My Apps Make $4.5M/Year With $0 Marketing

Ericas (from Lithuania, currently living in Paris)

• Background and origin story

  • Started as a designer at a local web design agency earning $2 per hour right after finishing school
  • Always thought about how to 10x earnings; realized freelancing was the path to earning more
  • Freelanced for 3-4 years while building products on the side
  • Stumbled onto Shopify Partners page while browsing for landing page inspiration for a client
  • Discovered top 25% of Shopify app developers were making nearly $300k/year—far more than freelance work
  • Decided to build in the Shopify ecosystem with his existing experience

• Pivotal moments and turning points

  • Identified a gap in the market: solo developers lacked great UX, while VC-backed apps moved slowly
  • Posted in a local Facebook developer group highlighting his Shopify experience, design skills, and existing client base to find a co-founder
  • Found a technical co-founder through this post
  • Validated his first app idea by posting a design mockup in drop shipper Discord communities and e-commerce Facebook groups—got 100+ likes and comments asking where to download the not-yet-published app

• Business growth and current status

  • Launched first app in August 2022
  • Currently at $4.5 million annual recurring revenue
  • Achieved 90% profitability from day one
  • Built 5 apps total in the discount/upsell category
  • Kaching Bundles scaled to approximately $400k MRR
  • Apps have generated over $400 million in additional revenue for merchants

Products and Offerings

• Core products (all in the discount/upsell category for Shopify merchants)
  • Kaching Bundles – Bundle pricing app, flagship product at $400k MRR
  • Kaching Post Purchase Upsell – Upsell app triggered after purchase
  • Kaching Pop-up Upsell – Pop-up based upsell functionality
  • Kaching Card Drawer Upsell – Card drawer style upsell (launched weeks before interview)
  • All apps designed to increase average order value for Shopify stores

Metrics and Financials

• $4.5 million annual recurring revenue
• $400k monthly recurring revenue for Kaching Bundles
• 90% profit margin maintained from day one
• Over $400 million in additional revenue generated for merchant users
• Business runs lean with minimal expenses

Strategy and Growth

• Primary growth engine: zero paid marketing, entirely organic through Shopify App Store

  • Achieved by ranking high in App Store search results

• Unique customer support and review strategy

  • Optimized all processes toward getting five-star reviews
  • Built review requests directly into the product
  • Sends monthly emails to users showing how much revenue the app generated, with a review request included
  • Approximately 95% of reviews come from customer support interactions
  • Provides 24/7 technical customer support—agents can dig into code and fix issues
  • Introduced gamified bonus system for customer support team with monthly leaderboard, raffles, and “Persuader of the Month” award based on review conversion rate

• Launch strategy (3-step approach)

  • Always launches new apps for free to reduce friction and maximize installs
  • Grandfathers existing users so they never pay
  • Only monetizes new users after establishing organic traction
  • Offers free trial and full refund with no questions asked (believes risk of one-star review outweighs refund costs)

• Validation approach

  • Talks to users before building: joins Discord communities of drop shippers and e-commerce Facebook groups
  • Posts design mockups to gauge interest
  • Collects emails or takes pre-orders to validate willingness to pay

Tech Stack and Infrastructure

• Communication: Slack
• Customer Support: Intercom
• Feature Requests: Features.vote (users can suggest and upvote features)
• Task Management: Linear
• Shopify Operations: Mantle (affiliate partnerships, metrics, customer management, funnels)

Lessons and Advice

• Direct advice to other founders

  • Start with just two people: a designer for product work and a technical person
  • Do customer support yourself initially to understand what clients are struggling with
  • Hire customer support only after getting more tickets and scaling
  • Hang around other builders—community helps learn from mistakes and may lead to finding a co-founder

• Key insights

  • Platform app marketplaces offer built-in customer bases without needing to spend on ads
  • Great UX can beat both solo developers (who build technical but complex apps) and slow-moving VC-backed companies
  • Low competition + broad market + easy to build = good app idea criteria
  • Risk of negative reviews outweighs the cost of offering full refunds