I make $10K/month from 28 apps | Starter Story

Max, a full-time iOS engineer and father of two, was stuck. For years, he poured time into a single mobile pet project, trying every growth technique he could find, and got nowhere. Then in February of this year, he saw a video by Adam Sliders that changed his entire approach. The insight was simple: instead of obsessing over one perfect app, build many simple ones, ship them fast, forget about them, and move on. In eight months, Max shipped 28 apps. They now bring in $10,000 a month in revenue from over 1,000 subscribers and 4,000–5,000 daily users. Four of those apps each generate roughly $1,500 a month; the rest make small amounts. As Max puts it, it is a clear example of the 80/20 rule.

Finding Ideas by Searching for Keywords, Not Problems

Max’s process begins not with a problem to solve, but with a keyword. His logic: when a user has a problem, they open the App Store and type a search term. He uses an App Store Optimization (ASO) tool called Astro to pick a category that interests him and search for relevant keywords. He targets keywords with at least 20% popularity and no more than 60% difficulty. He also looks for clusters of closely related keywords—for example, “Physics AI,” “Chemistry AI,” and “Math AI” all target students but solve slightly different problems. This lets him reuse code and launch quickly into adjacent niches.