I rebuilt a $1B app and now make $14K/month
Starter Story
Oct 16, 2025
Denis Yurchak was scrolling Twitter in March when he saw Pieter Levels tweet about Skype shutting down and how big of a loss it would be. Six months later, he runs a $15K MRR with 10,000 users mini-skype. This video breaks down his weekend MVP sprint, how he automated support to stay solo, and why timing a product launch around a billion-dollar company shutdown created instant demand.
🛠️ Want to build your own app with AI? Check out Starter Story Build → https://build.starterstory.com/build/ai-build-accelerator?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=denis
Denis' app: https://www.yadaphone.com
Follow Denis: https://x.com/denisyurchak
🔔 Follow the Second Channel: @StarterStoryBuild
🏁 We're hiring: starterstory.com/jobs
Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
0:54 - Who is Denis
1:13 - Numbers behind Yadaphone
1:59 - What is Yadaphone
3:09 - Non-technical background
4:08 - The $100K tweet
5:08 - Building the app in a weekend
6:30 - How to get users overnight
7:51 - What made Yadaphone successful
8:39 - Denis' successful app playbook
11:54 - Tech stack
12:33 - Do this from Day 1
13:44 - The final word
This video is an educational case study of one founder’s experience. It is not financial advice and does not guarantee any income or results. Every business is different and your results may vary.
Chapters
Stack
Transcript
Chapters
Stack
No tools listed for this business.
When
I
heard
Skype
was
shutting
down
I
saw
an
opportunity
This
is
Denis
a
self
taught
developer
who
came
across
a
golden
opportunity
a
tweet
When
I
saw
the
tweet
I
thought
why
not
me
Right
after
seeing
this
tweet
he
got
to
work
He
built
a
prototype
in
a
weekend
and
got
his
first
paying
customers
almost
immediately
After
I
did
this
I
got
my
first
sale
in
minutes
In
just
seven
months
he
went
from
nothing
to
a
14
000
per
month
app
and
he's
just
getting
started
I
brought
Denis
onto
the
channel
to
break
down
exactly
how
he
did
this
and
in
this
video
we'll
dive
into
how
he
built
his
MVP
in
just
one
weekend
his
exact
Reddit
launch
strategy
that
got
him
sales
in
minutes
and
his
playbook
on
how
you
can
do
exactly
the
same
thing
if
you
build
apps
in
proven
markets
This
story
is
amazing
and
I'm
excited
to
share
it
with
you
guys
I'm
Pat
Walls
and
this
is
Starter
Story
All
right
Denis
welcome
to
the
channel
Tell
me
about
who
you
are
what
you
built
and
what's
your
story
Hello
my
name
is
Denis
I
built
Yadaphone
It
makes
14
000
a
month
I
launched
it
in
March
2025
days
after
Microsoft
announced
that
it
was
closing
Skype
and
in
under
seven
months
we've
gone
from
zero
customers
to
10
000
registered
users
Okay
seven
months
to
get
to
14
000
MRR
is
insane
Can
you
share
some
more
of
the
numbers
behind
this
very
fast
growth
So
in
the
first
month
when
we
just
launched
Yadaphone
made
4
000
Two
months
three
we've
climbed
to
10
800
And
last
month
so
on
the
sixth
month
of
the
existence
of
Yadaphone
it
made
13
300
In
these
seven
months
in
total
we
reached
more
than
10
000
registered
users
4
500
became
paying
individual
customers
And
as
we
also
have
a
B2B
segment
we
have
20
enterprise
clients
In
September
Yadaphone
users
made
in
total
27
000
calls
And
this
statistic
means
that
at
any
given
moment
in
September
somebody
was
using
my
website
to
make
a
call
Okay
let's
dive
into
this
very
fast
growing
app
here
It
sounds
like
it's
something
similar
to
Skype
but
can
you
explain
to
me
what
Yadaphone
is
and
what
type
of
customers
use
it
Yadaphone
lets
people
make
and
receive
cheap
international
calls
right
in
browser
International
calls
are
generally
very
very
expensive
A
10
minute
call
could
easily
cost
you
between
50
and
100
depending
on
your
country
and
provider
Yadaphone
solves
this
problem
by
using
the
voice
over
IP
technology
That
means
that
you
can
call
any
mobile
or
landline
number
for
cents
Our
clients
are
travelers
expats
or
just
in
general
businesses
that
need
to
make
a
lot
of
calls
Yadaphone
is
a
pay
as
you
go
international
calling
service
And
that
really
differs
us
from
most
of
the
other
competitors
out
there
because
the
others
operate
on
a
SaaS
model
That
means
that
if
you
are
an
individual
customer
you
need
to
buy
a
subscription
that
usually
costs
30
a
month
or
more
And
if
you're
a
business
you
need
to
buy
a
seat
or
a
subscription
for
each
of
the
members
of
your
organization
We
allow
businesses
to
just
purchase
a
certain
number
of
credits
credits
and
then
all
of
the
organization
members
of
this
business
can
just
use
this
central
balance
to
make
calls
Whenever
you
run
out
of
credits
you
can
just
top
them
up
and
that's
it
Okay
before
we
get
into
the
idea
and
how
you
came
up
with
it
I
want
to
know
a
little
bit
more
about
your
background
I
understand
you
don't
come
from
a
crazy
technical
background
Can
you
tell
me
a
little
bit
more
about
that
I
have
no
technical
background
whatsoever
I
actually
am
a
trained
diplomat
so
I
used
to
study
for
diplomatic
work
in
Russia
Then
I
moved
to
Austria
I
quickly
understood
that
I
wanted
to
work
in
a
startup
as
a
programmer
so
I
taught
myself
how
to
code
in
two
months
mainly
with
books
and
courses
Then
I
actually
started
working
at
the
company
and
I
realized
that
this
is
not
the
thing
for
me
I
want
to
have
my
own
startup
instead
of
working
at
somebody
else's
company
I
started
to
do
freelancing
to
support
myself
At
any
given
moment
I
was
working
on
something
on
the
side
and
my
first
projects
they
were
ugly
They
had
no
users
Then
slowly
with
each
of
them
with
each
of
my
projects
I
learned
one
thing
or
the
other
My
design
started
to
be
better
My
code
started
to
be
more
reliable
With
each
of
the
projects
I
just
learned
something
new
and
eventually
it
all
piled
up
into
this
set
of
skills
that
ultimately
let
me
build
YottaPhone
I
love
that
you
built
a
lot
of
projects
and
you
built
up
a
lot
of
skills
that
eventually
led
you
to
the
right
timing
to
build
something
that
took
off
which
ended
up
being
YottaPhone
Can
you
give
me
a
little
bit
more
details
about
how
you
found
the
idea
for
YottaPhone
I
travel
a
lot
When
it
comes
to
government
offices
banks
businesses
migration
authorities
they
are
not
on
messenger
apps
The
only
way
to
call
them
if
you
need
something
is
physically
making
a
call
and
doing
it
abroad
is
freaking
expensive
I've
always
been
using
Skype
for
that
I've
been
their
loyal
client
and
then
in
March
2025
Microsoft
announced
that
they
were
closing
it
down
Then
I
saw
a
tweet
by
Peter
Levels
saying
that
he
and
his
friends
were
also
using
Skype
and
he
was
quite
pissed
that
Microsoft
was
closing
it
down
He
encouraged
people
publicly
to
build
a
Skype
alternative
and
I
thought
why
not
me
Turns
out
I'm
not
the
only
person
using
Skype
to
make
international
calls
which
I
didn't
know
And
then
I
just
built
a
quick
prototype
over
the
weekend
I
launched
it
on
Reddit
and
X
and
got
my
first
sales
in
minutes
which
never
happened
to
me
before
in
any
of
my
previous
projects
Okay
I
mean
that's
amazing
You
saw
an
idea
on
Twitter
you
had
built
up
all
these
skills
from
all
these
kind
of
previous
projects
and
you
decided
to
build
it
Can
you
go
a
little
bit
deeper
on
how
you
actually
built
this
app
When
I
first
started
building
my
site
projects
I
just
used
React
JavaScript
HTML
CSS
regular
stuff
Then
Next
js
came
out
and
it
turns
out
that
you
can
build
stuff
pretty
quickly
with
it
So
I
used
Next
js
as
a
full
stack
framework
for
my
application
I
used
Courser
and
LLMs
but
it
doesn't
always
look
great
So
I
had
to
correct
a
lot
of
things
and
tweak
stuff
on
the
design
site
manually
Okay
what
I
love
about
the
story
Dennis
is
that
you
built
this
tool
in
just
one
weekend
You
didn't
spend
months
planning
or
overthinking
the
idea
You
had
already
built
the
skills
Now
it
was
time
to
just
execute
You
built
a
simple
landing
page
and
you
just
launched
it
And
this
is
proof
that
when
you
actually
learn
to
build
and
ship
your
life
can
change
in
just
one
weekend
And
this
is
exactly
what
we
do
inside
Starter
Story
Build
It's
our
program
where
you
will
learn
how
to
build
and
launch
your
project
project
using
AI
coding
tools
in
just
a
couple
weeks
The
best
part
is
that
you
don't
even
need
to
know
how
to
code
You
can
just
show
up
follow
our
building
framework
and
finally
ship
that
idea
to
the
world
Our
next
AI
Build
Bootcamp
is
starting
this
week
So
if
you
are
ready
to
build
head
to
the
first
link
in
the
description
to
claim
your
spot
All
right
let's
get
back
to
the
interview
Okay
so
you
mentioned
that
you've
launched
this
and
you
got
users
overnight
That's
obviously
not
the
case
for
a
lot
of
people
watching
this
They
probably
built
stuff
and
that
didn't
happen
Tell
me
the
exact
things
you
did
that
made
this
app
successful
so
quickly
Back
then
I
didn't
have
any
social
media
audience
whatsoever
I
used
to
have
60
followers
on
Twitter
for
years
but
I
knew
how
Reddit
works
And
the
thing
about
Reddit
is
that
you
can
get
millions
of
impressions
without
having
any
followers
at
all
I
launched
products
in
it
before
I
got
blocked
a
lot
but
I
knew
how
to
write
stuff
up
which
subs
to
target
which
tone
of
voice
to
use
So
I
decided
to
launch
primarily
on
Reddit
My
first
posts
were
just
screenshots
of
the
core
functionality
of
my
app
which
I
think
really
made
it
stand
out
It
was
a
very
simple
and
clean
web
dialer
interface
and
a
couple
of
sentences
about
the
product
I
wrote
to
the
subreddits
for
travelers
because
I
thought
that
this
is
my
main
core
audience
I
got
blocked
there
really
fast
and
it
was
quite
demotivating
But
before
I
got
blocked
I
had
enough
time
for
the
users
to
see
my
posts
The
most
crazy
thing
is
that
I
got
the
first
sales
minutes
after
my
first
Reddit
posts
I've
never
seen
anything
like
that
before
and
that
was
a
clear
sign
that
my
idea
was
validated
Then
I
started
posting
regularly
on
subreddits
for
entrepreneurs
A
very
good
thing
about
entrepreneur
subreddits
is
that
there
you
can
first
of
all
showcase
your
project
promote
your
project
yourself
and
you
can
also
post
links
to
your
projects
and
you
don't
get
blocked
for
this
In
the
first
week
I
got
150
users
Okay
so
that's
amazing
You
post
on
Reddit
it
got
blocked
but
you
still
got
paying
users
I'm
curious
You
had
a
bunch
of
apps
that
you
built
before
They
clearly
didn't
have
this
sort
of
validation
or
traction
What
do
you
think
you
did
right
or
got
right
with
YottaPhone
I
think
the
key
thing
about
this
idea
is
that
it's
not
an
idea
at
all
It's
a
validated
market
which
was
first
validated
with
the
tweet
by
Peter
Levels
I
saw
and
then
by
sales
I
got
from
my
Reddit
posts
Apart
from
that
it
was
a
combination
of
very
good
timing
because
at
the
time
Microsoft
announced
it
was
closing
Skype
down
people
started
looking
for
alternatives
That
created
a
lot
of
virality
around
all
posts
that
were
connected
with
this
and
a
big
news
event
The
third
component
is
that
I
just
had
enough
skills
at
that
point
that
I
could
create
something
that
looked
good
solved
a
real
problem
and
people
are
willing
to
pay
for
it
Okay
so
that's
amazing
Proven
market
a
little
bit
of
timing
and
you
had
set
yourself
up
for
success
I
think
that's
a
great
recipe
That
brings
me
to
my
next
question
for
anybody
watching
this
If
you
were
to
start
over
again
what
would
be
your
playbook
to
build
a
successful
app
like
YottaPhone
right
now
I
would
say
that
the
first
step
is
find
the
market
market
where
your
competitors
are
dinosaurs
They
are
old
fashioned
and
slow
moving
YottaPhone
is
not
the
only
app
on
the
market
that's
offering
international
calling
I
have
competitors
and
they've
been
on
this
market
for
20
some
cases
for
30
years
But
the
thing
is
that
those
kind
of
companies
are
very
slow
to
change
and
to
adapt
to
changing
market
conditions
Those
markets
have
validated
demand
and
you
can
get
usability
and
design
really
fast
better
than
those
old
fashioned
competitors
Step
two
build
your
MVP
really
fast
and
start
posting
about
it
everywhere
On
X
Reddit
LinkedIn
whatever
social
media
you
can
find
Your
MVP
doesn't
have
to
be
perfect
Try
to
nail
design
and
usability
Make
sure
that
your
core
feature
works
well
In
the
case
of
YottaPhone
that
was
plainly
making
an
outbound
call
from
the
app
And
make
sure
you
have
a
compelling
story
to
tell
This
is
especially
important
for
Reddit
because
people
there
are
really
fast
to
scroll
and
they
will
disregard
stuff
that's
not
interesting
for
them
My
story
was
of
a
lone
engineer
that
was
standing
up
to
take
the
place
of
a
giant
company
Step
three
when
a
big
competitor
leaves
they
have
a
lot
of
articles
still
mentioning
them
And
that's
a
great
chance
to
rank
on
keywords
keywords
that
would
you
otherwise
never
have
a
chance
to
rank
for
without
a
high
domain
authority
website
People
think
you
need
to
be
a
big
established
company
to
get
mentioned
in
high
authority
blog
posts
and
articles
But
this
is
just
not
true
My
process
was
like
this
and
it's
really
simple
I
looked
for
the
keywords
that
I
wanted
to
rank
on
like
for
example
Skype
alternative
Then
I
found
the
blog
posts
that
were
ranking
there
and
tried
to
find
the
authors
of
those
blog
posts
Sometimes
it
was
X
sometimes
LinkedIn
sometimes
email
But
I
just
wrote
directly
to
the
authors
asking
whether
they
could
mention
Yadafone
They
either
agreed
to
add
my
tool
to
their
blog
posts
or
just
replace
Skype
with
Yadafone
altogether
And
this
felt
crazy
because
Yadafone
replaced
a
giant
well
established
brand
name
That
obviously
draws
a
lot
of
traffic
to
my
website
Step
four
keep
iterating
I
used
to
text
every
single
paying
customer
for
six
months
asking
for
feedback
I
just
said
hey
I'm
Denis
the
founder
of
Yadafone
I
would
be
thrilled
to
know
what
you
think
about
the
app
and
how
your
experience
was
so
far
This
is
time
consuming
and
you
don't
always
have
the
energy
as
a
founder
for
it
But
this
is
immensely
helpful
because
it
helps
you
figure
out
what
are
your
user
segments
and
who
your
app
is
serving
the
best
And
also
it's
catching
the
bad
reviews
early
and
you
have
the
chance
to
react
to
bad
experiences
with
your
app
before
people
go
and
give
you
bad
reviews
Step
five
create
a
B2B
app
as
soon
as
possible
Enterprise
has
bigger
checks
and
much
lower
churn
When
I
started
with
Yadafone
I
thought
it
would
be
a
pure
B2C
app
for
travelers
and
expats
to
call
abroad
I
created
my
enterprise
plan
totally
by
accident
A
guy
texted
me
in
the
middle
of
the
night
asking
if
Yadafone
has
an
enterprise
plan
for
his
organization
I
said
of
course
we
do
And
to
tell
you
a
secret
we
didn't
I
coded
my
enterprise
plan
in
a
panic
mode
through
the
night
because
the
next
morning
I
had
to
live
demo
it
in
front
of
this
customer
By
the
way
he
is
still
a
Yadafone
customer
paying
around
1
000
for
it
each
month
So
yeah
that
would
be
my
playbook
if
I
was
starting
today
Thanks
for
sharing
that
I
think
that
was
awesome
I'm
going
to
switch
topics
a
little
bit
and
I
want
to
learn
about
how
you
built
this
What's
your
tech
stack
What
kind
of
tech
are
you
using
to
build
the
software
I
use
Cursor
for
coding
and
also
sometimes
for
writing
copy
Bristle
for
hosting
my
solution
I
do
my
keyword
research
with
Ahrefs
and
I
use
Stripe
for
payments
Also
with
AI
it's
very
easy
to
build
your
own
custom
solution
I
built
my
own
system
for
handling
support
requests
and
admin
panel
with
Cursor
Cursor
I
catch
most
support
requests
early
so
that
I
can
regulate
my
workflow
I
can
be
very
efficient
with
support
and
can
afford
to
stay
solo
founder
thanks
to
it
My
main
cost
is
Twilio
that
is
handling
calls
and
I
pay
them
around
35
of
my
monthly
earnings
Okay
thanks
for
sharing
that
and
being
transparent
about
the
numbers
The
last
question
that
I
have
for
you
that
we
ask
all
founders
who
come
on
Starter
Story
For
anyone
who's
watching
this
that
wants
to
start
something
like
you
a
B2C
app
a
SaaS
anything
online
what
would
be
your
advice
I
would
advise
to
do
search
engine
optimization
from
day
one
and
you
have
to
be
very
patient
with
it
I
think
SEO
is
pure
magic
to
most
developers
because
it
doesn't
come
naturally
to
us
We
are
used
to
quick
feedback
loops
You
change
something
in
your
code
editor
seconds
after
you
see
the
changes
taking
effect
in
your
local
host
With
CEO
it's
not
the
case
CEO
changes
take
weeks
sometimes
even
months
but
it
pays
off
immensely
My
competitors
started
ranking
better
for
the
keywords
I
targeted
even
though
I
was
first
to
the
market
market
I
looked
at
the
SEO
chatted
a
lot
with
Chad
Dubity
about
it
and
then
it
turns
out
it
was
a
very
small
stupid
detail
My
sitemap
didn't
have
a
three
W
prefix
and
Google
just
ignored
all
the
pages
I
wanted
to
rank
So
you
have
to
be
very
attentive
to
details
with
SEO
Okay
thanks
for
coming
on
Dennis
I'm
going
to
be
checking
my
sitemap
right
after
this
and
make
sure
I
got
that
www
in
there
But
dude
you
built
an
awesome
business
It's
insane
how
fast
this
is
growing
Hope
a
lot
of
people
watching
enjoyed
this
interview
and
got
inspired
Thanks
for
coming
on
Thank
you
Pat
I
was
glad
to
be
here
Okay
thank
you
to
Dennis
for
coming
on
to
the
channel
I
think
this
is
an
amazing
idea
because
this
happened
in
just
the
last
seven
months
and
this
is
proof
that
building
in
proven
markets
is
the
way
to
build
an
app
in
2025
And
this
is
why
we
launched
Starter
Story
Build
which
is
your
opportunity
to
learn
how
to
use
AI
coding
tools
to
build
and
launch
fast
So
when
that
opportunity
pops
up
just
like
it
did
for
Dennis
you'll
be
ready
to
build
If
you
are
ready
to
build
and
actually
launch
something
head
to
the
first
link
in
the
description
to
check
out
Starter
Story
Build
All
right
that's
it
for
this
episode
Thank
you
guys
for
watching
I'll
see
you
in
the
next
one
Peace
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