How We Built a $30K/Month Mobile App

Quick Overview

The creators of the PropGPT app, Eyal and Yahli, achieved $30,000 in Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) within 10 weeks of rebuilding their product by prioritizing customer feedback, obsessing over data, tracking user behavior, and leveraging influencer marketing, ultimately leading to a 50% profit margin after initial struggles with a low trial-to-paid conversion rate of 8%.

Key Points: PropGPT reached $30,000 MRR in just 10 weeks after a complete rebuild, after initially struggling at $2,000 MRR. The initial version suffered from a critical 'Trial to Paid Conversion Rate' of only 8%, far below the industry average of 40%. The breakthrough involved a four-step playbook: 1. Understand the customer (addressing the need for direct answers), 2. Obsess over data, 3. Track user behavior (identifying drop-offs), and 4. Leverage influencer marketing which generated 20 downloads/day initially. Influencer marketing success included one video hitting 616K views, boosting annual recurring revenue from $8K to $38K in about three days. The app's tech stack utilizes React Native for the mobile framework, TypeScript for programming languages, and Python for machine learning algorithms. Monthly operating costs totaled approximately $11,230, resulting in a 50% profit margin at their peak revenue.

Context: This video is a 'Starter Story' interview featuring Eyal Cohen and Yahli Hazan, two college students who built a sports betting analytics mobile app called PropGPT. The interview details their initial failure, characterized by a poor 8% trial-to-paid conversion rate and low revenue, and the subsequent strategic pivot that led them to achieve $30K in MRR in just 10 weeks. The discussion focuses on the four key steps they implemented to turn their product around.

Detailed Analysis

Eyal and Yahli detail the journey of their sports betting analytics app, PropGPT, which initially stalled at $2,000 MRR due to a terrible 8% trial-to-paid conversion rate. Their turning point involved scrapping their initial marketing efforts and going back to the drawing board for four months to rebuild the product correctly, focusing on what customers truly wanted: direct answers to their bets, as highlighted by a 0.8-star review stating, 'All I need is just the answer to my bet.' They implemented a four-step playbook: 1. Understand the customer by listening to feedback, 2. Obsess over data (like the 25,522 metric shown), 3. Track user behavior (identifying where users drop off during onboarding), and 4. Leverage influencer marketing. The influencer marketing strategy proved highly effective, with one TikTok video reaching 616K views and driving 20 downloads per day, leading to a massive surge in revenue. This pivot resulted in them hitting a peak of $40K in monthly revenue and increasing their trial-to-paid conversion rate to 45-50%. They also detailed their tech stack, which includes React Native, TypeScript, Python for ML, Neon for the database ($10/month), RevenueCat (1% fee), and Superwall ($0.20/conversion) for paywalls, ultimately achieving a 50% profit margin on their $30K MRR.