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This app replaced my 9-5 ($155K/year)
Starter Story
Sep 13, 2026
Ken spent nearly his entire career in big tech before to build a mobile app. In his first year since he launched, he hit his $10K/month goal, and grew the game to $155K in revenue with zero paid marketing. This video is the story of why he left a comfortable job to build a game, and how he grew it on his own.
Free database: 100+ Solopreneurs making $1M/year https://clickhubspot.com/1k92
Say hi to Ken: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennethylaw/
Check out Harpagia: https://kayelleapps.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.
Chapters
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Transcript
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No tools listed for this business.
My
revenue
jumped
from
roughly
1
000
a
month
to
10
000
a
month
almost
overnight
from
that
one
single
post
This
is
Ken
He
spent
most
of
his
career
working
at
some
of
the
biggest
tech
companies
in
the
world
He
was
successful
making
good
money
until
he
walked
away
from
all
of
it
to
build
a
game
But
here's
the
thing
He
had
never
built
a
game
before
in
his
life
and
he
honestly
had
no
idea
if
it
would
work
At
that
point
I
hadn't
written
a
single
line
of
code
in
over
four
years
But
just
a
couple
years
later
this
little
game
is
already
making
him
over
10
000
a
So
I
wanted
to
have
Ken
on
the
channel
to
break
it
all
down
for
us
And
in
this
episode
we're
going
to
dive
into
why
he
left
his
dream
tech
job
to
build
a
tiny
mobile
game
by
himself
how
he
grew
it
to
over
10
000
a
month
without
spending
a
dollar
dollar
on
marketing
and
the
massive
opportunity
in
games
that
almost
nobody
is
talking
about
All
right
I'm
excited
for
this
one
Let's
dive
in
I'm
Gus
and
this
is
Starter
Story
Hey
real
quick
before
we
hop
in
I'm
Gus
producer
of
the
Starter
Story
YouTube
channel
You've
probably
seen
me
near
the
back
half
of
the
interviews
I'm
filling
in
for
Pat
this
week
because
he's
out
traveling
the
world
But
don't
worry
he'll
be
back
In
the
meantime
enjoy
this
interview
I
think
it's
going
to
be
really
fun
This
is
one
of
the
first
interviews
I'm
hosting
by
myself
So
enjoy
Ken
welcome
to
the
channel
Excited
to
have
you
and
talk
about
games
today
Can
you
tell
us
who
you
are
what
you
built
and
what's
your
story
Yeah
Hey
my
name
is
Ken
and
I've
been
building
a
mobile
game
called
Harpagea
for
the
past
couple
of
years
I
officially
launched
the
game
a
little
over
a
year
and
a
half
ago
while
still
working
a
full
time
job
Growth
was
slow
because
I
didn't
do
any
marketing
After
a
single
Reddit
post
my
revenue
grew
from
about
1
000
a
month
to
over
10
000
000
a
month
I
had
no
audience
no
publisher
and
I
had
no
budget
for
marketing
I'm
excited
to
share
how
building
a
game
for
a
small
audience
can
be
enough
to
build
a
profitable
profitable
business
Yeah
I'm
excited
to
get
into
quitting
your
job
building
a
game
But
before
we
get
into
that
let's
talk
about
Harpagea
itself
your
game
So
can
you
pull
up
your
website
or
landing
page
and
just
tell
us
what
your
game
is
who
who
it's
for
Give
us
a
little
overview
of
that
Yeah
absolutely
Harpagea
is
a
text
based
idle
RPG
Players
level
up
skills
battle
monsters
collect
loot
and
upgrade
their
character
over
time
The
game
is
mainly
played
by
fans
of
incremental
games
like
RuneScape
And
in
this
type
of
game
you're
not
actively
playing
most
of
the
time
The
main
point
is
to
make
meaningful
progress
while
you're
away
come
back
to
collect
rewards
and
then
decide
what
to
do
next
Awesome
That
sounds
cool
I'm
not
a
big
gamer
myself
The
closest
I
ever
got
to
gaming
was
like
Pokemon
on
my
Gameboy
But
I
think
it's
really
cool
that
you
built
this
Can
you
pull
up
your
revenue
screenshots
or
dashboards
to
kind
of
show
off
your
revenue
show
us
that
this
thing
is
legit
Okay
Harpagea
is
a
free
to
play
mobile
game
on
iOS
and
Android
The
game
generates
revenue
through
optional
in
app
purchases
that
unlock
premium
features
or
speed
up
progression
A
lot
of
the
pricing
ranges
anywhere
from
the
2
to
10
range
What
I've
learned
through
a
lot
of
monetization
experimentation
is
anything
around
4
99
to
9
99
players
will
generally
be
okay
to
spend
Anything
that's
above
9
99
it's
a
little
bit
harder
to
convert
Over
the
past
year
the
game
averaged
over
3
in
revenue
per
active
user
The
average
monthly
revenue
has
been
around
13
000
a
month
which
totaled
over
150
000
in
the
past
year
The
monthly
active
users
ranges
anywhere
from
3
500
to
4
000
with
daily
active
users
around
5
000
to
6
000
The
game
has
reached
over
50
000
downloads
combined
with
both
iOS
and
Android
with
roughly
a
6
conversion
rate
which
I
would
consider
pretty
decent
considering
the
typical
conversion
rate
for
games
is
anywhere
from
2
to
5
My
ongoing
operating
expenses
such
as
purchasing
assets
freelancing
art
subscriptions
and
so
on
is
roughly
500
a
month
And
I
did
not
spend
anything
on
ads
so
my
ad
spend
was
zero
Awesome
Ken
That
is
really
cool
to
see
And
I'm
really
excited
to
get
into
your
background
how
you
even
got
to
this
place
how
you
grew
this
game
What
were
you
doing
before
you
were
building
Carpathia
Yeah
so
starting
off
growing
up
I
took
the
traditional
path
I
went
to
college
studied
computer
science
at
UCSD
and
started
working
in
tech
right
after
I
graduated
I
spent
about
12
years
in
big
tech
most
recently
as
an
engineering
manager
at
Meta
Before
that
I
was
a
software
engineer
at
Amazon
During
the
beginning
of
2024
AI
tools
started
gaining
traction
At
that
point
I
hadn't
written
a
single
line
of
code
in
over
four
years
and
I
wanted
to
see
if
I
could
build
an
app
with
AI
assistance
I
built
my
first
app
which
was
a
simple
card
game
called
Big
2
Wild
in
about
six
weeks
I
made
this
game
because
this
was
a
really
popular
card
game
that
my
friends
and
I
had
played
back
in
high
school
I
also
wanted
to
make
sure
that
the
scope
was
small
enough
for
me
to
complete
in
a
short
amount
of
time
to
gain
experience
of
actually
shipping
something
Building
that
game
taught
me
a
lot
about
AI
assisted
development
building
a
product
end
to
end
handling
app
store
approvals
and
what
it
actually
takes
to
launch
a
product
to
the
world
I
took
those
lessons
and
applied
them
to
my
next
project
which
became
Carpathia
I
love
everything
that
Ken
is
breaking
down
right
now
He
built
and
grew
this
game
entirely
by
himself
He
was
just
a
guy
who
quit
his
job
in
tech
to
build
this
tiny
game
by
himself
that's
now
making
over
10
000
a
month
We
really
love
stories
like
this
at
Starter
Story
because
it
shows
that
sometimes
there's
something
more
than
having
a
big
comfortable
tech
job
Sometimes
what
really
matters
is
going
out
on
your
own
and
building
your
own
thing
So
that's
exactly
why
we
worked
with
the
team
at
HubSpot
put
together
a
free
database
of
over
1
000
sole
developers
who
are
making
over
10
000
a
month
from
their
projects
Inside
that
database
we
have
real
revenue
numbers
real
strategies
all
from
stuff
we're
building
projects
by
themselves
just
like
Ken
So
if
you're
looking
for
a
proven
idea
and
are
ready
to
build
just
head
to
the
first
link
in
the
description
and
grab
this
database
100
for
free
All
right
let's
get
back
to
Ken
Okay
that's
awesome
We
often
say
here
at
Starter
Story
it's
one
of
the
best
ways
to
come
up
with
any
business
ideas
to
build
something
you
would
want
to
use
But
I
want
to
go
back
just
a
little
click
You
mentioned
that
you
worked
at
these
big
tech
companies
Meta
and
Amazon
assuming
you
were
making
decent
money
and
yet
you
still
decided
that
you
didn't
want
to
maybe
continue
pursuing
that
traditional
path
and
you
wanted
to
build
this
game
Tell
us
a
little
bit
of
the
story
around
quitting
tech
to
build
this
little
mobile
game
Yeah
so
working
at
Meta
was
really
stressful
but
rewarding
During
the
first
half
of
my
career
there
I
learned
an
incredible
amount
I
had
great
mentors
and
the
company
was
also
really
supportive
of
its
employees
However
things
shifted
over
time
Once
the
layoffs
started
happening
in
2022
my
perception
of
job
stability
had
changed
I
realized
that
job
security
is
never
guaranteed
no
matter
how
hard
you
work
I
wanted
to
take
control
of
my
own
future
I
started
experimenting
with
AI
tools
and
chose
to
build
a
game
because
gaming
was
something
I
felt
that
I
knew
very
well
After
I
launched
a
small
group
of
players
found
the
game
and
gave
me
feedback
I
made
my
first
sale
a
few
days
into
launch
which
was
incredibly
validating
It
proved
to
me
that
even
though
my
game
was
in
an
incredibly
early
alpha
version
someone
enjoyed
it
enough
to
spend
10
for
something
that
I
had
built
By
the
end
of
my
first
month
I
made
about
150
in
sales
By
the
end
of
my
second
month
I
made
about
1
500
in
total
sales
It
was
at
this
point
that
I
started
to
see
that
this
could
potentially
be
more
than
just
a
small
hobby
project
I
decided
that
if
my
game
could
reach
10
000
a
month
organically
I'd
leave
my
job
and
go
all
in
The
game
continued
to
grow
slowly
and
six
months
after
launch
I
made
my
first
Reddit
post
about
the
game
The
response
was
actually
overwhelmingly
critical
but
the
post
gained
significant
traction
and
put
Harpejia
in
front
of
thousands
of
players
My
revenue
jumped
from
roughly
1
000
a
month
to
10
000
a
month
almost
overnight
from
that
one
single
post
and
I
hit
my
goal
I
left
Meta
that
same
month
The
salary
at
Meta
is
way
above
that
but
once
again
I
just
really
wanted
to
do
something
for
myself
for
the
first
time
ever
That's
why
I
thought
that
if
the
financial
aspect
wasn't
enough
to
cover
my
expenses
I'm
just
going
to
do
it
because
if
I'm
not
going
to
do
it
now
when
am
I
going
to
do
it
Yeah
I
like
that
mindset
of
like
if
I'm
not
going
to
do
it
now
when
am
I
going
to
do
it
You
know
I
think
if
you
want
to
do
this
like
you
can
sort
of
set
parameters
to
make
it
happen
And
once
you
make
those
parameters
work
you
can
actually
go
for
it
And
it
kind
of
sounds
like
a
little
bit
of
what
you
did
That's
cool
Okay
let's
get
into
the
growth
I'm
really
excited
to
talk
a
little
bit
more
about
this
So
you
mentioned
in
your
first
year
you
spent
0
on
marketing
and
you
also
mentioned
something
about
how
Reddit
has
been
a
useful
marketing
tool
for
you
So
let's
get
into
it
What
were
some
of
the
main
marketing
distribution
strategies
you
use
to
help
you
go
from
zero
to
10
000
a
month
Yeah
so
my
main
marketing
strategy
after
the
first
year
was
posting
on
Reddit
Almost
every
single
time
that
I
posted
on
there
I'd
receive
a
significant
jump
in
new
players
While
the
results
weren't
consistent
Reddit
has
been
my
number
one
marketing
tactic
I
think
one
challenge
though
for
Reddit
is
that
many
subreddits
don't
allow
developers
to
promote
their
product
more
than
once
a
month
month
Because
of
that
I
generally
only
shared
major
updates
once
every
few
months
One
thing
that
I
found
interesting
was
that
the
posts
generating
the
most
discussion
often
perform
the
best
especially
the
ones
that
receive
the
most
criticism
The
very
first
post
that
I
made
just
showed
some
screenshots
of
the
game
and
kind
of
just
explaining
a
little
bit
about
what
the
game
is
and
a
few
metrics
about
how
free
to
play
it
is
because
a
lot
of
people
especially
in
the
gaming
community
want
to
try
out
a
game
game
before
they
want
to
pay
for
the
game
At
the
time
it
was
really
rough
around
the
edges
when
I
first
advertised
the
game
but
that
honestly
didn't
matter
because
it
brought
in
so
much
conversation
and
criticism
from
the
Reddit
users
that
it
actually
helped
boost
my
game
so
much
And
every
single
one
of
those
posts
I
get
a
huge
jump
in
new
users
again
Over
time
revenue
grew
from
around
10
000
a
month
to
a
peak
of
roughly
18
000
a
month
month
just
posting
on
Reddit
Yeah
I
think
Reddit
is
something
we've
seen
over
and
over
again
on
Starter
Story
as
a
place
where
people
start
to
get
that
initial
traction
And
obviously
for
you
it
took
you
a
lot
of
these
posts
helped
you
get
from
that
zero
to
10
000
a
month
The
main
lesson
I'm
getting
from
this
brief
section
is
like
all
publicity
is
good
publicity
and
it
gave
you
users
it
gave
you
traction
and
probably
I'm
assuming
it
gave
you
some
feedback
that
you
ended
up
taking
and
applying
to
the
game
So
let's
switch
gears
a
little
bit
Like
I
was
mentioning
earlier
talking
about
games
is
not
something
we
always
feature
on
Starter
Story
but
I
was
really
curious
to
bring
you
on
because
you
know
like
background
of
working
in
big
tech
and
dropping
that
to
build
this
kind
of
tiny
game
Let's
talk
about
the
opportunity
in
games
Can
you
just
give
us
or
educate
us
on
a
little
bit
of
like
how
big
this
gaming
opportunity
is
Is
there
room
for
people
watching
who
you
know
maybe
could
do
a
little
bit
of
gaming
on
the
side
to
start
building
their
own
games
The
gaming
industry
is
a
100
billion
industry
And
I
think
one
misconception
is
that
you
need
to
have
hundreds
of
thousands
or
millions
of
players
to
have
a
sustainable
business
What
I
learned
over
the
past
couple
of
years
is
that
you
can
make
a
meaningful
amount
of
money
money
with
a
small
audience
if
you're
building
something
people
genuinely
enjoy
When
I
first
started
building
Harpagia
I
never
would
have
believed
that
only
a
few
hundred
active
users
could
generate
over
100
000
in
revenue
each
year
That
completely
changed
how
I
think
about
niche
businesses
and
small
audiences
The
opportunity
isn't
necessarily
building
the
next
big
hit
like
Flappy
Bird
or
Clash
of
Clans
The
opportunity
is
being
able
to
build
something
that
you
genuinely
care
about
and
find
other
people
who
care
about
it
too
Yeah
that's
cool
Yeah
like
we
just
said
about
kind
of
building
as
a
way
to
kind
of
express
your
creative
vision
or
kind
of
bring
something
thinking
about
to
life
in
a
game
OK
let's
switch
gears
and
maybe
just
show
us
a
little
demo
of
your
game
how
it
works
I'd
love
to
see
it
So
at
its
core
there
are
16
different
skills
in
Harpagia
Some
skills
are
pretty
simple
You
simply
hit
the
start
mining
and
then
you
can
get
tons
of
resources
which
you
can
use
to
upgrade
your
items
items
There
are
other
more
interactive
skills
like
archaeology
where
you
tap
on
various
tiles
and
upgrade
things
to
get
various
different
bonuses
in
the
game
You
can
also
upgrade
your
items
to
get
stronger
weapons
which
you
can
then
use
to
go
battle
enemies
Here
is
what
the
combat
looks
like
This
is
what
an
idle
RPG
is
Basically
you
don't
need
to
do
anything
and
the
game
just
automatically
fights
the
enemies
for
you
There's
tons
of
different
gears
and
abilities
that
you
can
equip
So
there's
a
lot
of
different
variety
and
a
lot
of
builds
that
you
can
do
which
makes
the
game
have
quite
a
bit
of
variety
Cool
That's
awesome
And
you
built
all
this
just
with
AI
tool
I
can
see
why
people
might
like
it
right
They're
kind
of
collecting
things
or
growing
things
Let's
switch
topics
here
Let's
talk
about
how
you
built
this
What's
the
tech
stack
What
are
the
tools
you
use
to
build
this
game
and
build
your
business
Harpagia's
tech
stack
is
very
lightweight
You
don't
need
a
vast
amount
of
tools
to
build
a
profitable
product
For
my
code
editor
I
use
Cursor
I
use
ChatGPT
for
brainstorming
and
doing
various
icon
touch
ups
I
use
React
Native
for
my
front
end
I
use
Firebase
for
my
backend
auth
and
analytics
I
use
Discord
Nitro
for
community
management
I
use
Vercel
for
web
hosting
And
the
following
are
not
necessarily
tools
but
are
very
useful
in
the
gaming
niche
For
purchasing
assets
I
use
the
Unity
Asset
Store
or
Gamedev
Market
which
have
a
lot
of
pre
packaged
assets
that
you
can
purchase
and
save
a
lot
of
time
on
making
art
I
also
use
Fiverr
and
Upwork
to
hire
freelancers
to
create
screenshots
icons
videos
so
I
can
just
focus
on
building
All
right
let's
wrap
up
here
and
just
talk
about
a
question
we
always
ask
to
everyone
that
comes
on
the
channel
If
you
were
standing
on
your
shoulder
two
years
ago
five
years
ago
what
advice
would
you
give
to
yourself
Build
something
that
you
understand
well
and
get
real
feedback
as
early
as
possible
not
from
friends
and
family
but
from
your
potential
customers
One
of
the
best
decisions
I
made
was
forcing
myself
to
launch
the
game
after
six
months
no
matter
what
At
the
time
I
had
a
much
bigger
vision
for
the
game
but
looking
back
there's
no
way
the
game
would
have
improved
the
way
it
did
without
getting
it
into
the
hands
of
real
players
If
you're
not
embarrassed
by
your
V1
V2
or
maybe
even
your
V5
you're
probably
not
shipping
early
enough
Your
early
users
or
playtesters
will
give
you
incredible
feedback
and
help
shape
your
game
I
also
didn't
worry
much
about
monetization
in
the
beginning
My
focus
was
retention
first
and
building
a
game
that
people
wanted
to
keep
playing
Awesome
That's
great
advice
Ken
Thank
you
for
coming
onto
the
channel
Excited
to
see
where
this
game
goes
and
maybe
we'll
have
you
back
on
when
you're
making
making
50K
a
month
or
100K
a
month
Thanks
for
having
me
Gus
Appreciate
it
I
just
wrapped
up
with
Ken
That
was
a
really
fun
interview
one
of
the
first
that
I've
done
by
myself
on
this
channel
So
thank
you
Leave
me
some
feedback
in
the
comments
Let
me
know
what
I
could
do
better
next
time
or
what
questions
I
maybe
should
have
asked
My
takeaway
from
this
is
I
liked
what
he
said
about
building
stuff
that
you
know
that
genuinely
interested
in
It's
kind
of
generic
advice
to
some
degree
but
I
think
it's
important
advice
to
reiterate
because
when
you
know
the
niche
or
know
the
industry
you're
going
to
be
one
more
excited
to
do
it
two
be
more
of
the
target
user
and
kind
of
understand
the
mind
of
your
potential
customers
and
three
just
I
think
that
passion
or
that
interest
will
carry
you
through
more
than
like
building
some
random
generator
or
some
random
app
just
because
it's
popular
or
making
money
The
most
important
thing
is
that
you
go
out
and
actually
start
building
And
if
you're
interested
in
looking
for
ideas
that
you
can
build
by
yourself
we've
put
a
free
resource
in
the
description
over
a
thousand
solo
developers
who
have
built
their
own
10
000
per
month
projects
all
by
themselves
Just
click
the
link
in
the
description
and
download
that
for
free
All
right
Hope
you
enjoyed
this
one
Thank
you
for
watching
We'll
see
you
in
the
next
one
Peace
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