I Grew My Mobile App to $20K/Month: Here’s My Entire Playbook
Starter Story
Jan 19, 2026
Mau is a solo founder who built and grew his mobile app to $20K/month. This video is the complete playbook for building mobile apps in 2026: how he built it with AI, grew organically, and is scaling with paid ads.
Build your own iOS app → https://build.starterstory.com/build/the-ios-bootcamp?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=mau
Follow Mau: https://x.com/maubaron
Check out his app: https://www.prayerlock.com/
🔔 Follow the Second Channel: @StarterStoryBuild
🏁 We're hiring: starterstory.com/jobs
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.
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I
launched
my
app
six
months
ago
and
how
it
makes
over
20K
a
month
This
is
Mao
a
regular
guy
who
changed
his
life
by
building
an
app
with
AI
It
took
me
three
days
to
code
the
app
with
AI
But
this
is
not
a
story
about
how
to
build
It's
a
story
about
how
fast
apps
can
grow
if
you
focus
on
the
right
things
I
asked
Mao
to
come
out
of
the
channel
to
break
down
exactly
how
he
did
all
of
this
in
just
six
months
And
in
this
video
he
breaks
down
exactly
how
he
built
a
mobile
app
in
three
days
with
AI
the
specific
marketing
strategy
that
got
him
his
first
few
hundred
paying
users
and
the
playbook
that
ultimately
scaled
him
to
over
20
000
a
month
Guys
this
is
an
episode
that
you
cannot
skip
I'm
Pat
Walls
and
this
is
Starter
Story
Real
quick
before
we
get
into
the
interview
guys
Mao
is
about
to
break
down
what's
actually
working
right
now
when
it
comes
to
building
and
growing
an
app
in
2026
and
beyond
And
if
you're
ready
to
build
your
app
I
put
a
link
in
the
description
right
there
where
you
can
get
started
right
now
building
your
thing
I'll
talk
about
that
a
little
bit
more
later
but
let's
get
into
the
interview
All
right
Mao
welcome
to
the
channel
Tell
me
about
who
you
are
what
you
built
and
what's
your
story
My
name
is
Mao
Baron
and
I
built
a
Christian
app
that
makes
over
20K
a
month
In
only
six
months
I've
accumulated
over
58K
downloads
6
7K
reviews
and
a
4
9
star
rating
on
the
App
Store
All
right
Mao
before
we
get
it
all
into
that
what
you
built
and
everything
First
I'd
love
if
you
could
share
a
little
bit
about
your
business
model
pull
up
some
of
your
revenue
and
analytics
so
we
can
really
see
this
thing
My
app
is
called
Prayer
Lock
It
basically
just
blocks
your
phone
until
you
pray
When
you
try
to
open
one
of
them
we
ask
you
two
questions
And
based
on
that
you
get
a
dedicated
AI
generated
prayer
You
recite
it
and
you're
good
to
go
You
can
scroll
It's
a
subscription
based
app
I
charge
49
99
a
year
or
9
99
a
week
week
And
in
terms
of
monthly
revenue
we
closed
December
at
21
000
in
sales
A
previous
month
was
at
15K
and
October
was
at
10K
We've
been
growing
at
over
50
a
month
In
total
downloads
we
have
right
now
close
to
58
000
downloads
We
have
a
conversion
rate
of
43
Our
proceeds
per
paying
user
is
23
6
Our
total
proceeds
have
been
41
000
So
my
app
right
now
probably
has
one
of
the
best
onboarding
rates
in
the
world
Our
review
rate
is
over
12
We
have
6
7K
ratings
with
less
than
60K
downloads
In
November
Prayer
Lock
reached
number
22
in
the
reference
category
Okay
cool
Well
thanks
for
showing
your
dashboards
so
transparently
showing
all
the
numbers
That's
amazing
We're
going
to
get
into
all
how
you
built
this
grew
this
and
even
a
little
bit
of
paid
ads
which
I'm
excited
about
but
before
I
know
you
started
it
this
year
which
is
insane
that
it's
grown
this
much
I'd
love
for
you
to
give
me
a
little
bit
of
background
on
how
you
get
here
how
you
decide
to
start
building
apps
How
do
you
get
to
this
point
I
actually
don't
come
from
a
tech
background
I
actually
majored
in
finance
but
I
discovered
the
original
Codex
model
back
in
2022
When
I
saw
that
I
just
completely
fell
in
love
with
AI
and
technology
And
I
decided
that's
what
I
wanted
to
do
for
the
rest
of
my
life
So
I
taught
myself
about
AI
about
how
to
code
I've
been
building
tech
and
AI
businesses
ever
since
Back
in
January
of
2025
I
was
actually
building
an
adult
content
AI
app
But
when
I
finished
it
I
just
felt
completely
like
disgusted
and
disappointed
with
myself
So
I
decided
to
make
the
weirdest
pivot
in
history
and
turn
into
the
Christian
space
to
try
to
reconnect
with
my
faith
And
after
about
three
months
of
building
apps
nobody
wanted
I
came
across
this
app
called
PrayScreen
that
blocks
your
phone
until
you're
prayed
And
with
the
new
insights
I
had
I
looked
at
the
design
I
looked
at
the
features
the
way
they
were
executing
their
distribution
And
I
said
you
know
what
I
can
do
a
better
job
than
them
And
so
that's
how
Prayer
Lock
came
to
life
That's
awesome
I
think
what
the
most
interesting
thing
there
that
I
heard
is
that
by
doing
this
you
were
able
to
get
closer
to
your
customers
and
truly
understand
them
which
led
to
this
massive
success
that
you're
now
seeing
Now
I
think
there's
a
little
secret
there
I
want
to
switch
the
topics
a
little
bit
and
get
into
the
building
of
this
app
You
did
this
yourself
right
So
how
did
you
do
that
I
built
Prayer
Lock
back
in
June
I
literally
just
use
cursor
and
chat
GPT
like
that's
it
With
cursor
I
mainly
use
Sonnet
as
my
daily
driver
And
then
I
use
chat
to
ask
questions
and
apply
simple
code
changes
with
the
Mac
desktop
app
And
so
yeah
it
took
me
three
days
to
code
the
app
and
over
a
week
to
actually
get
it
approved
on
the
app
store
But
honestly
it's
never
been
easier
to
build
an
app
than
now
That's
insane
that
you
built
it
in
basically
three
days
Obviously
there
were
previous
apps
before
and
you
probably
had
tried
and
had
starts
and
stops
before
But
once
you
found
your
idea
that
you
really
felt
confident
on
you're
able
to
build
it
in
basically
three
days
Do
you
have
any
tips
for
anyone
watching
here
on
how
other
people
maybe
they
have
a
little
bit
of
experience
maybe
no
experience
at
all
how
to
build
apps
with
AI
in
2026
First
of
all
what
I
always
say
is
do
not
design
any
mockups
Instead
study
the
best
apps
in
your
niche
and
study
the
best
apps
in
other
niches
with
tools
like
Screens
Design
and
just
go
straight
into
coding
In
my
case
I
actually
created
a
Canva
file
where
I
laid
out
all
of
the
best
onboarding
screens
of
the
apps
I
liked
and
of
my
competitors
And
I
literally
just
chose
the
best
onboarding
screens
and
applied
that
to
my
own
app
Also
try
to
use
different
tools
for
different
purposes
For
example
like
Cursor
as
your
daily
driver
Codec
CLI
which
I
love
for
more
complex
tasks
ChatGPT
for
questions
and
easier
problems
And
the
reason
you
want
to
do
this
at
least
if
you're
in
my
position
I
was
broke
So
you
don't
want
to
be
wasting
hundreds
or
thousands
of
dollars
on
tokens
tokens
In
doing
this
you
will
diversify
your
token
expenditure
right
Another
thing
is
do
not
try
to
one
shot
your
apps
AI
isn't
there
yet
where
you
can
just
say
like
hey
make
me
a
mobile
app
Make
no
mistakes
Don't
hallucinate
like
that
That
won't
work
at
all
What
AI
is
really
good
at
doing
is
if
you
break
down
your
app
into
blocks
and
then
of
course
you
can
one
shot
a
feature
here
you
can
one
shot
a
design
or
a
screen
screen
here
Next
thing
is
authentication
Honestly
isn't
even
needed
for
modern
apps
like
mine
doesn't
have
authentication
or
a
database
And
I'm
printing
money
The
reason
I
made
it
this
way
is
for
two
reasons
reasons
I
wanted
to
reduce
friction
as
much
as
possible
I
don't
want
my
users
wasting
time
on
signing
up
And
the
other
reason
was
to
save
costs
There's
no
reason
to
pay
for
a
database
when
you
can
just
save
it
all
on
device
And
people
might
say
hey
like
when
I
switch
my
phone
I'm
going
to
lose
my
information
information
Nobody
thinks
about
that
Literally
that's
that's
a
very
like
niche
case
So
now
story
is
incredible
He
built
and
grew
his
app
to
twenty
thousand
dollars
a
month
in
just
a
few
few
months
If
you
stick
around
to
the
end
you're
going
to
get
the
full
story
on
exactly
how
he
did
it
But
before
we
get
there
I
do
want
you
to
think
about
the
app
that
you've
been
meaning
to
build
You
probably
already
know
how
to
use
these
AI
tools
or
tried
them
out
You
follow
tutorials
and
probably
even
built
pieces
of
different
things
But
what
usually
stops
people
from
actually
launching
isn't
the
building
part
It's
picking
something
that's
actually
worth
finishing
and
then
taking
it
all
the
way
to
real
users
that
can
give
you
real
market
feedback
Well
that's
exactly
what
Starter
Story
build
is
designed
for
In
just
a
few
days
you
will
choose
an
idea
that
makes
sense
build
it
end
to
end
and
actually
launch
with
structure
momentum
and
other
builders
doing
it
alongside
you
If
you're
tired
of
half
finished
projects
well
the
link
is
in
the
description
if
you
want
to
get
started
right
now
All
right
let's
get
back
to
the
interview
I'm
going
to
switch
topics
now
to
the
growth
because
everyone
knows
who's
watching
this
You'll
read
all
the
comments
They'll
say
OK
you
don't
talk
about
the
marketing
enough
Building
stuff
is
easy
now
But
as
I
understand
you
were
the
builder
and
the
marketer
and
the
growth
person
You
did
all
this
by
yourself
What
I
want
to
understand
is
how
did
you
actually
grow
this
thing
and
get
users
In
the
beginning
I
didn't
know
what
worked
So
I
literally
just
tried
a
bunch
of
different
formats
and
I
started
posting
around
40
times
a
day
on
12
different
accounts
Volume
really
matters
here
What
ended
up
working
for
me
was
a
classic
you
know
GDC
girl
reaction
video
with
a
demo
demo
on
it
That's
what
one
of
my
biggest
competitors
was
doing
and
they
were
just
killing
it
with
it
I
was
broke
so
I
couldn't
pay
for
clips
I
couldn't
pay
for
another
creator
So
I
just
told
my
girlfriend
at
the
time
now
wife
to
help
me
record
some
reactions
reactions
herself
And
she
honestly
killed
it
We
started
posting
twice
a
day
day
It
wasn't
until
after
40
posts
that
I
finally
found
a
hook
that
worked
and
I
knew
I
just
needed
to
spam
that
in
both
TikTok
and
Instagram
When
you
start
seeing
that
a
format
starts
to
work
put
all
your
energies
into
that
alone
With
only
that
account
I
was
getting
around
10K
views
a
day
which
was
all
I
needed
needed
to
get
to
my
first
1K
a
month
With
that
I
immediately
reached
out
to
my
friends
and
I
wanted
to
scale
this
and
I
hired
hired
another
UGC
creators
It
was
honestly
very
hard
to
get
her
account
this
other
creator's
account
going
on
both
TikTok
and
Insta
But
after
14
days
we
finally
cracked
one
video
which
organically
got
around
20K
views
Knowing
how
views
convert
to
downloads
is
very
tricky
In
my
case
10K
views
a
day
was
getting
me
around
two
to
three
hundred
downloads
a
day
day
But
this
is
because
this
specific
format
is
very
optimized
for
downloads
With
those
two
accounts
with
my
wife's
account
and
this
other
girl
creator
I
was
now
doing
1
5K
in
July
and
2
4K
in
August
What's
cool
about
that
as
you
said
is
that
I
think
a
lot
of
people
think
OK
I
got
got
to
be
posting
on
TikTok
and
YouTube
and
X
and
personal
brand
But
no
you
only
need
to
really
be
on
one
platform
for
you
It
was
TikTok
or
Reels
And
then
you
really
only
need
one
format
that
you
just
do
lots
and
lots
of
videos
over
and
over
again
So
I
think
that's
a
great
lesson
there
Once
you
started
getting
organic
to
work
what
was
next
Because
obviously
you
were
doing
like
one
two
three
K
a
month
but
now
you're
doing
20K
So
how
do
you
get
there
I
hired
an
influencer
That
flop
didn't
go
well
But
after
that
experience
I
said
I
want
to
try
something
else
The
only
other
route
was
paid
ads
When
I
tried
them
I
completely
failed
I
optimized
for
downloads
instead
of
trials
I
had
a
very
bad
onboarding
It
was
trash
I
upgraded
my
onboarding
from
five
minutes
to
15
minutes
And
generally
the
longer
you're
onboarding
as
long
as
it's
adding
value
and
telling
a
story
the
better
I
immediately
saw
my
organic
conversion
rate
more
than
three
X
organically
without
paid
ads
With
my
new
knowledge
I
said
you
know
let's
try
this
again
I
now
have
a
better
conversion
rate
I
started
with
meta
and
I
started
spending
twenty
dollars
a
day
This
was
giving
me
respectable
decent
results
Ten
dollars
per
trial
started
Then
I
decided
to
try
TikTok
ads
And
honestly
this
changed
everything
I
created
a
super
broad
campaign
without
any
audience
controls
Nothing
I
only
specified
the
location
to
U
S
and
inserted
a
bunch
of
my
top
UGC
girl
reaction
videos
from
before
started
doing
twenty
dollars
a
day
only
And
the
results
were
way
better
They
were
insane
I
was
getting
four
dollars
per
trial
started
when
my
yearly
subscription
cost
50
And
I
said
you
know
what
Let's
go
all
in
I'm
going
to
throw
all
my
savings
into
this
around
four
thousand
dollars
into
the
ads
And
that's
when
I
closed
October
at
10K
only
with
these
UGC
reaction
videos
Now
with
a
little
more
budget
scrolling
on
TikTok
I
came
across
Matthew
this
cracked
15
year
old
UGC
creator
And
the
minute
I
saw
like
the
first
three
seconds
of
his
video
I
was
like
I
need
to
work
with
him
So
I
reached
out
and
we
started
working
together
And
he
very
quickly
organically
got
us
to
consistent
10K
views
per
video
I
was
thinking
of
him
as
only
a
UGC
creator
but
you
know
one
day
I
decided
you
know
know
on
his
videos
as
well
see
how
this
does
The
results
were
absolutely
insane
With
his
videos
I
started
getting
three
dollars
per
trial
started
and
I
realized
hey
I
can
get
into
debt
and
pay
all
the
debt
completely
with
my
next
Apple
payoff
So
I
threw
another
6K
into
ads
into
his
videos
which
got
us
to
15K
for
the
month
of
November
November
Following
the
same
strategy
increasing
the
ad
spend
regularly
each
week
closed
December
at
20K
and
we're
probably
going
to
close
January
at
40K
a
month
Well
on
that
note
for
anyone
watching
this
if
they
were
starting
over
with
an
app
or
they
had
an
app
they're
ready
to
start
growing
the
app
What
would
be
your
playbook
if
you
had
to
start
over
in
2026
If
I
was
starting
over
in
2026
this
is
exactly
what
I
would
do
Step
one
look
for
niches
with
apps
doing
over
50K
a
month
Use
Sensor
Tower
to
get
a
revenue
estimate
for
the
apps
And
then
step
two
find
an
app
you
like
and
improve
it
substantially
Step
three
code
it
out
in
less
than
two
weeks
This
is
very
important
Set
that
as
your
limit
because
otherwise
you'd
want
to
improve
the
product
I've
been
there
trust
me
Step
four
do
not
touch
your
app
Obsess
over
distribution
I
haven't
touched
my
app
in
over
three
months
now
Just
copy
the
working
formats
in
your
niche
and
start
posting
at
least
20
times
a
day
Like
that's
what
you
should
be
aiming
at
at
least
And
step
five
iterate
on
your
onboarding
like
crazy
Be
a
maniac
Improve
the
onboarding
until
you
at
least
have
a
10
download
to
trial
conversion
rate
Later
on
you'll
want
to
do
paid
ads
and
you
will
need
at
least
a
10
download
to
conversion
rate
Step
six
place
ad
spend
on
your
organic
videos
doing
more
than
10K
views
And
for
this
I'd
recommend
TikTok
Spark
Ads
more
than
Meta
or
any
other
platform
I
love
that
playbook
Hopefully
a
lot
of
people
watching
this
will
go
and
do
the
same
We
didn't
really
talk
too
much
about
what
your
app
does
I
really
wanted
to
make
this
about
the
build
the
growth
and
the
paid
ads
But
I
would
love
if
you
could
give
me
a
little
demo
of
what
your
app
does
how
simple
it
is
and
how
it
actually
works
Super
simple
You
just
go
into
the
app
You
choose
the
apps
to
block
Just
block
everything
And
then
you
go
into
the
home
screen
And
when
you
try
to
open
one
of
your
apps
you'll
realize
that
they're
blocked
So
you
open
it
and
it
prompts
you
to
pray
That
will
open
up
the
prayer
lock
app
and
ask
you
two
questions
How's
your
relationship
with
God
today
You
indicate
it
And
then
how
are
you
feeling
today
Based
on
that
you're
going
to
get
an
AI
generated
prayer
that
you
have
to
recite
in
order
to
unblock
your
apps
And
once
you're
done
reciting
your
prayer
you
press
I've
prayed
today
You
choose
your
next
block
schedule
which
can
be
the
automatic
next
block
schedule
or
you
can
like
customize
it
for
15
minutes
or
an
hour
Once
you're
done
you
get
your
streak
And
finally
a
very
beautiful
Bible
verse
of
the
day
And
you
can
doom
scroll
away
or
use
your
phone
as
you
will
It's
insane
that
the
super
simple
app
can
make
so
much
money
but
that's
something
I've
learned
Like
the
key
is
in
simplicity
and
actually
adding
value
to
your
users
Now
I'm
curious
how
did
you
actually
build
this
app
Could
you
walk
me
through
your
stack
and
then
also
some
of
the
tools
you
use
to
grow
and
do
paid
ads
as
well
Cursor
for
coding
and
development
That's
20
a
month
And
ChatGPT
for
questions
and
coding
And
then
also
of
course
Codec
CLI
which
is
included
in
the
subscription
So
that's
20
a
month
month
Right
now
I'm
using
a
lot
of
Rourke
for
quick
design
iteration
25
a
month
Then
PostHawk
for
analytics
That's
around
10
a
month
Superwall
definitely
for
paywalls
and
revenue
analytics
which
is
0
20
per
conversion
Then
Singular
as
your
MMP
which
is
basically
the
software
that
you
use
to
make
paid
ads
That's
0
05
per
conversion
after
15K
free
conversions
And
then
for
all
my
backend
services
and
hosting
my
web
pages
and
everything
I
use
AWS
That's
around
2
a
month
month
Then
for
the
AI
in
app
services
I
use
Google
Gemini
Flash
2
5
That's
around
9
a
month
Yep
that's
pretty
much
it
That
kind
of
brings
the
next
question
of
profits
and
how
much
are
you
actually
spending
on
ads
to
grow
this
thing
Could
you
walk
me
through
some
of
that
Yeah
of
course
So
paid
ads
are
definitely
a
little
pricey
but
they
are
profitable
so
it's
worth
it
So
right
now
I'm
spending
360
a
day
If
we
go
to
the
last
30
days
for
example
for
the
month
of
December
which
I
closed
at
pretty
much
20K
I
spent
around
9K
Basically
my
cost
per
trial
right
now
is
at
1
88
Thanks
for
sharing
that
and
being
super
transparent
showing
me
all
those
paid
ads
numbers
Last
question
that
we
ask
all
founders
who
come
on
to
Starter
Story
if
you
could
go
back
in
time
to
six
months
ago
before
you
started
your
app
or
even
before
that
when
you're
trying
to
figure
out
what
idea
could
actually
work
what
advice
would
you
have
to
young
Mao
or
to
anyone
watching
this
that
wants
to
build
apps
in
2026
and
really
crush
it
like
you
I
wasted
years
building
stuff
nobody
wanted
And
the
reason
is
because
I
mean
you
have
so
much
to
learn
So
literally
do
not
waste
time
trying
to
build
the
app
of
your
dreams
at
first
Instead
improve
an
already
successful
app
add
your
personality
copy
others
distribution
strategies
And
only
once
you've
acquired
some
experience
with
apps
and
distribution
then
jump
onto
even
more
ambitious
things
Thanks
Mao
for
coming
on
This
is
amazing
It's
super
cool
to
see
without
a
crazy
developer
background
be
able
to
build
something
figure
out
content
even
if
you
didn't
have
a
content
background
and
then
do
paid
ads
which
you
didn't
even
have
a
background
there
That's
the
reality
in
2026
is
that
this
is
possible
Your
story
is
amazing
And
it
was
so
awesome
to
have
you
on
and
share
all
of
this
I
think
people
are
going
to
love
it
Thank
you
It
was
my
pleasure
Thanks
to
Mao
for
coming
on
This
is
an
amazing
story
Really
hope
you
are
still
here
watching
this
right
now
If
you
are
you're
one
of
the
OGs
This
is
one
of
those
stories
that
happened
just
a
few
months
ago
So
you
know
what
he's
saying
is
working
right
now
It's
not
outdated
information
This
is
super
helpful
It
shows
the
power
of
apps
and
how
fast
apps
can
truly
grow
He
built
it
without
developer
experience
He
created
content
without
content
experience
And
then
he
started
crushing
paid
ads
without
experience
He
learned
all
these
things
on
the
fly
This
is
the
power
of
AI
tools
not
just
for
building
but
for
learning
and
for
executing
If
you're
ready
to
build
your
app
again
shameless
plug
Definitely
check
out
Starter
Story
Build
If
you're
serious
about
actually
building
something
want
to
come
up
with
a
good
idea
execute
it
on
it
and
ship
it
to
real
users
to
get
real
feedback
That's
the
only
thing
that
matters
If
you're
serious
about
it
check
it
out
I
put
it
in
the
link
in
the
description
You
can
get
started
on
your
app
right
now
Okay
that's
it
for
this
episode
Thank
you
guys
for
watching
We'll
see
you
in
the
next
one
Peace
Thank
you
for
watching
And
if
you
have
any
questions
you
for
watching
And
if
you
have
any
questions
please
leave
them
in
the
comments
And
I'll
see
you
in
the
leave
them
in
the
comments
And
I'll
see
you
in
the
next
episode
episode
episode
episode
episode
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Transcribed
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Transcribed
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Transcribed
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https://otter
Transcribed
by
https://otter
Transcribed
by
https://otter
Transcribed
by
https://otter
Transcribed
by
https://otter
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by
https://otter
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by
https://otter
ai
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