# Apps so simple you won’t believe they make money

Channel: Starter Story Build
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLxGvLTDv3s
Duration: 17 min
Language: English
Words: 3650
Transcript page: https://viewrankai.com/tools/youtube-transcript/iLxGvLTDv3s

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[0:00] Keep it simple, stupid. Today, we're going to be going over apps that do just one thing, but make way more than just $1. In this video, I'm going to actually show you real world examples of very simple apps that make over $100,000 a year, so you can see what it actually takes. So, here's how it works. I got

[0:20] the simple apps database right here. We're going to be going through three of these ideas. And for each idea, we're going to be breaking down why simplicity actually makes these ideas win, how these ideas specifically grew, and what marketing strategies they used, and we'll probably go over a couple other ideas that you could start to based on these examples. If you're also trying to build something similar to the ideas we talk about in this video, well, then definitely check out Starter Story Build. I'll put a link in the description for that. It's basically our program where you'll build an app with AI in about 10 days. But anyways,

[0:50] without further ado, let's get into the list. I got the list right here in front of me. Apps. So simple yet so profitable. Let's jump into the first one right here. And this is staget timer.io. Online countdown timer for remote presentations. It's a countdown timer. And it makes $8,300 a month, which is $100,000 a year. This figure actually needs to be updated uh because we just did an interview on our main channel. If you're not aware, we have the Starter Story main channel and I caught up with the founder of this business. I actually have been watching this business for a while and we decided to do an interview with them. Uh they're

[1:27] now doing $25,000 a month. So, if I go to their case study right here, I noticed that we interviewed them in 2023 and they were doing $8,000 per month. Now, they're doing $25,000 a month. That's cool to see that simple apps are actually growing apps. You might think, okay, you can get it to 8,000, but it can't get bigger than that. Well, that might be wrong. This is cool also because it's two founders, zero employees. So, this is a solarpreneur business. This is a lot of profit, but

[1:51] we got to get into what this app does. What is this simple app? If you're not familiar, if you haven't seen that YouTube video, let's see what this thing actually is. Let's just go check out the website. Let's go check it out. This is stagtimer.io. And this is a remote controlled countdown timer. Show a full screen timer to your presenter while you control it from another device. Okay, I see. Got it. Okay, so this is just a countdown timer. I mean, I'm scrolling through here and that's really what it does. It's a countdown timer. I do not understand right now how this thing can make $25,000 a month. So, let's dig into

[2:26] that a little bit because I got my iPhone right here and look, I just did the same thing that this app does. This is a 45minut timer that I set. So, why does this app make a bunch of money when you can just do it on any phone or probably for using some free app? Let's understand that. Let's go check out the actual case study where we interview these founders and this real business that they built. So this is this is our case study here and this is the first thing I'm saying. Every time I tell friends and family about it, most of them wonder how this can even make

[2:53] money. And you're probably also wondering the same. Yes, I am wondering the same. Well, people that run events could see the Okay, there we go. People that run events could see the value right away. When you watch a TED talk, for example, the presenter has a TV in front of them that shows them a timer so they don't go on and on talking. And that is a little bit of the secret that I see right here, which is okay, I can run my timer right here. This is my 45minut timer and I'm, you know, cooking chicken or something like that. What is the risk involved with this timer not

[3:24] going off or, you know, me going long or going short or something like that? The risk is that my chicken just gets overcooked, which isn't a big deal. I'm not willing to pay for that problem to be solved or to be somewhat marginally better. But if someone's giving a TED talk, that's a business, right? TED, the company that runs TED Talks, is a business and they probably have thousands and thousands of people watching this TED talk and that will be watching it online. And if this speech or whatever it is goes too long, that can affect the business. Then all of a sudden guests are not happy or people

[3:58] that watch it's not going to do well online and these sorts of things. So once you take this simple idea which is a timer and you apply it to a business context then it sort of makes sense. And then I'm also seeing right here that they have a remote controlled version of it. Well I can't remote control my phone or I'm sure I could but that sounds

[4:16] complicated. That's what this app does. So it allows you to create a timer and then remote control it from your browser. And I'm seeing right here that their website also has really really good targeting. And that's something that I look at too and what I think if you're looking for business ideas and that sort of thing, go and see what type of customer they're targeting. You can see right here on their landing page, on their core landing page, on their on their homepage, they're letting people know that 21,000 22,000 video producers and event organizers use this. Netflix, IKEA, Spotify, SpaceX, and all this stuff. So, that is it right there. The

[4:50] timers are important for everyone in probably every business, but they're really, really important for video producers and event organizers. And they built a very niche, somewhat simple product that really, really does a great job for that very, very specific audience. So, that's what I think is really cool about this is they're not building a timer for everyone. They're building a timer for really one type of customer. Let's talk about how they grew. So, the first thing uh I want to

[5:15] know is, okay, you built a timer app. How does this actually grow? So, I'm going to go through this section of how they came up with the idea. And it looks like Reddit was the first thing. And I think that's actually really cool because they didn't like do it with an audience or something like that. Let's go actually check out that Reddit post right here. And let's see what this is really the first Reddit post that they share that they got traction on their business. And you can see right here

[5:39] that okay, this kind of makes sense. This is in the commercial AV subreddit. It has 31,000 members. And AV Audio Video, I'm guessing is some sort of like kind of techy type place for people that run events or they do, you know, audio in video stuff. I don't really know, but I think that's actually cool because there's only 31,000 members in this subreddit. And this is their first post where it got 60 up votes and 34 comments. And that's not like going viral or anything like that. This is what kickstarted their business is them just asking for advice about their

[6:12] presentation timer app that they built. And people said, "Hey, this is cool. I like it. Maybe add this feature. Take this feature away." And now that I remember it, Lucas actually mentioned this to me in the video that we did is that they just went on Reddit. They looked kind of for very, very niche subreddits and they just got the word out about their product and tried to find those kind of first customers. So that is simple idea number one, an online countdown timer. And hopefully it gives you some ideas of how you can take simple ideas and maybe apply them to more of a business or enterprise

[6:42] context. And I think there could be something there. All right, let's dive into the second app we're going to check out. We're just going to go to the second one here. This is called PDF Shift. This is an HTML to PDF conversion API service. And this business makes $8,500 per month. It was built in 90 days. And that seems pretty cool. Let's let's check out the case study and go from there. So, how I developed 3.5K per month. So, when we uh published this article or when we interviewed this founder originally, they were doing $3.5,000 a month. Still decent money for a micro SAS type of thing like this. Uh

[7:17] but now they're doing 8,500 per month. So, the business is growing. Again, I like to see businesses that are growing. This has one founder, one employee. And it looks like they are based out of Paris, France. That's cool to see, too. I love to see European businesses, businesses outside the US. Super cool. And let's see what this does. I'm just going to click this link right here, which you can do in Starter Story, and it will take you to the website. And what we have here is PDF shift from HTML

[7:42] to pixel perfect screenshot in seconds. Our always up-to-date API for developers automates your document conversion tasks effortlessly. And they have some code here which is showing all the code you need to convert this PDF. And this seems like a pretty cool business. Don't think it's too big. I'm looking at their similar web right now. And again, this has 10,000 visits a month, 12,000 visits a month, and 14,000 visits a month. I'm guessing that this is a subscription business. Um, so you don't need a whole lot of traffic. You just need a few customers. And we can kind of see what that might look like by going and

[8:12] checking out their pricing. But really before we do that, um, we can just see exactly what this thing does right here. This is basically an API that allows you to convert some sort of HTML to PDF. So let's say you have a page that is like a receipt for your customers and your customers want a PDF of that receipt. Well, you're just taking that page and you're converting it to a PDF, which is basically the same thing as me going command P, save as PDF. I can convert

[8:41] this to a PDF and save it to my desktop. That's what this is doing, but with an API. So, companies will go and say, "Hey, I need to convert hundreds and hundreds of receipts, and I don't want to pay someone to do this. I don't want to do it manually. I don't want my employees to have to do it. Can I just use your API and pay you a few cents per request?" Something like that. Let's check out their pricing and see how it

[9:01] works. Basically, let's say that I'm a a company and I convert 100,000 documents per month. Say I have a 100,000 receipts that I send to customers. This is going to cost me $249 a month. And that starts to add up when you get to scale, right? So, what I love about this app is it's simple, right? It does one thing, which is convert PDF or which convert HTML to PDFs, but it does that one thing really,

[9:26] really well, and it can do it at scale. There are companies that may pay $1,000 a month. And if you go and look at their revenue, they're doing about $8,000 a month. They may have a few companies that do that. But it does show you, okay, hey, if let's say on average our customers pay us $500 a month, that means you only need 16 customers to have a pretty good business. And that is the

[9:48] power of keep it simple, stupid, right? All this thing does is convert HTML to PDF. They do it well. They do it fast. They do it reliably. and they don't need to do a whole lot else. One thing that I do think is cool is when I was checking out his uh his profile, he has a lot of different apps that he's built and he I think he even said that he had 48 failed projects up to this point. I'll go here and go to transfers.com. This is another app that he's built which is about building profitable side projects. So, it doesn't mean that he's only working

[10:17] on one thing and yet it's boring and simple. He has other things that he's working on, but this website, this app does one thing. It does it really, really well. Keep it simple, stupid. So, okay. So, this is a simple app, but let's understand how this app actually grew because you can build a simple API, but no one's ever going to find it, right? So, let's actually see how they grew this business. Let's look at growing the business. And I'm reading through this right here. And what really worked well for me was Quora. I spent a lot of time answering all the questions related to PDF conversion to HTML,

[10:48] sharing code, point of view, etc. So, I was able to dig up the founders Quora page right here, which I think is super interesting because if you go through this, you can see that he has 72 answers and he found, you know, what is he's answering questions on core? Core is this massive question and answer website, which you're probably familiar with, but looks like he just went and he answered all the questions related to PDF generation. What is the best way to create PDF files with Python? How can I convert HTML to PDF in Laravel? How do I

[11:18] convert HTML report file in PDF? Right? It's 72 answers. It's not that many, but he went through and he answered every single one. This is such a niche, simple app that there's probably not a whole lot of apps that do this. So, for someone who actually needs this, they may go looking for this. They may stumble upon these Quora answers and then potentially become a $500 per month

[11:38] paying customer essentially for life. That is what's really cool about simple businesses is that they're so simple and they're so niche that sometimes they don't have a whole lot of competition. So, all you need to do is kind of be in a few of the right places at the right time. And Quora seems like one of those places, as you can see by this profile that I dug up on him right here. That is not only a simple app, but a very simple growth strategy, which I think is super cool. So, that's the second idea we have right here. A really, really simple API that does one really, really simple

[12:09] thing. I think that's super cool. Let's go to the next one. Okay. And that brings us to our last simple idea. last of many. You can go check out this database if you want to see way more of them. But this one is called Session and it is a focus enhancement app blocking digital distractions. Sort of get what that means, but not totally sure. Uh it makes $8,300 per month. So about $100,000 a year. We got a 91 out of 100 solopreneur score, which I like to see that always. That is our algorithm for calculating good solopreneur ideas. You can check that out on the site. But let's check out

[12:43] this business, what it does. Uh, this is the starter story case study. I built a website blocker that generates $100,000 per year at 95% profit. And that's the type of ideas that we always talk about on starter story. Ideas that you can start that are highly profitable. Don't need VC funding. You can build them from anywhere. And that's one thing I also see right away with this founder. He started this from Jakarta, Indonesia. So that's crazy. Shout out Jakarta. I visited there many years ago when I was

[13:08] a digital nomad. That place is awesome. But I also think that's cool because $8,300 per month in Jakarta is serious money. And that's the coolest thing about building stuff online is that you can do it from anywhere in the world and you can reach people like me in the US as your customers. That's super cool and sort of underrated I think. Okay, let's

[13:28] look at what this app actually does. Session an app that helps you stay focused by distract. Okay, so it's like a website blocker. Let's check out this app and let's actually go test it out. So, start your momentum by focusing in 25 minute sessions. This app right here makes $8,500 a month or just just below that and let's download it. Let's try it out. So, I'm going to download this right here

[13:50] and I'm going to click in open this up. Welcome to session. Start your focus journey. Okay, let's start my focus journey. It's got a little bit of onboarding here. What issues do you have with focus right now? Okay, what am I? I would say this one. Procrastination. I would say procrastination and mental and cognitive distract and social media distraction. I probably have all these, but that's okay. We're going to press next. Next. I want to I want better focus management. Okay, this is taking a long time here. Uh I'm not going to tell

[14:21] you my age. Just kidding. 25 to 34. Okay, this is the app right here. And okay, this app makes sense to me here. This is a Pomodoro timer. And I love Pomodoro timers, but basically what it does is it's a time wrap. Again, here is another timer app, but it's different. And that's what I think is kind of cool is like that last timer app that we talked about was for professionals. This timer app right here is specifically a Pomodoro timer, and it's for people that just want to, you know, block sites and that sort of thing. So, I can start the session right here, and I can write down

[14:52] notes. Hello, my name is Pat. And I can write that. Not sure exactly what that does, but really all it does is it does a Pomodoro timer. And this is just a productivity method that people do. And this is really all it does. I mean, it does look like it has some other features here where it tracks your time. But the core thing right here is just that it's a Pomodoro timer. Helps you get more stuff done. It's very simple. You might be thinking, how can this make money if you could just go on pom focus.io and use it for free? Well, this is proof that you

[15:25] can. There are loads of Pomodoro timers out there. I bet if you went on the app store right now and you looked up Pomodoro timer, there are hundreds of them on there and a bunch of them probably crush it. Here's one little thing that I think is cool is now up here in the top I can see that how much time I have left in my Pomodoro timer. I wouldn't necessarily be able to do that with this. So, the fact that it's a Mac app, people probably like that. They use it and they enjoy it. So, there you have it. a very very simple idea built by a

[15:51] soloreneur that makes that guy Philip Young a great living and a really cool app and kind of proof that you can change your life with a simple idea that makes $10,000 a month. There are tons of more examples on here like this. I've put the link in the description if you want to check out a bunch more of these. But really, I feel like the theme of all this is that you don't need to bloat your app with a bunch of features that nobody is asking for. All you really need to do is to do one thing, do it well, and do it for long enough before

[16:21] you don't give up. Solve problems, keep it simple, and that's pretty much it. All right, if you guys enjoyed this, please check out the link in the description to Starter Story Build. If you want to build simple apps like these, well, that's really our bread and butter. We'll help you come up with an idea, build it with AI tools, and ship it to the real world, so you could potentially have a business idea like we talked about today. Thank you guys for watching. Let me know in the comments what kind of ideas you want to see me cover next. There are thousands of ideas in Starter Story and I love talking

[16:50] about them, diving deep into them with you guys and showing a little bit of that off for the YouTube channel. Thank you guys for watching. I'll see you in the next one. Peace.

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