I Built an App with Cursor, Made $30K, and Quit My Job.
Starter Story
May 24, 2025
This is how Paulius Masalskas built a $30K app using AI.
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Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
0:58 - Who is Paulius
1:24 - Paulius' backstory
2:24 - How Paulius found an idea for his app
3:06 - Launch experience
3:43 - How to build MVPs with AI
5:20 - Figure out what your customers want
7:19 - How to design with AI
7:55 - What to focus on in a landing page
8:29 - How to design UI/UX using AI
9:14 - Marketing strategy
10:06 - Building in public
10:55 - Tech stack and costs
11:25 - Biggest lessons learned
11:55 - Day in the life
12:27 - Advice to entrepreneurs
13:10 - 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
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No tools listed for this business.
I
prompted
my
way
to
30
000
without
writing
a
single
line
of
code
This
guy
made
30
000
from
an
app
he
built
on
his
morning
commute
How
Two
tools
Cursor
and
Bolt
I
think
a
lot
of
people
make
cool
stuff
with
Bolt
and
Cursor
nowadays
but
they
don't
monetize
it
because
they
need
In
this
video
we'll
go
over
the
wild
story
of
how
Paulius
just
built
launched
and
marketed
a
SaaS
product
by
himself
and
got
traction
in
about
30
days
You
probably
have
like
a
winning
idea
already
that
you
could
just
prompt
your
way
and
start
building
Why
You
should
definitely
tune
into
this
video
while
I
had
Paulius
share
with
me
his
exact
process
on
screen
of
how
he
builds
fast
with
AI
tools
how
he
creates
beautiful
designs
and
how
you
can
too
and
how
making
money
and
marketing
your
app
is
as
simple
as
a
couple
tweets
All
right
let's
get
into
it
I'm
Pat
Walls
and
this
is
Starter
Story
Welcome
Paulius
to
the
channel
Thanks
for
coming
on
Tell
me
what's
your
story
My
name
is
Paulius
and
I
used
AI
to
build
an
app
that
made
me
30
000
It's
an
app
that
matches
startups
with
influencers
and
I
built
and
launched
it
seven
months
ago
It's
got
over
1
000
users
at
the
moment
with
over
350
paid
users
I
used
Bolt
and
Cursor
to
make
it
and
I
used
Framework
for
design
I
did
it
all
myself
without
needing
a
team
at
all
in
my
daily
commute
Nice
cool
Before
you
made
30
000
with
your
app
tell
me
a
little
bit
more
about
your
background
your
story
as
an
entrepreneur
It
started
when
I
was
18
and
I
needed
to
make
money
to
get
my
way
through
college
and
the
only
job
that
I
could
get
was
door
to
door
sales
And
one
day
I
ended
up
knocking
on
the
wrong
door
and
someone
literally
grabbed
me
and
held
a
knife
to
my
throat
After
that
I
just
had
enough
and
I
wasn't
really
employable
as
a
student
so
I
dove
into
every
side
hustle
that
I
could
So
I
did
web
design
I
did
copywriting
sales
funnels
I
became
kind
of
like
a
generalist
It
paid
enough
to
get
my
way
through
university
When
I
was
in
university
I
did
computer
game
development
But
funny
story
I
actually
completely
sucked
at
code
I
was
very
visual
and
I
just
couldn't
understand
it
But
now
AI
can
actually
code
for
you
and
so
the
limitations
that
I
had
before
are
kind
of
removed
AI
can
do
the
heavy
lifting
in
terms
of
code
and
kind
of
patch
up
the
area
where
I'm
not
the
best
at
Nice
so
tell
me
what
got
you
into
building
online
and
realizing
that
you
could
you
know
make
money
online
So
I
was
going
through
kind
of
a
rough
patch
because
I
tried
all
these
different
business
models
and
I
wasn't
making
enough
money
to
break
free
from
9
to
5
I
got
really
frustrated
one
day
that
none
of
the
things
that
I
did
really
got
me
where
I
wanted
to
be
So
I
was
pursuing
creator
led
services
and
products
just
work
with
creators
And
the
idea
of
a
database
came
to
my
mind
and
I
just
started
building
it
out
because
it's
something
I'd
use
myself
And
I
figured
with
AI
I
could
turn
this
into
a
fully
fledged
SaaS
if
enough
people
wanted
it
So
I
really
just
gave
it
a
spin
as
kind
of
like
an
experiment
and
it
did
pretty
good
So
tell
me
what
it
felt
like
to
finally
launch
and
have
this
validated
idea
and
have
it
make
its
first
dollar
Tell
me
about
that
So
for
months
before
launch
I
was
building
this
database
It
was
a
lot
of
effort
and
I
had
no
idea
it
would
pay
off
So
when
I
launched
my
application
I
remember
I
was
sitting
with
my
girlfriend
and
we
were
just
having
dinner
I
pulled
up
my
phone
I
just
see
sale
after
sale
I
was
like
okay
how
long
is
this
going
to
keep
going
for
And
that
night
got
about
20
or
30
different
sales
So
it
was
a
very
nice
feeling
that
just
motivated
me
to
just
keep
going
and
pursue
this
further
because
now
I
felt
like
that
was
a
validation
that
this
could
be
a
real
product
Okay
so
can
you
share
your
step
by
step
playbook
on
how
you
build
MVPs
with
AI
If
I'm
a
complete
beginner
I
would
recommend
everyone
to
use
Perplexity
It's
what
I
did
I
just
asked
Perplexity
because
it
has
the
most
up
to
date
information
So
it
has
all
the
documentation
anything
that
you
want
to
any
tool
any
library
Just
tell
it
you're
a
complete
noob
and
absolutely
don't
know
how
to
do
anything
And
it'll
give
you
really
detailed
step
by
step
because
it's
deep
research
It'll
pull
up
a
long
document
that
you
can
reference
and
just
follow
along
The
next
step
is
I'd
pull
up
Bolt
and
just
take
it
one
step
at
a
time
as
well
So
I
would
implement
the
first
thing
that
Perplexity
says
So
it
could
be
like
the
dashboard
importing
the
project
cloning
a
GitHub
repository
if
there
is
Once
I'm
in
there
I
just
keep
prompting
it
And
if
there's
errors
I
just
throw
the
error
back
at
the
AI
It
fixes
the
error
go
on
to
the
next
thing
And
I
use
Bolt
to
a
point
where
I
get
a
nice
looking
MVP
with
the
functionality
And
then
I
take
that
download
the
project
I
put
it
into
Cursor
And
here
is
where
I
hook
up
like
SuperBase
So
it
writes
all
the
scripts
to
connect
the
backend
and
I
get
Clerk
off
And
that
makes
it
very
simple
to
plug
and
play
the
authentication
And
this
is
all
steps
that
Perplexity
can
provide
for
you
So
you
can
just
ask
questions
along
the
way
and
it'll
give
you
some
solutions
Perplexity
is
a
great
starting
point
Bolt
is
a
great
way
to
make
the
MVP
And
then
you
move
to
Cursor
to
dial
in
the
details
So
you're
80
of
the
way
there
and
Cursor
will
then
just
get
you
to
the
final
finish
line
have
users
authenticating
you
have
a
backend
with
real
data
and
with
a
bit
of
prompting
and
some
scoring
it'll
make
it
secure
as
well
Okay
Polyus
is
proof
that
it's
never
been
easier
or
faster
to
build
an
app
in
2025
Tools
like
Cursor
and
GPT
4
make
it
possible
to
go
from
idea
to
product
in
a
weekend
But
if
you
don't
understand
your
customer
or
what
they're
searching
for
and
how
they
describe
their
problems
then
you're
just
building
fast
in
the
wrong
direction
That's
why
we're
excited
to
partner
with
SEMrush
for
this
video
It's
one
of
the
best
tools
out
there
for
figuring
out
what
people
actually
want
You
can
plug
in
an
idea
and
see
what
people
are
searching
for
what's
getting
traffic
and
where
the
gaps
are
It's
got
26
billion
plus
keywords
across
140
countries
And
yeah
most
people
think
that
it's
just
an
SEO
tool
but
trust
me
it's
way
more
than
that
You
can
use
it
to
validate
your
idea
before
you
build
find
high
intent
keywords
your
competitors
are
ignoring
or
even
spin
up
landing
pages
that
match
what
people
are
already
looking
for
I'm
gonna
show
you
how
you
can
find
successful
business
ideas
just
like
Polyus's
in
SEMrush
with
one
search
right
now
Go
to
SEMrush
and
find
their
topic
research
tool
search
any
topic
or
niche
Let's
just
do
TikTok
influencer
since
that's
kind
of
similar
to
Polyus's
business
but
you
could
literally
just
search
anything
and
I'm
gonna
open
some
of
the
cards
that
look
interesting
like
this
one
TikTok
influencer
marketing
On
here
you
can
see
all
the
questions
people
are
literally
plugging
into
search
engines
These
are
the
real
problems
people
have
and
are
actively
looking
for
a
solution
I
like
this
one
because
it's
not
a
super
high
keyword
difficulty
and
there's
high
volume
of
people
searching
for
it
So
maybe
there's
some
low
hanging
fruit
in
there
And
look
right
here
TikTok
influencer
search
platform
What's
the
best
way
to
hire
TikTok
influencers
Polyus's
business
can
literally
be
tied
back
to
a
single
page
in
SEMrush
and
that's
just
crazy
powerful
if
you
ask
me
Right
now
they're
offering
a
free
seven
day
trial
to
try
out
all
55
tools
in
the
platform
Just
head
to
the
first
link
in
the
description
if
you
wanna
try
it
out
All
right
let's
get
back
to
it
We
talked
about
the
code
building
an
MVP
Let's
talk
about
one
thing
that
I
think
is
really
cool
about
your
stuff
is
how
good
it
looks
How
do
you
use
AI
to
design
amazing
looking
websites
It's
really
the
simplest
it
can
be
First
thing
I
do
is
I
pull
up
Framer
and
I
pick
a
free
template
So
any
template
that
you
see
on
there
that
you
like
it's
simple
enough
and
clean
for
you
to
edit
And
then
I
just
have
to
pick
a
nice
font
and
a
nice
button
And
then
the
rest
just
needs
to
be
simple
and
clean
The
most
important
part
is
just
to
get
out
Focus
on
just
editing
the
template
really
quick
and
just
put
it
out
there
Cool
Based
on
what
you
built
and
what
you've
learned
working
on
lots
of
marketing
stuff
and
also
on
your
own
what
do
you
think
is
like
the
most
important
thing
to
focus
on
when
you're
creating
a
good
landing
page
and
a
good
design
So
I
focus
80
of
my
time
on
everything
that's
above
the
fold
We'd
call
this
the
hero
section
This
is
the
first
thing
that
people
see
when
they
open
the
website
and
has
to
have
your
full
message
just
out
there
And
people
really
need
to
grab
an
understanding
of
what
it
is
within
the
first
couple
of
seconds
Anything
that
you
can
save
them
time
with
save
them
money
anything
that
solves
a
painful
problem
you
should
have
in
a
headline
and
subheading
and
just
a
big
call
to
action
All
right
So
we
talked
about
landing
page
design
which
was
awesome
But
what
about
UI
design
when
you're
building
an
app
How
do
you
use
AI
to
design
UI
and
UX
When
I'm
building
it
out
in
Cursor
you
get
the
basic
thing
done
and
then
you
add
some
things
to
it
So
the
more
features
you
add
the
more
things
you
work
on
It's
got
to
stay
clean
and
it's
got
to
stay
cohesive
and
you
got
to
make
sense
So
for
everything
UI
related
I
just
ask
it
to
make
it
clean
functional
and
modern
And
I
try
to
have
it
use
like
ShadCN
components
and
they're
all
free
But
when
I
have
ideas
and
when
you
have
ideas
for
how
you
want
onboarding
flow
to
be
or
some
other
elements
of
the
app
what
I
would
suggest
is
just
creating
something
in
Figma
You
can
doodle
if
you
want
You
just
plug
it
into
Cursor
and
just
explain
the
behavior
that
you
want
And
then
it'll
spit
out
a
nice
looking
page
for
you
All
right
Well
thanks
for
sharing
that
Let's
dive
into
the
marketing
side
of
things
because
it
seems
like
X
Twitter
has
really
been
working
well
for
you
Tell
me
about
that
strategy
Show
me
a
tweet
that
really
took
off
for
you
and
let's
talk
about
that
So
this
post
did
the
most
in
terms
of
numbers
It
got
close
to
500K
impressions
And
I
think
the
reason
it
worked
is
because
I
found
an
angle
to
attach
it
to
trends
happening
in
the
space
A
lot
of
people
when
they're
building
in
public
public
never
go
viral
because
they
never
joined
the
bigger
conversation
and
human
attention
span
is
limited
It's
a
hundred
times
easier
to
just
bring
your
ideas
to
where
the
focus
is
already
happening
So
this
post
had
a
nice
simple
visual
demo
has
like
real
like
raw
human
reaction
But
most
importantly
it
tapped
into
the
main
debate
at
the
time
which
was
this
AI
coding
actually
good
enough
to
build
a
full
SaaS
Thanks
for
sharing
that
I'd
love
if
you
just
shared
a
little
bit
more
about
the
bigger
strategy
here
the
bigger
thing
which
is
build
in
public
I'd
love
if
you
just
talk
about
that
from
kind
of
strategy
perspective
or
what
you
love
about
building
in
public
public
and
why
it's
worked
for
you
So
for
me
what's
worked
is
just
shipping
often
Don't
just
have
like
one
big
video
release
like
a
lot
of
VC
startups
So
for
example
I
tapped
into
the
influencer
conversation
that
was
happening
at
the
time
I
saw
Mark
Liu
posting
a
similar
format
I
figured
I'd
get
some
inspiration
and
then
convert
it
into
a
post
for
Creator
Hunter
What's
not
worked
for
me
and
what
I
see
is
there's
been
like
a
lot
of
competitors
and
copycats
that
come
up
but
they
never
really
take
off
because
either
they're
copying
the
exact
same
thing
and
people
see
right
through
that
and
you
need
an
edge
that
no
one
can
easily
copy
with
AI
tools
nowadays
Nice
That's
a
good
strategy
Okay
So
now
the
exciting
part
let's
talk
about
tech
stack
what
tools
languages
or
whatever
else
you
use
to
build
this
business
And
if
you
don't
mind
me
asking
what
are
the
generally
the
costs
to
run
this
business
What
kind
of
margins
are
we
looking
at
I
use
Perplexity
for
the
game
plan
Bolt
for
the
functional
MVP
Cursor
for
making
it
production
ready
I
use
Versal
which
is
free
and
then
Superbase
also
free
and
then
8to5
for
scraping
In
terms
of
costs
and
margins
it's
about
90
All
right
So
what
I
want
to
ask
you
is
you
know
you
built
a
bunch
of
stuff
and
you
finally
seeing
success
with
Creator
Hunter
What
have
you
learned
during
that
process
that
surprised
you
I'm
getting
a
lot
of
questions
as
well
about
how
I
did
it
and
people
want
the
sauce
on
how
to
build
stuff
and
build
stuff
fast
I
think
you
can
just
start
prompting
and
just
prompt
your
way
to
making
something
and
sell
it
I
think
people
underestimate
the
knowledge
they
already
have
So
like
if
you
have
like
a
deep
domain
knowledge
you
probably
have
like
tons
of
ideas
already
on
what
to
build
and
you
probably
have
like
a
winning
idea
already
that
you
could
just
prompt
your
way
and
start
building
I
like
that
Cool
All
right
right
Now
that
you
are
working
on
this
full
time
tell
me
what
a
day
in
the
life
looks
like
you
for
now
building
Creator
Hunter
Yeah
So
it's
a
big
change
More
traveling
and
more
work
When
I
was
building
up
the
MVP
I
was
at
the
same
time
traveling
to
China
New
York
France
and
seeing
revenue
while
you're
out
and
about
exploring
is
a
nice
feeling
It's
a
real
blessing
But
I've
been
working
on
it
full
time
on
Creator
Hunter
since
the
24th
of
December
when
I
quit
the
job
So
some
days
there's
more
hours
that
I
put
in
this
than
my
nine
to
five
but
I
don't
feel
exhausted
at
all
Cool
I
like
that
Well
last
question
that
we
asked
anybody
that
comes
on
Starter
Story
is
if
you
could
give
advice
to
young
polyists
maybe
a
couple
of
years
ago
what
would
you
tell
them
I
think
never
underestimate
how
much
you
can
do
solo
AI
as
your
CTO
is
like
a
superpower
I
don't
know
how
long
this
period
of
time
will
last
but
we
need
to
take
advantage
of
it
Whatever
ideas
you
have
you
can
probably
execute
it
in
a
weekend
If
you
just
figure
out
the
most
scrappy
idea
possible
in
the
most
scrappy
way
possible
you
can
get
it
out
there
And
then
if
you
put
a
buy
button
on
it
share
it
on
Twitter
in
the
most
scrappy
way
or
TikTok
I
think
you'll
be
surprised
by
the
amount
of
people
that
actually
want
to
get
it
Well
that's
great
advice
Thanks
for
coming
on
Polyus
I
love
what
you
built
You're
going
to
be
a
massive
success
Keep
building
keep
going
and
hopefully
we'll
see
you
back
on
the
channel
Thank
you
Thanks
Polyus
for
coming
on
I
think
his
story
is
amazing
and
it's
proof
that
anybody
right
now
can
build
anything
with
AI
I
mean
he
just
got
started
He
built
a
bunch
of
stuff
And
throughout
that
process
found
the
idea
that
would
change
everything
I
see
a
lot
of
people
waiting
for
the
right
time
to
start
and
just
sitting
on
the
sidelines
while
others
like
Polyus
are
just
getting
started
playing
around
with
these
tools
throwing
shit
at
the
wall
and
shipping
stuff
every
week
If
you
got
started
right
now
and
started
playing
with
these
tools
and
shipping
stuff
imagine
where
you'd
be
in
two
weeks
Yes
it's
early
and
not
everything
is
perfect
but
the
early
bird
gets
the
bag
So
if
you're
serious
about
shipping
you
want
to
build
something
real
and
put
it
out
into
the
world
check
out
Starter
Story
Build
I
put
the
first
link
in
the
description
Let's
build
Thanks
for
watching
I'll
see
you
guys
in
the
next
one
Peace
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