AI Summary
5 min readIn 2023, Steven Cravada's app Puff Count—a tool to help people quit vaping—generated $43,000 in a single month, and over $112,000 in the preceding 90 days. Cravada has amassed more than twelve million total app downloads, and he built his first app with zero coding experience. He does not design or develop anything himself. "I just have the idea and I know how to put a team together," he says. The episode is a step-by-step walkthrough of how he does it, from idea to paywall.
Finding the idea: scratch your own itch, then check the data
Cravada's ideation process is deliberately simple: he takes mental notes of problems he experiences in his own daily life. "If you're building an app from the position of solving a problem for yourself, you become the ideal user," he explains. This makes you better at creating the product and communicating its value. For Puff Count, the problem was obvious—he wanted to quit vaping.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (02:41) **Meet Steven and His Viral App Business** - Steven Cravada introduces himself and his app Puff Count, which is generating $40,000 per month.
- 2 (04:02) **Step 1: Ideation - Solving Your Own Problems** - Steven describes his process for finding app ideas by focusing on his own daily frustrations.
- 3 (05:38) **Step 2: Validating Your Idea with Market Research** - Steven explains how he confirmed the market for Puff Count before building it.
- 4 (06:24) **Step 3: Designing the App with No Skills** - Steven walks through his process for turning an idea into a visual design without any design experience.
- 5 (07:19) **Step 4: Building the App with No Code** - Steven explains how to hire a developer and build the actual app without writing any code.
- 6 (09:37) **Trusting Your Developer and Overcoming Fear** - Steven addresses the common fear of having your app idea stolen by a developer.
- 7 (10:14) **Step 5: Marketing - The 95% of Success** - Steven reveals his primary marketing strategy, which centers on TikTok.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Guests on this episode
Show Notes
How I Built It: $40K/Month iPhone App
This is how Steven Cravotta built a viral iPhone app to over $40,000/month.
📚 52+ Micro-SaaS Business Ideas → https://www.starterstory.com/micro?utm_campaign=stevencravotta&utm_source=youtube
Follow Steven's Journey 🐦 Twitter - https://x.com/StevenCravotta 🎥 YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@stevencravotta 🎥 Steven's Wordle Story - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFWQzrBmLyc
🔔 Subscribe - https://www.youtube.com/@starterstory 📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/starter_story/ 🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/thepatwalls
Sharing ideas that make money!
Disclaimer: This podcast is published by a viewer using content from Starter Story's YouTube channel with the goal of making his valuable insights more accessible to those who prefer audio formats, helping more people discover and learn from the insights shared in his videos. It is not an official production of Starter Story. For any requests from Starter Story, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
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-------- Keywords: app flipping, business podcast, tech entrepreneur, bootstrap startup, tech business, startup advice, side hustle, mobile app success
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