Growing a portfolio of mobile apps to $185k/mo

I wasted 4 months on an app nobody downloaded. Now I use tractionway dot com to validate first - costs like $50 and you know within a day if the idea has legs

This is a mobile tech stack?
- Cursor

• TypeScript

• Next.js

• Vercel

• RevenueCat

Really solid read I like how you show that building multiple products over time can grow into something real. The focus on distribution first and sticking with what works feels like practical advice, especially for anyone trying to get traction without VC backing.

Getting eyeballs remains the challenge. How did you approach the influencers and with what kind of monetization deal?

Thanks for sharing your story!

Great breakdown the influencer partnership approach is really interesting.

I'm curious about how you identified and approached the right influencer for Payout. Did you look for someone whose audience already matched your target user, or did you shape the product around whoever was willing to partner?

Also, at what point in the relationship did you validate that their audience would actually convert to paid subscribers, not just downloads? Would love to hear more about how you structured that partnership early on.

living my dream life

"Build for distribution first" is the part most developers get backwards, myself included. We spend months perfecting the product, then wonder why nobody shows up. Your influencer-first approach for Payout is interesting - did you find the influencer before writing any code, or after you had a prototype? Curious how much of the product direction came from their audience feedback vs your own instincts. Also notable that Cursor made your core stack. Seeing more indie devs treat AI tooling as infrastructure rather than novelty.

Impressive work, especially the focus on building a portfolio instead of chasing a single hit. One thing I’m curious about is how you decide when to double down on an app versus keeping it in maintenance mode. At this scale, opportunity cost must be a big factor.

Love this story. The part about starting out of curiosity and just shipping really stands out.Building for distribution first makes a lot of sense, especially partnering with someone who already has an audience. Feels like that removes a lot of guessing.Also interesting that influencer marketing ended up working best for Payout.
Good reminder to double down on what’s clearly working.
Thanks for sharing your experience.

You said the focus is on the portfolio of mobile apps and in the stacks I see cursor and Next.js? is it a joke or something? I feel like many of these indie hacker articles are straight up bullshit because not even a single mobile app developer list his stack like this

Connor, this was a great reminder that “distribution is a product decision,” not a launch task.

One nuance I’ve been learning with consumer subscription apps: distribution-first gets you velocity, but retention-first is what makes that velocity compounding. Especially with influencer/TikTok traffic, the expectation gap can be brutal (installs → fast churn) unless the first session nails a clear “aha.”

A few things I’m curious about:

- What’s the one **activation event** you optimize for in the first 1–5 minutes?

- How do you decide **when to show the paywall** (immediate vs after value) for influencer-acquired users?

- Which retention metric do you trust most early: **D1/D7**, “days with meaningful actions,” or something domain-specific?

Also +1 on “focus on one product at a time.” Portfolio sounds fun until context switching destroys iteration speed.

I also loved the point about committing deeply to one product at a time. Too many people spread themselves thin chasing multiple good ideas, but your experience shows that deep focus drives better decisions, cleaner execution, and stronger learning loops.

The practical takeaways — build for distribution, double down early on proven signals, and ship with curiosity — are lessons many of us only learn the hard way. Thanks again for such a transparent breakdown of how you scaled a portfolio into a real business!

This was a really motivating read — thanks for sharing your journey with such clarity! 🎯 Hitting $185K/mo by building a portfolio of mobile apps out of curiosity and momentum is seriously impressive, but what stood out most was your emphasis on distribution-first thinking and staying focused on what actually works. The part about partnering with an existing audience early — even before the product is finalized — flips the usual “perfect product first” mindset that holds so many founders back.

wow 185k a month, that should cover the bills, almost !! ;-)

One thing that’s helped me validate ideas earlier is reading large batches of competitor app reviews as if they were user interviews.

Patterns in complaints and praise show up surprisingly fast, and they often highlight gaps you won’t catch just by brainstorming features. Specifically build a tool for that to make it even easier. Scratch my itch saas.

Through persistence and data-driven growth, James Fleischmann's journey shows how strategic app development, consistent optimization, and smart monetization can scale a mobile app portfolio to $185k per month.

Impressive milestone! A question on portfolio scalability.

This is an incredible achievement. Scaling a portfolio to $185k/mo is a testament to both product market fit and operational excellence. I especially appreciate your focus on the 'portfolio' approach rather than betting everything on a single hit.

As someone who is currently architecting a systematic pipeline for over 70 software solutions, I’m deeply interested in the operational side of your success. Managing such a diverse range of mobile apps often leads to a massive 'maintenance tax' and cognitive load for the founding team.

I’d love to hear your perspective on this: How do you balance the drive for new app development with the increasing complexity of managing existing ones? Do you use a shared core architecture or a specific automation framework to keep the 'per-app' management overhead low?

Keep up the great work, and thanks for sharing these transparent numbers!

This is such a good breakdown 👏

A detail people miss: influencers don’t just bring traffic. They bring pre-trust.
Users show up already believing the product works, so conversion and retention start way higher.

Also love the “one product at a time” focus. That’s usually when the real gains happen because you start seeing patterns.

Curious: when you partner with an influencer, do you build the app around their audience’s language (exact phrases they use), or around the feature set first?

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This story looks impressive on the surface, but the real takeaway is simple and uncomfortable: the success didn’t come from “great ideas” or a magical tech stack, it came from distribution first, execution fast, and doubling down hard on signals that already showed traction. The founder was already an experienced iOS developer, built many apps knowing most would fail, used trends and influencer audiences to borrow attention, accepted that apps can be short-lived, and focused on speed over perfection; the tech stack is generic and replaceable, Cursor or Next.js are not the advantage, and the real leverage is audience access, rapid iteration, and knowing when to kill or scale an app. What’s missing—and what you should be skeptical about—are the failure rate, churn, CAC vs LTV, and how many apps died before hitting $185k/month, because without distribution, skills, and risk tolerance, copying this blindly will fail; the lesson is not “build apps and money comes,” it’s build for distribution first, ship aggressively, read real signals (revenue and retention, not downloads), and concentrate effort where the market already proves demand.

This really reinforces how underrated focus + distribution still are. Building multiple apps is impressive, but the idea of committing deeply to one product at a time makes a lot of sense—especially when each app teaches you something new about growth and retention.

The “build for distribution first” takeaway is gold. Partnering with an influencer before the product is even finalized flips the usual build-then-market mindset and clearly paid off here. Too many founders treat distribution as a growth-stage problem instead of a day-one decision.

Also appreciate the honesty around experimentation—knowing when to stop testing and double down on what’s already working feels like a skill that only comes from experience.

$185k/mo from consumer subscription apps is inspiring. Great example of curiosity turning into a repeatable business model 👏

This is a great example of how curiosity paired with disciplined execution can turn into a real, scalable business. Your emphasis on single-product focus, distribution-first thinking, and doubling down on proven channels is especially valuable for indie developers trying to move from “shipping apps” to building sustainable revenue.

This is a great example of how curiosity-led projects can evolve into serious mobile app businesses. The emphasis on distribution from day one really stands out, especially partnering with existing audiences instead of relying only on organic discovery.

Love this. The curiosity - momentum part really resonated with me. Starting just because it’s fun and then realizing there’s real business potential feels like the most sustainable way to build long term. Also +1 on focusing on one product at a time and building for distribution early — learned that the hard way myself. Thanks for sharing this, super motivating and practical.

Thanks for sharing your story!

"Build for distribution first" reminded me: don't over-optimize—ship early, get real user feedback, and iterate based on the market.

The advice to 'Build for distribution first' is the ultimate 2026 pivot. In my decade of executive leadership, I’ve seen millions wasted because teams over-engineered products before validating the audience. Connor’s success with Payout proves that a partner with an existing audience is the most undervalued 'seed funding' in the solo arena. I’m currently documenting how to trade 'operations-first' thinking for 'distribution-first' systems in my solo playbook. Speed to market beats perfection every time.

If you’re trying to move fast and validate ideas, Bubble is a great option for building MVPs. I’ve helped founders launch apps faster using no-code. Happy to share more insights if useful! 👍

“Build for distribution first” really stands out here. Partnering with an existing audience before committing heavily to code feels like a huge risk reducer.

Curious — what was the earliest signal that told you an app was worth doubling down on instead of keeping it experimental?

This was a great read. I really liked how you explained the shift from building out of curiosity to running a focused, revenue driven app studio. The point about prioritizing distribution from day one felt very real, especially the way you validated the audience before building Payout. Focusing on one product at a time and doubling down on what already works is something many founders overlook. Thanks for sharing such an honest breakdown of your journey and learnings.

This is a really insightful breakdown — I love how you emphasize that curiosity can turn into real business momentum. The focus on one product at a time is such a crucial point; it’s something many indie developers overlook when chasing multiple ideas.

The way you prioritized distribution from day one — using TikTok trends, influencer partnerships, and user-generated content — really highlights that even great apps need the right audience strategy to thrive. That “double down early on what’s working” advice is golden; so many founders spend too much time chasing unproven experiments instead of scaling what already resonates.

Curious: when you spot an early distribution win, how do you decide how much to scale it without risking burnout or overspend?

Smart move to crack distribution and then the audience!

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Do you use Stripe for payments? If yes, how do you usually find out about failed payments or cancelled subscriptions?

I’m a SaaS dev trying to understand if Stripe alerts are enough before I build anything.

Recently started this journey, it feels good to hear about what you've built.

As someone who is just starting I truly appreciate Connor's transparency about his journey of becoming successful with app development and I loved how he maintained his resilience through it all.

Portfolio approach is underrated. Most indie hackers chase one big hit instead of building a diversified revenue stream. Connor's discipline around consistent tech stack + distribution-first thinking is the real unlock. Doubling down on what works beats perpetual pivoting every time.

This really resonates — especially the point about doubling down on what’s already working instead of spreading energy too thin. That’s a lesson most founders only learn the hard way.

“Build for distribution first” is underrated advice. A solid product without distribution is just potential; pairing early with someone who already has an audience often changes the entire trajectory.

I also like how consistent your stack is across products. Reducing technical variance seems to free up more mental space for the real work: positioning, feedback loops, and momentum.

Curious — when you say “build for distribution first,” what’s the earliest signal you look for to decide something is worth doubling down on?

Nice work !

Focusing on one product at a time sounds obvious, but it’s one of the hardest discipline problems in practice. Loved that callout.

How did you end up building a replicable and durable distribution engine? I a lot of the time it’s always solid and if all comes down to the daily execution of the team

Honest question: is there a real “secret” here?
I’m currently juggling three projects (one live, two in progress) and I find the hardest part isn’t building, but deciding what to focus on and what to let go. The in-between is stressful, especially when this is side work on top of everything else. Curious how you recognized which signal was strong enough to double down and stop splitting attention.

Amazing!

Great job, thanks for sharing. This resonates.
I realized a lot of my “optimization” was just avoiding the uncomfortable question of what actually matters right now.

If you had to change just one thing in your funnel this week, what would it be?

When I was in a portfolio before, I lost my focus on all of the products when I didn’t put my time and effort into just one product. ~

When I focused on one product, my decision-making process became a lot easier when it came to pricing, distribution, and sometimes what not to build.

The general perception of diversifying is to spread your investments so you feel safer. However, the reality is that diversifying slows the process of learning the business.

Did you ever feel that there was pressure to diversify earlier, or once you had traction, did you feel that focusing on one product was the right path?

Is anyone interested in partnership? We can talk!

Thanks for sharing. So many interesting business startups are so opaque to me in terms of how they started. I'll share this with my app developer friend who has some great ideas but needs the help to get his ideas off the ground

The throughline here isn’t “mobile apps” — it’s distribution certainty before execution. Partnering with an existing audience and shaping the product around it removes a huge amount of early risk.

What stood out to me is how this mirrors fast validation loops: curiosity → ship → watch signals → double down early. The success isn’t from building more, but from learning faster what actually works and committing hard once the signal appears.

Curious with FunnelMob — how early are you pressure-testing demand now? Are you validating distribution and positioning before writing much code, or still letting the product lead and refining from there?