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For the past 28 days, we have been making about $14-15,000 per month. This is Max. In just a few months, he completely changed his life by creating apps. And he did it all without any technical experience. Six months ago, I had never built a mobile app. With just an idea and a phone, he turned this simple app into over $13,000 a month. There were several different apps that people used. There was no single platform. So I just went and created it. So we asked Max to come on the channel and tell us exactly how he did it. In this episode, we'll dive into how he did it without
knowing anything about coding, his simple marketing strategy that can be implemented for free, and the truly simple idea behind the app that's now bringing in over $13,000 per month. This will be great. Let's get started. I'm Gus. And I'm Pat. And this is Starter Story. Okay, Max. Welcome to Starter Story. Glad to see you here. Could you tell us who you are, what you have created, and what your story is? Yes, thank you very much for inviting me. I'm very happy to be here today. I'm Max, the founder and CEO of Maxed AI. Six months ago, I had never built a mobile app and had minimal coding experience. Today, I built one of the fastest growing weightlifting apps
on the market, Maxed AI, and I see a really strong growth trajectory. That's great, Max. Congratulations. I'm excited to talk about how you did it, how you came up with this idea, and how you developed it. But before we get to that, let's talk briefly about Maxed AI. What kind of app is this? Who are your users? And then open your revenue dashboards to show them to your audience. Maxed AI is truly your all-in-one health and fitness coach. He knows exactly how much sleep you got last night. It creates a training program for you, tailored specifically to you and your goals, and allows you to track your lifts, nutrition,
and even all of your app store review here. We have 164 ratings, which is truly impressive. So, looking at our revenue figure here, we have almost $14,000 in revenue in the last 28 days. For the whole month, we have about $14-15,000 per month. You will see that the MRR is low here. This is because I don't believe in creating an app relying on people forgetting to cancel their subscriptions. So we simply charge an upfront annual fee of $24.99, which is actually $2 per month. So, looking at some other stats here, we actually reached 1,000 active followers, which is extremely exciting. And the growth in the number of new customers - over 20,000 in the last 28 days, over 40,000 all time.
We just reached 20,000 downloads for iOS. So we are truly scaling, and we reinvest every penny we earn into growing the business. The question that comes to mind is that there are a lot of weight lifting, fitness apps out there. You just described something like a universal health app that I'm sure millions of people have. What do you think makes yours different? I think creating this Agletics Coach is a step in the right direction to set us apart. So, Max Coach is connected to every component of the application. So you never have to look away from one screen to do anything. To check your sleep, to adjust your
training program, review training guides. All of this can be on one page. And then, you know, the ability to create content driven by the founders has attracted a lot of the app's subscribers who, you know, follow the process and feel like they're part of something. Yes, I really like everything that Max is telling us now. And that made me think about one thing. When you have customers, they are the most valuable part of your business. Knowing who they are and what they want is what will help your business keep going. But many founders have this information scattered everywhere. In email, in a note app, in various spreadsheets. That's why I want to tell you about HubSpot CRM. With HubSpot's smart CRM, it keeps all your customer information in one
place. And it actually updates itself, so you constantly know what's happening with your customers. Using the link in the description, you can get started 100% free. So, if you want to finally find out what's going on with your customers, just follow the link in the description and check out HubSpot CRM. Okay, back to Max. So, Max, super cool app. Before we tell you how you came up with the idea for this app, I want to know a little more about your experience. So, how long have you been building apps and how did you even get started doing it and learn that it was possible? I graduated from the University of Michigan. I spent two summers in finance, one in venture capital, and one in sales and trading. To be completely honest, I was probably the
worst intern imaginable. I wasn't passionate about the work I was doing. So I started building a food review app called Dish Rate. And then I realized I had no idea how to do it. This is impossible. I would have to pay tens of thousands of dollars in development to get this thing up and running. So I gave up. And then, you know, around December or January, I started seeing people without any coding experience The people I knew, if they could build apps, I could build apps too. So one day I got a membership with the code Claude for $15 and just started typing. Six months later, I do n't think I've gone a day without my terminal and collaborating with Claude as much as possible.
This is great. It's so easy to create now, and you just connect with a lot of people on that channel who discover Claude, start interacting with him, and see what happens. The question that I think is even more important to understand here is: how did you come up with the idea for this app? How did you know that this was something that could potentially make money and even be a truly successful app? I wasn't naive about the fact that there were already 100 other competitors, but I wanted to create something that I was truly passionate about, and weightlifting is my favorite thing in the world. My friends and I exercised hard throughout college, but I
noticed an interesting pattern. Strava and Nike Run Club are truly two dominant players when it comes to running. There seemed to be a gap in weightlifting, that there were several different apps that people were using. There was no single platform. So I just went out and created it. And maybe I was a little unaware of the fact that there are so many programs out there with, you know, so many years of experience, but I guess being naive is also useful sometimes. By the way, now that you have some experience, you have a production application that thousands of people use, what does the For example, what are the basic tools a person who builds apps should use, and how much does it cost each month?
It is quite inexpensive. I have Claude 20 programs. I have Superbase, which I pay $20 a month for. I pay Vercel and Expo for help with deploying my app, sending updates, and all that. And I also use RevenueCat for payments. So my advice to everyone: the barriers to entry are very low. Now is the best time to create an app. Yeah, I like what you said, that the barrier to entry is really low. Almost anyone can download Cloud, start typing, and start developing their idea. And since it's now so accessible or easier, as you said, it's no longer a problem. So let's talk a little bit about how to go from zero to $10,000 a month.
I didn't know anything about this X community, which actually gives you the keys to how to build an app that will make $10,000 a month. I thought I would launch a free app and make money somehow, like by monetizing it, like selling advertising space. Luckily, I met someone through Instagram who had some experience in building apps, and he took me under his wing and told me that the direction apps were going was to charge heavily for your app. So strict pay-per- use was step number one. I think the next step was marketing. And I didn't have a big budget to pay 50 UGC creators to create videos for me like many other big So I thought, what's the easiest way to do this? This is to videotape yourself. So I started filming every day, five videos, ten
videos, overcoming the initial fear and embarrassment, you know your friends will send you and laugh at you. Because in reality, most people don't even care. And then I started to really understand what formats work. I was looking at all the videos that I posted and analyzing, you know, what's the retention rate, what's the skip rate. And then I started running the most effective videos as paid advertising. So I started with a low budget, but as I started to see that the product really resonated with the market, I started to gradually increase the budget, and, you know, now we're spending about $250 a day on paid advertising and finally starting a price-shifting campaign to get five more people like me who can also shoot videos every day.
Great, that's great. And when we talked before this interview, you told me a little bit about how you've tried a lot of things when it comes to marketing and developing your app. So, for those of you who are people watchers, what would you say is working or not working right now when it comes to trying to develop an app, trying to promote an app like yours? I would say that we don't yet have a clear definition of the scope of your app, and you don't understand what features will drive downloads. This is still a very early stage. I would avoid hiring UGC creators. You will need to know the exact direction, i.e. the viewing angles, that will work before spending money on it. And then, I would say that Meta is much better than TikTok right now
. I think views are more valuable. I think these are buyers with greater intent. I think the demographic is better. They may simply be more willing to pay. So, other than that, I think clipping has really exploded. It's still early enough that you can make a lot of money from your mobile app doing this. This is a great way to gain international exposure and a great way to get organic downloads. You talked earlier about sharing your path online. So tell me a little more about that, like founder-driven content. Why was this so important to you? What impact did this have?
It was incredible. I have been given opportunities that I can't even imagine. Even just being on this show is a real honor. And I think people love passion, and people love authenticity, and they want to follow me. So 3 months ago I started tweeting, and it's amazing. I mean, about a third of my income comes from people on X, which is so crazy, they just follow my journey and, you know, we're looking for a lift app or just want to support me. I think there's a misconception on X that people will copy your idea and you need to embed something inconspicuously. I would argue the exact opposite. Be as public as possible. Show everyone what works and what doesn't.
Tell them about your vulnerabilities. And people are really supportive. By the way, I think building your own brand is one of the most powerful things you can do. But I want to change the subject a little bit, because I'm curious, you don't have a lot of experience in software development, you do n't have a huge team building this application. I would be very happy if you could briefly show me the application. What does the app do? What does he look like? Could you show us right now? Okay, this is the main page of the app. So, you see your schedule, today's workout, and you see three pillars here, actually. Your saved templates, which, you know, are workouts that you've saved. Here you can see your ranking on the
leaderboard. Unfortunately, I'm 78 and I've already done weight training twice this week. So, there are a lot of really competitive people on the app, and it's very inclusive for everyone. But the main thing we're working on is this chatbot that I have, and you can text it about anything, and it will adjust your training program depending on, like said, I'm a little sick. Adjust my volume. So, he set up my chest and back day, and I had previously asked him to make me a protein-rich dessert. He made me a recipe with all the ingredients I had. So I saved it here. And the social media feed, which is very interesting, makes us responsible, and, I think, makes us competitive. So I always support healthy competition. Yes, that's what The last question
we ask all the founders who come in here is: if you had any advice for anyone watching this who wants to build apps, maybe they're just about to graduate from college, thinking about going to college, what advice would you have received during that time? I would say, you know, I started with this kind of half-and-half approach. I created an app, but I was too afraid to promote it, and I didn't want to associate it with my name, and I was too afraid to videotape myself. So, the best advice I can give you is to go all out film yourself, annoy everyone around you because you're so passionate about it, and document your journey because it'll be so fun to look back and see all your progress. This is one of the nicest things I've done here, is just being
able to watch a video from 4 months ago, when I had my first paying client, and I was so excited that I was now making, you know, $14,000 to $15,000 a month. That's great advice, Max. What you did is proof of what can happen in just a few months when you fully invest yourself, create something, and, yes, shout it from the rooftops. So thank you for coming. Thanks for sharing, and yes, buddy, I look forward to seeing what you do. Perfectly. Thank you very much, guys. I'm so grateful you invited me, and I can't wait to Good. Gus, producer and co-host of Starter Story, what do you think about Max and Maxed?
Max and Max. This is funny. I just liked his mood and energy. So I like that about him. I think my main takeaway is that you don't need some crazy unique idea to be successful. I can't even remember all the specific weightlifting supplements from the people we talked to. It seems there were at least three of them, which just goes to show that none of these app ideas are complicated. People go to the gym, lift weights, and want something that can track it. But the one thing that cannot be replicated is a personal brand. This is something I would recommend everyone do, even if, you know, it seems like you want to keep it close to your heart. As for that, if this interview was proof enough for you that you don't need a crazy idea to build something, get
users, start making money online, and we've interviewed hundreds of people who have done it, and if you click on the link in the description, you'll find a list of many of these app ideas. These are ideas for apps that are already generating revenue, you can go in, take a look, maybe find something interesting for you. Just click on this link, you can get it completely free. Okay, guys, see you next time. Peace.
