Founder Playbook · Starter Story
8 tactics from Ethan
My Niche Mobile App Makes $20K/Month
Watch the full episode“The reason my other apps didn't make any money was just because I didn't market them. For this app I just decided to learn marketing right after I finished it and ship this one out as fast as possible so that I can iterate on what users actually wanted.”
Treat Distribution As The Real Product And Learn Marketing The Moment Your MVP Is Done
Ethan dropped out of computer engineering, built several apps in early 2025, and shipped none — that was the lesson. The mindset shift wasn't technical (Cursor handles that); it was forcing himself to learn sales and marketing the moment the MVP was done, treating distribution as the actual product.
“Step one would be to solve a problem within your hobby so solving a problem within your hobby is a very effective strategy because you already understand and enjoy the activity and this makes it much easier to solve problems other people will most likely experience too.”
Solve A Tiny Problem Inside Your Own Hobby So You Ship With Built-In Beta Testers
Ethan picked combat-sport weight cutting because he was a national wrestling champion who personally suffered through the problem. Building inside your hobby gives you instant domain expertise, a beta audience (his wrestling club), and the empathy to redesign the product when v1 missed. Outsiders can't fake that.
“It took me around a month to build the MVP and I gave it to my wrestling club to beta test... the first version was basically an app where the coach was supposed to give the wake up plans to the athletes however I realized that there was a lot of friction... so during July and August I changed the whole concept of the app to make it so that the app would give the weight cut plans to the athletes instead of the coach.”
Ship The MVP In A Month, Then Flip The Whole User Model When Beta Testers Won’t Adopt
Ethan built v1 in a month using Cursor and ChatGPT, handed it to his wrestling club, and watched them not use it. Instead of iterating on the wrong concept, he flipped the entire flow (coach-driven to athlete-driven) over two months and tested the new plans on his own body before relaunching. Pivot the user model, not just the features.
“Since my app was in a very niche category there were not a lot of big influencers to partner with so I decided that I would ask small creators to partner with me... I would DM creators asking them to partner i found that most of the creators that I DM'd said yes... later I decided to put those influencer videos into paid ads just to see what would happen and to my surprise it added a lot of extra revenue and helped us scale much faster.”
Cold-DM Micro-Creators With 1K-10K Views Then Recycle The Winners Into Paid Ads
With no large creators in wrestling, Ethan cold-DM'd small creators (1K-10K views) from his FYP and most said yes. He laddered up to 20K+ view creators, then repurposed the winning influencer UGC into paid ads — which became his real scaling lever. Tiny niches reward DM grind because there's no competition for the creators.
“I noticed around 10 to 15 downloads per day from posts that got anywhere from 200 to 500 views... my product was so unique and it solved a very specific pain point that no other app solved it converted very well on my organic post even though they didn't get that many views... you don't need to get millions of views like you think you might need to do if you can get 5 to 10% conversion ratio on views.”
Niche Apps Convert At 5-10 Percent On 200-View Videos So Stop Chasing Virality
Ethan's first organic videos pulled only 200-500 views but drove 10-15 installs each. When your product solves a hyper-specific pain no other app addresses, you can skip viral mechanics entirely — reach is replaced by relevance. Niche viewers convert at 5-10%, an order of magnitude above generic apps.
“I usually go to a popular app and a similar app within the same niche and I look at the layout of their app and I take the elements from it and adapt it to my app so I don't copy it the exact same... try not to reinvent the wheel just take what's working from their app adapt it a little and change it up.”
Steal Onboarding Layouts From Category-Leading Apps Then Twist Them For Your Niche
Ethan designs onboarding by lifting structure from incumbents like Cal AI and Duolingo, since their flows reflect years of A/B testing he could never afford. Adapt rather than copy verbatim, then add a niche twist so the screens feel native to your audience. Stand on the shoulders of teams who've already tested every onboarding pattern.
“you're willing to pay $30 to make weight because if you don't make weight the cost is way higher people would be very disappointed in you... it's actually a really painful problem for a really niche community and I think that's one of the reasons why it's successful”
Charge $30 For A Simple Niche Utility When The Cost Of Failure Is Public And Painful
Cut Coach charges roughly $30 because missing weight at a wrestling competition has a much higher emotional and reputational cost than the app's price. Hunt for niches where failure is publicly painful (high school/college sports, competition deadlines) and competitors or parents will gladly pay a premium for a simple utility.
“right when we launched the app wrestling season just started our revenue you know was climbing up as we started to figure out marketing by that time we were in the middle of wrestling season there was a big demand for our app since a lot of the combat sport athletes needed to cut weights”
Design Niche Utility Apps For Re-Activation Across Seasons Not Continuous Daily Use
Cut Coach's revenue tracks wrestling season because users only need it in the run-up to a competition, not year-round. For niche utility apps, retention isn't continuous daily engagement — it's reliably pulling the same user back each cycle (season, event, fight camp). Design the comeback, not the streak.