Summary
Starter Story host Gus interviews Frederick James, a developer who built a premium-design habit tracker for iOS and grew it to a peak of about $13,000 per month in revenue, now hovering near $10,000.
Frederick shares his dashboards, including roughly $25,000 in revenue over 90 days, a download-to-paid rate around 7% and a refund rate of 0.7%. He explains how he found the idea by studying a popular app onboarding breakdown on X, then differentiated it with better design and a few obvious features, and how he used AI to help produce App Store screenshots.
The core of the episode is his growth playbook. To get from zero to about $5,000 per month, he used Apple Search Ads with exact-match keywords targeting big competitors’ names, solid attribution through RevenueCat, and daily review of performance data with an AI agent. To reach $10,000, he moved to TikTok ads, remaking already-viral formats and testing five ads with about $50 each. Viewers interested in indie app businesses will find concrete numbers and steps they can adapt.
📺 Source: Starter Story · Published October 25, 2026
🏷️ Format: Interview
