How we scaled our app to $40k/month with $0 spent (Full Guide)

In this article i'm going to reveal the exact method that it took for us to reach $40k/month cost $0 in marketing

I believe anyone can do it too.

We hit $20k/month before. No structure, so we lost it all. Off season hit (our app is seasonal) and we fell to $5k/month.

Then, within 1 month of using what's in this article, we went from $5k to $12k, then $22k, and now $40k+.

I'll show you exactly what we do, what we learnt, and how I'd do it if I was starting over.

No bs fluff. Only what's really needed.

This article is sponsored by @contentrewards. Scale your app by running slideshow clipping campaigns.

Proof

What's inside

• Skills you need first

• Step 1: Build a decent app, not a great one

• Step 2: Pick your method

• Step 3: Post a lot and find your winning format

• Step 4: Edit fast, and be entertaining

• Step 5: Make your CTA convert

• Step 6: Scale it

• You're making money. Now what?

• TLDR

Skills you need first

Problem solving. Every app hits different issues, and you need to solve them before the explosive numbers show up. This is the most important skill.

Confidence. Back yourself. Something doesn't work? Find the problem, test a new fix, repeat. Do not doubt yourself.

Consistency. You can post, test ads and run campaigns and nothing will work. Half assing things gets you nowhere fast.

We only saw results once we posted X times a day, every single day. Same for UGC: build a testing structure and stick to it.

Step 1: Build a decent app, not a great one

A great app is not the right move at the start.

Most people stress about the perfect app and never reach their first $.

This part is simple. People just overcomplicate it.

Onboarding and paywall: Take inspiration from a competitor, or ask an LLM like Claude how to build a high converting onboarding for a 3 day trial or hard paywall. Tweak it based on what you see on other apps and Twitter. RevenueCat and Superwall have paywall templates.

The app: Use common sense. You need:

• One hero feature that's great for videos

• One or two retention features (e.g. workout plans that update daily)

• The basics: settings and the other fluff

One week max. Even real bad apps make money.

Your focus is what comes next: getting downloads. Optimize later.

Step 2: Pick your method

Two options:

• Option 1: Partner with an influencer for equity. Doesn't have to be an influencer, just someone skilled and dedicated at content

• Option 2: Make the videos yourself

We went with option 2. My co-founders @braylln and @Christianisrac were already making content.

Option 2 is just doing what the influencer would do, so everything from Step 3 applies to both.

Partnering with an influencer for equity

It's a numbers game.

DM as many people as you can on Instagram and TikTok. Copy paste a template. Get them on a call.

Don't negotiate over text. It doesn't work. You want them to be the face of your app.

Template:

Paid promo?

Hey, I'm a Co-Founder of [App name]

We think your content and audience fits perfectly for our app

If you're interested, let me know when you can hop on a quick call to go through the details and see if it's a good fit

Variation: add "and you'd be great as the face of the app" to the third line, and "interested in partnering" to the fourth.

And yes, it really does work 👇

How much equity

Before your first dollar, 50% of an app making $10,000 a month beats 100% of an app making $1,000.

25% to 50% is a good range. It depends on how urgently you need money and what it takes to close the deal.

They need to feel like it's their app.

What to look for

• Views over followers: under 100K followers is ideal. Averaging below 30K views? Probably not worth it, unless you see potential. Look for real engagement (not just emojis) and a tier one audience

• Posting volume: eventually 3 to 6 times a day. The profit share keeps them motivated

• Chemistry: you'll work together constantly. Get on a call and make sure you click

Ticks all of that? Sign a contract.

Step 3: Post a lot and find your winning format

This is the hardest part.

You don't know what you're doing wrong. Or right. You're flying blind, and that's the worst feeling.

Here's where I'd start.

Stick to one account per person

Post as much as possible. But not by making loads of accounts.

One Instagram and one TikTok per person. That's it.

It can be the influencer, you, or both of you, each doing your own thing.

Starting on a fresh account? You'll struggle at first. That's okay. You build it up.

Now try doing that on 5 accounts. Much harder.

More accounts also means more problems with Instagram and TikTok, like shadow bans.

For this strategy, one account per platform, per person is worth more than a bunch of accounts.

Slideshow methods need loads of accounts because their conversions are low. Here you're making influencer type content, so one account per platform is enough.

The trial reel method

This is the key part of the whole strategy.

Trial reels go to a separate algorithm from your main reels. That takes followers out of the equation. It all comes down to how good your content is.

With normal Reels, your followers' first reaction can hold a video back. Trial reels always go to new people, so you can post lots of different content and find winners much easier.

No access to trial reels?

I think you need a certain number of followers. I'm not sure how many.

There is one option out there: buying followers. A small amount from a high quality place, not all at once, just enough to unlock trial reels.

I'm not recommending it. It goes against Instagram's rules and it's completely at your own risk. It's just an option. Your call.

Find your format

Mix three things:

• What's working consistently for your competitors

• Formats from apps in other niches that you can convert for yours

• Your own ideas

Don't make UGC style, low quality content. Put in the effort to film and edit. It doesn't have to be hard.

For example, with a workout app, the influencer already works out, so he films his workouts and edits them. Doing it yourself? Get in the gym and film. Copy the angles other influencers and your competitors use.

One video into many, and test everything

You can't film enough to post this much. So take one or two videos and change:

• The hook

• The sound

• The length

• Which parts you use

• The order of the clips

This isn't just about posting more. It's how you find what works.

Test enough versions and you'll learn which hooks work best, what types of sounds work best, which lengths work best, and more.

That's how you find your winning format.

How often to post

Our starting structure:

• Every day: 3 trial reels and 1 TikTok

• Every second day: take the trial reel with the most views and upload it as a new video on your main account (don't publish the trial reel itself)

Sometimes a fresh upload gets fewer views. If the video already has decent views, it can get a bigger boost. Feel it out.

3 a day is what I recommend. But it's like gymming. If you gym 3 times a week and feel you can do more, do more.

Test 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, even 12 a day. Find your sweet spot. Instagram will tell you, because views drop when you go too far.

When we started, 3 a day was all we could do. 4, 5 or 6 barely got views. We've increased it over time.

Do this on repeat until some videos get views.

This does not include any views from Trial Reels, so its actually alot more

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Step 4: Edit fast, and be entertaining

Know how to edit? Great. If not, watch some YouTube videos.

What sped us up was Claude.

Starting out, you don't have your own content yet. So take videos from competitors and other formats, give them to Claude as a file with enough context, and it does the editing.

I'm not going deep on this. Just pointing you in the right direction. Do some research.

We edited 6 videos in the time it used to take us to edit half of one.

Some videos won't be easy for Claude. Edit those yourself. You still save a lot of time.

You can also use it to turn one video into 6: reorder clips, change hooks.

Use Instagram's Edits app

Big tip.

If you post the same video multiple times, you don't want any to flop because Instagram thinks it's the same.

Take the video from Claude, put it in the Edits app, add your sound there and post from there.

Edits is what Instagram is pushing. In our experience, you get flagged less.

Be entertaining first

Entertain first. Provide value second.

Entertaining captures attention, which gets views. Value improves your retention chart, and a better retention chart means a better performing video.

The most entertaining videos have:

• Great sound effects

• Good editing: clips cut nicely, timing on point

• Energy. Whoever's in the video can't be boring

TikTok and Instagram are different

Same video, edited differently.

• TikTok: shorter, more brain rot, less effort

• Instagram: more effort, longer, higher quality, slower paced

When we started doing this, we got a lot more views on TikTok.

Step 5: Make your CTA convert

Entertaining and getting views? Now make those views convert.

Can't get views yet? Fix that first. The CTA doesn't matter without them.

Four things matter:

• Timing: when in the video

• Length: how much it interrupts

• Design: what it looks like

• Feel: how natural it comes across

Timing. Test it. Every app is different.

Only at the end? Probably low conversion. At the start? It might cook your views. For us, it did.

Bad design can cook your views too.

Design. Lots of ways to do it. A few examples:

• A small App Store screenshot with some text

• A sped up screen recording demo while the person talks about it

These are just examples. Look at competitors, other niches, influencers, even e-com bros and how they put products in videos. Get creative. Test.

What we did (just an example)

Not every app is the same. This is for workout apps.

For each exercise, we show a screenshot of it from inside our app, with our logo on it.

We never say "go use our app". It just shows the person is using it.

The CTA is on screen the whole video and never interrupts it. It even helps, because it shows the exercise name.

We end with a screenshot of the top of our App Store page. It basically says "this is the app I use for my workouts."

The most important CTA isn't in the video

It's in the comment section.

On every video you post, get this comment in as fast as possible:

"What app do you use?"

Use an alt account. Ask a friend. Whatever works.

Mix up the wording too. Find different variations of the question.

Rotate which account asks. Don't always use the same one.

It doesn't matter how, as long as the question is there.

Then the person who posted the video replies with the app's name.

Once a video gets enough views, other people start answering too. They saw it in the video, it triggers them, and they jump in with "oh yeah, it's this app."

This has a huge impact. Maybe even more than the CTA in the video itself.

How to test it

Watch your retention charts.

Views drop at 8 seconds, right where your CTA is? Move it, change the design, or change how long it's on screen.

A founder I spoke to was doing 50K a month with a bunch of UGC creators. They moved their CTA into the first 10 seconds and cut it to 5 seconds. Natural, short, still valuable.

They fired half their UGC team. With half the creators and slightly fewer views, they tripled revenue from 50K to over 100K.

It matters.

Test everything. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. You're posting so much it doesn't matter.

Post multiple versions of one video: different hooks, CTA timing, CTA design. Within a week you'll have a good amount of data.

Example of bad retention chart:

Bad

Example of good retention chart:

Good

Step 6: Scale it

Good news: if you followed the steps, you already have the structure to scale.

Now you just follow it.

What good results look like

This isn't exceptional results but its good enough to make us $40k, remember that with organic it is harder to get high download to paid conversion rates

We still testing pricing and optimising but this is what you do once you're getting the downloads

This is organic, not ads. For us, a good result is around 5 to 7% conversion from download to paid.

Every app is different. Treat it as a ballpark.

Judge videos by money, not just views

200K views and $400-$500? Great.

200K views and only $200-$300? It probably converted low.

That's fine sometimes. A viral video can get a million views, fewer downloads per view, and still help your page grow.

But you also want the videos that convert highly, even with fewer views.

Don't stress about perfect

You'll have days with no views, days with a lot, days with medium. Stay consistent and they'll come.

Revenue is the same. Some days low, some days very high, sometimes a whole week of okay.

The longer you do this, the more you'll see it. You'll think you've hit the cap. You haven't.

One week you're doing $500 a day and suddenly hit $1K in a day. You think it was a one-off.

Then you hit $1K every second day. Then every day.

That's consistency and the structure you built.

How long it took us

About a month of posting and testing to find what really worked.

We still made revenue that month. We were just optimizing.

Now we're doing around $2,000 a day, on track for $45-50K this month.

You learn which formats work, how to repeat them and how to branch off them. Even if it fails tomorrow, you'll know how to get it working again fast.

You're making money. Now what?

It's organic. You're not stressing. Life is good.

But organic (no money spent on marketing) can only take you so far.

Get paid out early

Make sure you can reinvest fast. Get onto a provider that pays you out early. This is key.

RevenueCat offers it, and so do other companies. What's available depends on where you're based.

Pay yourself, but not too much

You can't work for free forever. Your influencer partner will want something too.

But taking too much out is one of the biggest bottlenecks when scaling.

Take nothing if you can. Take a little if you can. If you really need a decent amount, cap it at 50%: take 50% of profits, reinvest the other 50%.

Where to put the money

Every channel costs money upfront, and you'll probably lose some while testing. How long it takes depends on your luck, how fast you iterate and how much you can spend.

This isn't a deep dive on any of them. Just where the money can go:

1. Ads: Meta ads and TikTok ads

2. UGC

3. Slideshow Clipping: the one I'd add third right now

Why clipping

Clipping gets brand awareness and helps you scale slowly without spending too much.

It works best combined with ads in my opinion. When more people know who you are, they trust your app more. That improves your CPMs and conversion rates everywhere, so your ads, UGC, influencer campaigns perform better automatically.

You have three options: do it yourself, use a platform like @contentrewards, or use an agency. Doing it yourself means a Discord and managing loads of channels, which is a lot of work. A platform like @contentrewards or an agency takes that off your plate.

Start with a small budget. Find the formats that work (sometimes content you'd never post on your own pages). Work closely with the clippers. Aim for great CPMs.

The goal: millions of views for a fraction of the usual price. Then it compounds, and your ads improve too.

DM me if you need any help getting started with slideshow clipping

TLDR

1. Build a decent app, not a great one. A week max

2. Pick your method: an influencer for equity, or make the videos yourself

3. Post a lot from one account per person, use trial reels, find your winning format

4. Edit fast with Claude and Instagram's Edits app. Be entertaining first

5. Test your CTA until views turn into downloads, and get the "what app is this?" comment on every video

6. Stay consistent, don't stress about perfect, scale what works

7. Reinvest 50% of profits into ads, UGC and clipping

Start today

Most people will bookmark this and never start.

Don't be most people.

Here's what to do next:

1. This week: build the decent app. Don't polish it

2. Pick your method. Send your first DMs, or start filming

3. Post your first 3 trial reels and 1 TikTok. Then do it again tomorrow

It won't be perfect. It doesn't need to be.

We went from $5k to $40k+ in a month by posting consistently, testing fast and not stressing about perfect.

You can too.

If this helped, follow @nicholascalez. I post our numbers and what we're testing as we scale.

And repost this to someone building an app.