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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.
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