My Apps Make $4.5M/Year With $0 Marketing
Starter Story
Apr 19, 2025
Erikas runs 5 different Shopify apps, making $4.5M/Year. In this interview, he breaks down the simple playbook behind his explosive growth. And how he went from $2/hour to making millions with 90% margins.
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Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
1:33 - Breakdown of Apps
2:16 - Building apps on platforms
4:40 - How to find winning ideas
6:33 - An under-the-radar marketplace to build on
8:37 - His process for building apps
11:11 - The strategy that changed everything
13:32 - 3 step launch strategy
14:12 - Tech stack
15:17 - Day in the life
16:13 - Advice to new founders
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
My
Shopify
app
Ka
Ching
Bundles
is
currently
making
me
4
5
million
a
year
and
we
spend
almost
0
on
marketing
How
does
this
guy
make
over
4
million
a
year
without
spending
thousands
of
dollars
on
marketing
Well
the
answer
is
something
you
probably
wouldn't
expect
All
of
our
growth
is
coming
either
from…
Or
s**t
Erika
started
his
journey
as
a
designer
making
just
2
an
hour
then
he
stumbled
onto
an
opportunity
that
would
change
his
life
forever
I
think
there's
still
a
lot
of
opportunity
building
in
platforms
and
I'm
personally
researching…
I
spent
over
an
hour
talking
to
Erika
about
all
his
different
Shopify
apps
and
how
anybody
can
start
building
these
things
from
scratch
And
good
news
he
shared
everything
including
how
to
find
platform
specific
ideas
to
build
how
to
run
an
async
team
with
90
margin
and
the
unique
marketing
strategy
that
helped
him
grow
to
4
5
million
a
year
in
just
two
years
Alright
let's
get
into
it
I'm
Pat
Walls
and
this
is
Starter
Story
Welcome
Erikas
welcome
to
the
channel
Tell
me
about
who
you
are
and
what
business
that
you
built
Hi
guys
so
my
name
is
Erikas
I'm
from
Lithuania
originally
currently
living
in
Paris
and
I'm
a
designer
turned
entrepreneur
building
Shopify
apps
together
with
my
co
founder
we're
currently
at
4
5
million
annual
recurring
revenue
What's
really
cool
about
our
business
is
that
we're
90
profitable
Okay
if
you
could
give
me
a
little
bit
of
a
breakdown
of
apps
that
you
built
So
currently
we
have
five
apps
in
total
Our
first
app
in
the
discount
category
was
Kaching
Bundles
and
we
scaled
it
to
around
400k
monthly
recurring
revenue
currently
Then
we
launched
Kaching
Post
Purchase
Upsell
After
that
we
launched
Kaching
Pop
Up
Upsell
And
right
now
a
few
weeks
ago
we
launched
Kaching
Card
Drawer
Upsell
All
of
these
apps
are
in
the
discount
category
serving
customers
that
want
to
increase
their
average
order
value
within
Shopify
Since
our
launch
in
2022
August
we
already
made
more
than
400
million
in
additional
revenue
for
all
of
the
merchants
that
are
using
our
apps
That's
awesome
In
building
these
businesses
what
have
you
learned
What
is
the
big
opportunity
on
building
apps
on
platforms
The
thing
I
noticed
about
the
app
developers
is
that
they're
solo
developers
indie
hackers
And
I
thought
that
they
lack
great
user
experience
All
of
their
apps
are
kind
of
technical
and
a
bit
complex
for
regular
users
And
the
other
type
of
apps
was
VC
backed
or
huge
corporations
The
user
experience
was
great
But
the
problem
about
them
was
that
they
actually
move
pretty
slow
If
there's
a
feature
lacking
it
would
take
probably
months
or
maybe
even
a
year
to
launch
something
new
So
that's
how
I
kind
of
knew
that
there
is
an
opportunity
for
me
to
be
in
that
ecosystem
and
to
try
to
beat
all
of
those
solo
developers
I
wasn't
sure
that
I
will
be
able
to
compete
with
bigger
companies
backed
by
VCs
and
so
on
Like
a
year
or
two
years
after
doing
Shopify
apps
I
realized
that
it's
possible
to
compete
compete
with
them
as
well
Okay
let's
go
a
bit
into
your
backstory
here
What
did
you
do
before
entrepreneurship
and
what
got
you
into
building
stuff
Yeah
so
right
after
finishing
my
school
I
joined
the
local
web
design
agency
and
I
started
working
for
2
per
hour
Since
day
one
I
was
always
thinking
how
can
I
10x
my
earnings
And
I
quickly
realized
that
if
I
want
to
earn
more
I
have
to
work
for
myself
I
have
to
start
freelancing
So
that's
what
I
did
in
2016
or
2015
I
guess
Three
to
four
years
later
while
I
was
still
freelancing
I
was
building
products
on
the
side
I
had
a
client
a
startup
who
needed
a
landing
page
So
what
I
was
doing
I
was
just
browsing
the
internet
and
looking
for
inspiration
And
that's
how
I
stumbled
upon
Shopify
partners
page
bookmarked
it
And
later
on
when
I
looked
into
it
I
saw
a
section
which
said
that
top
25
Shopify
app
developers
are
making
almost
300k
a
year
And
in
my
eyes
it
was
like
oh
my
God
it's
huge
Because
what
I
was
making
with
my
freelance
work
was
much
less
Having
all
of
the
experience
in
Shopify
I
knew
how
those
apps
were
And
that's
how
I
realized
that
I
have
to
build
something
myself
in
the
ecosystem
Okay
the
Shopify
app
opportunity
How
did
you
find
this
idea
And
generally
how
do
you
think
about
finding
ideas
When
I
was
thinking
of
what
do
I
want
to
build
in
the
Shopify
app
marketplace
I
already
had
three
main
criteria
So
first
one
was
it
has
to
be
pretty
easy
to
build
I
have
to
build
it
in
like
a
couple
of
months
no
more
than
that
The
second
criteria
was
pretty
broad
market
I
wanted
to
build
something
that
could
be
useful
for
any
Shopify
store
because
it
would
be
a
lot
easier
to
market
it
and
I
could
use
all
of
my
clients
that
use
Shopify
and
so
on
The
third
criteria
was
I
needed
low
competition
So
that's
my
main
setup
how
I
differentiate
good
ideas
versus
bad
ideas
Nice
So
on
the
topic
of
good
ideas
and
bad
ideas
let's
talk
about
validation
How
do
you
know
when
your
idea
is
validated
And
what
does
that
look
like
for
your
apps
before
Before
building
it
I
tried
to
validate
it
with
basically
talking
to
users
You
know
I
joined
various
Discord
communities
of
dropshippers
I
joined
e
commerce
Facebook
groups
I
posted
various
Facebook
posts
in
those
groups
And
one
of
the
posts
where
I
had
a
screenshot
of
my
not
yet
published
app
it
was
just
a
design
and
it
kind
of
blew
up
There
was
more
than
100
likes
and
a
lot
of
comments
asking
you
know
where
can
I
download
this
app
Because
they
thought
that
it's
already
live
So
that
was
my
first
validation
that
this
product
is
needed
and
yeah
it
could
be
successful
If
you
can
build
a
landing
page
or
something
to
try
to
get
the
emails
of
your
customers
that's
great
If
you
can
even
charge
for
it
maybe
make
a
pre
order
or
something
that's
even
better
because
you
already
know
that
people
will
pay
money
for
it
All
right
I
got
to
stop
you
real
quick
and
zoom
out
Ericas
built
an
insane
business
4
million
a
year
on
top
of
the
Shopify
app
store
without
spending
any
money
on
ads
And
that's
maybe
the
secret
building
on
top
of
a
marketplace
You
don't
need
a
big
audience
You
don't
need
to
spend
money
on
ads
And
there's
a
built
in
customer
base
just
waiting
for
you
to
solve
their
problems
The
only
problem
with
that
is
that
Shopify's
developer
ecosystem
is
I'll
admit
pretty
mature
In
other
words
that
means
there's
a
good
amount
of
competition
on
the
platform
So
that
begs
the
question
what's
the
next
Shopify
What's
the
under
the
radar
marketplace
where
I
think
developers
should
be
building
right
now
Well
one
place
I
think
is
interesting
is
the
monday
com
marketplace
We
partner
with
them
on
this
video
because
they're
putting
real
energy
behind
expanding
the
marketplace
investing
in
the
platform
supporting
developers
and
actively
looking
for
more
builders
to
help
meet
their
growing
customer
demand
Now
is
the
time
to
get
in
early
and
make
your
mark
while
it's
still
easier
to
stand
out
They've
got
over
245
000
customers
across
over
200
industries
and
90
of
their
enterprise
customers
use
monday
com
apps
Enterprise
that's
the
big
bucks
What's
also
cool
is
they
have
good
APIs
clean
docs
solid
SDKs
and
a
team
dedicated
to
helping
you
grow
and
make
money
If
this
tickles
your
fancy
well
with
monday
com
we
put
together
this
free
download
breaking
down
a
bunch
of
stats
about
the
opportunity
here
who
their
users
are
and
what
kind
of
problems
they
really
need
solved
And
here's
a
pro
tip
Take
some
of
that
info
and
plug
it
into
your
favorite
LLM
and
I
bet
it
will
give
you
some
really
cool
ideas
for
what
to
build
If
you
want
to
download
just
click
the
first
link
in
the
description
fill
out
the
quick
form
and
sign
up
for
your
developer
account
It's
all
100
free
to
get
started
I'm
stoked
that
we
got
to
partner
with
monday
com
in
this
video
because
Aircost
is
an
example
of
what
happens
when
you
build
on
a
marketplace
All
right
let's
get
back
to
the
interview
You're
a
designer
not
a
developer
developer
How
do
you
go
about
actually
building
these
products
What's
your
process
to
go
from
zero
to
one
with
a
new
idea
Yeah
so
when
I'm
designing
things
the
first
thing
I
look
into
is
competitors
If
there's
already
competitors
in
space
that's
a
good
thing
because
you
can
dig
into
deeper
and
see
how
they
do
Like
see
their
user
experience
just
go
through
it
and
I'm
taking
notes
of
what
I
really
like
about
it
and
what
I
dislike
about
it
And
after
that
I
have
a
clear
image
of
how
my
app
could
look
like
so
that
I
could
fairly
say
that
it's
objectively
better
than
my
competitors
And
to
make
my
chance
for
success
higher
I
have
to
find
a
co
founder
I
think
finding
a
co
founder
is
pretty
much
similar
to
doing
sales
because
you
have
to
someone
an
idea
that
you
can
make
a
successful
business
and
you
just
need
their
help
That's
what
I
was
trying
to
do
You
know
I
went
into
a
local
developer
group
in
Facebook
I
made
a
huge
post
and
I
mentioned
that
you
know
first
of
all
I
have
Shopify
experience
Second
I'm
a
great
designer
with
years
of
experience
so
I
can
provide
a
great
user
experience
which
will
increase
our
chance
for
success
Third
I
have
all
of
those
clients
already
using
Shopify
which
we
can
sell
our
Shopify
app
to
And
with
all
of
those
things
you
know
I
think
I'm
increasing
my
chance
for
finding
a
right
fit
And
that's
basically
how
I
found
my
co
founder
Let's
go
to
the
next
section
here
I
want
to
talk
about
marketing
How
do
you
go
from
Shopify
app
to
real
users
and
real
paying
customers
When
you
are
just
a
new
app
you
have
zero
users
You
have
nothing
You're
right
at
the
bottom
of
the
app
store
listings
So
I
knew
that
we
need
to
onboard
as
many
users
as
we
can
manually
So
yeah
I
just
went
to
all
of
the
communities
I
just
went
to
all
of
my
clients
all
of
my
friends
that
are
using
Shopify
and
asked
them
to
install
our
app
and
try
it
for
themselves
I
made
the
app
free
and
this
way
you
can
get
more
installs
and
of
course
more
installs
convert
to
more
reviews
And
of
course
it
drives
more
revenue
then
and
it
helps
you
know
to
improve
your
product
further
because
you
get
all
of
this
feedback
Okay
I
want
to
dive
into
some
of
the
dirty
details
about
this
reviews
thing
because
I
think
that
this
is
it's
simple
It
sounds
simple
but
it's
actually
genius
So
let's
go
a
little
bit
deeper
into
the
customer
support
and
review
strategy
that
really
did
change
your
business
Yeah
So
once
we
said
that
it's
crucial
for
us
to
get
those
five
star
reviews
we
optimized
all
of
our
processes
towards
it
So
first
of
all
our
product
within
our
product
you
straight
away
We
just
ask
for
Then
we
have
all
of
these
monthly
emails
So
every
month
we're
sending
a
monthly
email
in
which
we
show
how
much
revenue
this
app
brought
to
you
And
in
that
email
we
also
ask
for
review
I
think
around
95
of
our
reviews
for
our
apps
come
from
customer
support
Our
customer
support
is
top
notch
All
of
our
customer
support
agents
are
really
technical
so
they
can
dig
into
your
code
and
fix
things
And
yeah
we
provide
24
seven
customer
support
right
now
And
now
that
you
have
a
team
you
realize
still
how
important
this
is
And
I
realize
that
you
have
like
a
little
bit
of
a
system
that
where
you
gamified
reviews
Can
you
talk
more
about
that
So
recently
I
introduced
a
gamified
bonus
system
to
our
customer
support
team
And
right
now
we're
tracking
who
gets
more
reviews
We
have
the
monthly
leaderboard
and
we
have
all
of
these
different
raffles
And
actually
my
favorite
bonus
is
a
persuader
of
the
month
And
what
we
do
is
we
basically
calculate
the
conversion
rate
of
how
many
times
you
ask
for
review
and
how
many
reviews
you
get
And
I
think
it
really
helps
those
agents
bring
more
reviews
And
of
course
it
incentivizes
them
because
they
get
bonuses
for
each
review
OK
well
let's
dive
a
little
bit
into
monetization
pricing
and
conversion
How
did
you
make
the
first
dollar
with
caching
apps
and
how
did
you
get
those
first
users
When
we
got
our
initial
reviews
when
we
started
ranking
for
specific
keywords
that's
when
we
introduced
our
monetization
We
introduced
the
subscription
model
Later
on
we
introduced
some
tiers
So
like
the
more
you
use
our
product
the
higher
price
you
pay
Nice
And
is
there
kind
of
a
strategy
that
you
think
about
now
every
time
you
go
to
launch
a
new
app
I
always
launch
it
for
free
because
it
reduces
friction
of
installs
And
as
soon
as
I
start
getting
organic
installs
I
grant
favor
all
of
the
users
that
are
already
using
our
app
so
that
they
wouldn't
need
to
pay
And
I
monetize
only
the
new
users
And
yeah
we
always
offer
free
trial
That
also
helps
And
we
offer
full
refunds
no
question
asked
because
I
think
the
risk
of
getting
one
star
review
is
just
too
big
That
was
awesome
Next
question
is
let's
talk
about
tech
stack
What
kind
of
tools
or
languages
do
you
use
to
build
and
run
this
business
Yeah
so
language
wise
I
will
not
tell
much
because
I'm
not
technical
But
in
our
organization
we
primarily
use
Slack
for
our
communication
Then
for
our
customer
support
we
use
Intercom
Then
we
use
features
vote
for
gathering
feature
suggestions
Every
user
can
go
to
that
board
and
suggest
a
feature
or
just
upvote
for
other
features
that
they
think
that
we
need
to
implement
Another
tool
that
we're
using
is
Linear
So
we
use
it
internally
for
our
task
management
Last
but
not
least
we
use
Mantle
You
have
everything
Shopify
related
there
You
can
set
up
affiliate
partnerships
You
can
see
all
of
the
metrics
all
of
the
funnels
customer
management
and
so
on
Since
day
one
our
profitability
was
around
90
Expenses
wise
we
always
try
to
stay
very
very
lean
I
hope
we
will
stay
lean
in
the
future
as
well
Cool
That's
amazing
Let's
move
on
to
the
next
question
more
of
the
lifestyle
side
of
things
Can
you
give
me
what
the
day
in
the
life
looks
like
for
you
a
Shopify
app
developer
making
millions
of
dollars
per
year
What
does
your
typical
day
look
like
Yeah
so
I
get
up
whenever
I
get
up
I
don't
set
any
alarms
I
check
my
emails
while
still
in
bed
I
scroll
some
Twitter
like
probably
everyone
else
in
the
world
When
I
have
my
to
do
list
I
always
try
to
differentiate
quick
wins
something
that
I
can
do
in
up
to
30
minutes
And
all
of
the
other
stuff
is
harder
stuff
that
I
focus
on
later
on
I
love
the
lifestyle
I
love
what
I
do
And
I
don't
feel
like
working
working
I
feel
like
I'm
doing
something
I'm
really
passionate
about
which
really
helps
because
I'm
not
counting
time
at
all
That's
awesome
Last
question
that
we
always
ask
all
founders
on
the
Startup
Story
channel
What
advice
would
you
give
to
someone
looking
to
start
their
own
business
and
start
their
own
thing
online
So
I
think
that
at
start
two
people
are
enough
You
just
have
a
designer
who
does
all
of
the
product
stuff
You
have
a
tech
guy
and
you're
good
to
go
because
you
will
be
doing
all
of
the
customer
support
yourself
to
know
what
your
clients
are
struggling
with
And
yeah
once
you
start
getting
more
tickets
and
once
you
start
growing
and
scaling
your
product
then
you
can
start
hiring
customer
support
and
then
you
can
start
scaling
your
team
And
yeah
another
advice
I
could
give
is
probably
to
hang
around
other
people
that
are
building
because
community
is
really
helping
because
you
get
to
know
people
you
can
learn
from
their
mistakes
And
yeah
maybe
you
can
even
find
a
co
founder
in
those
communities
and
so
on
That's
it
Thank
you
Erikos
for
coming
on
the
channel
sharing
your
business
that
makes
millions
90
profit
margin
It's
amazing
And
I
can't
wait
to
see
you
hit
10
million
and
take
it
further
So
thanks
for
coming
on
Thanks
for
having
me
Erikos
is
the
perfect
example
about
how
a
designer
and
a
builder
builder
can
turn
a
simple
idea
into
thousands
of
dollars
But
that
came
with
knowing
the
right
information
For
him
it
was
about
Shopify
and
finding
the
right
problem
to
solve
Well
imagine
there
was
a
place
that
gave
you
this
Problems
to
solve
blueprints
for
building
and
the
marketing
strategies
that
turn
simple
ideas
into
million
dollar
online
businesses
That's
what
we
have
at
Starter
Story
a
library
of
over
4
000
case
studies
and
business
idea
breakdowns
where
you
can
access
this
all
data
backed
by
real
entrepreneurs
So
if
you're
serious
about
building
a
profitable
side
project
like
Erikos
head
to
the
link
in
the
description
and
we
will
give
you
52
micro
SaaS
ideas
for
free
just
like
Erikos
so
you
can
get
started
on
your
journey
Much
love
and
I'll
see
you
in
the
next
one
Peace
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