The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner - He's 19 and Made $225K in 9 Months - Ep. #318
Episode Date: July 17, 2026Get 30 days free on HighLevel only with my link: https://www.gohighlevel.com/TKOPOD⸻Ride the AI tidal wave together. Join the community of consultants learning to charge $500–$5k/mo :�...��https://playmakersai.com/━Check out my newsletter at https://TKOPOD.com and join my community at https://TKOwners.com━I sat down with George to break down how he generated roughly $225,000 in nine months building AI-powered mobile apps without any coding experience. He shared how he launched WrestleAI, grew it through niche influencers, and used paid ads to scale two newer apps to $10K in just 45 days. We also walked through his exact app launch playbook, including finding a strong visual feature, partnering with creators, testing Meta ads, and building recurring revenue through yearly subscriptions. Finally, we talked about his goal of reaching $1 million in revenue before turning 20 and whether he should focus on one major company or build an entire portfolio of niche apps.Enjoy!---Watch this on YouTube instead here: tkopod.co/p-ytAsk me a question on or off the show here: http://tkopod.co/p-askLearn more about me: http://tkopod.co/p-cjkLearn about my company: http://tkopod.co/p-cofFollow me on Twitter here: http://tkopod.co/p-xFree weekly business ideas newsletter: http://tkopod.co/p-nlShare this podcast: http://tkopod.co/p-allScrape small business data: http://tkopod.co/p-os---
Transcript
Discussion (0)
What has your revenue been to date so far across all of these projects?
So to date, I think 225,000.
In like nine months of building vibe coding apps without any coding experience.
Yeah.
Gosh.
Quarter million dollars.
Most of that profit.
My goal is to hit a million in revenue before 20.
Before age 20.
Yeah.
And when do you turn 20?
Turn 20 next April.
We did like 8K in the first week.
And I was like, holy.
My dream was 10K a month at the time.
Yeah.
I didn't think he was going to go anywhere.
I just did it because I wanted to see if it was possible.
This is insane.
I don't know what I'm doing.
I have a full business from software.
And I don't know anything about coding.
Yeah.
These two latest apps are able to scale both to 10K and 45 days.
What did you do in December again?
So December we did 30.
And then January, we did 40.
So we've talked a very specific playbook here.
But if someone wanted to go out and start their own app like you've done,
what advice would you give them?
So I have like three different apps that are generating revenue.
The one that generated most of it.
it technically for it but the one that generated almost like almost all of it up to this date has been
uh wrestling i and then dude i didn't even know you're wrestling this is awesome yeah yeah and then the last
two months has been uh i've really talked about about i'm like publicly but it's like uh they're like
these two other apps i've been like launching okay you can't just do one thing huh i can't either that's
not a knock on you so so no the reason i did it was wrestling wrestling season ended
and i have like a i have a full so i have a full-time job so i have a full-time job so
So the way I got the full-time job is I don't know how to code, right?
I built all these apps on Rourke.
On Rourke?
Yeah, Rourke.
It's like an AI app builder.
Like Replit?
Exactly.
So it's like Replit except it does like Swift.
Okay.
So it does like, you know Swift is?
For like mobile iPhone apps.
Yeah, it's like fully mobile.
And I built my first app through them.
Well, I built my first app called Fight AI, which was like I just built it for myself.
And it was like a test app.
Then Resslyio was my first real thing.
And from there, I was, like, posting about them for free just because I was like, this is insane.
Like, I don't know what I'm doing.
And like, I have a full business.
Yeah.
From software, and I don't know anything about coding.
Yeah.
And they reached out to me.
And me and the founder, we would, like, talk.
I would tell them, like, stuff I wanted stuff.
We would just, like, talk about the platform.
And he invited me to join the team for their growth team.
So I joined, like, December.
It was like, yeah, it was only like, it was like two months into wrestling.
I was like, then just fully pivoted.
to like full time on Roark.
And like when I, when I do something, I wanted to go, like, I still had focus on
RESTLYI, but thank God in those two months I was actually able to, like, create some systems.
So I didn't have to, like, work on it that much.
I mean, it's a different game if you have a job.
Like, you have a responsibility to give them your 40 hours or whatever.
Of course, especially because I was like a founding team member.
It wasn't like, it wasn't like, I was joining like a ran.
It wasn't a nine to five either.
It was like whatever.
Like when I woke up to when I went to sleep.
Now I'm actually probably leaving.
Really?
Yeah, which is cool because in the next, like,
So like the next stage in life, I'm hopefully either, I still have to talk to him.
Like, we'll see.
But I'll probably be leaving and then trying to focus on one big business to scale up to like, hopefully
like my goal is to hit a million in revenue before 20.
Before age 20.
Yeah.
And when do you turn 20?
Turn 20 next April, the end of next April.
What day?
April 26th.
Okay, my son's the 30th.
Okay.
So let's back up.
I want to get to all that.
Yeah, it's all good.
You're in high school in Long Island.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So you were in high school, wrestling.
Yeah.
Barsity.
Yeah.
Were you good?
Yeah.
I mean, I was the captain.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
So you're in high school.
You're wrestling.
What else are you doing through high school?
I was starting tons of different businesses.
I've done like everything.
Let's list them off.
Okay.
Everything you can remember.
Probably had like four, like, YouTube channels like growing up.
What types of channels?
That.
So I remember when I was really young, I was into college.
I had like a comics thing.
I had like a, like a, I think it was like, we were doing like pranks, me and my friends at one point.
We were doing like trying to do everything.
Not faceless channels?
You were like, no, I was always in front of the camera.
Okay.
Um, actually, no, I had one animation channel from this like, and I can't draw.
It was like this like pre-made animation thing.
Okay.
Bro do like like stories and stuff like that.
Yeah.
Um, and then this was all when I was pretty young though.
And then from there I tried e-com.
So I've done like two different e-com.
I did like a laser.
pointer where I was just straight drop shipping.
Okay.
And then I did a supplement company.
This, the supplement company was when I was a bit older, it was right before I started
the first app.
So I started the app and like the first app and the supplement company around the same time.
Fight AI?
Fight AI, yeah.
And they both made around 2K.
Total?
Like in a month, within a month.
Dang.
Okay.
And you started them around the same time?
Around the same.
Like I started the settlement company first and I spent like tons of money on like
inventory and all that.
And, uh, and then I started the fight AI was like fun.
I didn't think he was going to go anywhere.
I just did it because I wanted to see if it was possible.
Did you use Rourke to build that?
Yeah, I used Rourke to build it.
Sorry, what was the premise of Fight AI?
It was like wrestling AI where it's like you upload a video of your match or your training.
And it gives you a breakdown on how to get better.
Okay.
It gives like breakdown, strengths, weaknesses, how to improve.
For boxing specific?
For Fight AI was MMA.
Okay.
So it was everything.
So you take a, they would take a video of them doing MMA.
Shadow boxing, let's say.
Or like shadows.
Sparring, whatever.
Upload it and then your app, it's just a rapper, right?
Yeah, no, no, no.
There's nothing demeaning.
I have a rapper.
Rappers are awesome.
And it's just saying, like, do this.
Your form is this.
Try this.
And what were you charging for?
10 bucks a month, 60 for a year.
Okay.
And how did you even promote that?
So I just posted like, like me and my friend who was like, he was like, y'all,
I'll help you.
I was like, I'll help you.
And he has got like an eye for content.
Yeah.
And he just, we just posted about it.
Like, just post a, like, a few dumb videos on Instagram.
Just your friends.
Yeah.
Yeah, just on our Instagram.
You didn't have like a ton of follower?
No, we had nothing.
Okay.
It was a new Instagram account we made for FightAI and we posted about it.
Okay.
And then we saw that like people were like, we got like 40,000 views, 30,000 views.
Holy cow.
On a brand new Instagram account?
Yeah, and like we're like, whoa, like this is insane.
And then it started fizzling out.
And then from there, we made like 500 bucks.
It was like 500 MRR.
And then I was like looking at it.
And I was like, dude, it's like a car like.
Yeah.
It's like, it blew my mind.
And the other supplement company I was running paid ads that were like,
losing me money.
Sure. There's like there's zero margin.
Like what am I doing with this supplement?
Yeah. So that's what I immediately like throughout this. I was like, screw it. Let's just
focus on this. Yeah. Because I also have a friend, Zach, um, from Calai. Oh, that's your friend?
Yeah. He went to my same high school. No way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He just sold it.
Right. Yeah. He just sold it to my fitness pal. Yeah. So I saw him and I was like,
this guy's clearly on to something. Yeah. He was your, like a big inspiration.
100%. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. And from this. And from this. And from the. And from. And from. And from. And from
There, that's when I was like, okay, I'm just going to go, like, all in on apps.
Yeah.
What was he like in high school?
Like, would you have seen him doing that?
So, yeah, like, we did know that he was a smart guy, 100%.
But he's like, I don't know, like, he's human.
You know what I mean?
He's like, he's like a funny kid.
He was like one of your friends.
Yeah, he's one of my friends.
Like, clearly he's smart, but he's also just doing dumb stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
By God.
Like, you didn't look at him like, that kid's going to be a billionaire.
No, we kind of did.
Okay.
Like, we did have that feeling.
But he was also like super like chill like down to earth.
Sure.
And where did that feeling come from?
Because he was also always starting stuff.
Okay.
So he was always had a business.
Yeah.
And like that was always the vibe.
You know what I mean?
Just like high energy.
Just start anything you can.
Yeah.
Oh, I am.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So what type of supplement brand was it?
What were you saying?
It was the new tropics.
Okay.
Where were you getting the ingredients for that?
So we sourced them all through like like, whatever, like different vendors.
And then we did.
I did like, I forgot what it was called, it was a contract manufacturer or something.
Yeah.
Where we gave the ingredients to the person.
Uh-huh.
And they, uh, they assembled it.
Or something like that.
I forgot what it was called.
What was the form factor?
Like a powder or?
It was a pill.
A pill.
Yeah, yeah.
He's selling pills.
I know.
No one died though, right?
No, no, no.
No, we did it all right.
Like the, we had like a CGMP or whatever.
Okay.
And all our COAs and whatnot.
What, what gives you the idea to do that?
I just, I just really loved, like, messing around with supplements back then.
Yeah.
So, like, I was drinking, like, like, a bunch of
energy drinks every day. I still kind of am, but less. How many? Not like crazy, but like three,
probably two to three. What type? What are your drugs of choice? Uh, ghost, Celsius. Okay, well,
those two, yeah. This is my number one, the Kiwi-Gu-Gwava. Nice. Have you had the, uh,
grape? Yeah, it's good. Really? It's, it's my favorite. Really? No, I like it. It's probably
like number three for me. Grape and peach, the Fizz-free one. Fis-free. I can't, I can't even try that.
Really? Like, why would you not put Fizz in an energy drink? Because it's like, it's like green tea. I don't know. It's like
something weird. I don't drink green tea, but have you had the sour ghost, sour watermelon and
sour green apple? Those are too sour. I'm not like that crazy about them. I love it. Really?
That's like my number two. Mine are the peach ghost. Okay. Those are like too sweet for me.
Yeah. I think now it's starting to get to me. Like when I like, I don't know, I feel like,
I like peach flavor past few months. It's been getting like, ghosts have been getting like too extreme.
Yeah. You're like, I'm almost 20. Yeah, I'm getting old.
Okay. All right. So supplement brand. So you just, you quit that. Yeah. We, we, like,
we just abandoned it. We just abandoned it. Yeah. Dude, all of, all the while, you're learning how to vibe code.
You're learning paid ads, which like vibe coding and paid ads. That's like, that's it. That's really all you need.
That's like the two best skills, a 19 to 99 year old could learn right now. Would you disagree?
No, I think it's like, and like how to make good viralable content. Yeah. Yeah. No, I fully agree.
the ability to vibe code and like and then just being creative that's like it dude and like it's not
even accurate to say the ability to vibe code because really what you're saying anyone can do the ability
to speak english yeah exactly or german or what the ability to use a language you can vibe code yeah the
idea is you just need to conceptualize something like you just need to be able to think of something
and like make it you like i like things that are unique yeah a lot of people with vibe coding like
always recommend like copying like other successful apps yeah when it's like then you have to compete
with those successful apps, and they've been doing it much longer than you.
But if you go into the, like, for example, the wrestling space, I had no competition.
So I didn't need a perfect product.
I didn't need it, like whatever.
I just needed people.
Okay.
But the cam is smaller.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, FI.
What month and year is this when you did the FIAI and the Supplement?
So it's actually exactly a year today, which is sick.
So you just graduated?
So, yeah.
So your first summer.
Yeah.
First summer.
College is coming.
You're still in New York.
Yeah, I'm freaking out.
You've got all this time now.
Yeah.
So you're just like, man, 600 milligram caffeine a day, vibe code, supplements.
Why were you stressed?
Because college was starting, and I was always telling myself, like, I was always, like, full of myself.
I was always telling myself I was going to figure out something before college.
Yeah.
And then college came, and now I'm, like, starting my first semester in, like, late August.
What was, damn, I got no emotion.
Yeah.
What was college?
Where was that supposed to be?
St. John's.
St. John.
They have a basketball team, right?
Yeah, they do.
Okay.
Okay. And that's in New York?
Yeah, it's in New York.
Long Island?
It's in Jamaica, Queens.
It's not, not, I mean, it's, it's an okay school.
I don't want to, like, hate on everyone that goes there.
It's like the end of the subway, right?
But, yeah, it's like, I was like, yeah, I was not happy to be gone.
Did you apply to other schools?
I applied to a few other schools.
They gave me the most money, and I never put that much of an effort on school, which I regret.
Like, you, I think everyone should.
Don't regret it.
I think everyone should.
Yeah.
Like, I don't think you should just be, like, like, have an ego.
You should put effort.
towards something. Yeah. And so, but I never did. Yeah. So it's always, uh, so I was like,
all right, they're giving me the most money. I'm just going there. Okay. What were your, what was your
GPA in high school? I have no idea. I think it was like a three point. It was like, I had like
an 85 average probably. That's the same same as me. I was like three point three. Yeah,
something like that. Yeah. But most of that was just from cheating on my assignments for my
friends. And I could have done it. Like I had the brain power, but I was just lazy. I was just
procrastinate. Yeah. Okay. What all schools did you get into?
Or applied to?
I applied to Penn State and got rejected, and that's where most of my friends went.
Okay.
It's a good wrestling school.
Yeah.
And I'm actually so happy I got rejected, though.
Hindsight.
Yeah, I'm sure.
Because that's where all my friends from my hometown went.
Yeah.
And I'm not, like, a big partier.
I, like, heavily, like, dissociate when I go out sometimes.
Yeah.
And if I was constantly in that environment and I had nothing going for me, I would have, I would have, like, I would have lost it.
You'd be in the frat world.
You wouldn't be building stuff.
Yeah.
I think it would have been, I would have had a lot of fun, but you're having fun doing this too, right?
Yeah.
So it's like fun is subjective.
All right.
So it was June or July 2025 when you were building these?
Yeah, July, July 2nd, we released the first app.
Fight AI.
Fight AI, yeah.
Okay.
And your supplement brand was a couple weeks old at this point or so?
It was like over probably two months old.
Okay.
Okay.
So you released Five AI.
You create a brand new Instagram account.
So people started.
going to the app store and just searching Fight AI.
Yeah.
And they found it.
I bet your churn was crazy high.
It's actually, so we did like 1,800 in the first month.
We haven't marketed it since.
And it didn't mostly, so around the first 500 came from us posting.
The rest came from us sponsoring meme pages.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
So.
Yeah, it actually, because we found one guy with a cultic following.
Hmm.
So like.
In the space?
Yeah, this guy, Tony has died.
Absolute killer.
Okay.
How many followers is he have?
He now has 100,000.
I don't remember when we first started working with him, probably 50.
Okay.
But anytime he would post a sponsorship, his audience would get so angry at him.
Really?
Just for like selling out?
He had this weird cultic following.
So they would all be like, we're going to kill Tonya's died.
They're starting like death chance in the comments.
That's just like the culture of his following.
Because he made like, he has like, he posts weird memes.
So it formed this like sick culture.
Yeah, yeah.
But it shot our engagement up.
So we would post like, we would post.
We posted the first post we did with him.
In my mind, I was trying to make a post that didn't look like an ad.
And I was still new at this.
So it looked extremely like an ad.
It was like a kickboxer.
And it was this kickboxer, because we were working with this other kickboxer,
this kickboxer uses AI to train for his next fight.
Right?
And it was like a Twitter headline on top of it.
And then everyone caught that it was an ad instantly.
Yeah.
Right.
And everyone's commented.
But their hate made it perform better as an ad.
Exactly.
Shot it up.
Wow.
So that's where the other revenue came.
We made $1,800 in the first month.
From there, we tried some other stuff, but it didn't really work.
We stopped with, like, my, like, whatever.
It was like, it just wasn't working with, like, continuing to scale.
Mm-hmm.
So we stopped focusing on it.
And then that's when I met my partner for wrestling AI.
And, uh, we took, like, he was a wrestling influencer.
So from there, we stopped working on wrestling AI entirely.
We stopped working on fighting I entirely.
Still to this day, Fight AI does over one KM on.
By itself.
Just by itself.
Do you know what the churn is?
Because like that could mean you turn everyone every month and you replace them every month.
Or it could mean no one knew is joining and your turn is zero.
So I'm guessing it's probably around like 30-ish percent.
Okay.
Per month?
One.
Okay.
Okay.
And then you like keep retaining them forward.
Yeah.
Okay.
But but yeah, but it's also, yeah, we do also have like organically people coming.
I have no idea how it's still making this money.
Yeah.
It's just like, you're not supporting it or.
We haven't touched it.
Yeah.
Like literally.
What model do you?
who's on the back end for that?
GPD.
Which one?
I think like four or something.
Is that a good one for like video, for analyzing video?
Yeah, and it was like the latest one that went when like we were making it.
Okay.
Where did you find your wrestling influencer partner?
So for, so my first like thing, whenever I made any money was like I hired a VA,
which I recommend everyone do.
Where do you find them?
I source them through either five or Upwork.
Okay.
You just hop on a call with them and you just like.
I just show them what I do, which is literally like I cater my 4U page.
So it's literally like just scroll on my 4U page and outreach to everyone who has over 25,000 views on average.
Hold on.
Outreach every.
Okay, so go to your 4U page.
Anyone that averages 25,000 views on a video in your niche.
Yeah.
DM them and say.
And then I gave him like a DM script.
So it's paid promo for the app.
Sentence about what the app does.
Love the content.
We love to work with you.
What are you paying for these?
We pay.
So back then.
We were paying like $2 CPM.
Like for, so we really did this for us Laya.
That's where like influencers blew up Resslaia.
He was only influencers we never did pay.
And we were paying basically a $2 CPM.
We've increased it for some people since then.
Because they're proven.
Yeah, because they've been like been killers.
Yeah.
This one guy, we actually pay over a $5 CPM.
And it converts that well.
It converts decent.
And then his videos is paid ads are like insane.
So taking him organic.
Yeah, he was the first one.
He was the first one that we ever did paid ads on.
So he did a promo video for your app.
It did well.
Then you push paid behind it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
We never pushed crazy paid for Russell,
but he was like the only,
because we were optimizing for installs.
We didn't even know how to optimize for trials back then.
It was so bad.
I was learning as I went.
So that's kind of the playbook is optimize for installs.
No,
I used to say always optimized for purchase.
I just didn't know how to do it.
I didn't know how to coat.
Okay.
So I was looking at this like black box and I was like, I don't like, I had like a developer from
Pakistan, this guy who's Sama who also helped me out.
Absolute goat.
It's the greatest guy ever.
And I don't think he knew how to set up the optimized for purchases either or he did or he
did and maybe I didn't tell him, right?
So yeah, it was literally just, we only knew who was downloading the app.
So since I didn't know how to fix that and I was like, I started the job too.
So I was like, I don't have time to like figure this out, whatever.
Now I figured it out.
Now I understand.
It's actually super simple and that's being an idiot.
But so we're just optimizing for installs.
But if you want to make your ads 10 times more profitable, you optimize for purchases.
Okay.
All right.
So let's back up.
So you were accepted to St. John's.
You're going to start in August.
You don't want to start in August.
You're stressed out because you put this artificial pressure on yourself.
Yeah.
To be a billionaire before you have to start college, whatever.
Okay.
So then you start Phi AI in early July.
Do you ever start college? What happens after that?
Yeah, yeah, I started. So I, so I, so Friday I started. My VA reached out to,
reaching out to a bunch of people in the niche. We talked to a few different people.
We talked to, um, then I see this guy, one of the people that I reached out to is this guy,
Caden Henshaw. Okay. Right. Caden Henshaw is one of the biggest wrestling creators, right?
He was my personal favorite wrestling creator, like of all time.
Did he wrestle in college? Yeah. For who?
Uh, Parkside.
Parkside. Yeah. Is that D2?
Conson? Yeah, it's D2. Okay. Okay. So that just happened to be someone that the VA reached out to it randomly. So, no, actually, no, not even them. I'm sorry. I'm messing on my own story. He reached out to someone that knew him. Okay. Right. So they, it was a loose connection. And when I asked the guy, I said, hey, I see that you're mutuals with Kate and Henshaw, right? He goes, I met him once and, like, we exchanged. Yeah. And I go, I'll like, like, pay you whatever if you just send this DM, right?
And he sent the DM, right?
He said, like, send the DM, which is basically like, I want to rebuild Fight AI, but for just wrestling.
Because we had a ton of comments.
Is this like for wrestling?
People didn't trust it because we were everything.
Right?
Yeah.
So it does this do just wrestling?
And I said, I like, he sent the DM.
And I sent this guy like 17 emails and four DMs on every platform.
So you're going all in on Kaden Henshow.
I was going all in on everyone.
Yeah.
So they send the DM.
Nothing really comes from it.
No, they sent the DM.
And he goes, I was meaning to.
answer this guy's email. Wow. And then he answers my, like a few days go by. I don't see, I don't see
him respond to my email. I'm like, hey, I need you to follow up. He was like, all right, sure,
follows up. Kaden finally gets back to my email. And now I'm like sitting there. I'm shaking, right?
Because I'm like, this is like the first, this is the closest thing I've gotten to like
somewhat of like a big win. My, like, my dream was 10K a month at the time. Yeah.
So I sent him my phone number because like, emails like are the worst. Yeah.
So I send him my phone, like the first email, I send him my phone number. And I'm like, hey, my email
it gets like messed up. Can you just text me? And I'm like, oh, he's not going to text me. He's
like, whatever. He's too big time. I get a text. Hey, it's Caden. And now I'm like freaking out.
Hop on the call. I show him by the eye. I go, look, this is what my conversion rates are.
Right? So we had like a decent onboarding. This is what my conversion rates are. This is, uh, like
what the app does. I want to rebuild it for just wrestling with your audience. Plus like the app,
the funnels. The funnel will be good. Everything will be solid. Um, I want to do, I want to do this with
you will be partners, like 50-50.
And he goes, and people always like, like, rag on me.
Like, oh, like, 50-50.
And I'm like, dude.
It doesn't exist.
I was nothing without this guy before this guy.
Like, I literally knew zero.
Yeah.
This guy gave me, like, a business to, like, learn with and, like, test with.
So what do you say?
So he goes, dude, this looks awesome.
Like, I don't know if I'm ready to, like, commit or whatever.
He goes, because, like, I don't know how this looks, but, like, I'm very interested.
And I go, hi, let's not do any commitments.
I go, let me just build out the app.
I'll show it to you next week.
Like I'll show you like something next week.
Let's hop on another call and then from there we'll like decide where to go.
Yeah.
So I spent the next week prompting straight like literally didn't sleep.
It was just prompting the whole like the whole time.
Because I was trying to make it perfect back then the model.
It was like sonnet 3.5.
It was like terrible.
Yeah.
You had to like it was evil.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we built.
I built out like this MVP in a week.
I showed it to him.
He's like, well, this is insane.
I go now imagine like what's what's what's,
going to look like in a month. And then he goes, yeah, I'm in. So we did it. Then we had like some
older guy. Like, like we had a team of like these older people who were trying to do something
similar on web. And they threatened to sue us, but they didn't sue us. They were just a
competitor. Yeah, they were a competitor who were trying to like stiff arm us like whatever.
Did they have any justification? They had nothing. Yeah. And their platform sucked. And they kept,
they had a USA wrestling partnership. Oh, shoot. And they were bragging about it on call. So I had a
college class that I missed because I was on call with them for two hours.
And they were sitting there saying, oh, you're young, you're this, you're that.
And we have a partnership with USA wrestling.
He goes, like, I know you think you're going to, like, do well, but, like, you're at an unfair
advantage.
And I'm sitting there.
And now I'm like, I've been on this call for two hours.
They're not telling me any terms of their deals, though.
Yeah.
So they have a partnership.
They could be their janitors.
That's considered a partnership.
I have a partnership with Google, aka I have a Gmail email.
Exactly.
Like, we don't know what that means.
So they're like, they're trying to get me to sign an NDA.
I'm afraid if I sign an NDA and then I release the app.
They're going to say I stole their stuff, right?
So I go, I'm not signing anything.
And I go, look, I appreciate the fact that you guys think that you're passionate about your product and you think you have the unfair advantage.
And their product sucked.
And you think you have the unfair advantage.
I go, but to be honest and I look like, I look at Kaden.
I think, Kaden's one of the most influential people in this space.
I think with just him we could like take over the space.
Yeah.
And I.
was on this call too yeah yeah and i go and i fully believe in our product and then i call kaden afterwards i go
look i don't want to work with these guys they're being weird so they were kind of talking like let's partner
up maybe because they were trying to get a kaden they were mad that i got there first yeah um and i call
kina i'm like look um like i don't want to i don't want to work with these guys and he goes yeah i fully
agree i don't think they like represented our like best interests and that's what i realized
i'm like holy crap and partnered with this guy yeah yeah and then we released and in the first week we did uh
we did like 8k in the first week
And I was like, holy.
And then like that guy got like obliterated.
He disconnected the website.
Really?
He owned wrestlingai.com.
Yeah.
He still, does he still own it?
I pulled the plug on it.
So if you go, it's like 404 not found.
But he still owns the domain.
Still does own the domain.
Okay.
We have wrestlingai.
Dot app.
But our AS, like our SEO is all above his.
You have, what is your domain?
Wesleyai.
Dot app.
Okay.
Yeah.
So they just, they never even got off the ground.
So now you need to get a partnership with USA Wrestling.
Yeah, but USA Wrestling doesn't even like represent their athletes that
well from what I've heard.
So I don't even know how like they're just legitimate, right?
Yeah.
Whether they do or don't, like they're a big name.
All right.
So what month does all this go down?
You start college in August.
This was all September.
So end of September, September 26, we released the app.
Okay.
And I was working on it from like all through August and all through like September.
Like nonstop.
Yeah.
So I released wrestling app.
Wrestling app.
And I released another app around two weeks later that I put like no effort in.
What app was that?
This was this like, it was like, it was like, it was like, it's called green.
This app, I had another partner.
So another guy hit me up.
Like, this influencer I hit up.
And like, they finally got back to me around once I released wrestling AI.
I was like, okay, maybe the strives, you just partner with influencers.
And this guy had like a million followers.
So I'm like, all right, this guy is like huge.
In what space?
In like this like reaction space.
So it was like joke.
It was like, like, he'd like react to videos and you'd make like a funny commentary on it.
Super low value audience.
I didn't know what that meant.
Yeah.
But at the time.
So I'm sitting there, we're making this app, which it was going to be like, you know, have ever heard of RISGPT?
Yes.
It was going to be like that.
It was like a clone of that.
Okay.
And this is also why I pushed back against clones.
So he had a super like low intent audience and we were making like a slop app to be honest.
And we had no past, like, wrestling.
I had super, I was like super passionate about mid building.
Mm-hmm.
Because like, I wrestled.
So I wanted to build a tool that I really, generally liked.
And it's a, it's a, it's an enthused community.
Like, wrestlers are different.
Yeah.
It's awesome.
Yeah.
And I got to work with people I love.
Yeah.
So you launched this a couple weeks after.
How does that launch go?
So yeah, so they both.
And I feel like I wish I'd try bringing this up because I feel like it's so such an
important lesson for like whoever's trying to like build apps and stuff like that.
Both apps got a million views.
So like everyone like obsesses over distribution.
Both apps got a million views in its first month.
When you say a million views like the app itself in the app store got a million?
No, like total social media views.
Like impressions across platform.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or like a video that you're using to promote the app.
Yeah, TikTok and Instagram let's say both got over a million.
views in the first month. Okay. Right.
Wrestling AI, the first month, did 17K. Right. Green did $35.
So, like, every time someone's like distribution, distribution, distribution, distribution, you
need to make sure what the right people. Yeah. And what you're distributing is actually
valuable. Like, if you're distributing something that no one cares about, no one's going to buy it,
no matter what. Yeah. That blows my mind. That's what I always try to say, because like I, some people
come to me with these ideas and like, yeah, you have to like make sure it's like a good idea
and you're passionate about it. Don't try making another looks maxing app. There's been a million
looks maxing apps. Right. Well, like I've had videos that, let's say they get a million views and
they're so high value and high quality that I'll get 40,000 followers. Yeah. From that one video.
They'll have other videos that get a million views where I'm kind of like trolling and I'm not as
serious and I'll get like 40 followers. Like 40,040 from the same amount of views. It's the same
thing. It's like, is it high value enough? Is it the right audience? Yeah. And it makes, it makes all the
difference. Yeah. And like creative strategy too. So it's like like a dollar CPM could be expensive. And a $10
CPM could be cheap. Yeah. You have the right creative strategy. My gosh. Okay. So after that $35 launch,
you're just like, no. I was so happy because I was really afraid that this was going to make way more than
Russi. Yeah. I was like, I was afraid. I'm like, I'm going to be, I'm going to be known as the Ridge GPT. No,
not even that. I just didn't want to be known as like the Ridge GBT guy.
Right?
I was like,
I'm going to be knowing
of the guy
who makes like this slop, right?
Yeah.
And then it made no money.
So I was like, all right,
we're done.
Like we just,
I just instantly cut it.
I was like,
let's,
I'm only focusing on wrestling.
I was also only mainly focusing on wrestling.
I was working on this like very little.
Yeah.
So then in wrestling AI month one,
the last week of month one,
we did around like 2K
in revenue.
Okay.
Which was lower than all the other weeks.
10K first week.
It was like 8K first week.
Okay.
8K.
I don't remember like,
six.
Six, four, two.
Something like that.
So it's like, it's going down a little bit.
It had a huge up and then it's starting to fizzle.
Okay.
And then from there, that's when I sat there and it was like, all right.
And then my part, like, Katie and also started getting a bit busy.
He was doing RIF, right?
Which is like completely fair.
It's like a wrestling organization.
Okay.
It's like, you know, it's like UFC for wrestling.
Okay.
It's getting big now, too.
It's sick.
I haven't heard of that.
Have you, you know, Armin, Zerukian?
No.
The UFC fighter?
No.
You know who comes out?
No.
No?
Oh.
Oh.
Oh.
So like a bunch of UFC fighters are going on there now.
Hmm.
Okay.
So he kind of lost focus a little bit.
Yeah, so he's like pursuing other ventures as well, which like totally fair.
How many views did like that first launch video get?
I think like a hundred and something thousand.
And he posted it to his account?
Yeah.
Okay.
And did you push paid behind that at all?
No, we pushed no paid and like only until like January we started pushing paid.
Okay.
And what did you charge for this up for us?
Same price, 10 months, 60 years.
Okay.
We recently added abandon yearly.
Abandon yearly?
Like if you click like X, it'll give you like a discount offer.
Okay. Okay.
What do most people choose between $10 and $60?
Mostly $60.
Really?
We add the trial on $60.
So it's like, look, if you want the trial, you have to do like you have to commit to the
year.
And is that the play, you think, for apps like this?
Sometimes.
It's different for everyone.
Right.
So like my friend, he just launched a new app and he's been only doing weeklies.
Like his goal is to just maximize the total amount of recurring revenue.
revenue.
And that's working.
Which I would always try to front load revenue.
This way, I had more.
Your growth.
Yeah, I had more money to then grow.
You know what I mean?
So I was never bottlenecked by cash.
Yeah.
But if you, if you're not super growth aggressive, I would say push monthlies instead.
Yeah.
Because your LTV will probably be higher on monthlies.
Okay.
All right.
So 17K.
Second month, he starts doing other stuff.
What do you do?
So that's what I'm sitting there.
And I'm like, all right.
But like, like, we got to now figure out like what to do.
So I thought most obvious was like, all right, let's just get more people in the wrestling space posting about wrestling AI.
So from there, I was like, hey, whoever you have, like send them to me, right?
And then I would send DMs off of our brand account, paid promo for wrestling.
And another thing I didn't realize is because wrestling is a small niche and we had Caden posting about it, our response rate was insane.
Right?
After Kate, because he puts a like a brand reputation.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So now you're reaching out to influencers that have already heard of you.
Exactly.
Not just that, but from a trusted source.
Yeah. So it was great.
Yeah.
And the first person I signed was this kid, Corey Zader.
Another absolute killer. Shout out of that kid.
Okay.
Our first deal, me and Corey, now he's made thousands of dollars. He's doing well.
But my first deal between me and him was four videos.
Was it four videos?
Yeah, it was four videos for, it was either, no, I think it was six videos for 400 bucks.
Yeah, yeah, it was six videos for 400 bucks, 70 bucks in post.
Okay.
Right?
And he was like very he was pretty new as well.
Um, and Calli.
I also sponsored him.
Right.
Mm.
So what type of influencer is he?
He's wrestling influencer and he posts like day in the life content.
Okay.
Right.
Okay.
So he makes this first video, right?
So the first video cost it us $70.
Right.
Drops the first video.
I watched the video.
He doesn't say wrestling AI up until like 30 to 40 seconds in.
Mm-hmm.
And he does a Cal AI sponsorship before he does the last day.
No.
sponsorship.
Oh, dude.
Right?
And I'm looking at Viam, whatever.
Like, I'll tell him next time.
Like, you can't do that.
This and that.
The video crushed.
Hmm.
500K views.
And we made over 5K off of it.
Because no one cared about the CalAI sponsorship.
All they saw was,
what do you mean this app can analyze my wrestling?
Right.
It did well for Cal AI too.
Yeah,
maybe it probably did well for CaliAI.
Probably not the same, though.
Yeah.
Like, we were able to tell better comments.
Like, that's what I was like, I was like, like, I was like, like, now.
So everyone was going insane.
Like, what the hell?
this app does this and that. So now I'm like, I don't care if there's a Calli Eye sponsorship or not.
Like I'm riding high. I'm like, this is insane. I just paid 40 bucks to get 5,000.
Yeah. Yeah. Like the return was insane. And the bigger return, this is why I say even on your first,
it's okay to be unprofitable on your first few influencers because they're going to start spreading
your word to other influencers. So we also, because of him, a ton of different people, like really
respected Corey's content. Right. And we got even more brand trust. And then from there, we started just
sponsoring a bunch of different creators, probably like a total of 10, maybe, 10, 20.
Okay.
Around there.
Then we cut down to like six, seven, right?
Like, towards like the ends.
Six or seven trusted.
Great people.
Like, absolutely.
You just use over and over.
Yeah.
Okay.
And, and yeah, and from there, that that's, that was, that drove most of all of our growth.
How did his other, what, six videos do?
They all did great.
Okay.
So like, we like, as well?
No, not as well. Okay.
That first video was a banger. But he got like 500K views.
Yeah.
But his RPM was great. Yeah.
Which made it worth it.
So 17,000 in the first month, what did months two, three, four plus look like?
So, yeah, so Apple was holding all of it.
Yeah. Apple was holding 17K that we were going to get paid out in December.
So all I had was like a thousand bucks in my bank account that I had to sustain growth with.
In October.
Yeah, I had to sustain growth with.
And like to make sure that like we're not only relying on Kaden.
And like I just got super scrappy with this thousand bucks.
Constraints equal creativity.
Yeah.
And then we were able to do, we were able to do like, I think it was either like, it was like 19,
like a little bit, 19 and a little bit the second month.
So it wasn't crazy growth.
Thousand?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Still.
Yeah, we still were able to grow.
Because you're trending downwards at the end of the first.
Yeah.
And turn it around.
We were able to turn around and get to like 19.
Yeah.
And how did you do that?
More Caden videos, more other influencers?
Other influencers and Caden.
So that's your only growth playbook for the first few months.
Yeah, it was just organic influencer.
Were you paying flat fee per video like you did with some flat some CPM.
And what CPM did you start with?
Two, two and two point five.
Okay.
Now, when is that paid out though?
Because a video can keep going for a while, right?
Yeah, that's one like one thing that we did really well.
Yeah.
We would pay them out.
We'd be like, let's keep it simple.
We'll pay you a week after the video.
But then it keeps going.
So our effective CPM is sub a dollar.
So an average deal would be like a video that gets 100,000 views.
A week later, you pay him $200.
Yeah.
But then it might get over the next two months, another 100,000.
Exactly.
Dropping your CPM in half.
Exactly.
Are these pretty evergreen videos?
Like, are they likely to keep going for a while?
Because I post some shorts and like they're dead in a week.
Yeah.
And I post others and they go for months.
Some would keep going.
Others would die out.
Like we wouldn't put too much thought into like making sure that all of the videos were evergreen.
Yeah.
Were you ever concerned about people like paying for fake views to boost their?
Yeah.
but the idea was we'd figure that out.
So you could tell by like,
comment ratio.
If somebody has like a bunch of emojis in the comment sections,
like there's like,
you know,
and like we were working with wrestlers.
It was like trusted.
Yeah,
they're not like marketers.
Like they probably don't really know that stuff.
Yeah.
And if we saw the like it wasn't driving and gate,
like if we saw the video wasn't really driving sales,
we would just cut the influencer.
But how are you able to always attribute it to sales if you've got multiple
videos going at once?
A lot of it was just intuition.
Okay.
Being able to like just look at your charts and like kind of understand.
Like, just keeping track of all the views and all the results.
What tools do you use to keep track of all those?
So I just built out like this sick internal tool.
Your own?
Yeah, it tracks.
I've run my entire business on it.
Really?
My med ads, my creators, like literally.
Dashboard.
Contracts are sent through it.
That's cool.
Super easy.
And then I have Claude, like with Post Hog as well.
Post hog?
Yeah.
And then like, it's all the data sources are in one.
So I have like a Claude that I could literally talk to.
Like an MCP?
Yeah, I'll be like like a like Claude training.
on all these like data sources and then i'll be like hey what are like the numbers for today was my p and l like
what's this and yeah it's sick okay so you start doing cpm deals two dollars to everyone second month is
19k um but you still don't have any money yes have no cash 60 day runway yeah so that was so the second
month was november third month's december okay now the first chunk just hit the account okay
so now i'm like okay now it's time to like go crazy and one of sorry september was your first month
Or October?
End of September or 26.
So basically October.
Okay.
And so 17K, October, 19K, November, December, the money hits.
What do you do with the money?
And what are your sales in December?
Yeah.
So the money hits.
We just 10x what we're doing, get more influencers, right?
Now we got up to like around 20 influencers in December.
Okay.
Right?
And from there, like 20-ish, 20 maybe over ago.
Because there's just not, the biggest bottleneck for us was fine.
Like, we started running out of influencers.
Yeah.
My next question is like, how many are there?
That was like our big thing.
A couple hundred?
Yeah.
And then.
Sorry, are you reaching out to athletes too?
Like I'm gonna, I'm, I'm, I'm thinking like David Taylor, like Boe Nickel.
Yeah.
D1.
We have a video from Bo.
Really?
Yeah, we have a video from Bo.
This guy, I really wanted to work with Daniel Sabita.
Zabita.
We were in talks and then like, I think he just got busy.
Okay.
Stopped answering.
I followed up a few times, but we never closed a deal.
Jack's Forrest.
We were going to get deals with all these guys.
Yeah.
Jack Sparrest, I don't know if you ever made the video for us.
Because there's hundreds of current D1 wrestlers.
Yeah.
There's thousands of like, you know, previous, you know, recent D1 wrestlers.
And then there's probably hundreds of, like, wrestling influencers that weren't D1
wrestlers.
That were good at content.
Yeah.
Because that's the difference.
So the ROI on like a really good wrestler that's not that good at content.
Yeah.
Isn't really as big as the R.O.
even though they have so much accolades.
What's stopping you from finding one of your influencers that's really good at content
and then going to like a who's a current wrestler right now?
Like a Penn State guy.
Like what's that guy?
Roman Bravo Young or whatever.
Like R.B.
He's really great at content.
We tried getting him a ton of time.
Someone that maybe has a lot of followers because they're a big wrestling name but are bad at content
and saying like, hey, we're going to coach you how to do this.
Just take a video like this.
Send us the raw file.
We'll send you back the edited version and you post it.
You know what I'm saying?
The thing that stops us is the fact that it's wrestling season.
The fact that wrestling season is our best season.
It was when you were doing this, you're saying.
Like right now it's not.
But now it's not.
But now it is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So maybe now it would actually be the best bet to try that.
Yeah.
And then ask him if he'd hold off like a few months.
Yeah.
Like just take the raw video that looks like this.
You doing like takedowns or whatever.
And then we'll edit it, send it back and you just post what we send you.
You know?
Yeah.
So, yeah.
actually that that'd be the best strategy well i was actually thinking about something similar i want to
hire one of our creators yeah just upload it but i haven't offered him yet i'm going to send the offer
probably late july okay because right now we're like chilling because it's like we're out of season
because you'd probably rather have a 50,000 follower influencer wrestling influencer that's really
good at content than 500 000 follower athlete that sucks at content right yeah but if you could
have the best of both worlds you could have both that'd be great yeah 100% okay so December
What'd you do in December again?
So December we did 30.
And then January we did 40.
So you kind of have, what you have going for you is it is wrestling season.
Everyone's excited for NCAAs.
Like it's the culture.
Like people are signing up more because it's wrestling season.
But you have working against you is athletes are busy.
Busy.
Yeah.
But I think it's still a net win.
Like it's probably better to launch this all else equal in September than any other time.
Yeah, 100%.
And so that was kind of lucky.
Like the timing just kind of worked out.
Yeah.
And that was, that was like, I mean, it wasn't the plan because I didn't meet Caden until August.
But like, I told Kate, like, we got to make sure, like, we're getting this for the peak point of the rest of the season.
Okay. So January 30, K, you said?
January 40.
So 30 in December.
40 in January.
Yeah.
And this is like.
And January, by the way, January, I was first month in my full-time job.
It worked maybe four hours on it.
And this is like, we say revenue, but it's either monthly recurring or yearly recurring.
Yeah.
Like it's, so it's, it's recurring.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right, 40 in January, which is wild.
So you're October November.
You're four months in, 40 grand.
February is crunch time.
That's like...
Season's kind of ending.
Yeah.
Conference championships.
Yeah.
And like the wrestlers who are like quitters, they're starting to quit.
Yeah.
But we still had a great month.
And you say quitters, you mean like mostly high school wrestlers?
Is that like the biggest?
Because there's a zillion more high school wrestlers in college.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
High schools are biggest.
Okay.
And peewee's like shot.
Really?
We had a lot of, like, little kids hit us up.
So in February, you have two things happening that are going against you.
A, wrestlers are quitting, probably for good.
And B, the seasons are just ending.
These high school seasons are ending at the end of February, give or take.
So what were your sales in February?
It was still, like, 30-ish.
Okay.
It was like 28.
And it's a shorter month.
Yeah, it was like 28.
And we, and, like, that was pretty much it.
Like, it wasn't bad.
We were still very profitable.
Like, because I think, like, our total, like, our expectations,
are very low. How are you managing this 50-50 partnership and expenses? Like, are you making a cash
distribution every month? Yeah. So we started taking out in, uh, like December-ish. And it was,
it was basically, like, like, in the beginning, I told him like, I want to scale this as much
as well. I never want to scale this because we want to take money. You know what I mean? And he was kind of
on board, but it came to a point where we just weren't able to spend the money. Yeah. So every month,
I would send out the distributions. Okay. And you're,
The distributions are coming after you're paying expenses.
Paying the influence.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Token cost, was that very high?
No, our most expensive month was January.
It was 2K.
And what model we're using, or are you using for this?
I don't even remember.
It was the best Open AI model.
Still 4-0, GPT-4-0?
I think this may have been five.
I'm not sure.
I'm kind of surprised that the tokens aren't higher.
Is it just because the usage isn't that much?
Yeah, so what we did, what we found out,
is the analysis feature gets them in the door.
You can only really use the analysis feature like five times.
An analysis being they take a video and upload it?
Yeah, uploading the wrestling match.
That's like our viral feature, right?
But after you do that five times, it's like, okay, you're running out of matches
and you're starting to get like, like you usually you do the same problems multiple times.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah.
So like you have a firm grasp.
Head up.
Yeah, exactly.
You have a firm grasp of what the issues are.
So we did to combat that.
And we saw once we started adding this stuff, like our turn went from like like this, like this.
Adding what?
Calorie tracker feature to make sure like wrestlers are really.
Like some sticky.
Yeah, heavy.
We were heavy on weight management stuff.
Okay.
And so calorie tracker, weight cut mode.
Was the calorie tracker similar to CalliI and they just take a picture and up?
Yeah, we had like all the options to track calories.
Okay.
Like same as my fitness bell.
Okay.
Barcode database.
Was that hard to implement?
Like tedious?
We did just APIs.
You're just plugging into database of food.
Exactly.
We were just using image recognition.
Yeah.
Okay.
So the calorie tractor was big.
And calorie tractor weight mode, you'd upload your wrestling calendar.
So you'd upload your match schedule and it would parse it into the app's calendar.
And then it would keep track of your weight.
So it'd be like, hey, you got to be, you got to make sure you're cutting.
Hey, it's Tuesday.
Yeah, exactly.
You got match Wednesday.
Yeah.
And then we also added like stance in motion mode.
We'd call out for you and like do your call out.
Like the app would tell you to do stuff?
Shots for all a circle.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's cool.
People like that?
Yeah, people liked it.
Because, like, if you don't have your coach, you're trying to, like, drill alone.
You want, like, you're kind of, like, stancho.
It gives you, like, round times and stuff like that.
Okay.
And then we also had a practice mode, which would teach you a move.
And then you would do the move, and then it would analyze you doing the move.
Hmm.
That, I feel like that one was never as big.
Because I feel like we could have made it better.
Kind of gimmicky?
Yeah, we just,
didn't so it was all voice in voice and text so we couldn't really we didn't have videos okay
we should have had videos yeah but uh sorry for the analyzed feature the one that you started with
is it really telling them unique stuff or is it saying like stop reaching back like you know what i'm
saying it's so yeah i tell people it's it's mostly um like the biggest thing is fundamentals so
it just evaluates it based on like most of the stuff that like like the fundamentals of what
you're doing yeah like you shot in for this double leg but your head was down exactly okay
Yeah.
It's not saying like, it's not getting like super granular.
Like when Kale does an arm bar, he, you know, like.
It'll do that sometimes.
So it'll catch some weird stuff.
Yeah.
And it's like you could have rolled through.
Yeah.
It could have rolled through.
You could have done this and that.
Okay.
But like the most, the biggest thing I wanted to make sure I got down was the fundamentals.
Because that's why I was able to like start beating my friends.
Well, yeah.
Because I got really good at the fundamental.
Well, and that's the most broad.
Yeah.
Like if you're getting really technical, then it goes over the head of 90% of rest of.
Exactly.
Okay.
All right. So February hits, revenue drops. March is like, that's crunch time. Like what happens in March? March, we're still doing okay. It's, it was about, uh, it was like March, it was like 20. Um, April was like 15. Okay. Now we're stagnating at around like 10. Uh-huh. But that's her floor. Did you see church? That's all monthly. Like shoot up in February, March, April, when the season ends? I thought we were gonna. Not really. It was just we stopped getting that as many new yearlies.
That's what caused the revenue decline.
Yeah, yeah.
But it did, like, don't remember, yeah, it increased.
Yeah.
But it wasn't like, I was expecting February 1st hits.
Yeah.
Zero subs.
That's what it was in my mind.
I'm like, all right.
Like, it is what it is.
Like, I knew that this was going to happen.
I, like, braced myself for it.
Yeah.
But the churn kind of went like that.
And then it kind of just stayed the same.
Okay.
But our new, we just started getting less new yearlies.
And most of our revenue was coming from yearlies.
Gotcha.
So like the 10 is basically just all renewals.
Now, are you slowing down your outreach playbook during this time?
Yeah, we stopped.
Just because it's not as effective?
We stopped, yeah, and like there was a lot less influencers we really wanted.
Okay.
So we stopped.
You learned what a good influencer looked like.
Yeah.
We stopped really signing influencers.
We kept the team we currently have.
We were experimenting with paid, but we were never going crazy with it.
So we kind of cut paid a little bit.
And then, and then we were just like, for the next few months now until August,
we're just going to be coasting and rebuilding the product.
Okay.
So like I'm thinking about hiring now someone to just rebuild the product.
Yeah.
I make it all nice.
So do you know what your lifetime value is?
Like our LTV?
Yeah.
Of a user.
I don't really.
I know our month one LTV is like the average user purchases is around 25 bucks.
For their first purchase.
Yeah.
Because it's like half we're doing 60, half are doing 10.
Yeah, exactly.
Okay.
So your LTV is.
probably closer to like 50, I would think.
Like, yeah.
I would say, I would say, um, yeah, I would say around there.
Okay.
So if you spend $1,000 on videos, like $2 RPM for 500,000 views, um, you spend
a thousand bucks on like normal times.
How much in revenue do you expect that to return to you?
So we spend a thousand bucks on influencers and, um, we'd probably expect back.
So if I spend a thousand bucks a $2 CPM, a $2 CPM should yield back like a $5 to $10 RPM.
So we should see back like $2,500 to 5K.
Okay.
So two to five X return on ad spend.
Yeah.
Give or take.
Now I scale things differently, though.
So for these latest two apps, especially, so the way I run these latest two apps,
instead of like a influencer or whatever, I have like just a kid I trust who like I could basically tell
what to do and they'll do it. Okay. Because since I'm working too, I only have like, let's say,
three hours. Yeah. Right. So I'll tell the kid exactly what to do. He'll do it. And then I'll
just fund the project. And I've started like learning how the meta ads algorithm worked.
Mm-hmm. So these two latest apps were like able to scale both to 10K and like 45 days. And it was
solely through just creators and meta ads. Same playbook plus paid ads. Same playbook,
except paid ads just made it 10 times faster. So I didn't need to sign 10 creators. I didn't need to
saturate the niche to really have an effect.
Couldn't you do that for Ressle AI?
Now I didn't know how.
You can't and you will.
Yeah, exactly.
Especially when the season starts.
Yeah.
Okay, so it was the playbook.
Find the right influencer.
Find out what, so like the new app launching playbook, right?
Pick a niche, find creators in that niche,
figure out what type of creator is the most effective,
triple down on them, find their best organically producing videos,
push paid behind those.
Or, because sometimes, so Corey Zader.
His videos don't work well as paid ads, right?
Because of the fact that the integration is super subtle.
So it's a day in my life.
He's more subtle than you'd like.
No, no.
For organic, that's amazing.
Okay.
That's why he does really well.
For paid, it's too subtle.
For paid, you need to direct CTA within, like, like, you need some sort of a CTA within
15 seconds.
In the first 15.
Is that what you're saying?
Like, roughly.
You need to say, like, this is the product.
You need to show the products within the first 15 seconds.
Okay.
Organic, you have at least, like, 30.
paid maybe you even have a less window yeah um and that's when like i started just realizing like
i started just looking on meta ads library studying the best converting ads and then from there
i'll find a creator that i like and i'll like just say hey can you just make these videos for me i'll
pay you for the videos you don't have to post them and they're like oh if i don't have to post them yeah
it's like user generated content exactly for apps yeah and then um they make the video it'll be something
super simple that like gets the point of what the app does and it's like
an overt ad.
What?
It's an overt ad.
It's very clear that this is an ad for Russell AI is what you're saying.
Somewhat, yeah.
So it's like, for example, like, give me like the script.
Like the boxing app, right?
Yeah.
How I landed this punch.
Boom.
Guy gets hit, right?
Before my match, I threw his video into the opponent analysis.
So I threw my thing into this app.
I saw that after every time he threw like this, this specific exchange, he would drop his hands, right?
Throw this specific exchange.
Thanks to the app.
I now know that.
Exactly.
He would throw this specific exchange.
bang hit him it will because yeah and he would actually throw the opponent's videos into the app and
that's how he would get like the screenshot yeah right um and that that would be that that's really the ad
that's the script how long is the entire video 30 seconds probably okay um so the influencer will take this
video will he edit it or you now he edits it he edits it sends it he never posts it never post it now
now when you push sometimes they post it sometimes we take videos that they post they can they don't
you don't need them to it's just a bonus if they post it so
Most of the time, like, most of the time we work with influencers, we tell them to post it.
Like, well, they'll, they'll make videos to post.
And then we'll either take those videos and rerun them as paid ads.
But we'll also have, like, an influencer that'll post and we'll make paid ads for us.
Mm.
Okay.
So they're like two separate deals.
Gotcha.
Okay.
So 30 seconds long, you mention it in the first 15.
Yeah.
And then you push paid ads behind it.
Mostly Instagram, Facebook Reels?
Yeah, all meta.
But like, we let meta decide.
Okay.
Yeah.
Do you know what meta ends up choosing?
Like is it heavy Instagram heavy because Facebook reels are slept on they are exploding that we have like huge traffic on Facebook
Okay shocked but you don't really track where they're showing it you just say meta placement is now I just give yeah just give meta the spend
Okay so what do the unit economics look like on those paid ads then so for so for the boxing app we have uh we spend 400 day we make around 9 to 12 back okay
right up front or that's like LTV no day one okay I know it so
I really want to scale it, but now.
And that's recurring, though.
Yeah.
So you spend $400 on a Tuesday, and on Tuesday you make $9,200, day one, but that's also
recurring.
Yeah.
So day one is like 2 to 4x return on ad spend.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lifetime is much higher.
Yeah, so that's why we're now getting into Revenue Cat payments.
So I've been just funding the project myself, right?
Mm-hmm.
So what we're doing is we're getting Revenue Cat.
Revenue Cat has a thing called, do you know what Revenue Cat is?
I've never heard of it.
So Revenue Cat is like the paywall provider for apps.
So it knows all of your paywall statistics and stuff like that.
Okay.
Right?
What they also do is they have a program called Revenue Cap Payments, and it will pay you what you make day one, up to 80% of what you made, right?
They're fronting the payment and taking a percentage.
Exactly.
Okay.
Right.
So they take more into pay.
2%.
Otherwise, you're taking 60 days to get that money.
Exactly.
Okay.
So.
How much do they take?
2%.
Okay.
At the end of the month.
Not bad.
It's not bad if you have that.
If you have, like,
like heavy row ads, like day one row ads.
You have to be able to afford it.
And now I could take the 800 or let's say they pay 60%.
So it'd be like what, they pay up to 80%.
So it'd be 20% like minus 160.
So it'd be like 640.
Now you have 640 to spend on ads.
So that's what I'm really excited about scaling this app.
Because it's like super low effort on my part at least.
Yeah.
Like the other guy's working very hard.
Yeah.
Thank you.
He's a great guy.
This is the guy you said, Osama or?
No, no, no.
He's just a kid I know that's like he's smart.
Okay.
So are he smart?
I know if I tell him what to do, like do it and he'll do it well.
Okay.
So we're scaling.
So I'm really excited to scale that app up.
And then we have another app that's a workout app.
Hold on.
That other app and I know we're editing out the name.
When did you start that?
I started that around 45 days ago.
Okay.
It's done about 18K this month.
So wrestling season ends.
You're like, all right, let's kind of put this on the back burner until August, September.
We'll fire it back.
up.
And also,
yeah,
I'll say it.
And also,
like,
you know,
like we want,
I want more apps built
on Rourke that are making more money,
right?
That's like Rourke's biggest.
You work for them.
Yeah,
that's Rourke's,
yeah,
that's Rourke's like,
North Star metric is how much
are their users making.
Okay.
And that's why Rourke is,
like,
I don't like to say,
but it's better than all the other platforms
because according to like the,
all,
like the paywall providers,
right,
Revenue Cat.
According to Revenue Cat,
out of all the AI app builders,
Rork apps are generating
the most amount of revenue because they build the highest quality apps and stuff like that other
competitors are focused on signups and like vanity metrics and they're like we want our customers
to be successful that we're trying it's trying to be the shop effect for that after apps you know i mean
gotcha like i think that's the thing that wins the in my opinion case studies are what wins long
terms yeah calli i was built in rourke that's a huge i didn't know that no it wasn't it wasn't
i'm saying if it was okay um it would be the biggest like everyone would then try everyone
who would then want to get into apps would try to build through Rourke.
Yeah.
Like you said, like Shopify.
Exactly.
And then if gurus exist, that's like the goal, but gurus don't exist.
You have to let gurus happen actually.
What I mean gurus?
Info people are great at pushing stuff.
Yeah.
So like if you have an info guy pushing Rourke and that being like a part of the process.
Gotcha.
But I mean, info is a bit scammie, but some people are.
Yeah.
But some people are great.
Like there's some great info.
Okay.
So you launch the, is it, is it,
MMA, is it boxing? Is it fighting? What is like the niche that you consider that?
The newest one? Yeah. So I launched two. So I want to get to the second one. Yeah.
First one, well, around the same time, but boxing. Okay, box. That's like the newest one. And then, uh, the other one's a workout one. Okay. It's for, uh, yeah.
Which I would think that's a compound space. It wasn't my idea. I'll say like what it does. Basically, you take a picture of your abs and it tells you how to get a better six pack. That's smart. Is that like what you think? I wasn't actually crazy about this idea. But I was like, I was like,
Like when the kid told, so somebody hits me up on Twitter to do this.
And I like always hop on calls with people tell them what I think and stuff like that.
So like I hopped on a call with this kid and he's telling me he's like, dude, look up abs.
There's no competition.
Listen, he's going crazy.
I'm like, dude, you're telling me people are going to take a picture of their abs.
Get a rating.
I think it's brilliant.
Well, it's been turning out pretty good.
We'll get to that.
I'm glad.
But I saw it there.
And I thought it was like so funny.
Like I thought the idea was funny.
But the kid had so much passionate about it.
that I just felt such a conviction.
How do you say no to know of that?
Yeah.
I'm like,
this kid's like sitting here.
He's like like so passionate.
There's no way this kid's not going to win.
Like there's no way he's not going to win.
Yeah.
Like I know he's going to win.
Like the way he's talking to me, I know he's going to win.
So it's my age.
Okay.
So he's super funny.
Because like an, an app that will analyze your workouts, that's probably pretty crowded, I would think.
Yeah.
So he's saying let's unbundle that.
Let's niche down just to abs.
App.
I think, oh.
man, do you know how many like billions of dollars have been sold on infomercials for like ab gear?
100% yeah.
And that's what this is.
It's the AI app version of that.
Yeah.
I think I just couldn't see it at the time.
Right.
But, uh, because it was like, because there's like a bunch of the looks maxing apps that kind of like
gave a bad, that gave a bad look to like the ratings style apps.
Okay.
Yeah.
Right.
So I was thinking of as like, oh, it's another rating style app.
But no, it's, it's a huge niche.
Like, I agree.
And, uh, and so we started scaling it.
it. We tried organic. Organic did pretty bad because we were sponsoring. We weren't sponsoring great people.
So like we didn't have crazy results on organic. We started paid. What kind of people were you
sponsoring that didn't work? It was like some of these like what we found was when we would just
show the cards. So when we would just show the ratings, right? What do you mean ratings?
So you take a picture and it rates your six back. It gives it like a score out of a hundred.
Okay. When we would just show the ratings, we got downloads and like churn with spike. It'd be quick turn.
So you would show like a picture of someone's abs with a rating above it.
Yeah.
As an ad for the app.
Yeah.
So it'd be like lock in like the gym influencer lock in.
Takes a picture of their six pack like whatever.
And then that would be that.
Something like that.
Like hook.
Hook scan.
That's it.
And we found that like a lot of people would sometimes people would download and they would
subscribe but then they would turn out quick.
Right.
And what the best type of videos were the ones that would show the actual it would be rating
workout and then them doing the workout.
So, because they would show like the app actually teaches you how to get a six-pack.
Okay.
We never did like, I don't know, like we didn't think about this until after the guy doing
crunches.
Exactly.
Instead of just a picture of a guy's app.
It would show the workouts tailored to your abs.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like design or whatever.
Right.
Um, I think that's an important learning point is like not all customers are created
the same.
Like you're getting these big spikes and you're like, this works.
This is what we need to do.
And then you see they churn, right?
Whereas you might be able to spend more.
customer. And so on the surface, it doesn't work as well, but the churn is next to zero. So it works
much better. Exactly. Right. It's kind of like me. Like when I'm acquiring newsletter subscribers,
I might get subscribers that open at 80% instead of 60% but they're clicking at 2% instead of 6%. It's like,
well, if they're never clicking anything, the open rate is just a vanity metric. I need them to
click. So I'd rather have 40% open rate and 6% click rate than 80% open rate and 2% click rate. Right.
Okay. Yeah. So then we started running med ads. And then our meta ads started like, it was like we would be
spending 100 bucks a day, averaging around like 200 to 300. And then we just kept like now we've
been like slowly increasing spend. So before we go heavy on the second app, tell me the, you said you're 45
days in to the fighting one. Both of roughly. You started both around the same time. Yeah, it was like
almost the exact same like time. Okay. And then what have the revenue numbers been for each?
So the workout ones that like eight this month. Okay. Um, because it also had problems with like the
co-founder started bragging about it on X.
Okay.
Started tweeting like our conversion.
We have, on the workout one, we have a crazy conversion.
We have like over 20% like download to bid.
What is average?
Average is so like a good, like average is like five.
Wow.
Some people don't even get five.
Yeah.
You guys are at 20.
Why do you think it's so different?
We have a good onboarding and good pricing.
Okay.
And obviously like we're targeting the right people.
Yeah.
But he was bragging about our conversion rate.
And what he pointed out in our paywall, which is, like, kind of compliant.
Like Apple, like Apple even admitted that for the most part it's compliant.
We passed review and all that.
We never hit anything from Apple review.
But on Twitter, when you never post your app on, I mean, you could post it,
but if you're doing anything that's anything close to being gray, never do that on Twitter.
Because Apple's on there like a hawk.
Yeah.
So, and there's this one guy that co-tweets it and tries to report you.
So he posted it.
And if you look, it lists our monthly price and weekly terms.
So it'd be like, it'd be like month.
On the top, we'd say monthly subscriptions.
So it'd be like, it'd be like, uh, 10 bucks.
It'd be like what monthly.
It was like 1199.
So it's like, I don't know, like two bucks a week or something.
And two, two point four.
So it's like $2.40 a week and then $10 a month.
And that's how it was listed, right?
Because the weekly was, you could do that, but the weekly was above in hierarchy of like whatever.
Yeah.
Since the weekly price was above the monthly price.
Yeah.
And they were the same tech size too, which is like, like, are you?
Are you kidding me?
Like it was the same text size name everything.
But just the higher...
Yeah, because the weekly was above.
And somebody had reported us to Apple.
And Apple removed...
And my...
To be fair, what my friend also wrote in the tweet is he started saying, like, he was
trying to like click bait.
So he was like a moral way to increase your conversions, right?
So it wasn't even the fact that we did it.
This was like really weird.
This was like the weirdest thing I've ever had with Apple.
Yeah.
They removed us for two weeks, right?
And I'm like, making fun of the kid.
I'm like, look what you did?
Yeah.
He's super amped up. He's like super hyped.
Yeah.
He's like, dude, I've been like, whatever. I've been dreaming this.
I'm like, oh, like what you did you?
Yeah.
And then we've spammed Apple, right?
That's why like.
To get reactivated?
Yeah.
Never accept, and this is for everything.
I feel like not enough people have this mindset.
I agree.
Never accept what somebody does.
Never.
My meta account got locked in.
I got locked out.
Like 2FA was broken in meta.
Yeah.
Right?
For my account, 2FA was broken.
Yeah.
So I couldn't log in.
to my ads account. And this was when we were running ads for both. Yeah. Right. The way I got back in,
it was like quick added. Everyone on LinkedIn that works at meta and I spam DM'd them, like begging them
to fix it. There's always a there's always a way. Like don't accept anything at face value. Never, never.
So we people are like, people just, I like to call it the throw your hands up at it. Yeah. Dang it. Well,
I guess that sucks. I guess I'm not in business. Like what? Yeah. It's like, no, do anything in your
power. I was about like drive to Apple headquarters and protest together.
to get like reinstated.
So we finally get a contact with Apple.
They call us up, right?
And I told him it's because of the tweet.
We still don't 100% know it's the tweet.
I knew for a fact.
They're never going to tell you.
No, they showed us the screenshot of the tweet.
Oh, shoot.
From this, NARC?
What's a loser, dude?
This NARC used to go build something itself.
He showed us a screenshot saying,
his words were not,
it wasn't the fact that you did anything wrong
because this isn't true,
this isn't truly against her guidelines.
Yeah.
You could argue it.
Right?
Yeah.
It's the fact you made us look bad.
Yeah.
I believe it.
Because that's their pride.
Yeah.
And especially in Twitter.
Like,
you have to understand Twitters where investors are.
Yeah.
Or like consumers are.
Twitter's the spot where anyone is accessible.
Yeah.
Like you could get in contact with a millionaire who has like 400 followers on Twitter.
Billionaire.
Yeah.
Billion.
Like it's the best networking tool.
Yeah.
But you have to be careful what you say about the wrong people because everyone's watching.
Yeah.
So because we insulted Apple,
a top Apple exec could go there and yell at his team right after.
Yeah.
Right.
So they were like, you made us look extremely bad, this and that.
We had to write an apology letter over email.
Whatever it takes.
Like a page long.
You probably wrote that as fast as you could.
I could use AI write it up, boot it up.
Claude.
Claude make this the most deep apologetic essay ever.
My income depends on this.
We just wanted to say we are deeply,
I think one of the lines were.
one of the lines were like
as a company we had to make i forgot what it was it was like
we took a step back
we took a step back and said that
transparency comes first yeah right
oh my gosh and then uh and thank god they
he like the guy called us up after he was like yelling at us
calls us up after he was like super nice you ever need anything like get let us know
like dude i wrote that with cloud and then uh
and then we went on like twitter like we just want to say apples a great company
Yeah, yeah.
Dude, that's so interesting that, like, how much ego and pride still rule everything.
Yeah.
Like, reputation, how we look.
Like, at any level, trillion-dollar company.
I've gone to the individual.
It rules all.
A random, like, it wasn't even me, right?
We're like, I mean, I don't even have a crazy amount of followers on Twitter, but, like,
sometimes I'll have a tweet that gets, like, 20K views, something like that.
Right?
It was a random kid on Twitter with, like, 400 followers that tweeted it.
Did that tweet do well?
He did get views, but he got views because of the NARN.
The Narkroom tweet.
I'm not going to, I blocked him on everything.
Got to hide that guy.
He can't have that guy.
It's just to snooping my stuff.
All right.
So you launched these two apps at the, around the same time.
What was the, and it's been 45 days since each of them launched?
Yeah.
And what's the revenue been for each of them since?
So lifetime.
Lifetime, like 23 is the boxing one.
Uh-huh.
And around 15 is the, uh, the workout one.
How high do you think all three of these apps could go?
Like, what does, like scale look like?
So my goal for the next, so I'm leaving, potentially leaving work, right?
Solely because I just want to focus on my own things.
I think the company's still great.
I have nothing but kind words to say about them.
But for the next six months, I want one big company.
So, like, I don't want to be the guy with, like, 10 different sasses.
Well, you could have an app studio.
You could.
You could, yeah.
And that's what, like, my dilemma is.
Like, I know if I go and make a basketball at, I'll crush.
I know, like, I feel like.
You have the playbook.
I have the confidence that I could go and crush in basketball,
I'll crush in hockey.
Yeah.
I could just take over sports.
Yeah.
Which is still something I'm considering.
Um,
but I also really have like a high desire to build one thing to be like, like, I have a high
desire to focus on one product, make sure that product's the best product possible and make sure
it's like making the most amount of money.
Yeah.
Um, and solve like a really hard problem.
See, focus looks different for different people.
I like to say focus is overrated.
Momentum is underrated.
Focus for you could look like making.
apps, like making niche apps with this same launch playbook over and over.
It doesn't have to look like scale your wrestling app as far as it can go.
Focus can look different, right?
No, 100%.
I think what you could do, you could follow the exact same playbook as flow wrestling.
You're familiar with them?
I don't know what their playbook is.
I know that.
You know flow sports?
Yeah, yeah.
Flow sports started with flow wrestling.
And their thesis was, okay, everyone's covering, you know, basketball games.
College, this is collegiate.
Collegiate basketball, um, collegiate football, whatever.
ever, but there's dozens of other collegiate sports that have rabid fan bases that ESPN will
never care about.
Not only do they not care about, but they will never care about.
We need to do the hard, tedious thing and get boots on the ground in not just colleges,
not just D1, but D2, D3, and high schools to film wrestling matches, right?
That was their thing.
And it's like, we're going to do this tediously.
We're going to have guys in Omaha, Nebraska, in Fresno, California, all over with a camera,
filming wrestling matches.
Not just like any wrestling match, but starting with like the most popular high profile ones.
Yeah, like like Beast of the East for high school is like a huge nationwide tournament or basically any D1 match.
You know, Iowa versus Iowa State, whatever.
So that was their whole playbook.
Paywalled from day one, 10 bucks a month, 120 a year, whatever it was.
And they started with wrestling.
Their whole company was flow wrestling.com for years.
And then they're like, all right, like we feel like we've got a good playbook now.
Let's go.
I think they went track.
field necks. They went cross country, gymnastics. And now it's flow sports. And it's a multi-hundred
million dollar company. And they just film and live stream and have a database of these collegiate
and high school sports events. And now they make like documentaries and like they're like the
Netflix for underappreciated sports, overlooked sports, both high school and college. So like you could do
the same thing with your aptitude. You know what I'm saying? Like you could roll them all up under the same
the same company. Start with wrestling and go to other sports or other needs.
or other workout apps or whatever like you could focus still focus but have dozens of different
apps that's true i mean and that's something i've been like kind of like wrestling with what
pun intended yeah uh but uh that's something i've been like in between i don't know which one
i don't know kind of which path i'm going to take well what are you wrestling between like it's
either what are the options in front of you either so it's either i'm still going to scale these
apps that we currently have right because it's like i have someone that like i because i like
I could always hire, right?
For wrestling, I'm probably going to hire.
I'm going to hire someone that could, like, just do the ops and stuff.
And then, like, kind of like how I have these relationships with these other two kids that are,
one's doing the workout app, one's doing the boxing app, and then I'm going to get someone to do the
wrestling AI app.
And then all it takes for me is just, like, a little bit of direction.
And that doesn't, that's not a lot of work.
Yeah.
Right?
A little bit of direction and, like, money.
Yeah.
So that's not a lot of work.
And that's what I'm, that's what I'm thinking about.
And then maybe then, like, scaling those and then maybe trying to make like one app, like, particularly maybe like, like, so one of the apps I was thinking about is, have ever heard of Superpower?
So it's a, it's like a, it's like a health analytics app.
So it's like a, it's like a blood work app.
Like you download it.
It uploads all your blood work stuff to AI.
And it like basically tells you like what you're like missing out on what, what each means.
I know function.
I use function health.
And it seems like the same thing.
Yeah.
I pay 500 bucks.
I get two blood panels a year.
It all goes to the app.
and then they give me all this analysis.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I was thinking about maybe, maybe potentially because it's higher ticket, but I don't know,
I'm not sold on what I would want to do.
That could be bigger or just scaling this up to like 100 apps.
Yeah.
So if I were you, like very specifically, I would create a parent company that you own 100% of.
Yeah.
Right.
George LLC.
That's kind of what I have now, yeah.
And then all of these apps you start should be independent LLCs.
That's what, yeah.
Some of them you have partners, right?
Yeah.
The first, Hayden.
What's it?
And you have different splits.
And like 50% is owned by George LLC.
50% is owned by him.
That's how it's structured.
Right.
And then everything, when you make a distribution for the wrestling company, it funnels up to
George LLC.
And then when you can afford it, you pay George from Georgia LLC.
Yeah.
And then how I do it.
Yeah.
I would just do that at scale.
And just know every year, you're probably going to be culling apps.
You're going to be cutting them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's not anything to feel bad about.
It's just the 80-20 rule exists everywhere.
Yeah.
If you have 30 apps, I can already.
tell you that 20 of them will be okay, or maybe even 25 will be okay, and five will print all your money.
Yeah.
Right?
And so you're just, they're going to have to call them over time.
I would, like, scale the crap out of that.
Like, that could be a publicly traded company.
That could be huge.
I don't see any reason why you couldn't and shouldn't do that.
Like, you have the playbook.
Yeah, I agree.
I think my big concern is hiring.
What about it?
Being able to hire good people that could do it.
They could, like, run them.
Why not?
Why couldn't you?
Because I've, like, there have, so I've done a few.
So, before we launched, I actually had a few more that we were potentially launched.
And it was the 80-20 rule.
Yeah.
Right.
It was these two were actually great kids.
And the other few people I tried hiring just sucked.
That's just, it's the same thing with the apps.
Like you just have to churn through people.
Yeah.
You do.
Until you find good hires.
80-20 rules everywhere.
It's a law of the universe, like gravity, literally.
So you hire 10 people that appear to be rock stars.
A year, 10 years from now, two of them will be rock stars.
Yeah.
The other eight, you're filtered through.
But what you're going to learn is five years from now,
you're going to have filtered through so many non-rock stars that your whole team will be
rock stars. Then you kind of have something to, like, you know what to look out for? Yeah. You,
just like your influencer strategy. Then you're going to get better at identifying the rock stars,
so you don't have to churn through his buddy. That's what I would do. Like, that will make a lot of
money if I were you. That's not sick. Do you ever use YouTube or YouTube ads at all, or is it just
TikTok? I want to get into that now with the boxing one. Okay. What about TikTok ads paid on
TikTok? Paid on TikTok? That's what we were doing for wrestle when we were optimizing for downloads,
but like never optimally.
Okay.
All right.
So we've talked
to a very specific playbook here,
but if someone wanted to go out
and start their own app
like you've done,
what advice would you give them?
What would the playbook be
that we maybe haven't covered here?
Yeah, so like literally my zero to one
is, well, obviously,
obviously make the app
maximize the most visually.
So understand your app needs a gotcha feature,
right?
It needs one feature that you run advertising on.
Okay.
That feature, the job of it,
is to explain the entire app
in five seconds.
It might not be the feature that they use the most, but it's the feature that's going to get them in the door.
Yeah.
Okay.
So visually, you should be able to look at your phone and understand exactly what it does.
If you need, give your phone to your mom.
If she doesn't understand what the app does, like it's not good.
Yeah.
Right?
After you have that, I would then, and I get like flack for this, but like this is what I would do.
If I needed to go from zero to one, I haven't done this for some of these other apps.
Like I didn't do this for SAI, but I've done this before and it works.
bought up your Instagram account.
Bought it?
Yeah, like when you're a brand, pay for the verification, pay for followers in the beginning.
Okay.
Where do you go to pay for followers?
There's a site Moses.
Moses.
Yeah, it's M-O-W-E-S.
And it costs next to nothing.
It's a dollar per whatever, per thousand dollars.
Okay.
And you're saying it's worth it just for social proof?
In the beginning of your outreach, you're going to get, so the biggest problem is when you're,
you're going to be outreaching into the void in the beginning.
You're going to be sending DMs.
They're going to click on your profile.
They're going to see, bro, this guy is zero followers.
why would I work with them?
Yeah.
If they see that you have the three,
so your first three posts should just be like shots of the product that look really nice.
You should have like 15,000-ish followers.
Okay.
Pay for the verification if you can, right?
And then once they see that,
the likelihood of them working with you doubled.
Do you pay for views on those three videos?
No.
It doesn't even matter.
No.
I mean, to be honest, I didn't really do the,
I did the bot following before.
but usually when you when you start collab posting with a lot of your influencers that's the best bet so once these influencers once your first five influencers start posting push for the first like their first videos to all be collabs because now your page looks even nicer it's i've i'm looking at a brand i could see the videos i could see other creators that have worked with him i may know them right he's getting thousands of thousands of like hundreds of thousands of views he has a lot of followers his like account looks
very neat and professional.
Yeah, yeah.
And you're a legitimate person.
And when you're a legitimate person, right?
So if I worked with 10 influencers that this guy knows and I offer him a cheap rate,
he's just going to think that that's the rates.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
He's just going to be like, okay, these are the rates.
I either accept it or I don't.
But these are the rates.
I'm not getting jipped.
Right.
I see these guys worked with them.
Right?
If I'm a no name and I'm just some kid, right, which I've been just some kid.
That's how I know.
Yeah.
And then I offer you like $2 CBM.
I get, like, laughed in my face.
Oh, you're just a broke kid who, like, knows nothing about this.
Yeah.
It doesn't matter.
It, like, doesn't matter.
If your account looks professional, though, they're much likely to take a deal.
Yeah.
For cheaper.
And so that's my main strategy.
The DM, you send as many DMs as you can.
The DM should be paid promo and the paid promo for app name.
That should be the first line always.
Experiment with it, I would say, because a lot of people are doing that now.
But you just want to, because they're going to look at your DM through that,
little yeah like the preview the first like four words yeah before they click on before it gets like
cut off by the dots yeah right some of them won't even click on it so if they see paid promo
the likelihood of them i'm gonna get money i'm exactly that's the first thought that gets like
send to their head oh i'll make money off this guy yeah um send as many dms as you can um i would
say after you make your first thousand bucks hire a VA instantly the ROI is infinite on VAs
Yeah.
And experiment with med ads.
But I wouldn't experiment.
If you don't have, I'm going to say three grand.
Like, if you're not willing to spend 3K on ads, I wouldn't do it.
Just do this outreach stuff first.
I would do influencers and wait.
Influencers, I would do influencers only.
If you have over 3K, I would say, yeah.
How many?
What's like the minimum amount of followers you want out of an influencer?
I honestly don't care about followers.
I care about average views.
Okay.
What are you looking for?
25,000.
average givers.
So some are five.
some are 50, some are 100, some.
Yeah.
Okay.
So if we were starting basketball AI,
yeah.
You're going to go reserve the handle on Instagram basketball AI.
Is that what you're going to first start?
Okay.
You're going to seat it with 15,000 fake followers for 15 or 20 bucks.
Yeah.
Then you're going to make a few videos that look nice, post them.
Doesn't matter how many views they have.
They just need to see you posted something.
You're going to get very...
You need posts of your, like product shots, basically.
Gotcha.
Like statics of your drop.
Then you're going to get meta verified, which is like 20 bucks a month,
16 bucks a month.
with the blue check mark.
Then you're going to start doing outreach that starts with paid promo for basketball AI.
Yeah.
That's a playbook.
And then you just send as many DM as you possibly can.
Okay.
And then you,
I mean,
you vibe code the app.
Yeah.
You just build out the app.
And you want to have one killer feature.
You want to test all of your killer features in your ads or in your organic videos,
but find the one that seems to resonate the most and then triple down on that.
Yeah.
And that gets them in the door,
whether they end up.
I would say reverse actually.
So you should have.
have an idea of which feature was going to be the best.
And I would first only push that feature.
Yeah.
And then experiment.
Yeah.
It has to be visually simple to explain.
Yeah.
Like,
wrestling AI,
when we saw that like our influencers would saturate,
like,
they kept posting about us AI and like the results weren't starting to like lesson per video.
We would then have them introduce another feature of the app.
And that's when then re-triggered the jumps.
Gotcha.
It's like a brand new app.
Yeah.
It's like another side of the app that they haven't seen before.
Yeah.
Okay.
And it educates them.
more. So you started this less than a year ago. What has your revenue been to date so far across all of
these projects? So to date, I think 225,000. In like nine months of building vibe coding apps without any
coding experience. Yeah. Gosh, quarter million dollars. Most of that profit. Yeah. A lot of time, for sure,
you've paid a VA, you've paid your influencers, but, and maybe if like whatever eight in your
profit was just paid ad spend that will pay profits in the future. Does that make sense? Yeah, exactly.
Like your percentage profit would have been much higher, even if your revenue would have been lower had you not done paid out.
So I used to be super worried about, like, I used to sit there and like try to max like, like, it's like you should do it.
And at times you should do max my profit.
Right.
But and the reason I did that was because I was very, I had a lot of limiting beliefs when I first started making money on wrestling AI.
I was like, all right, tomorrow the app's going to die.
Tomorrow the app's going to die.
How many wrestlers are there?
I'm going to run out of wrestlers.
I'm going to this and I'm going to that.
That I hate like, I think that was the biggest thing that helps.
me back.
Scarcity mindset.
Scarcity.
Just think, I thought I was going to run out of wrestlers.
I thought I was like, oh, that's it.
I'm just going to run out of wrestlers.
And then I would have spent all the money to acquire them and I would never make any more.
I don't know.
Right.
Yeah.
It doesn't really mean.
I was just like, it was just like a fear.
Right.
Right.
It's natural.
Now like that's why these new apps, I don't like before like a 50% margin wouldn't like
excite me.
I would be like like a 50% like 2x Roaz wasn't what I was aiming for.
Right?
Especially because I only had a thousand bucks.
So at the time I needed more than a two X X X.
rise. Then once I got money, I would be like, bro, two X row as then I'm losing this money. And then I'm like,
what? Now that I understand like, okay, like you should just try scaling things to be as big as possible.
Like now I, two X row as I'm like, all right, do I'm going to scale this up until my CAC payback's like 90 days.
Yeah. Especially because I don't need the money now. Like I have money set aside. Like so like now that
I'm leaving this job, I literally set money to the side. This is what I'm going to live on. I have like,
this is my like, my personal runway is like six months to a year.
Yeah.
Right?
And like, if I need be, I'll go to like Thailand and like.
You don't have to.
No, what I'm saying is like any means necessary.
Right.
I don't care at all.
Like I'm not even going to think about profit.
I just want to make the like I just want to grow the business to be as big as possible.
Yeah.
For these next six months.
Yeah.
And the profit will come.
Yeah.
Any other tips of advice that you may have missed that people should learn?
It's really just don't have limiting beliefs and just keep, like keep doing different things until it works.
Yeah.
I keep trying stuff.
I always say test.
Everything except drugs.
Yeah, exactly.
That's my catchphrase on this.
George, this has been amazing.
This is awesome.
Where can people find you?
I have an X that I got post on sometimes.
Okay, we'll link to that.
Cool.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I've been dreaming about my first in-person podcast since I was first vibe coding my first tab.
This is what I was thinking about.
This is awesome.
