Founder Playbook · Sub Club by RevenueCat
12 tactics from David Smith
Reaching 50 Million App Downloads!
Watch the full episode“I've launched I think it's 56 or 57 apps at this point and all but about six of them have completely failed. I say that mostly because it's like I've launched more failures probably than anyone in the app store in some ways — and that's the way that you can end up with success.”
56 Apps, 50 Failed — Volume Is the Path to Success
David Smith's portfolio covers 13+ years and the vast majority of attempts were financial failures. His insight is that volume of attempts — not a single brilliant bet — is what eventually produces breakout hits. A foundation app providing baseline income allows him to keep shipping without risking starvation between experiments.
“Audiobooks would buy my time — it would start to generate enough income and at first it was like maybe it would buy me 10 hours a week that I could work on my independent stuff, and then maybe 20 hours a week, and eventually about all of my time.”
A Foundation App Buys You Time to Keep Experimenting
Rather than treating Audiobooks as a destination, David used it as a revenue runway. Even a modest baseline income — enough to buy back time from consulting — is sufficient to fuel a continuous experimentation loop. The goal isn't to build the perfect first app; it's to earn enough to keep trying.
“I didn't have a better name — because the content of it was so generic. It's the early days of the App Store so you could just pick a proper noun and it would be available… if you want an audiobook and you search 'audiobooks' it's an exact name match.”
Name Your App the Exact Keyword Users Search For
David stumbled into one of the most durable ASO strategies by accident: naming an app after the exact search term users type. Years later, 'Audiobooks' still captures high-intent search traffic because the name itself is the query. The lesson extends to any niche where the category term isn't yet taken — own the noun before someone else does.
“The two areas — the biggest mistakes: under-trying to understand the size of the market you're addressing… and not understanding what the ongoing costs of an app are going to be… if I get any amount of volume I'm suddenly spending thousands of dollars a month supporting this app.”
Apps Fail for Two Reasons: Market Too Small or Ongoing Costs Not Modeled
David's post-mortems on 50 failed apps consistently trace back to two errors: an audience too niche to sustain a business, and backend costs that scale faster than revenue. Subscription infrastructure didn't exist for most of his weather app's life — so what should have been a SaaS was inadvertently running as a charity.
“I can do something faster than anyone else not necessarily because there's something magic about me but it's just there's no… sprint planning meeting, no breaking up the features — I just open up Xcode and start working.”
Solo Dev Speed Advantage: No Coordination Overhead
The single most underrated advantage of a solo developer is elimination of coordination costs. David can go from idea to shipped code in days; a five-person team needs meetings, specs, and handoffs that can take weeks for the same output. That speed matters most at the moment a new platform API is released — where being first captures outsized attention.
“Being there early is something that often gets Apple's attention… Pedometer++ was the first pedometer app in the App Store and for a few weeks it was the only one — it's one of my strategic advantages that I can be there on day one.”
Be First to New Platform APIs — Apple Notices and Features You
David has built a repeatable playbook around Apple platform releases: ship before anyone else, claim the category, and collect the Apple featuring that follows. As a solo developer he can move from WWDC announcement to App Store submission faster than any team, turning the new capability vacuum into a reliable growth engine.
“What I gave up potentially in having a less permissive paywall strategy I made up for in essentially free marketing — because the app is used by so many more people. I'm spending that capital by just making my paywall more permissive and making it have more natural virality.”
A Permissive Paywall Is a Viral Marketing Machine
WidgetSmith's free tier includes enough customisation that users can create genuinely beautiful home screens without paying — and those screens are inherently shareable on social media. Every screenshot showing a WidgetSmith widget is an ad. David frames a generous free tier not as revenue foregone but as a paid-acquisition budget spent on virality instead.
“Most of what I'm having people pay me for in WidgetSmith are things like weather data, tide data, some graphical assets — things I have to pay for, there are ongoing and tangible costs. I can't make those free because then I go out of business.”
Only Charge for Features With Real Ongoing Costs
David's paywall philosophy: charge for what genuinely costs money to provide and give away everything that doesn't. This creates a paywall that feels fair rather than arbitrary — users paying for weather data understand they're covering a real API bill, not an artificial restriction. That authenticity reduces the friction of asking for money.
“It's also possible to just make cool things and have them have just enough of a business in them that it makes a good living for you, but you don't need all of that infrastructure. If you take the approach of simplicity and straightforwardness and craftsmanship early you can shift and pivot and change as you go.”
Start With Craft and Simplicity — Layer Metrics On Later
David offers an alternative to the data-first subscription playbook: begin with genuine craft, build something people enjoy using, and add monetisation when the app has proven its value. An over-engineered, metrics-driven approach from day one can eliminate opportunities that only emerge through iteration and user delight.
“I very much like a model where the initial upfront costs are as low as possible and if I need to double down on something… I'm delighted to spend money on an app that's making money.”
Keep Initial Costs Minimal — Double Down When the App Earns It
David spent over $100K on design across 13 years and found it rarely paid off. His current model: minimise upfront investment; prove the app commercially; then hire and invest proportionally to revenue. Spending money before an app earns it is the most common financial mistake indie developers make.
“I think fewer people are searching for apps and so being in a featured list in the App Store is not the thing it used to be… a lot of my downloads are coming from the word-of-mouth version of organic rather than someone coming to the App Store with a need.”
App Store Browsing Is Dead — Word of Mouth Is the New Organic
The era of users browsing the App Store for discovery is over — most users come in with specific intent or via a recommendation. For David, App Store featuring, while still valuable, no longer drives the volume spikes it once did. Durable organic growth now requires building features that generate screenshots, shares, and genuine conversation.
“I exceeded my total lifetime app store downloads — all my apps over the last 13 years — in a few hours of it when it hit that crazy moment. A viral event outpaces App Store featuring by 10 or 100x. It's insane.”
WidgetSmith Hit #1 With 13 Years of Downloads in a Few Hours
When WidgetSmith went viral on TikTok after iOS 14 introduced home-screen widgets, David's cumulative download total across 13 years of apps was surpassed in hours. He didn't engineer the viral moment — he engineered the app to be first, shareable, and beautiful enough that someone else's TikTok video did the rest.