App and web service case studies — 3/3
App and web service cases
49–56 of 56
Habits Garden: $600/Month, 8,500 Users — the Record of Marc Lou’s Habit App That Never Broke Out
The habit tracker Habits Garden earns $600/month (about ¥90,000) with 8,500 signups. Killing the free plan just before launch raised the paid conversion rate, but developer Marc Lou himself summed it up as "avoid vitamin products."
Microns: TTM Revenue $21,855, Sold in 30 Days — Checking the “$50K Deal” Against Its Multiple
The PDF signing app eSign sold on the micro-M&A marketplace Microns. TTM revenue was $21,855, with 70 paying customers, sold just 30 days after listing. This piece checks the pricing against multiples on similar listings from the same period.
Australian investing app Goodments sold for AU$1.5M, on 12,700 users averaging age 24
Goodments, an Australian investing app that lets users pick stocks by sustainability, was acquired by Douugh in April 2021 in an all-stock deal worth AU$1.5M, valued for a customer base averaging 24 years old and evenly split by gender.
KRIT: A $1M/Year, 6-Person Dev Agency Gets Bought by a 4-Year Client
The dev agency KRIT started with $16,000 from a university accelerator, refocused on seed-to-Series-A security companies as clients, and grew to $1M/year in revenue. In June 2022 it was acquired by a four-year client, GreyNoise Intelligence.
Walica: From 50 Users a Day to 300,000 a Month, on Two Hours Every Weekend for 4.5 Years
A bill-splitting calculator, "Walica," built by two second-year colleagues out of college, saw fewer than 50 daily users for its first full year after launch. Growth began once it started ranking in search. By March 2023 it hit 300,000 monthly users, having started with an annual operating cost of about 1,000 yen for a domain.
Quit Betting on One App, Went From $200 to $10,000/Month: A Side-Hustle iOS Developer Who Shipped 28 Apps in 8 Months
Max, a full-time iOS engineer, abandoned his strategy of building one perfect app and instead shipped 28 apps in 8 months. Revenue went from $200/month to $10,000/month (about ¥1.5M). The top 4 apps each earn about $1,500, and tool costs run $285–295/month.
First revenue: 22 yen. One year and three months rebuilding 5 apps to reach 10,000 yen a month
A musical-instrument-store review site launched in October 2019 fizzled. Moving to Flutter, the developer released 5 apps, but ad revenue stalled at 22 yen on the first day. Right after implementing in-app purchases at the end of 2020, revenue reached 10,000 yen a month.
Anniversary app "365-Day Anniversary" hit 10,000 yen a month, two months after launching a subscription
The anniversary-management app "365-Day Anniversary" reached 10,000 yen in monthly revenue two months after its subscription feature launched. The turning point was a design decision that didn't remove ads but instead made them always visible — and repurposed those same ads as the reason to buy the paid plan.