My App Made $120K in 24 Hours

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My App Made $120K in 24 Hours

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Mar 30, 2026

Most app founders launch in silence. Umberto made $120K in 24 hours from an app that wasn't even finished. This is his exact launch playbook.

Free Course: Ship your first iOS app in 7 days https://clickhubspot.com/gfd

Follow Umberto: https://www.linkedin.com/in/umberto-mezzadra-a6a77113/

Check out Floga: https://floga.io/

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🏁 We're hiring: starterstory.com/jobs

This video is an educational case study of this founder’s experience. It is not financial advice and does not guarantee any income or results. Every business is different and your results may vary.

Chapters:

0:00 - The fastest way to validate your idea

1:19 - What's your story?

1:44 - App breakdown and stats

2:35 - Coming up with the app idea

4:30 - Lifetime Deals Strategy

6:44 - Build your own iOS app

8:18 - The email launch sequence

11:37 - How to have a great launch (playbook)

15:22 - Are lifetime deals bad?

17:44 - Floga app demo

18:48 - Tech stack

19:14 - Stop waiting for perfection

20:08 - Pat and Gus reflections: our takeaways

Chapters

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Transcript

Chapters

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No tools listed for this business.

There's a well known secret in the app space right now

And it's arguably the fastest way to see whether your idea is good or not

Well I met a guy who executed this perfectly

I had zero experience with mobile apps so I wasn't sure it would work

Meet Umberto

He built a really simple mobile app but instead of launching with a free trial

he did something different

And in 24 hours he made over 100 000

This is the best way to validate your idea

Most people might tell you this strategy is a bad idea

but Umberto had a playbook and it worked

So I asked him to come on the channel to break it all down for me

And in this episode we will dive into how a very simple strategy

generated over 100 000 in a single day

the exact email sequence you can copy for your product

and why this strategy might be the smartest move for early stage products

If you're building something and planning on launching soon

then this is one that you cannot miss

All right let's dive in

I'm Pat Walls and this is Starter Story

All right guys before we dive in

if after watching this episode you feel inspired to build

well you're in luck

We built a nine day bootcamp that will take you from an idea

idea to a real working mobile app

and I'm gonna be talking a little bit more about that later

But for now let's dive into this awesome episode

All right Umberto welcome to the channel

Tell me who you are what you built and what's your story

Thank you I'm Umberto Fandorufloga

a mobile app for yoga teachers and practitioners

We pre launched it in May 2025 with a lifetime deal

and we generated over 120 000 in just 24 hours

And today I'm going to break down

exactly how we generated those 120 000 this fast

We're gonna talk all about launching your app

That's what hopefully this video is gonna be about

because you did this really well

But before we do I just want to understand what did you build

It's an app it's a product

Can you just show me what you built

and some of the revenue dashboards behind it

So Floga is an app for yoga teachers and practitioners

And here I can show you a revenue cut

what happened during the launch days

As you can see we launched on May 5th at 2 p m

So by the end of the day we generated 117 000

So now we have a recurring revenue business model

We have different tier

We have a monthly quarterly

quarterly that is available only on our website

and then a yearly subscription

So at the moment we have about 4 000 active users

between paid and free

Approximately right now

we're doing between 9 000 and 10 000 a month

Okay cool

Thanks for sharing all that Umberto

That's amazing that you built this

and crushed it on the launch

Let's go a little bit back to your background

How do you come up with this idea

How do you build this cool yoga app

that's crushing it right now

What's your background

So my path to building an app was not linear at all

I'm not a developer

I study economics

I had a brief experience in the corporate world

Then in 2012 I raised seed funding

for a startup that failed

And after that I stepped away from tech completely

I became a ski instructor

worked as a fashion photographer

So I did a bunch of things

And then I came back into the startup world around 2016

And at the time I was working as an advertiser

and growth strategist

And I helped several companies scale

And that's where I learned how to launch

and position products

Then in 2020 during COVID

my girlfriend and I created Playpose BA as a side gig

It was a brand focused on yoga decks of cards

cards that help yoga teachers and practitioners

build their sequences and practice them mindfully

We launched our first product on Kickstarter

and generated over 200 000 in the first month

And actually the whole brand was about

mindful screen free practice

So from there to basically launch a mobile app

was kind of a big plot twist even for me

But what happened about a year and a half ago

is that I started feeling that what we had built

till that moment could evolve in something bigger

And the question was

what if I took everything we created

created from the physical business

and transform it with technology okay

So bring it further with technology

without losing the mindful core

And one evening I literally sit down

I sketched the concept of an app

and thought okay we can make it

And a few months later I found a good developer

and then we start building Flogger

Okay cool

So you're kind of operating in this physical world

You've done some physical product launches on Kickstarter

Maybe you learned a little bit

about how to launch a product

which that's what this video is gonna be about today

Because when we chatted earlier

you mentioned that from essentially scratch

you generated over 100 000 in the first 24 hours

with this kind of launch playbook

this LTD playbook

which I think is like one of the most effective ways

to just get off the ground running

If you're launching an app

if you're launching a project

if you're launching anything

Can you tell me a little bit more about that

How are you able to build something

and then make 100 000 in essentially 24 hours

What happened

Okay so a lifetime deal basically is a deal

where a user pay for lifetime access to the app

So the first thing I did was to figure out

the long term vision of the app

and decide when we would have been ready

to start monetizing

And my approach here is always to monetize

as early as you can

So I prefer to build the product

and simultaneously building a revenue engine

that sustains it

We looked at what was the minimum set of features

that we needed to basically convince people

to get the lifetime deal

Then I planned the whole launch sequence

so email landing page videos

ad creatives so the full machine

At the same time

I also did some regeneration

to reach people that never heard about us

So there there was a totally different approach

And basically after a few weeks of warming up the audience

and showing of course the app

So basically what I did is to record a YouTube video

where I went through exactly

all the features present in the app

And I basically said

okay the app is gonna work like this right now

We're gonna develop these other features

If you want it you can get now lifetime

but there is absolutely no refund

If you wanna try it

you're gonna wait for a couple of months

till when we open the subscription plans

So we got around if I remember well

between 500 and 600 early customers

And that was extremely valuable

because if someone invested

is going to be interested in making the app work

So it's gonna give you some very good suggestion

It's gonna cheer you up even

So the value you get out of this is huge really

because a lot of feature we introduce in the next months

were based on the feedback we were receiving

from these early users

I've not done it without them

Personally I love how Umberto is sharing everything

about how he made 100 000 in a single day

But we can sit here and learn

from every launch strategy in the world

but none of that matters if you never build anything

And that is why we created the iOS Playbook

It's a nine day sprint where you will go from an idea

to a real working app in the App Store

And you'll do all that

without writing a single line of code yourself

We'll walk you through everything

generating ideas with AI building with AI

designing your app

and actually getting it live on the App Store

Once you build your app idea

then you can start putting Umberto's Launch Playbook

into practice

So if you're serious about building your first app

just hit that link in the description below

to start your nine day journey for free

All right let's get back to the episode

episode Okay yeah so this is the thing

that when I talk to a lot of founders

and they question doing a lifetime deal

like I'll never be able to get revenue

from these users in the future

But my feedback and what you mentioned there

is that the most important thing

is just to get people to care and commit to your app

and get these early users

Don't think about these users

as users you won't be able to get revenue in the future from

Think of these users as really really valuable data

and people that may spread the word about your app

or show your app to other people

And as long as you do the LTD over a short period of time

time you get to pull forward all these committed users

who may not actually use your app

if there was a free trial or they weren't there

So it's almost like building an early community

I think it's one of the best ways to launch an app

if you're bootstrapping like you are

So that's super cool

I wanna dive in a little deeper

to the actual launch sequence

because you mentioned that you were able

able to basically send out some emails

and then generate 100 000

love if you could dive in deeper

deeper to that launch sequence

Like what did the emails look like

What was the strategy

How were you able to generate 100 000

in essentially 24 hours

So here we have some of the emails

we sent during the pre launch sequence

The pre launch lasted for about a month and one week

These emails the most representative

we transformed them in some blog posts

And here there is a storytelling

We don't reveal anything yet but we create interest

And we put the basis for people to understand

what we're going to show them in the following weeks

Then in the second email

there is still some storytelling going on

but we reveal a bit more

Here we create a bit of confusion towards our users

our existing list

meaning that we put our physical product from the back

and then something in front

which they can suspect is another physical product

or something completely different

So we create a lot of curiosity

And then here there is another email

I don't remember if we sent other in the middle

These are just the most representative ones

But here we unveiled basically

what was behind the red curtain and we showed the app

And we explained pretty shortly why we did it

And we linked to a video where I present the app

at that specific moment

And yeah and then we build up towards the launch

and towards the end of the pre launch

as I like to call it

we explain how it's going to work with the lifetime deals

which are always limited in a number

and limited in timeframes

And this gives two levers to basically reduce

the procrastination that basically everyone has

And it works very very effectively

And another thing I never ever show the price product

before the day of launch

because otherwise people are going to make

the personal decision based on price

During the warm up campaign

they need only to evaluate the purchase of the product

based on the features and the long term vision

Okay if you put the price

you kind of ruin the whole thing

because there is gonna be this other element

that they cannot unsee anymore

And so never show the price before the actual launch date

Okay Umberto thank you for showing this

I mean this is amazing that you publish all this

on your blog for anyone to read

and be helpful for anyone who wants

to watch a lifetime deal

If you've made it this far into the video

I just wanna say that this right here is amazing

Like this is so helpful for people

who want to launch something and maximize that launch

If you're watching this

we'll put a link in the description

description for you to be able to download all these

My recommendation if you're launching anything

maybe take these copy them plug them into an LLM

and see how you can kind of build this sequence

for your product because the building of curiosity

and the positioning that you had is really really smart

And I imagine you learned a lot of this

from your experience with physical products and Kickstarter

This is something that I see a lot of people

successful with launches do something similar to this

So thank you for sharing that

I wanna talk a little bit more

about coming up with a great product idea

a product idea that's going to sell well

if you were to do a launch

What would be your playbook if you were starting over

with all your experience in building digital products

and having successful launches

What would be your playbook

if you had to start over right now

for anyone watching this who wants to have a great launch

Well step one validate before you build

Before you even write a line of code

or start building the actual product

I would talk to five to 10 people in your target market

Ask them about the problem you're trying to solve

but never tell them why you're asking

So you want an unbiased honest reaction okay

So in our case we did this

with some of our physical product customers

and we got some really good feedback

exactly because we didn't lead them

And there is a great book about how to do this properly

I suggest you to read it

It's called the MomFest

It's very simple

and it gives some interesting insight about this

As a second step

I would define your minimum launchable product

So once you have validated your idea

the next question is

what is the minimum development stage

where the app can convey

the app or the product can convey enough value

to get early adopters to pay for it

Once you know what that looks like

and also you have an estimate

of how long it takes to build it

you can start planning everything else

around that timeline

And then step three

build your content machine before you start promoting

That's extremely important

So before you start any lead generation or lead nurturing

you need the buffer of content ready to go

So email graphics videos landing pages all of it

And there is another important thing

which is put yourself in the user's shoes

because there are things that are obvious to you

that are building the product

but needs to be explained simply and clearly to the end user

Okay so for example

when we launched our physical products

nobody knew us

so we had to create trust

and also educate them on the specific platform

so that when they had to make the choice

they were ready to do it without hesitations or doubts

Step four pricing

This part is crucial

Don't just throw a number structure it

And I see a lot of founders that price it very low

because they are scared that nobody will buy

because the product is not ready and for other reasons

And I believe this is a mistake

mistake because you're leaving serious money on the table

So what I did was create three tiers

The first tier gave a lifetime access

to a limited set of features

and the price was around 109

The second tier in our case

we price it at around 199

and we included more features

And then the third tier

we give everything you plan to build

so the full vision

And in our case we price it at 349

Also the psychology here is that the first two tiers

actually help you sell the most expensive one

because they create a sort of reference okay

And they also capture those skeptical users

that are not really sure about the product

Then step six launch mechanics

I recommend you to be completely transparent

show how GAP is working

be clear about exactly what is there

what are the current limitation

and how also you plan to improve it

And then set a clear line so no refunds okay

Otherwise your lifetime deal get jeopardized

And if someone has some doubts of what to try first

they can wait for the subscription model

which is gonna come afterwards

Again another thing limit the time

and limit the number of spot

So five to seven days maximum in my opinion

This force people to make a decision

instead of procrastinating

And this worked very well

Okay cool

So I mean that's an awesome playbook

I think a lot of people watching this

especially if they're building Bootstrap

they're trying to have a great launch

to really kick off their product

and set it out for success

This is amazing so thank you for sharing that

I wanna push back a little bit

on the idea of lifetime deals

If you were to ask an investor

or someone that's more raising money for their business

they might say something like

lifetime deals are bad

because you're foregoing all future revenue from a customer

And on paper if someone were to value your business

they might say well actually it's not that valuable

because you've gotten all the revenue upfront

and then there's now no more opportunities

for revenue generation

So what do you think about this

Do you regret doing the lifetime deal at all

And what would be your response to this

So no I don't regret doing a lifetime deal

because I strongly believe that when you're early

don't have data you don't know your LTV

you don't know your churn

you basically have assumptions right

And a lifetime deal converts those assumptions

assumptions into real money in your bank account

There is another thing

that people don't talk about that much

This is incentives

Monthly subscribers have optionality okay

Lifetime buyer has commitment and this change everything

So someone paying month to month

if something breaks or if there is a bug

can just stop the subscription

give you maybe a bad review and no feedback

While somebody that purchased the app okay

is interested in making the app amazing

So they're gonna report bugs

they're gonna send detailed feedback

In our case we even created a Telegram group

with all these early adopters

and this has brought us enormous value

Last but not least

there is a lot of people that just hate subscriptions

Among these people

their willingness to pay lifetime

is easily three to five times more

compared to a yearly plan

So if you do the math right

early stage a lifetime deal

is the smartest move you can make

You're basically raising capital from your customers

without giving away equity control board seats

and getting amazing feedback

So I don't think there is anything better than this

Yeah I mean I agree

agree Sometimes I think about lifetime deals

as just a pricing strategy

If you can understand

if someone's gonna subscribe to your app for 24 months

what is the total amount of revenue

revenue you're gonna get from that

Well you can price your lifetime deal

collect that cash upfront

If you do that you're really not missing out

technically on revenue

So I think that's cool

I wanna switch topics a little bit

and understand what you built

Would you be able to give me a little demo

of this yoga app that you built

I'd love to see

Yes of course

This on the top is our first feature

It's called Sequence Builder

So you tap on yoga style and you have a bunch of poses

Okay this is Zata Vinyasa

It's very intuitive

You can swipe up to select the pose

You can filter by category chakras benefit

We even have an intelligent feature

which suggests you poses that make sense

after the one you have selected basically

And if you tap on a pose

you also have detailed videos

about how the pose is gonna work

There is a ton of useful information

for teachers and practitioners

And then tapping next you can personalize further

You can move things around

You can personalize the timer in each pose

right or left side

You can go on the detail again

and then you can start your practice

and you basically going to be guided

on your personalized practice that you have built

Cool okay

Well on that note I'd be curious

what's the tech stack behind this app

that generated 100 000 in about 24 hours

So we use Platter for development Firebase

which costs us around 25 a month

Then RevenueCat to handle subscription

And we host the video on Vimeo

We already have Vimeo for our other business

so the videos are there

And OneSignal for push notifications

Okay well thanks for sharing that

Last question that we ask all founders

to come on Starter Story

If you could go back in time and give yourself advice

before launching this digital product

or even before you got started in entrepreneurship

what would be your advice to young Umberto

or anyone watching this who wants to do what you do

Well stop waiting for perfect

Perfection is just fear disguised as preparation

The real breakthrough happens the moment you put something

which might be unfinished in front of real people

And then you get feedback

Feedback can be uncomfortable

And so if I could speak to myself to my old self

I'd say move sooner shoot earlier and trust the process

You learn faster in public

than you would ever do in private

Well that's great advice

Thank you Umberto for coming on

sharing all this being so open about the launch sequence

I think it's gonna be really helpful

for a lot of people watching

Let us know in the comments what you thought

about this launch strategy lifetime deals

I love it

Thanks for coming on

Thank you

Producer Gus what'd you think about this one

I thought the coolest part was

yeah I really like how you broke down

like all the email sequences

like how he warmed up his audience

It was really like tactical

and it's cool that he published all of them

So yeah that's kind of one of the first things

I'm thinking about after this interview is

wow like if I ever want to launch something

I'm just gonna go to his blog

and kind of check out what he wrote

and try to like implement that

That's the first thing

Yeah what did you think

The moment he said that I had experience

with Kickstarter launches

that everything clicked for me

I was like okay I see

This guy knows how to launch products

And so hopefully a lot of people watching this

realize that too and realize there's a lot

to learn from this

He took his experience launching a physical product

and collecting cash upfront

which is the whole concept of crowdfunding

And he sort of transferred that over to digital products

which are I think the future

and a great business to be building

I think this is an underrated strategy

I mean we have lots of videos on the channel

about lifetime deals

It's very like you know

know it's not the most traditional way of doing things

If you were to raise money as BC

they would say hell no never do this

But as a bootstrap business to get off the ground running

and be able to collect 100 000 upfront

that's a huge boost to the business

Not only are you collecting revenue

to help invest in the business

you're getting motivation to keep going

because you have all these customers

that are excited about it

and you have this roadmap you can build

And a lot of people want to crap on this strategy

but I actually think that you know

know just from what I see I talk to a lot of founders

a lot of really successful founders

that now have lots of MRR

and sell their business and all this stuff

They started with a lifetime deal

because it's a great way to get started

Yeah I was thinking about this you know

know it's a starter story

You know we've done a lot of these like email sequences

and like you know lifetime deal things

At certain times of the year

we've seen that like Black Friday or end of year

or some other like you know

know So we've kind of done this a lot

and I've been part of that

like writing the emails and getting that set up

A lot of people crap on this idea

but you've you know you slash we've done it a bunch

So what do you think

No I mean go sign up for most digital products

Look at companies that are like really successful ones

like companies that are doing millions per year

or sometimes even like billion dollar companies

Go sign up for their products or their emails

like under the free email list

And you'll notice that they send crazy amounts of emails

crazy amounts of deals

Go sign up for any e commerce product

and look at what happens during you know

know a Black Friday or Memorial sale

They're always running deals

they're always running discounts

and they're sending lots and lots of messages

messages over email and text

is marketing it's sales it's marketing right

This is what big companies do

I think a lot of people watching this are afraid

I don't wanna bother people

I don't wanna you know

know feel like I'm spamming them or whatever

but this is what you need to do if you're in marketing

If you go and see these huge companies doing it

you don't have to do it as aggressively as them

but it is what is essential to build a business

you know to stand out

in the sea of all these other products

So that would be my response to that is like

it's that's part of the game

We did it because I saw a lot of other people

who are very successful that were doing it as well

And people can just unsubscribe if they don't wanna see it

So thank you guys for watching

Let us know what you thought

about this lifetime deal strategy

I put a link in the description

to get a little bit more about this strategy specifically

and how to find an idea

that can make hundreds of thousands of dollars in 24 hours

I hope you enjoyed it

We'll see you in the next one

Peace

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