AI Summary
5 min readLouis Pereira built a makeup app called Glow Up that generated $800,000 in revenue in its first year, reaching 100,000 users within three days of launch and hitting #1 in the Lifestyle category and #4 overall in the free App Store. The app now earns roughly $15,000 per month from a subscription model ($9.99 per week or $39.99 per year) and has accumulated about 2 million total users and 70,000 paying customers. What made this outcome different from Pereira's previous app failures was not technical skill but a complete reversal of his build-first approach.
Finding the idea by reading TikTok comments
Pereira had spent years building apps that went nowhere. His pattern was consistent: come up with an idea, build it, then try to market it after launch. The result was always zero users and zero revenue. For Glow Up, he and a co-founder did the opposite. They started by observing that makeup content was enormous on TikTok, then went directly to the comment sections of popular makeup videos. They read what people were asking for, what problems they kept repeating, and what they wished existed. The core insight was not that makeup was a big market—that was obvious—but that users were explicitly describing a gap: they wanted to see how makeup looks would appear on their own face without buying products and applying them physically. Pereira and his co-founder began creating content
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What you'll learn
- 1 (02:08) **From App Graveyard to $800K in a Year** - Louis introduces himself and his app, Loa, which lets users try on makeup looks with AI. He reveals the headline numbers: $800K total revenue, $15K/month, 2 million total users, and hitting #1 in the Lifestyle category.
- 2 (04:23) **Background: The "Build-First, Market-Never" Trap** - Louis shares his background as a software engineering dropout who built many apps that failed because he focused on building before marketing.
- 3 (05:07) **The Idea Discovery: Mining TikTok Comments** - Louis explains how he and his co-founder found the app idea by studying TikTok, not by brainstorming in a vacuum.
- 4 (06:20) **Step-by-Step TikTok Playbook: Warming Up the Account** - Louis details the first critical steps to setting up a TikTok account for a new niche, especially if you're outside the US.
- 5 (07:23) **Step-by-Step TikTok Playbook: Posting and Scaling** - Louis lays out the strategy for posting content and scaling up once initial traction is found.
- 6 (11:04) **Step-by-Step TikTok Playbook: Adding the Entry Point** - Louis explains the crucial timing of adding a download link to the viral videos.
- 7 (11:34) **Step-by-Step TikTok Playbook: Account Multiplication** - Louis describes the final scaling tactic: creating multiple accounts to maximize content output.
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Show Notes
My mobile app made $800K in 365 daysSharing ideas that make money! ------- Keywords: app store success, app flipping, passive income, app monetization, app marketing
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