos to users, while containing a clear, direct CTA.

Paid ads are the only distribution channel on this list that you should not start until you've properly mastered onboarding. You need at minimum a 10% download-to-trial conversion rate for this to work.

5. Optimizing Onboarding: The Core of App Success 🔥

Now it's time to move to the next step in scaling to $25K/month. Once your content engine is running and the top of your funnel is reasonably solved — meaning you're getting at least 300 downloads per day — it's time to go back to the product.

Instead of adding new features or optimizing retention, you need to go all in on onboarding.

Onboarding is without question the most important part of your app. If you're reading this and haven't launched yet, try to build the onboarding right from the beginning. Don't wait. The only reason I mention onboarding as the third step is to get you into marketing as fast as possible.

Everything to consider when designing onboarding:

• A three-act story: Think of onboarding as a story in three acts.
  • Act 1: Present the problem.
  • Act 2: The user experiences the app.
  • Act 3: Set up the paywall.
• Copy and improve: Don't design onboarding from scratch. Study the best onboarding in your niche and beyond, figure out what works, then make it your own.
• Create an "aha" moment: You need at least one aha moment — a screen that stops users in their tracks and makes them feel the weight of their own problem. It should happen within the first minute.
• Make users recognize the problem themselves: Most developers use onboarding questions to learn about users, but the real purpose is the opposite: make users reflect on their answers and convince themselves they have a problem worth solving.
• Reflect answers back: Every few questions, show users their own answers back to them so they feel the experience is being built specifically for them.
• Longer onboarding converts better: The longer the onboarding, the higher the conversion — as long as every screen adds value. People hate losing what they've already invested in. If someone has spent 10–15 minutes in onboarding, they'll think twice before abandoning at the paywall.
• Let users experience the core feature: During onboarding, have users actually use the app's core feature. Don't just tell them what the app does — make them do it.
• Show the review modal: Immediately after the user completes the core feature, at their peak excitement, show the review modal. This is the single most important action for App Store Optimization (ASO) and social proof. Most users won't pay — but they can leave a review, and those reviews accumulate over time and bring in more organic downloads for free.
• Apply Robert Cialdini's principles of persuasion: Ask ChatGPT about Robert Cialdini's principles of persuasion, and apply especially the commitment principle to your onboarding. Getting users to explicitly acknowledge their commitment before reaching the paywall significantly increases conversion. If you want to go deeper, read the book.

At this stage, do nothing except nail the onboarding. Iterate until you're consistently hitting a good conversion rate of at least 10%. I'll include a link to the canvas I used when designing our onboarding — it includes the apps that inspired me and our own onboarding flow.

6. Scaling and Sustained Growth 🚀

At this point you have a solid app, excellent onboarding, and a reasonably good distribution system. You're now ready to scale the app to $25K+/month.

At this stage, the focus is mainly on scaling the distribution system — more ad spend, more UGC creators, more influencers, more self-made content.

As you scale marketing efforts, you'll gather a lot of user feedback, and now is finally the time to improve the product. Don't over-feature the app — be very deliberate about what you add and why.

Make data-driven decisions and don't add features impulsively. Only add what's truly necessary.

Always try to optimize toward revenue events. For example, instead of adding a useless feature, focus on improving the trial-to-paid conversion rate (if you have a trial period).

Even at this stage, you should still be spending 90–100% of your time on marketing.

Conclusion 🌟

That's everything it takes to build a truly successful app. Is it easy? It depends on how quickly you can let go of app development in favor of marketing. Is it simple? Yes — if you follow the steps I've laid out, there's no room to fail.

You might fail on the first few attempts. That's okay. I launched more than ten apps before having a successful one. The key is obsessive, single-minded focus — one app at a time, one thing at a time.

Right now we are living through the greatest opportunity of our lives. Nobody knows how long it will last, but one thing is certain: mobile apps are in a golden age, and now is the time to build serious wealth through them.

It's okay if you know nothing about marketing (I didn't either). It's okay if you're not technical (I came from finance). It's okay if you have no money (I started with nothing).

What are you waiting for? Get started right now! 💪