He built 100 apps and made $0. Can he fix it in 30 days?

0:00A few weeks ago, I got this DM. Someone who's watched Starter Story forever said, "I want to make my first dollar." But when everyone on Starter Story is so successful, why wasn't he? Why hadn't he made any money? What was really going on? And what was the real issue? So, I gave him a challenge. Can you make $1,000 in 30 days? And in this video, we're going to follow him along on his journey, what he built, what worked, what didn't, and ultimately see how much money he generated. And you'll never believe what happened by the end of this episode. This is episode one of the

0:35starter story challenge.

0:42Well, welcome Garb. Thanks for coming on. Welcome to the challenge. Can you give me a little bit of background on you and where you come from? Hey, I'm Garb. I'm a product designer by Craft. I spent my career building digital products for companies like Nike, Samsung, and I had recently been a founder. Through that I realized that what I truly enjoy is designing products [music] and really kind of building them. So I went all in and I challenged myself to build about a 100 apps in 60 days. Eventually I got to about 72 apps within those 60 days. Uh but after that I kind of didn't know what to do. So I

1:15did not really get any revenue from them. I mean I checked out some of the stuff you built and they look really really awesome. Really really impressed with your product skills, design skills. But you built over 60 apps in 100 days and no revenue was generated. It just shows the changing [music] nature of building products and software in 2026. So what's the problem? What do you feel is the

1:38biggest blocker [music] for you? Yeah, so I'm really feeling strong about two of the products. Attention.designes which is an inspiration library for YouTube creators and view magnet which is a QR code platform for video creators as well. But I don't really know if I have the right framework to pick the right app to monetize and also what steps I should take exactly to get to that, you know, 1K a month in revenue to

2:05start off with. First, let's start with uh my diagnosis because I think that the issue here is not really like a specific product that you haven't figured out, but it's more of an issue with an addiction to building and shiny object syndrome and maybe a little bit of a fear of rejection. So, I would push you in the next 30 days to go cold turkey off that and not build any new features or any new projects or any new ideas. And then the goal that I want you to set is just to generate $1,000 in revenue for your business. So, over the next 30 days, these would be my two non-negotiables

2:39for you. The [music] first one, two customer conversations a day, phone or in person. The information that you will get from one single 15minute conversation is more valuable than the 70 apps that you could build. The second thing is to post once a day on one platform documenting your journey. [music] I think the highest ROI distribution channel for you right now would just be your personal brand and just sharing what you're doing every single day. So I want to ask you what you think about this challenge and see

3:08if you're in. Absolutely. uh is definitely pushing me towards a new space and one of the things I do think about is you know you should do the things that make you uncomfortable. So super excited about it and thanks for the advice. Awesome. I'm excited to see you come back on in 30 days and show the hundreds of thousands of subscribers that we have the results you had and hear what

3:30happened. It's been about a week since the start of story challenge has started and I have nothing.

3:49All right, we are about to check back in with Garb. He has just completed his challenge. But before I do, I do want to share one quick thing with you. Garb started building apps as side projects. This wasn't even his full-time thing. His ultimate goal by the end of this challenge is simply to make money from his projects. But as you've seen here, the hardest part for him is finding the right idea and having confidence on knowing which one is worth building and what he should go all in on. So if you're in a similar spot, you're not exactly sure what to work on. Well, we

4:18put together a free list of over 100 side project ideas that you can get started on right now. Every idea that we show you in this database is backed by real data, real revenue numbers, pricing models, and the growth tactics that are actually working. The database is right down there in the description and has everything you need to validate your first idea. So, if you're ready to start your side project, head to that link in the description down below and you can grab it all 100% for free. All right, let's catch up with Garb and see how he did. So, we are here back 60 days later

4:51and there's a reason for that. we had caught up in 30 days, but then you had let us know that you were almost on the the precipice of a breakthrough. So, I'd love if you could dive into that. Can you walk me through once we got off the call last time and then the next 30 days after that? What did those first 30 days

5:08look like for you? Yeah, so when we got off the call, the first thing that we talked about was building out a cadence to post content out there so that I could build my own distribution. But I didn't have any specific channel that I was aligned with. So, I posted everywhere. I had some followers on X. I had some followers on LinkedIn. I went and participated in Reddit forums. I also posted on on YouTube. So, I did a lot of things, but I don't think I really got any value from it. Especially X, you know, I didn't see too much response there. Uh with Reddit forums, it takes a

5:40lot of work. There's a lot of nurturing. You have to be useful. You can't promote any product. And then the part which was around speaking to customers, I did not have any connections in the space of content creation. I did manage to get some uh conversation started uh but it wasn't that much that I would get so much insight. In reality, I managed to get one person to buy one of the products. Attention design was about $99. This was a big challenge for me like really uh finding customers within

6:09the space. So you're at the end of the 30 days. You've done something. You've made a $100 payment. How did that feel? Where was your head at at that point? I think that when the payment came in, it was somewhere closer to the end of the 30 days. I was already kind of feeling like the challenge hadn't gone properly uh from a revenue perspective. But I think what was really exhilarating for me was that I had gotten into the groove of content creation. Although there was no revenue, I suddenly had this new uh superpower that I was building up. And that's one thing that I notic with a lot

6:43of successful founders is it's not about the revenue and that especially in you know a short amount of time like 30 days. It's about the signals that will eventually lead to the revenue which in the next 30 days something different happened. So could you walk us through the second 30 days? Yeah. So from the signals I got I realized that LinkedIn was a place that I could see a lot of interest that was developing in what I was doing. My first angle was to take the learnings from YouTube and publishing uh different type of content on LinkedIn like vlog like content on LinkedIn which is really

7:19popular on YouTube. That really created a pattern break. Uh you see a lot of launch videos, you see a lot of like expert interviews on LinkedIn but you don't see this vlog style content. Uh I really kind of used that as my entry point and [music] you can see that anything that was a video started getting a lot of impressions. The second part of of LinkedIn was also another kind of reframing that I was focusing on the wrong customer. When I started posting on LinkedIn and started looking at people, I realized that there are a lot of people like me who are experts or professionals who had a bunch of

7:50experience who want to create their personal brand, but they don't know how to create content or videos, right? So, I also, you know, really narrowed down on the target audience. You niche down. That's like classic startup advice that like almost always works and is almost always the right decision. But what I'm curious to see is like what are some of the numbers behind this? How much content were you creating? How many impressions was this [clears throat] leading to? Show me some

8:16of the stats behind your content. Yeah. So, as you can see here, my LinkedIn graph and interest was definitely kind of on an uptick or isn't on an uptick. I need to maintain it. A lot of my content was editorial, like how we do things. Uh so if you look over here there's 250 link engagements which is basically people clicking on links who are interested in. Now if you think of the professionals a lot of those are in high spending cities. So there's a signal that these people are ready to spend. Think of these as high value audiences right like founders co-founders product managers all these

8:46people are paid well and they have expertise that they want to share. Yeah. You want to serve customers that are willing to spend money. They're not going to bat an eye to a $10 subscription to have a painful problem solved. Tell me about what you learned about talking to customers and having conversations with customers because I remember that was something that I really tried to push you to do. So tell me a little bit more about how that went

9:09in that second 30 days. Yeah. So now that I was getting interest, I was also cold outreaching and then getting somebody to say, "Hey, great that you did a little bit of research about us. Uh I'd like to see something." So I offered, you know, doing mock-ups for them. I also sent personalized demos of the entire platform. got product feedback from, you know, some of the editors who would potentially be customers of this

9:32product. That's amazing. This is another classic startup concept, which is do things that don't scale, right? Go above and beyond for specific customers, especially in those early days. But what I want to see now is let's look at some of the numbers. Obviously, you only did about $100 in the first 30 days. How much revenue did you do in the second 30 days? Could you break this all down by what product and, you know, what were the results? So after 60 days, I have 6,500 in revenue. And here's how it's broken down. Attention design is the gateway. So there's a free version. You can get inspired. You can start

10:05learning. And then there was a pro plan. You know, that is something that has five customers. You're paying $99. The second product, View Magnet, which is for later stage creators, which I hadn't expected to be the hero of the story, ended up getting visibility of agencies who realized that they can actually use this to manage multiple creators and all of the lead magnets and all of the offers and see analytics around it, right? That agency plan, which was like a higher value plan, charging more, right? Clearly, it worked for you. So, I just want to congratulate you on hitting over $6,000 in revenue. And it looks

10:39like most of the revenue was even generated towards the back end of that last 30 days. And that's just a lesson there, which is uh don't give up. A lot of the stuff that you did in that first 30 days, that spray and prey where you just were like, "Okay, let me figure out X Reddit." And then you cracked LinkedIn. [music] But those are the learnings that led to the dollar. So for anyone who's watching this right now who wants to build their own business and it's not happening in that first 30 days, well here is the perfect example of your reason to keep going. So the

11:09last question that I want to ask you is, you know, looking back on this last 60 days, what were your like lessons learned? Uh what advice would you have for people who are watching this that also want to do the starter story challenge alongside you? If I have to look back at the last 60 days, here are the four things that I learned. The first one was to live the problem you're solving. If it's something that you know is outside of you, it's really hard to understand the sentiments of your customer and understand what is it that's going to make them buy. Like what are the pain points? The second one was

11:44around start where you already have a network. I tried a lot of different social media platforms because they were cool or a lot of people said they would work but eventually I went back to something that you know I leaned on for my entire professional life and I already had credibility in. While it is hard to put myself out there in a very different context. It was something that provided a lot of signal and the third one is really about meeting the customers where they are. Initially I entered this entire space thinking that oh everybody knows what it means to be a creator. By diving into this and

12:14realizing that actually not everybody's where I am was really important. So that led to me adjusting the positioning like initially it said the attention library for YouTubers and now it kind of talks about LinkedIn where experts become creators right so it's really about what stage is your customer at uh and that really helps you align or helps them align with your product right because then that resonates and the fourth thing is that video is definitely the language of the internet and it's also what all the platforms are really prioritizing if I want to reach the audience who's going to buy my product video is going to be

12:46the way for me to not only reach them, but also to demonstrate uh that my product works. Crazy to experience all those learnings in just 30 to 60 days. So, congratulations. But my question now is what's next? What is your next goal? Do you have a future revenue goal? Do you want to continue working on these projects? And what's your timeline

13:06looking like on that? Yeah. So, this is definitely the beginning. What's really going to happen next is me focusing on these two products and this ecosystem that I showed you and just nurturing it. Even if I can keep the $6,000 per month for the next 6 months and then kind of accelerate, that'll be great. All right. Well, I love that. For anyone watching this who enjoyed this format, let us know. This is our new format. If you are interested in doing the starter story challenge, we have a link down there in the description where you can apply. Thank you, Gorb, for coming on to the channel and uh doing the starter

13:39story challenge. I know it wasn't easy. You poured hundreds [music] of hours into this and I'm so glad it worked out for you. If you want to follow Gorb online and see what he does next, we'll put that in the description as well. Congrats on your success and hopefully we'll have you in a future episode when you're doing $100,000 a

13:55month. Thanks for having me on the challenge. It was a really good way to push me out of my comfort zone and I hope to do a lot more and looking forward to coming back on Starter Story.