From $10k/mo on the App Store to Starting Over with Web Apps

0:04[music] Hey everyone. So welcome to another episode of Building Now. Today I'm super super grateful to have Will Baker here and we're going to be chatting about building products, the up and down of building a personal brand and I'm just super excited to delve into his journey and see what advice he has for us. So thank you Will for coming on to the

0:23podcast. Thank you for having me. Awesome. Yeah, so I think you've been through like a lot of different products and kind of started off with like drop shipping and starting freelance web design and crypto and stuff like that. So I wanted to know a little bit if about your journey and how you got to where you are

0:41now. Yeah, um I mean I started doing online stuff when I was like 16, you know, like um drop shipping uh all sorts like Depop um I used to sell like likes and followers to like Instagram models and stuff like that. Then I went to uni, then I went into crypto, dropped out of uni cuz of

1:03crypto. Then I became a freelance web designer. Then I did mobile apps and now I'm doing web apps and building a personal brand. So um I've done a lot of things, you know, like uh just kind of throwing stuff at the wall until something works or sticks. Yeah, no that's awesome and I think I think I saw a tweet from like Mark Lou where he's like called you out and he was like, you know, you're like someone who's going to keep trying and never give up until something really works. So I really admire that about you and um I think I used to read a lot of your

1:35articles as well and you have like really awesome advice for people building and I'm super happy that you're kind of talking a little bit more in detail about it. Um so I wanted to find out from you like I know it's been a little bit of up and down right now with everything going on and

1:51Yeah. Yeah. Um I'd love to know like, you know, I'm I'm considering building a mobile app and kind of trying it out, but um considering seeing your journey with Apple, I'd love to know, like, you know, your advice for, you know, someone thinking of going into mobile apps and considering everything that's happened recently. So, Don't do it. No, I'm just kidding. Um I think mobile apps are are a really good thing to do because they're they're very easy to market, and they can be quite fun um in general to build and

2:26work with people on. Um for me, it was uh a leg up for me to do what I'm doing now, which is like building a personal brand and uh moving towards web apps and stuff, um which I don't think I Well, basically, all of that is off of the back of um talking about my mobile apps and things like that. So, I think that mobile apps are a great thing. Um the only downsides to mobile apps that I've experienced first hand is um obviously, the tax that Apple takes from you, um and then the sort of 45-day payout delay. So, that's not I mean, that's not an issue

3:04if you have cash flow, but when I was starting out, I didn't have much cash flow. So, waiting 45 days to try and scale your spend after getting that payout is a really slow process, whereas obviously with with SAS and web apps, you get paid after 3 days with Stripe, and you get much lower fees. Other than that, I'd say, like, mobile apps are great cuz you can build them fast, and you can market them very easily, and you can run profitable ads, whereas it's a lot harder to run ads

3:29with web apps. The only thing I would say is don't make the mistake that I made, which is build up a personal brand on Twitter, have everybody know the name of your app, and then um get suspended by Apple for, you know, whatever reasons, but um I You know, many people sort of warned me that at the beginning. Don't bring uh

3:50don't show the name of your app. I did, and I guess that was the the deal I made with the devil in order to grow my brand was that eventually I got a slap in the face from from somewhere. Um So the people that I see doing well with apps and not sharing the name of their apps are doing the right thing there. Um but yeah, overall I mean absolutely mobile apps are a great thing to do. It's kind of like the

4:18the new era of drop shipping. Got it. And and you mentioned marketing, right? And especially when someone has like a smaller budget, like um what would you recommend is probably like the most high-value like platform or kind of strategy to to use to market it if you have like say $1,000 set out for um ads or something like that. Um what would you do like

4:41the first I guess high high-value stuff? I wouldn't um really start with I wouldn't really try ads if you only have $1,000. Um like I'll I'll sort of go through how I scaled up to ads starting with like $1,000, right? So I actually just started on like Reddit. Mhm. And it was a gym app where you take a photo of your physique and you get a rating, kind of like looks maxing but

5:05for physique. Um so I would just go to like r/ fitness or r/gym and find people like posting their physiques asking for ratings, literally asking for what my app does. And so I would go and give them a rating. Obviously there'd be a watermark on the image and that would convert really really high but Reddit uh you do eventually just get banned and I'd say I probably got my first like $1,000 $2,000

5:30from Reddit. Uh then I started doing some UGC campaigns hiring some influencers. Um made some mistakes by hiring just really big influencers. They don't convert at all. It's better to just get like um you know, like students in like US students to make videos with new accounts. Um that did all right but I couldn't really turn a profit. Maybe I just wasn't very good at managing people. Um, so I ran some ads with like a few thousand dollars budget, um, which really allowed me to see that it was a viable route of of uh, promoting the

6:01app. But it wasn't enough for me to be able to scale big enough, so um, I was profitable. I put together a pitch deck, and I went to my friends and family, and I said, "Hey, um, I want to raise some money uh, to try and push this to, you know, $10,000 a month." And uh, because it was profitable, they were

6:20all in. And from there, I had a really healthy budget of like $20,000 to be able to um, sort of offset the cash flow delay with the Apple payout like I was talking about earlier, and sort of scale the ads up over time. So, I think you know, uh, if you only have $1,000, don't start

6:40with ads. Get your Get your hands dirty, and yeah, post on forums and stuff. And then, once you got a few thousand dollars, you can sort of um, start experimenting, cuz it's an expensive process finding winning ads. For sure. Um, and I wanted to also ask you about like, you know, just with the whole like experimenting concept. Like, I'm sure you've built like so many different things like you mentioned. How did you know like, you know, when to stop experimenting if something's just not worth continuing to build versus like actually like not giving up on the idea and like keeping on going? Is it just like money that was coming in or um,

7:15like what made you kind of keep going with one of your products versus deciding to kill another one? I think that's that's that is a skill in itself as an entrepreneur is is being able to, for lack of better words, kill your babies, and realize when something needs to go. And I think that that skill uh, improves like an exponential curve, right? So, the the longer you do entrepreneurship or business, the better you just get a knack for that, and it's sort of intuitive. So, it's very difficult for me to like give a a clear actionable answer on that because the only reason I will um

7:51kill a project is because I I just feel it in my gut. This isn't I just feel this isn't going to work. It's not going to be worth my time. I'm not enjoying it. Um those are usually the things to me, but in terms of like statistics that should indicate that you should stop doing it, there's really no answer to that because there are so many variables when it comes to um why something's working or something's not. But, generally what I would advise is

8:15try and pivot a few times. And if after a few times it's not working, um you know, you'll probably be relieved from letting it go and starting something new. Um yeah, that's what I'd say. No, that's awesome. And I think I think you're right. Like I think like with me personally, like I think I killed a project that I didn't want to early on that was like getting users and

8:38I'm like so afraid of making that again. And I think a lot of new founders they also like go through like building something even if they don't feel like it's the right product for them just because they don't want to kill it. Um so, yeah, no that's that's really helpful to know is just kind of a skill and it's a gut feeling that you build up

8:55over time. Yeah, I think I think it I think one definitely actionable piece of advice which um you know, all the sort of people I look up to I've learned from is if you can't describe your product in a sentence, then immediately you need to either pivot or kill it. Um because that's going to give you a very hard time putting it in front of people and

9:15getting sales. No, that's that's great advice. And um yeah, like moving on to like just a personal brand because I think when um I first like got back on X and stuff like that. I I remember I recognized you by your profile icon. So, I just wanted to chat a little bit about like you know, because I think you've created a very memorable personal brand. And um if you have any advice for people who are getting started out with building a personal brand, like what would you say is probably the number one thing to do in

9:46order to be remembered? Be remembered, I think you need to have like an iconic you do need to have an iconic profile picture, I think. The reason I chose mine was because it was from a game that I've never really met anybody that's played it. So, I knew that that image sort of comes mine at that point, right? Because it's very like unique to other people's

10:07images. But, also like um in terms of being memorable, I think it's also just your personality, right? Like um people remember you for for who you are as well as, you know, what your little icon you know, above the tweet says. Um and I think the best way to be memorable is probably um not being afraid to be controversial or

10:35speak your mind. Um cuz that's what makes people memorable to me is um for example, Levels IO ranting about AC in Europe and stuff. It's just such a Yeah. You know, he's really he's got an opinion and he's strong about it. And like, you know, whenever somebody mentions AC in Europe, I just think of Levels, like uh sort of rambling on, but yeah, you get the idea, like Right. And even I think there's um someone out there who like does like the

11:02coffee on the MacBook thing. So, I feel like that's that's like probably building something that's unique to you that people are going to like remember you by. And if even if someone steals it, they know it's like yours, I feel like. So, I think that's that's good to know. And the profile Yeah, so to continue that, I guess, yeah, my I guess the thing that people most, you know, like think of me for is is mobile apps, but specifically running paid ads. And I think that's you know, a great That's how I grew my my brand was by by giving advice on knowledge on something that not a lot of

11:37people were talking about. Most people were talking about UGC. Most people were talking about organic. Um so the greatest way I think probably to be remembered is by doing something a little bit different or serving a market that's slightly underserved. Um because that's definitely like what people um still email me today for is like my my mobile app articles and stuff and I don't even have my apps anymore like [laughter] No, like hopefully you still have the articles and you're going to like post them soon because I was

12:04I've lost them I'm afraid. Yeah, that's not good. Cuz I was reading them. I was like going through them and then I went back and then I was like, "Oh no, it's all gone." Yeah. Yeah, but definitely I think as you're building up your brand again, I'm sure like you're going to be able to come up with those again. Um or maybe

12:25web apps now. So we'll see. Hopefully, yeah. But yeah, no, thank you so much and I wanted to kind of end um this interview with kind of in the podcast with um you know, a question about your food channel. So um I think I watched a couple of them. So like is your plan to build that out long-term or you know, just for fun or like um what's your I

12:46guess um plan for that? Yeah, I mean like uh I just watch a lot of like dudes eating food on YouTube and every time I watch them I just think what an amazing career. Like they just get to record themselves eating and and make money and stuff. Um so yeah, I'm just I'm just going to keep uploading a few times a week, you know, cuz it's fun and it's a slow grower, but um maybe that's on the cards, you know, in the future at some point is becoming a food influencer. Um but I just think like that would just be such a enjoyable lifestyle or you know,

13:25vertical is just um eating food and having a laugh, you know, you're not going to get you're not going to get banned from YouTube for eating food. [laughter] True. Yeah, no, my my husband watches a bunch of these food influencers. So, usually my evenings when I'm working like on the background, like they're playing like, you know, just going to different restaurants, trying it out, like I think this one guy does like, you know, different restaurants in London and tries to see like, you know, um how good the food is. So, I think that's definitely

13:58maybe? Yeah, yeah, him. Yeah. I love him. He's so good, you know. Yeah. My husband loves watching his videos. And he It's always so entertaining, too. I think it's also like a really good um fun way to kind of grow your your brand as well. So, I think that's awesome. Thanks. So, I appreciate you watching a

14:15couple of them. Um uh hopefully I uh become the next Harrison Webb. I'll be pretty happy. [laughter] But yeah, thank you so much. And I I think um this is going to be really helpful for like people starting out because I think a lot of people who are in my stage of building are maybe a little bit maybe 2% ahead of um like just someone just starting out, but I think it helps a lot hearing from someone who's like made it to a relative extent, and you're still working hard to achieve your goals, and um this kind of advice really helps, I think. Um thank

14:49you so much. Of course, thank you so much for having me on. Thank you. See you. Bye.