Simple timer app makes $25K/month. How? | Starter Story

Lucas, a solopreneur from Germany, built what he calls "arguably the world's simplest app"—a countdown timer—and turned it into a business generating $25,000 per month in revenue. The entire thing started with a single Reddit post that got 58 upvotes. In this conversation with Matt Walls, Lucas explains how he identified a niche, validated the idea with minimal effort, and built a product that customers actually pay for, despite the app being functionally trivial.

The insight that made the difference

Lucas wasn't trying to build a timer app. He was looking for a business problem to solve. His background was in web development, and he had been freelancing and building small projects. The key insight came from observing a specific pain point: people who needed to display countdown timers on screens—in gyms, offices, retail stores, or event spaces—had terrible options. Existing solutions were either expensive enterprise software, clunky desktop apps, or required technical setup. No one had built a simple, web-based timer that just worked on any screen.