How This App Makes $35K/Month

Flo

• Built Monai, a minimal expense tracking app, and grew it to more than $35,000 in monthly recurring revenue.
• Started in Germany and originally wanted to study in a creative field.
• Studied computer science and taught himself to code iOS apps.
• Worked as a mobile UX lead before going full-time on his own apps.
• Built side projects next to his job, but none succeeded before Monai.
• Quit his job earlier in the year after Monai grew enough to support him full-time.

Monai

• Helps people track expenses with less friction than traditional money tracking apps.
• Uses AI so users can enter expenses by voice or through automations.
• Positions itself as minimalistic instead of bloated.
• Lets users manually add expenses or say entries such as coffee at Starbucks 50 bucks.
• Automatically creates transactions, adds tags, adds categories, and adds entries to the list.
• Uses Apple Pay automation through Shortcuts integrations.
• Includes budgets and AI reports that answer questions about the user’s finances.

Metrics And Pricing

• Grew from about $300 MRR after one and a half years to more than $35,000 MRR after partnering with a creator.
• 10xed MRR within a week of the first creator video.
• Reached almost $8,000 MRR within a month of the first video.
• Grew by more than 10,000% from the beginning of the partnership to the time of the interview.
• Uses a subscription model with a 7-day trial.
• Tested premium and paywall approaches and found a hard paywall with free trial worked best.

Origin And Build Process

• Built the app for himself because he wanted to track expenses again.
• Had quit other expense tracking apps because they were too cumbersome.
• Combined expense tracking with AI once AI became usable enough for the job.
• Wanted to ship quickly after previously spending 2 years on an app that nobody cared about.
• Built the first version in about one or two months, then kept iterating.

Influencer Partnership

• Partnered with a large content creator from Colombia who discovered Flo through social links in the app.
• Started the partnership after negotiating terms with the creator.
• Has the creator post three videos per month on his main channel.
• Uses a contract with a fixed monthly retainer and a percentage of profits.
• Previously used a percentage of revenue, but found it did not scale well.
• Prefers profit-based incentives because the creator is rewarded for doing what is best for the app.
• Focuses on quality over quantity with three high-quality, story-driven videos per month.
• Lets the creator own video ideas because he is the creative mind behind the content.

Content Performance

• Saw the first simple app walkthrough and another video grow MRR from $300 to around $7,800 to $8,000.
• Saw another short video add more than $5,000 MRR and bring the app to about $13,000 MRR.
• Went through a lower season before a June 21 video connected to being invited by Apple to join WWDC.
• Saw that WWDC story video reach 1.7 million views and add almost $5,000 MRR.
• Grew past $35,000 MRR after a recent feature-focused story video.

Influencer Marketing Playbook

• Find aligned partners whose lifestyle, tone, audience, personality, and charisma match the product.
• Look for creators who connect with viewers and reply to comments because app buyers often have questions.
• Warm up the relationship by following and commenting before outreach when possible.
• Be specific in outreach by referencing an exact video, moment, or joke.
• Connect the creator’s audience and values directly to the product.
• Signal willingness to pay early so the creator sees a real incentive.
• Show examples of similar products in the niche that already make meaningful money.
• Keep outreach brief because creators receive many emails.
• Send a personalized video when possible to stand out.
• Add social handles inside the app so creators can discover and contact the founder.
• Consider markets outside the United States.

Tech Stack And Costs

• Builds apps natively with Xcode, which is free.
• Uses Claude Code extensively on the max plan for $100 per month.
• Uses RevenueCat for revenue stats and A/B testing, costing around $400 per month.
• Uses Appwrite for backend, authentication, and database at about $25 per month.
• Uses OpenAI for easier AI tasks and Anthropic for deeper analysis, costing around $200 per month.
• Uses Helm to simplify App Store Connect work and bought a lifetime plan for about $175.
• Uses Figma on the free plan for design.

Lessons And Advice

• Wishes he had started Meta ads earlier because the creator’s strong videos became useful ad creative.
• Saw good early results from Meta ads after only a few weeks.
• Believes strong content can later be used to scale paid ads.