SaaS •Entrepreneurship

Our Mobile App Made $85K in 8 months

Starter Story • • 12 min • #112
Our Mobile App Made $85K in 8 months

Jack and Nick are two brothers who turned their obsession with breathwork into a niche mobile app. But here's what they did different: they validated their idea with content before writing a single line of code.

Summary

  • Jack Sweeney and Nick Sweeney

    • Built Coherence as two brothers and co-founders.
    • Launched the app eight months before the interview.
    • Combined Jack’s content and no-code background with Nick’s breathwork and athletic background.
      • Jack grew a university YouTube channel to about 20,000 subscribers before pursuing entrepreneurship.
      • Jack built simple no-code web apps, with the first few apps flopping before he improved through iteration.
      • Nick was a Division 1 cross-country skier whose career was threatened by injury.
      • Nick said breathwork helped him walk again within three months and return to full-time training six months later.
    • Described building with his brother as a blessing because they could support each other when one person was down.

  • Coherence

    • Helps people regulate their nervous system through breathwork.
    • Offers breathing techniques for relaxation, focus, energy, stress relief, and sleep.
    • Uses a minimal breathing session screen with timer and volume controls.
    • Plays sounds to guide inhales and exhales.
    • Includes gamification through a streak counter.
    • Uses a subscription model.
      • Charges $40 per year with a three-day free trial on the yearly plan.
      • Charges $10 per month on the monthly plan.

  • Metrics and Financials

    • Reached over 15,000 downloads.
    • Generated around $85,000 in revenue.
    • Averaged around $11,000 per month since launch.
    • Hit a biggest month of $22,000 in revenue.
    • Surpassed 2,000 users.
    • Spends about $5,000 to $6,000 per month to operate.
      • Spends about $2,500 on video editors.
      • Spends about $1,000 to $2,000 on influencers and partnerships.
      • Spends about $800 on a ghostwriter for threads.
      • Spends about $500 on a virtual assistant.
      • Spends about $300 on coding agents.
      • Spends about $100 on RevenueCat and about $100 on other tools.
    • Operates at about 50% margin.

  • Content-First Strategy

    • Started with content before building the app.
    • Made content about topics they genuinely cared about.
      • Jack wrote threads on spiritual and esoteric topics.
      • Nick made content focused more on breathwork.
    • Used X as an idea battleground to see which ideas resonated.
    • Turned winning X posts into Instagram and TikTok short-form scripts.
    • Moved validated ideas upstream into longer YouTube videos.
    • Reverse engineered viral content into the app concept.
    • Got the original app idea after a tweet about vortex breath went viral.
    • Launched a July content piece that reached around 8 million views across platforms.
      • Nick thought the video would flop and refilmed it several times.
      • The video reached a million views the next day.
      • He framed it in a polarizing way around hidden health information.
      • He later turned that framing into a series.

  • Idea Validation Playbook

    • Pick a painful niche.
      • Create content around a problem people already feel.
      • Present yourself as a potential solution through repeated content.
    • Batch ideas weekly.
      • Generate content ideas regularly around the painful problem.
    • Film in bulk.
      • Produce 30 to 60 videos at a time.
      • Build a content bank with roughly two months of videos.
    • Amplify winners.
      • Identify which posts work.
      • Put Spark or Meta ad spend behind winning content when there is something to sell.
    • Outmarket everyone.
      • Publish as many reels as possible.
      • Hire clippers when resources allow.
      • Use software leverage after validating demand.

  • Tech Stack and Tools

    • Built the app with React Native Expo.
    • Used Supabase for the database and backend.
    • Used cloud code and Codex as coding agents.
    • Used Mixpanel for analytics.
    • Used RevenueCat for subscriptions.
    • Built the marketing site with Vercel and Next.js.
    • Used Figma for design.
    • Used Rot for 3D design.
    • Used ManyChat for Instagram DMs.
    • Jack said he did not write a single line of code in the codebase.
    • Finished the MVP in February 2025 and launched.

  • Lessons and Advice

    • Validate with content before building.
    • Stop coding first and start creating if you need to know what the market wants.
    • Find a technical co-founder if you are non-technical.
    • Use software when you want leverage after proving demand.
    • Keep meditating because they see it as a high-leverage activity.
    • Breathe more and avoid sitting all day.
    • Take movement breaks because long coding sessions can hurt the body.
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