He Made $110,000 in 5 Months With a One-Person App Business

Sebastian Rohl is an independent app developer from Germany who is on the quest to build a profitable app business on his own.

His app business made $110K in 5 months (January – May 2024).

He has built three mobile apps so far: HabitKit, Liftbear, and WinDiary. HabitKit is his most successful app, contributing a majority of the revenue.

Sebastian quit his corporate web development job to focus on indie hacking. It started as a fun experiment and graduated into a profitable business.

Here is how Sebastian came up with ideas, monetized them, and how he gets new users.

COMING UP WITH IDEAS

Sebastian came up with ideas for Liftbear and HabitKit by trying to solve his own problems.

“I created HabitKit and Liftbear because I learned early that if you want to improve something, you have to measure it first. So I started tracking my progress with these apps and improved my life.” He wrote.

Solving your own problems is one of the best ways to come up with SaaS or mobile app ideas. That’s exactly what I did with Codlixe – a monthly goal-tracking app.

If you have a problem, there is a huge chance that someone else out there has the same problem and by solving your problem, you inevitably solve their problem.

MONETIZATION

Sebastian employs a mixture of subscriptions and one-time purchases.

In just 5 months his app business generated $110,585 in total revenue (in-app purchases and subscription revenue combined) across all platforms (iOS & Android).

Approximately, $49,000 came from the Apple App Store and approximately $61,000 was generated on Google Play Store.

Using a combination of subscriptions and one-time purchases rather than one monetization model has been seen to increase paying users in many applications.

DISTRIBUTION AND MARKETING

Distribution and marketing are very important for business growth and Sebastian knows this. He actively and passively promotes his apps on various platforms to gain new users.

Here are some of the ways he uses to promote his apps

TWITTER: Sebastian is active on Twitter and he shares his app business journey with his followers, he shares about the new features, ups, downs, and revenue breakdowns.

This helps build trust in his products and business and helps gain new users and followers. I have been following his journey on Twitter and it is encouraging.

Ultimately, building in public on Twitter and other platforms can help you gain a lot of loyal users and followers.

NEWSLETTER: Sebastian has a newsletter where he shares everything about running his app business. In his weekly indie logs, he breaks down the revenue, features, struggles, wins, and more.

This is another platform where he builds trust and gains new users and followers. You can check out his weekly logs on Roehl.dev.

INDIE HACKERS: Sebastian is also very active on Indie Hackers. He shares his indie hacking journey and all the apps he is working on.

He also gets great feedback and encouragement from fellow Indie Hackers who also shares his work to give him more visibility.

I actually came across his work on Indie Hackers and then followed his journey on other platforms.

App Store Optimization (ASO): Sebastian’s apps are well-optimized for app stores. He gets a lot of new users from App Store and Google Play organically.

His apps rank on top or in the top 5 for many keywords and categories related to Habit Tracking, Fitness, etc.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO): Recently, his app HabitKit has been getting a lot of organic clicks from Google. He has made some changes to the website to make it optimized for search engines and its paying off.

OTHERS: Sebastian recently was on a podcast Sub Club (By RevenueCat) where he discussed his app business. This will undoubtedly bring in new users.

He also won in RevenueCat’s “Your App on Times Square” giveaway and his app displayed on a huge billboard on Times Square in NYC!

You can follow Sebastian’s journey on Twitter or on his website. You can also try out his apps here.