Ship 28 Apps in 8 Months: The Portfolio Strategy That Hit $10k/Month
Max shipped 28 apps in 8 months and hit $10k/month. The system: cheap bets, clear signals, and walking away from what doesn't work. Four apps do most of the work.
Max shipped 28 apps in eight months while working full-time as an iOS engineer. Revenue went from $200 to $10,000 a month. Four apps do most of the work. The rest make almost nothing.
The approach: treat each app as a small bet. Ship quickly. Let the data decide what deserves more time.
Idea selection is search, not inspiration
Max begins with keyword research using ASO tools like Astro. He looks for keywords with at least 20% popularity, difficulty around 60-70%, and evidence that the top apps are making real money.
Revenue estimates come from tools like Sensor Tower or FoxData. His benchmark: top competitors making at least €100-200 per month. If they're making less, the market isn't worth entering.
Once he finds a viable keyword, he studies 2-3 competitors and identifies the single core feature that solves the main problem. Everything else gets stripped out.
Speed comes from reuse
Max builds in Flutter, which lets him ship from a single codebase. But speed comes from reusing components across apps: onboarding flows, settings screens, paywall templates, custom UI elements.
For some apps, 90% of the code is copied from previous projects. The only new work is the core feature tied to the keyword. His record: one app built and submitted to the App Store in two hours.
AI tools like Cursor, ChatGPT, or Gemini generate implementation plans and UI/UX structures. This removes guesswork and lets him start building with a clear roadmap.
Release automation with fastlane removes most of the App Store friction: signing, screenshots, metadata, deployment. Once the app is functional and polished enough, it ships. No perfectionism.
The economics of cheap bets
Max's monthly costs:
- Cursor: $20
- ChatGPT: $200 (image recognition and AI features)
- Gemini: $50
- Firebase: $5-10 (stays within free tier for most apps)
- Astro: $10
- fastlane, Mixpanel, FoxData: free plans
Total: roughly $300/month to run 28 apps generating $10,000/month.
The power law is stark. Four apps make about $1,500 each. The other 24 make almost nothing. But Max doesn't know which four will work until after they ship. The portfolio approach makes the failures cheap and the winners visible.
Let the data decide
Every new app gets an App Store boost at launch. Traffic spikes, then fades. Max watches what happens next.
If downloads keep falling, the app sinks. He moves on. If downloads stabilise or grow, the app has organic traction. That's when he returns: fixes bugs, polishes the experience, runs ads to amplify what's already working.
He relies on analytics rather than instinct. Tools like Mixpanel make it possible to see retention, usage, and drop-off patterns. The apps that float get attention. The rest stay live but dormant.
Where this approach has limits
Maintenance debt accumulates across 28 apps. Each one needs occasional updates for OS changes, bug fixes, or policy compliance. That overhead grows with the portfolio.
Platform risk concentrates rather than diversifies. All 28 apps live on the App Store. A policy change, algorithm shift, or account issue could affect the entire portfolio at once.
There's also a thin line between "single-feature apps" and low-quality clutter. Max's approach works because each app solves a real problem for a specific keyword search. If the core feature isn't genuinely useful, the strategy collapses into spam.
The system in six steps
Max's playbook:
- Find strong keywords. Use Astro to identify keywords with good popularity/difficulty ratios and verify top apps are making real revenue.
- Study competitors. Review the top 2-3 apps and define the single core feature that solves the main problem.
- Plan with AI. Use Cursor, ChatGPT, or Gemini to generate a development roadmap, feature breakdown, and UX structure.
- Build lean. Focus on an MVP with only the features necessary to deliver value. Reuse components from previous projects wherever possible.
- Ship and move on. Once the app is functional and polished enough, release it. Let the App Store boost reveal whether it has traction.
- Return to winners. After a few weeks, revisit apps that show organic growth or stable retention. Polish them, fix bugs, and run ads to scale what's working.
The system works because it combines cheap bets, clear signals, and the willingness to walk away. Most builders have one or two of those. Few have all three.
