Sebastian Estrada

I hit $2.3k MRR in 5 weeks. An interior design app. No ads. Just TikTok carousels. 8.8% conversion rate. I never went viral, at least not in the typical sense. My best carousels do tens of thousands of views. And my lifetime views are under 1 million. Before i continue, here are my stats Just over 1,250 downloads at an 8.8% conversion rate — 1 subscriber every 12 downloads. I charge $9.99 weekly and $19.99 monthly. No localisation, no free trial (just 1 free generation). One customer paid $70 in a single month with a subscription and multiple token top-ups. Here are the 2 things that got me here: 1) Acquisition: I went deep instead of broad. Everyone says open 5 accounts and spam AI UGC. I did the opposite. One account, deep in the interior design niche. I learned the styles, the materials, the terminology true interior design enthusiasts use, and I made content they'd actually want to engage with and get value from. This caps my reach. But it attracts people who genuinely care about interior design — and those are the people who pay. I believe this is why i have revenue equal to apps with many times my downloads and tiktok views. 2) Conversion: meet them in a habit. I used to make hooks around problems I'd assumed my users had: "I almost spent $7,000 on an interior designer, then I did this instead." Got views but no downloads. I copied what worked for apps with millions of TikTok views and giant ad budgets instead of listening to what users were openly sharing on interior design TikTok. So i decided to stop trying to convince them. I focused on a habit they already did and just offered the opportunity to make it easier or enhance it. My onboarding became 5 pages, not 12. It focuses on aesthetics, on the features tied to their habit, and one slide that hints we aren't like other apps offering gimmicky designs (the home design apps trying to sell you "gamer" or "ancient Egyptian" styles). This new approach is what took me from $40 to $2,335 in just 5 weeks. Two bonus lessons: 1) Post to grow your audience. Not to sell. One of my biggest follower jumps came from a post where i didn't sell anything. Building an audience of potential customers is important. People have to see your brand multiple times before committing, and an audience compounds into that. You're also more trustworthy when thousands of people already follow you. (That said, a following probably has more value on Instagram.) 2) Master one platform first if you're solo. I chose TikTok. Another platform might work better for you — but pick one and go deep before you split your focus. All of this got me to $2.3K MRR. As I'm finishing this post it's $2.8K MRR but too lazy to change what i wrote. My next goal for July is $10K . I'd guess half these lessons change at that scale. But i’ll be exploring Instagram more and studying paid ads (once my payout lands in August i can test). I’ll post about my results so follow if you want to watch the 2.8K → 10K journey play out.

@athcanft i’m scared of paid ads 😬

common mistakes app founders make: - hiring big influencers - being scared of paid ads - charging too low - not studying onboarding drop off - building more features - building for android - sending paying users notifications - charging monthly instead of weekly - not auto retrying failed payments - using web2app payments - taking more than a week to develop the app - not using an MMP - building a utility instead of a promise - requiring sign in / sign up

@eugene_mindset 🤯

design idea for a water tracking app. the fill level is a real fluid sim reacting to your gyroscope built with a webgl fragment shader, damped pendulum physics, refraction and chromatic aberration i can share the file if anyone wants to play with it

@IJadavbhai6521 not stopping until i do 🫡

@SebasEstra You will hit 10k $ + mrr...

this morning I reached $4k MRR. Still can’t believe the progress over the past month still have imposter syndrome tho and feel like it can go away all of a sudden. will do my best to make sure it lasts but now only have 25 days left to reach $10k MRR. Can I do it?

@PiotrBuilds app store listing is localised only in English, Spanish and Portuguese

@SebasEstra Is your app localized, or is it English-only?

on another note. I’ve had the most international days recently 🌍 even more countries yesterday

@wickedguro tell me when you figure out how 😅

Every week I say, that's it, weekly trials are below 400, it's going to crash now. I do a few marketing moves - articles, videos, etc and it's peaking again. I should probably remove this stress from myself.

for some reason i don't get excited for renewals. i should, but i feel more excited about a new subscriber

@ProjectPivott 🫡

@SebasEstra You beauty. Keep pushing good man

so i focus on curated inspiration posts for followers and transformations for my CTA I'd say it's my own take from studying and deconstructing. I looked at popular interior design influencer accounts to understand how to curate, so in a sense it is original. I spend easily over an hour a day choosing what designs i'll be using. If i choose randomly it usually flops Overall it took a lot of trial and error. My first transformation attempt did 24 views and my first inspo post flopped hard as well. Now my latest transformation did 100K+ and my inspo post did well over 200K

@SebasEstra Just read through your pinned posts, super impressive. Curious how you come up with content ideas? I’ve tried looking for viral posts and making my own take, but it doesn’t always work. Do you mostly create original stuff, or do you study/deconstruct what’s already working?

@HonestCodelol Interior design

@SebasEstra What niche is your app in?

@Sosaaaa_01 gotta start somewhere 😎

@SebasEstra I got some catching up to do!!

@Tech_Over_Lord yes i just post content on one page myself. every day

@SebasEstra Congrats, were you posting content yourself?

@Shubham_iosdev soon bro 👊

@SebasEstra That’s awesome! 🤌🏻 I hope I can reach there someday

@HHaandr Haha thanks! company pizza party on me

@SebasEstra Congrats! And thanks 😅

a good invoice to get but bittersweet since apple takes a lifetime for payouts

@BuildWithxAI Thanks!

@SebasEstra Well done

@averycode 🙏

@SebasEstra amazinggg 👏🏼

@robj3d3 can we get a follow up on 'my first dollar'? or even a sequel? 🍿

@kanisshka12 tiktok carousel only atm

@SebasEstra what you do for marketing ?

@k13birch thanks chris! and fair enough, it can be punishing! but i'd rather aim high and fall a little short. daily goals can remain small and achievable though

@SebasEstra I find it that setting hard goals, like 10k MMR in x time, can be psychologically punishing, setting smaller goals that move you towards this goal is rewarding. Anyhow, big congratz!

@chongdashu Thanks man!

@SebasEstra What a W! Inspiring Sebastian