I Built Two Apps That Make $120K/Month

Kyle Fowler

• Built two apps that together generate over $120,000 per month ($1.5M/year)
• Launched Cards Stock six years ago, growing from three people in a basement making a few hundred dollars a month to a global team of five
• Started coding at a young age through coding camps and an iOS development course, then taught himself by building a Snake game
• Recruited two friends to join Cards Stock early on, splitting revenue three ways despite minimal income at the time, and taught them how to code
• Believes the best app ideas come from personal problems and hobbies you already have

Products and Offerings

• Cards Stock
  • A sports card value scanner that uses a phone’s camera to identify cards, find their market value, and let users track their collection over time
  • Has about 15,000 active subscriptions and roughly $75,000 in monthly recurring revenue
  • Gets around 13,000 downloads per month
• Scanon
  • The same concept as Cards Stock but for Pokémon cards
  • Launched in 2025, about one year before the interview
  • Has about 3,400 active subscriptions and roughly $17,000 in monthly recurring revenue
  • Gets around 16,000 new customers per month, already outpacing Cards Stock’s download rate

Metrics and Financials

• Combined monthly recurring revenue across both apps is approximately $92,000–$120,000
• Combined annual revenue is around $1.5 million
• Cards Stock took about six months from idea to completion, including a three-month gap in the middle
• Scanon’s MVP was built in a single day using AI

Strategy and Growth

• Primary growth engine is TikTok slideshows, which are simple, repeatable, and drive app downloads
• Uses a platform called Noise to distribute TikTok slideshows to creators, paying per view
• Validates content by first posting on personal TikTok accounts to test what gets views and converts
• Focuses on finding the balance between content that gets views and content that drives downloads

Tech Stack and Infrastructure

• Cards Stock is built with Swift and SwiftUI, uses Core Data for local storage, and runs on an AWS EC2 server for the card database
• Uses Revenue Cat for subscription management
• Scanon was built almost entirely using Cursor’s AI agent
• Other tools include Claude for coding work, Superbase, Railway, Code Rabbit, Whisperflow, Granola, Notion, Slack, Framer for the website, and ChatGPT

Lessons and Advice

• Solve your own problems first; if you have a pain point in your hobby or daily life, chances are others do too
• Don’t overestimate how hard it is to build apps, especially now with AI tools that can generate entire MVPs in hours
• Keep a running notes document of slow, repetitive, or frustrating tasks you encounter, as these are potential app ideas
• Start with the most minimal version of a solution, build it, then monetize with tools like Superwall or Revenue Cat
• People who have built successful things love talking about how they did it, so don’t be afraid to reach out and ask for help
• Building around your hobbies is a viable path to a million-dollar business right now, enabled by AI tools that let you ship and test ideas within hours
• Even if the app doesn’t make money, you’ve still won by solving your own problem