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Tell HN: I made $1000 with my app and now making $500/mo

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Re: Tell HN: I made $1000 with my app and now making $500/mo

#81

Post by strongpigeon »

xwdv wrote: post #73
xbar wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fair, but as a milestone in long-term self-sufficiency, creating a $500/mo app is significant achievement. Saving $150,000 is, too. Which is more likely to lead to true self-sufficiency? Barring other possibilities, the savings. But given human response to positive feedback loops, a successful dev often becomes a more successful dev overtime. Hence, I favor the "first app I wrote that made $500/mo" is more si…

Didn’t really want to go down this route but since you guys wanted to I would also point out the OP likely hasn’t been making $500/mo for a full year yet so to make that kind of projection is premature. I think at best he will make that for a few months then it will taper off within the year as the app gets less popular. You can’t just say your app makes $500/mo without giving the time period for how long it has been…

The app made $300 last month and $500 this month. It indeed hasn't been very long, and I agree that $500/mo is a bit of a generous take. However I do plan on adding extra paid features which I think will push that even further.

Re: Tell HN: I made $1000 with my app and now making $500/mo

#82

Post by dheera »

allenu wrote: post #15

Well done! $500/mo, though not crazy money, is significant. How did you market your app and how long did it take you to build out the app? I've built an app as well while I was doing my regular day job and recently quit the day job, mostly due to being burned out working in big tech as well. During my break from work, I decided to try to get my app sales up, but it's challenging. (During my best month, I think I got…

Yep, all money is money and can make a difference to anyone.

I live in the bay area, and though my rent is a lot more than $500/mo, if I put $500/mo more toward rent I really could have a much nicer apartment, for example. Or it could be the monthly payment for an EV.

$500/mo can be a nice quality of life boost even in the most expensive parts of the world even if it's not enough to live on just that.

Back when I was doing my PhD, on a $2300/mo research assistantship salary in Boston, I also built a webapp that got me ~$200-300/mo for several years and close to $900/mo for one of those years. That alone allowed me to do lots of things I wanted to do at the time (e.g. ~2 overseas vacations a year and several self-supported long distance bike trips). Savings wasn't a huge concern at the time because I knew I could get a decent-paying job post-graduation.

Re: Tell HN: I made $1000 with my app and now making $500/mo

#83

Post by SoftTalker »

strongpigeon wrote: post #26
OnlyMortal wrote: post #20

We’ll done! Keep going. Be aware that you may find premium feature take up/download ratio lower on Android.

Thank you! That's what I'm expecting. I'm mostly doing the Android version for my friends and for the "brand awareness" of the app. I'm curious to see how that'll turn out.

I'm on Android, and would possibly use this. Would your app work for tracking the Starting Strength program (3x5 sets 3x/week, not 5/3/1) or is it very exclusive to 5/3/1 tracking?

Re: Tell HN: I made $1000 with my app and now making $500/mo

#85

Post by strongpigeon »

Xeronate wrote: post #79

Grats. That's awesome! How did you market it? Seems like weightlifting apps has to be a pretty saturated market. Also assuming its a native iOS app since there isn't an android equivalent. Were you an iOS developer in big tech? Building UIs feels so much nicer with the native frameworks, but I'm always hesitant to do so because writing the same app twice seems so grueling.

I agree that "weightlifting app" as a whole is pretty saturated and some of the apps are pretty good too. I figured I'd have more chance to stand out in a niche, namely 5/3/1 specific apps.

I was previously a full stack SWE on Google Ads before. The app is built using Flutter, so porting it to Android isn't too hard. I built it using the iOS looking widget first that's what I use. The Android version should be out pretty soon.

Re: Tell HN: I made $1000 with my app and now making $500/mo

#86

Post by RankingMember »

strongpigeon wrote: post #19
RankingMember wrote: post #9

Congrats on the success! Any chance of an Android version of that app? I'm glad you made a 5/3/1-specific app; I've always had to shoehorn 5/3/1 into some other "Build your own routine" apps and it's always been clunky at best.

I'm actively working on the Android version. I'm waiting on some Material 3 component for Flutter to be done [0], but it's almost ready to test! [0] https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/91605

Great to hear

Re: Tell HN: I made $1000 with my app and now making $500/mo

#87

Post by travisgriggs »

strongpigeon wrote: post #19
RankingMember wrote: post #9

Congrats on the success! Any chance of an Android version of that app? I'm glad you made a 5/3/1-specific app; I've always had to shoehorn 5/3/1 into some other "Build your own routine" apps and it's always been clunky at best.

I'm actively working on the Android version. I'm waiting on some Material 3 component for Flutter to be done [0], but it's almost ready to test! [0] https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/91605

Curious why you chose Dart/Flutter over Kotlin/Jetpack (not necessarily Compose though). Could you share?

I hope you’ll share in the future what your usage/downloads look like as well as where you make money, between the two phone types.

Re: Tell HN: I made $1000 with my app and now making $500/mo

#88

Post by sjburt »

moosedev wrote: post #51
bgroat wrote: post #27

$500/mth is $6,000/yr At a 4% safe withdrawal rate what you've built is the equivilent of saving $150,000. You should be EXTREMELY proud of yourself, and never underestimate the power and value of the asset you've built

Without taking anything away from OP's achievement, I'd caution against this kind of exuberant comparison without some qualification around it. The risks to that app's continuing to yield $500/month in perpetuity are quite different (and, I dare say, worse) than the risks faced by the kind of balanced portfolio that "safe withdrawal rate" implies (to me). I acknowledge that you didn't directly compare with such a por…

I think a better comparison is what similar apps would sell for. 2-4x annual revenue seems to be common. So $12-$24k which is not bad!

Re: Tell HN: I made $1000 with my app and now making $500/mo

#89

Post by Ventito »

bgroat wrote: post #27

$500/mth is $6,000/yr At a 4% safe withdrawal rate what you've built is the equivilent of saving $150,000. You should be EXTREMELY proud of yourself, and never underestimate the power and value of the asset you've built

I think its a great achievement in itself but your post does push people in the thinking of 'i can just make a no work sustainable something as a service app and become rich'.

I don't think it works.

I think the best bet by far is either to optimize your job salary (switching after 2-3 years, being proactive, trying leetcode, persuing FAANG) or following FIRE.

$500 would be 5h per month freelancing.

And to be really fair, he would first calculate all hours invested and he needs to calculate/estimate further time involvment.

For creating your own small company/business, thats probably a doable thing but still much more high risk than anything else.

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