零代码经验者用AI打造iOS应用，月入3万美元的完整路径

My name is Reza. I built an iOS app called Wakes. It's done over 140k this year and right now we're doing close to 30k a month.

This is Reza and 1 year ago he had never built anything before in his life.

Well, [music] actually I have never written a line of code myself.

Most founders take years to find their first win, but Reza is proof that in 2026 you may not actually need experience to be successful as long as you have the right idea and the right approach. So, I asked Reza to come on to the channel and break [music] it all down. In this episode we're going to dive into the simple idea that makes him $30,000 a month, how he knew this idea was going to be successful before he even built it, and his advice for first-time builders who want to hit a home run on the first pitch.

All right, this one is going to be fun. Let's dive in. I'm Pat Walls and this is Starter Story. All right, Reza, welcome to the channel. I'm pumped to have you on here. Tell me about who you are, what you built, and what's your story.

My name is Reza. I built an iOS app called Wakes, which is an AI manifestation app.

[music]

It's done over 140k in net subscription revenue this year and right now we're doing close to 30k a month. Today I'd love to break down how I found the idea, built it, and grew it to this point.

Nice. Could you break down what your app is, who your customers are, and then even pull up some of your Stripe dashboards to show that this is legit, you've actually done this?

For sure, yeah. So, Wakes is an AI manifestation app for iOS and users download it because they want to go through a spiritual journey and usually it's about something that they want to manifest. That's right, whether it's your relationship, whether it's confidence. [music] And we create customized content for them, whether it's subliminal audios, affirmation content. Currently our user base is for people who are between age of 18 and 35 and who are deeply [music] into manifestation content on TikTok.

Okay, I see. This is awesome. Could you pull up some of your revenue, Cat, Stripe, whatever, and show how much money this app has made? I'm curious to see.

For sure, yeah. So, this is our Superwall dashboard. As we can see, we've made $34,000 in the last 30 days, [music] and our conversion is sitting around 16%, and we've been able to get over 7,000 downloads. For year-to-date, we've done close to 140k in sales, [music] and May was actually our best month with it 44k. For June, we're really focusing on just maintaining that growth and also preparing for a huge push on content for various locals in July and August.

Nice. Could you explain your business model? Like, how does it work? How much are people paying for this? What's the business model for this?

For sure, yeah. So, it's a subscription app, and we have three different kind of plans, weekly, monthly, and also yearly. The subscription pricings are $40 for the year or $20 per month. Most people choose the yearly option because it makes more sense financially, and they also want to commit to themselves and also their goals.

Well, this is cool. Tell me a little bit more about your background. Like, how did you get to this point where you have this app that's made a ton of money and it's crushing it right now?

For sure, yeah. So, before Wakes, I was in grad school. I'm based in Toronto, actually. And, you know, for the past few years, I've worked on startups, growth, but I actually have never built something that was my own. You know, the big shift for me actually was, you know, realizing app ideas don't really need to be complicated. And Wakes was the first time I actually applied that and shipped something. It was a lot easier for me because I have read a lot of content on this topic before, whether it was books, YouTube videos, to kind of, you know, educate myself on this spiritual side of it to be able to ship a product that's not just, you know, making money, but also helps people during that process as well.

Yeah, I love that. So, I'm curious, how did you actually come up with the idea? How did you know this is something that could make money? Most people who find their first idea, they have a couple failed ideas, but you crushed it on the first one. So, [music] how did that happen?

Yeah, for sure, yeah. Honestly, it goes back to a year ago. I was on TikTok just scrolling, looking for underserved markets where I could, you know, build something that provide value. And I was looking for three main things, right? First thing I was looking for was the fact that, you know, what is getting a lot of views right now on TikTok, where is obvious buyer intent, and lastly, where the product experience is still bad.

And manifestation [music] was something that kept showing up over and over again. I realized that most apps were still focusing [music] on generic affirmations, and my insight from all the research that I did was the fact that people do not want generic affirmations, people want something that's customized [music] to them. And my bet for this product was that, you know, AI is at a point where it could actually create personalized content [music] at scale and also at a very low cost, and not only would provide value to people, but also they would pay for it as well.

Okay, I love that. What I'm curious to hear about, because this was your first business idea, how did you know it was a good idea? I'm curious to hear that.

Yeah, for sure. So, for me, like when I was thinking about how to actually, you know, validate that this, I was like, you know, I got to stop overthinking,

[music]

and I actually wanted to test the core behavior that I was betting on, which was the core behavior of the app in the version one. So, while we're building Vix on the side, I launched a TikTok page where we were testing that whole audio concept, [music] right? You know, AI audio with personalized content, and in a fun way that the app would present as well. And I was just looking for a signal from TikTok's algorithm whether this type of content is getting views.

I was not trying to make the app really complicated. I was building the most simplest version I could do in a month to be able to test and validate it during the next 3 months.

What Reza is breaking down right here is gold. Because Reza is proof that you don't need a crazy idea or a ton of experience, you just need to ship something. A lot of people ask me, "Hey, Pat, how do I get started? How do I find the right app? What do I build?" Well, I've got the perfect thing for you. We recently launched our free iOS bootcamp, which is our program that will take you from idea to a real working app on the App Store, just like Reza.

In the bootcamp, you will build your app 100% with AI, even if you've never written a single line of code before in your life. So, if you're ready to build and finally ship your idea, just head to the first link in the description and you can get started 100% for free. All right, let's get back to the episode. Thank you for sharing that. Let's talk about how you actually went about building this cuz you built the whole app yourself.

What was the actual timeline? How did you do it? How long did it take?

For sure, yeah. So, I started building Vex back in July of last year and it took about 4 weeks. I think the whole process was, you know, about three different parts. First, the design of the app, um the coding and actual the audio pipeline, which was the core feature that I was betting on. [music] Yeah, so version one was published on the App Store in August and we started marketing it and then during October when we actually found the marketing angle, we started shipping a lot of more features.

After, I would say, you know, October when we actually started pushing in the marketing side of things, I think I didn't really ship any updates from October to December because I was only focused on marketing and finding the