I Make $150K/Month From 20 Apps
Starter Story
Feb 9, 2026
Katie Keith runs a portfolio of plugins that generate over $1M/year in revenue. This video breaks down her multi-product playbook: how she built 20 products and how she allocates resources across them.
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Build your own apps → https://build.starterstory.com/?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=katiekeith
Follow Katie: https://x.com/KatieKeithBarn2
Check out Barn 2 Plugins: https://barn2.com/
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This video is an educational case study of this 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:
0:00 - Intro
1:52 - Apps Overview and Analytics
3:40 - Finding the first app idea
5:16 - Growth multiple products
6:23 - Make sure your app is compliant (sponsor)
7:41 - Cross-promotion growth strategy
9:08 - The multi-product playbook
11:52 - Tech stack
13:09 - Final advice
14:10 - Pat and Gus reflections
16:33 - Build your first app!!
Chapters
Stack
Transcript
Chapters
Stack
We've
built
20
different
apps
over
the
past
10
years
Meet
Katie
Over
the
past
few
years
she's
built
a
portfolio
of
19
apps
that
collectively
make
1
8
million
a
year
All
our
software
products
compound
on
each
other
What
she's
done
is
really
impressive
One
platform
19
apps
tens
of
thousands
of
paying
customers
I'd
recommend
anyone
to
diversify
their
portfolio
of
apps
Most
founders
bet
everything
on
one
product
but
Katie
did
the
exact
opposite
So
I
called
her
up
to
learn
more
about
how
she
built
and
grew
all
these
software
products
And
in
this
episode
we
will
dive
into
the
list
of
19
different
apps
that
she
built
what
most
people
get
wrong
about
the
whole
portfolio
of
software
approach
And
if
you're
trying
to
do
the
same
thing
exactly
how
to
find
the
right
first
app
idea
to
start
your
portfolio
All
right
guys
let's
get
into
it
I'm
Pat
Walls
and
this
is
Starter
Story
Okay
real
quick
before
we
dive
in
One
reason
Katie
is
successful
is
because
she
finds
ideas
builds
them
and
ships
them
fast
19
successful
apps
in
a
few
years
is
pretty
amazing
if
you
think
about
it
And
I
think
this
shipping
muscle
is
one
of
the
number
one
skills
that
separates
successful
people
from
everyone
else
So
after
watching
this
episode
and
getting
inspired
if
you
feel
like
you're
ready
to
build
your
idea
just
click
the
link
in
the
description
to
get
started
on
your
first
app
But
for
now
I
want
you
to
enjoy
this
one
Soak
it
in
All
right
guys
let's
get
into
the
episode
Welcome
Katie
to
the
channel
Tell
me
about
who
you
are
what
you
built
and
what's
your
story
My
name
is
Katie
Keith
and
I
built
a
remote
team
that
created
20
apps
that
turn
over
1
8
million
a
year
So
today
I'm
excited
to
share
more
about
my
journey
how
I
grew
the
company
and
also
how
we
balance
having
so
many
products
All
right
well
20
apps
You
run
20
different
apps
That's
crazy
Can
you
explain
how
this
even
works
How
do
you
run
20
apps
What
kind
of
apps
are
these
And
if
you
could
pull
up
some
of
your
revenue
dashboards
and
show
us
it
would
be
awesome
19
of
our
products
are
WordPress
plugins
and
the
final
one
is
our
new
Shopify
app
Our
plugins
are
fairly
simple
which
is
how
we
can
have
so
many
We've
got
one
called
Document
Library
Pro
which
lets
you
add
any
kind
of
document
library
And
we've
got
lots
for
WooCommerce
They
let
you
add
product
tables
product
options
protect
areas
of
your
store
They're
typically
I
would
say
small
to
medium
apps
that
let
you
add
specific
functionality
to
your
WordPress
website
or
WooCommerce
store
So
we
have
a
choice
of
plans
We've
got
one
site
five
sites
or
20
where
you
either
have
an
annual
subscription
or
lifetime
This
is
our
2025
revenue
You
can
see
it's
just
over
1
7
million
I
know
I
said
1
8
million
earlier
That's
because
we
have
other
revenue
streams
such
as
affiliate
income
and
we
offer
some
development
services
In
terms
of
stats
our
average
monthly
revenue
is
about
150
000
across
all
of
our
plugins
It's
higher
than
that
in
busy
months
like
November
and
lower
in
quiet
months
like
December
Over
the
entire
lifetime
of
the
business
we've
sold
9
8
million
worth
of
WordPress
plugins
Overall
we
think
that
our
plugins
are
used
on
over
90
000
sites
That's
the
premium
plugins
and
also
we
have
free
versions
of
some
of
our
plugins
So
that
is
the
total
number
For
paying
customers
we
have
17
000
on
an
active
subscription
We
do
have
more
paying
customers
than
that
because
that
doesn't
include
people
who
bought
a
lifetime
deal
which
is
about
15
of
our
revenue
We
are
gonna
talk
about
that
a
little
bit
more
I'm
excited
to
talk
about
how
you
grew
these
apps
and
I'm
sure
you're
gonna
have
a
lot
of
cool
stuff
to
share
there
But
before
we
do
let's
talk
about
ideas
Before
you
had
19
different
ideas
how
did
you
find
the
first
plugin
idea
to
start
How
did
you
find
WordPress
as
this
opportunity
How
did
this
whole
thing
get
started
How
did
you
find
the
idea
Yeah
that's
the
thing
We
never
had
19
ideas
We
did
not
sit
down
and
think
let's
build
19
WordPress
plugins
and
then
launch
a
Shopify
app
It
happened
much
more
organic
than
that
Our
first
plugin
idea
actually
came
from
online
research
There
used
to
be
a
website
called
the
WooCommerce
Ideas
Forum
and
we
chose
an
idea
idea
that
lots
of
people
were
voting
for
So
we
built
our
first
plugin
WooCommerce
Protected
Categories
that's
dead
simple
It
just
lets
you
protect
access
to
categories
in
your
online
store
And
then
our
second
plugin
was
PostTable
Pro
which
lists
any
type
of
content
from
a
WordPress
site
in
a
searchable
table
And
we
got
that
idea
from
a
client
project
We
kept
adding
features
and
released
it
as
a
premium
plugin
So
once
we've
got
those
plugins
out
there
customers
started
sending
us
requests
for
new
features
in
that
plugin
And
sometimes
it
was
best
to
achieve
that
not
through
a
feature
but
a
completely
different
plugin
So
I
would
say
get
a
product
out
there
and
then
keep
your
ears
open
to
get
those
ideas
from
your
users
because
that's
when
you
have
that
information
information
coming
into
you
without
even
needing
to
ask
for
it
And
if
you're
smart
and
you
think
creatively
that
can
lead
to
more
ideas
Okay
let's
switch
topics
a
little
bit
to
growth
You
have
20
different
plugins
that
are
all
serving
different
types
of
use
cases
and
20
different
software
businesses
That's
a
lot
For
someone
that
has
this
sort
of
portfolio
of
startups
it's
definitely
a
different
way
of
approaching
growth
Can
you
explain
what
the
biggest
needle
mover
was
when
it
comes
to
growth
Where
do
most
of
your
customers
come
from
Most
of
our
customers
have
always
come
from
organic
search
When
we
first
launched
our
initial
plugin
which
was
WooCommerce
Protected
Categories
it
was
the
only
plugin
that
did
that
That's
why
we
built
it
because
we
found
on
a
forum
that
there
was
a
gap
in
the
market
So
as
a
marketer
I
started
publishing
blog
posts
and
tutorials
about
how
to
password
protect
categories
in
WooCommerce
And
because
it
was
unique
we
got
to
the
top
of
Google
straight
away
and
we
got
our
first
sales
within
a
few
days
Now
I
know
it's
not
that
easy
to
find
a
unique
idea
particularly
10
years
later
but
that's
what
we
did
And
we've
always
been
very
good
at
producing
producing
genuinely
helpful
unique
content
about
a
wide
range
of
use
cases
relating
to
our
plugins
Katie's
story
is
incredible
1
8
million
a
year
from
19
different
plugins
But
here's
what
starts
to
happen
happen
when
you're
running
a
business
at
that
kind
of
scale
You
start
landing
bigger
customers
start
processing
their
data
and
suddenly
they're
asking
about
compliance
SOC
2
ISO
27001
these
compliance
requirements
can
become
blockers
to
closing
enterprise
deals
especially
when
all
you
want
to
do
as
a
founder
founder
is
ship
products
and
sell
them
Well
that's
where
Delve
comes
in
the
sponsor
for
today's
episode
Delve
is
an
AI
native
compliance
platform
built
for
fast
growing
startups
Their
AI
agents
handle
the
repetitive
work
like
monitoring
your
tech
stack
and
auto
filling
security
questionnaires
so
you
can
stay
focused
on
building
and
shipping
And
unlike
traditional
compliance
tools
Delve
isn't
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You
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responses
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You'll
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Thousands
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companies
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slowing
down
For
Starter
Story
listeners
Delve
is
offering
an
exclusive
1
500
discount
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framework
So
if
you're
ready
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get
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without
the
headache
check
out
Delve
at
the
link
in
the
description
description
or
go
to
delve
co
slash
starter
story
Thank
you
to
Delve
for
sponsoring
today's
video
Let's
get
back
to
the
story
Okay
cool
So
number
one
source
of
traffic
That's
cool
You
do
run
20
different
products
though
I'm
curious
if
there's
any
strategy
there
in
terms
of
having
all
these
different
products
How
does
this
help
you
grow
It's
really
helpful
having
so
many
products
especially
ones
that
are
very
closely
related
because
it
means
that
we
can
cross
promote
them
and
get
multiple
sales
from
the
same
customer
And
there
are
many
ways
that
I
would
recommend
doing
that
We've
got
one
plugin
and
two
plugin
bundles
And
this
is
a
key
part
of
how
we
benefit
from
having
so
many
products
For
each
of
our
products
we
have
selected
a
closely
related
plugin
that
we
try
to
upsell
with
it
We
then
do
additional
tasks
such
as
after
three
days
following
the
purchase
we
send
an
email
offering
them
50
off
their
next
plugin
On
Black
Friday
we
have
separate
email
campaigns
for
potential
customers
and
existing
customers
And
for
the
existing
customers
we
will
use
language
like
discount
off
your
next
plugin
And
I
think
the
trick
there
is
to
target
the
customers
and
segment
your
list
so
that
you
are
recommending
very
closely
related
products
to
the
one
that
they're
already
using
And
that
maximizes
the
likelihood
that
they're
going
to
buy
And
then
you
can
keep
sending
the
message
home
things
like
banners
on
your
settings
pages
and
constantly
reminding
them
you
have
these
complimentary
products
which
are
directly
relevant
to
the
one
you're
already
using
Okay
cool
Well
I
think
what
you're
doing
at
Barn2
is
awesome
This
idea
of
having
like
a
portfolio
of
software
products
I
think
it
was
a
lot
harder
maybe
even
10
years
ago
to
sort
of
have
all
these
apps
But
now
in
the
age
of
AI
where
you
can
build
stuff
more
easily
you
don't
have
to
have
as
big
of
an
engineering
team
to
do
this
sort
of
thing
And
then
you
have
all
these
opportunities
of
cross
selling
where
you
build
something
else
and
it's
useful
for
the
same
customer
There's
a
lot
of
advantages
to
having
this
portfolio
of
software
products
if
you
watch
our
channel
you'll
see
we've
interviewed
a
bunch
of
people
that
have
sometimes
five
sometimes
10
sometimes
20
like
you
So
I'm
curious
if
you
were
to
start
over
today
obviously
you
started
this
business
a
long
time
ago
you've
built
up
all
this
customer
equity
and
all
this
stuff
What
would
be
your
playbook
to
building
multiple
apps
or
plugins
if
you
were
to
start
over
today
in
2026
If
I
was
starting
over
today
here's
my
playbook
as
to
how
I
would
approach
building
a
software
company
with
multiple
products
For
step
one
I
would
focus
on
an
area
area
I'm
already
familiar
with
If
I'm
building
WordPress
websites
for
clients
then
I
would
look
at
creating
WordPress
products
Think
about
where
your
experience
is
because
that's
where
you
have
unique
insights
into
the
gaps
and
what
the
user
is
looking
for
For
step
two
I
would
come
up
with
several
product
ideas
at
the
same
time
That
means
start
with
a
long
list
research
and
validate
every
idea
and
choose
a
handful
of
ideas
that
have
the
most
potential
and
then
prioritize
the
ideas
that
have
overlapping
markets
so
that
you
get
that
cross
promotion
opportunity
Step
three
would
be
to
start
by
building
the
product
that
has
the
most
potential
in
terms
of
having
the
largest
audience
where
you
think
you
can
carve
out
some
market
share
for
yourself
marketing
wise
and
use
that
as
your
starting
point
Build
that
and
launch
it
as
your
only
product
Don't
build
multiple
products
and
launch
them
all
at
once
because
every
time
you
build
a
product
you
need
to
give
it
a
decent
amount
of
time
to
do
the
marketing
and
grow
it
without
distractions
and
also
to
listen
to
your
early
users
and
continue
improving
that
product
Don't
spread
yourself
too
thin
by
launching
five
at
once
And
then
step
four
is
that
when
you
are
ready
to
launch
your
second
product
market
it
as
a
standalone
product
and
develop
advanced
cross
promotion
tactics
that
might
include
linking
between
them
on
your
website
emailing
users
of
your
existing
product
about
the
new
one
with
discounts
asking
if
they
want
to
beta
test
adding
pages
about
the
other
product
to
your
documentation
Also
things
like
post
purchase
emails
are
useful
And
then
step
five
is
repeat
the
above
process
until
you
have
a
decent
portfolio
of
products
each
of
which
generate
revenue
but
that
you
haven't
spread
yourself
so
thin
that
you
can't
do
any
of
them
justice
Well
thanks
for
sharing
that
I
love
the
multiple
product
strategy
and
the
more
I
see
people
like
you
successful
with
it
it
the
more
I
realize
how
many
people
are
also
successful
We
did
this
awesome
interview
with
someone
called
John
Rush
who
has
a
similar
strategy
and
he's
cross
selling
everything
across
each
product
And
I
think
it's
something
that
clearly
has
worked
for
you
and
it's
going
to
continue
to
get
even
bigger
So
anybody
who's
watching
this
I
think
there's
a
lot
to
learn
from
this
I
want
to
switch
topics
a
little
bit
Katie
and
ask
you
about
how
you
run
your
business
What's
the
tech
stack
What
tools
and
software
and
stack
and
coding
languages
do
you
use
to
run
this
business
that
makes
nearly
2
million
a
year
Yeah
we
combine
various
tools
to
run
the
business
We
are
leaning
very
heavily
on
ClickUp
these
days
We
use
it
for
project
management
time
tracking
company
chat
We
use
GitHub
which
is
free
to
store
the
source
code
repositories
for
all
of
our
products
We
use
Zapier
a
lot
for
automations
We
use
WordPress
obviously
for
our
company
website
And
we
also
use
lots
of
WordPress
plugins
but
in
particular
Easy
Digital
Downloads
which
is
the
e
commerce
software
that
we
use
to
sell
our
plugins
and
sort
out
all
the
licensing
and
the
download
delivery
and
so
on
which
costs
us
about
300
a
year
Cool
Well
thanks
for
sharing
that
One
last
question
that
we
ask
everyone
who
comes
on
the
channel
Katie
if
you
could
go
back
in
time
before
you
had
started
the
first
plugin
before
you
had
started
your
business
what
would
be
your
advice
to
you
young
Katie
starting
out
or
to
anyone
watching
this
who
wants
to
build
useful
software
on
the
internet
Maybe
it's
plugins
maybe
it's
SaaS
What
would
be
your
advice
My
advice
would
be
to
just
do
it
which
means
get
to
work
and
launch
a
product
Because
once
you
get
something
out
into
the
world
world
then
opportunities
start
coming
your
way
Even
if
your
first
product
isn't
a
success
you'll
learn
a
huge
amount
from
the
experience
and
you'll
hopefully
receive
feedback
and
feature
requests
which
can
lead
to
other
successful
products
in
the
future
future
Whereas
if
you
do
nothing
then
nothing
will
happen
for
you
Well
that's
great
advice
Thanks
Katie
for
coming
on
Super
cool
business
you
built
You
can
check
out
all
the
different
plugins
they
built
on
their
website
Super
cool
niche
stuff
You
might
get
some
ideas
Thanks
for
coming
on
and
sharing
And
yeah
inspiring
Thanks
for
having
me
Okay
Gus
starter
story
producer
What
do
you
think
about
this
one
Yeah
I
think
I
really
like
the
multi
product
approach
thing
that
she
was
talking
about
Not
putting
all
your
eggs
in
one
basket
It
feels
like
just
a
smart
thing
to
do
I
don't
know
those
are
my
initial
impressions
But
yeah
what
do
you
think
Yeah
there's
something
in
the
changing
of
the
times
where
before
you
would
be
crazy
to
have
multiple
products
Why
Because
building
multiple
products
meant
multiple
engineering
teams
typically
when
it
came
to
software
So
that
when
there's
a
bug
in
one
software
if
you're
having
a
bug
a
day
in
your
software
then
you
have
19
softwares
and
you
have
19
bugs
a
day
day
and
then
your
life
is
a
living
hell
But
with
AI
you
don't
really
need
engineering
teams
to
build
stuff
now
Actually
software
is
becoming
commoditized
and
you
can
spin
up
an
app
in
one
day
in
the
audience
and
the
customer
is
what's
valuable
What
she
said
and
I
would
just
reiterate
it
again
is
that
when
she
didn't
do
it
the
right
way
she
built
random
apps
for
different
customers
When
she
was
doing
it
the
right
way
in
terms
of
the
multi
product
strategy
she
was
building
different
apps
for
the
same
customer
but
selling
it
as
a
separate
Instead
of
adding
it
as
a
feature
to
this
big
monolith
app
she
was
creating
another
app
and
then
cross
selling
it
which
is
actually
better
for
the
customer
customer
because
they
don't
need
everything
and
it
can
be
confusing
With
plugins
you
can
have
all
19
installed
and
it
just
works
Yeah
totally
And
yeah
you
mentioned
this
during
the
interview
but
we
interviewed
like
John
Rush
a
while
back
That
was
a
really
good
interview
but
similar
thing
where
he's
building
kind
of
all
these
different
tools
that
like
layer
on
each
other
And
that's
just
like
a
smart
approach
You
know
for
someone
like
me
I
always
kind
of
have
the
beginner
mindset
you
know
like
how
can
I
just
get
one
out
the
door
But
like
kind
of
thinking
about
like
oh
if
I
get
one
project
out
the
door
how
can
I
build
like
something
on
top
of
it
Or
like
it
also
reminds
me
of
that
guy
He
did
the
interview
on
the
like
he's
on
the
treadmill
I
forget
his
name
He
did
all
the
like
his
was
mobile
apps
but
they
were
all
health
apps
related
you
know
to
each
other
And
he
did
similar
like
cross
promotion
So
I
don't
know
it's
kind
of
an
interesting
strategy
I
don't
know
Yeah
Yeah
I
think
the
one
thing
to
take
away
is
you
know
we
can
get
excited
about
the
five
different
20
different
apps
that
you're
going
to
build
But
her
biggest
takeaway
was
find
an
idea
something
that
you
know
a
little
bit
about
and
then
build
that
first
thing
She
didn't
say
build
five
things
in
a
row
She
said
build
the
first
thing
and
then
ideas
will
come
to
you
like
water
So
for
anyone
watching
this
that
wants
to
build
their
first
thing
you
know
what
I'm
going
to
say
Starter
story
builds
Click
the
link
in
the
description
We
will
help
you
find
a
good
idea
build
it
and
get
it
in
the
hands
of
real
customers
within
a
couple
of
days
If
you
want
to
do
your
first
idea
I
would
click
that
link
in
the
description
You
can
get
started
right
now
All
right
Thank
you
guys
for
watching
Hope
you
enjoyed
this
one
We'll
see
you
in
the
next
one
Peace
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