Partnering up with a content creator to hit $50k/mo

After partnering up with a content creator, Florian Vates quit his job and doubled down on his app, MonAi. Now, his portfolio of apps is bringing in roughly $50k/mo.

Here's Florian on how he did it. 👇

The first success

I always wanted to study something creative — Design, Photography, Videography, etc. — but ended up studying computer science because I found it offered the greatest overlap of creativity and programming. I loved both. After university, I started working as an iOS developer at an agency in Austria and developed apps on the side for a few years.

By 2025, I worked only half-time at the agency. In January 2026, I finally quit my job and am now living my long-time dream of being an indie hacker. Currently, I mainly work on MonAi because it generates 90% of my income.

MonAi is a minimalist expense-tracking app that reduces friction by using AI for easier expense input. It aims to be less bloated than most other expense-tracking apps that simply offer "ALL THE FEATURES."

I also developed these other apps:

• Mindr: a reminder widget that subtly reminds you about "non-time-sensitive," repeating tasks like chores that don't require urgent completion but still need doing. Inspired by the Apple battery widget, it counts down with similar rings and then turns red to show how long tasks are overdue. Once done, you can tap it in the widget to restart the interval.

• Re-Frame: turns your old iPad into a digital picture frame, displaying iCloud-shared photo albums (or local ones).

• Max: a tool to help you prioritize work items more easily. You tell it how much time you have available; AI estimates or splits tasks to find items to work on during that time. It helps if you experience "analysis paralysis."

Honestly, I never believed this could happen to me, but I released my first apps anyway with the goal of at least making the 99 bucks developer fee back. And now, I generate between $40k and $60k of monthly revenue across all my apps.

Getting started

My first app was called "CORDI." It was an event planning app that aimed to fill the gap left by Facebook events after most young people stopped using Facebook. I struggled to create a true MVP. I built it for about two years, and it included many features. I was a "perfectionist" about it and didn't want to launch it until it was absolutely perfect.

After building it, I found no users beyond my friends. I even had to force them into using it. That should have been a sign. I have since discontinued the app, but I learned many valuable lessons — it changed my approach to app development.

I started building smaller-scope apps with quick turnarounds and launching them publicly on Twitter so I could validate early. And I started thinking about real business models upfront instead of giving everything away and hoping for revenue later.

I reached a few hundred dollars in MRR within a few years, but plateaued until 2024, when MonAi took off thanks to a collaboration with a content creator. He contacted me because he saw my Twitter profile linked inside the app's settings.

Most of my apps are subscription-based. MonAi currently has a "hard" paywall with a free trial. It used to be freemium, but we received many bad reviews stating that the freemium was too restrictive, so I switched to a free trial. This also improved revenue — a win-win.

A basic tech stack

My tech stack is very basic.

I develop everything natively and only for iOS — Android versions, I usually give to a former colleague of mine. So, Xcode is my daily driver. I use Claude Code for all coding-related tasks and increasingly for business decisions, experiment analysis, etc.

The apps that use AI usually use the OpenAI or Anthropic APIs.

I also use:

• RevenueCat for my revenue overview and to run experiments

• Appwrite for backend/auth

• Helm for a more fun App Store Connect alternative

• Figma for design

Growth via partner videos

Most of our growth occurred after I collaborated with Charlie Alvarez, a content creator from Colombia. He is now my business partner. Within the first two months, we grew from $300 MRR to $12K, and it has grown steadily since then.

So, we attract most users through his videos. He excels at telling compelling stories.

Most videos are story-driven. We don't try to create viral videos with hundreds of influencers. Instead, my partner creates high-quality videos. These usually don't get millions of views, but they convert at very high rates. We achieve a 14% trial-start rate and 40-50% trial-to-paid conversion from people who come from Instagram or TikTok.

This image clearly shows the revenue increases caused by good videos:

Our user base is mostly in LATAM because the content is in Spanish. As it turns out, the app also seems to have the best PMF there. We tried extending it to the U.S. but haven't had much success yet. We are still working on it.

Experimenting with paid ads

Recently, paid ads have also contributed, but we are still working to improve them.

Initially, we only posted videos from my partner's account, but these did not perform as well for ads. While these videos had a good conversion rate, they reached far fewer people.

Next, we experimented with much shorter content. We created modular videos with interchangeable hooks, build-ups, and payoffs. We now post various combinations of these to find the best format that reaches as many people as possible while maintaining a high conversion rate.

One issue we struggle with is the app's low price, which makes achieving ROI with paid ads challenging.

Partner up early

If I did it again, I would definitely find a partner sooner. I always thought I needed to do it all myself. But having a partner has so many benefits.

Beyond the obvious upside of a great distribution channel, a good partner like Charlie can inspire and motivate you. You can bounce ideas off them. And it's simply much more fun to build something together than alone.

Share your story

Sharing our story transparently and through storytelling is very advantageous for brand loyalty. Our users are very engaged and root for us, which encourages them to spread the word.

Building a community like this is very helpful.

Consistency, UX, and partnership

As far as advice...

Consistency really is key, though it's been said a million times. Don't let your first idea, or even your fifth, demotivate you. You can largely force your luck to happen.

These days, designers and people with UX experience are a perfect fit for programming, now that the barrier to entry is much lower. If you don't have these skills yet, work to improve them. These skills will separate you from the flood of lazily vibe-coded apps.

The rise of consumer app popularity will also attract more content creators who see the potential in partnering up with a developer.

What's next?

I'd love to expand my app portfolio with my partner. I love working on new ideas.

My grand goal is to have a small, lean team that creates and distributes genuinely fun and joyful software. I want to stay small; I'm not looking to scale an app into a unicorn.

I'm a big fan of DHH (David Heinemeier Hansson) and his philosophy of staying small and not over-hiring.

You can follow me on X. Or check out my partner, Charlie Alvarez, or MonaAI's Android developer, Zelimir Bosnjak.