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He Made $10M with 3 iPhone Apps
Within two years of learning how to code using ChatGPT, Blake Anderson co-founded three AI-driven mobile apps—Riz GPT (\$2.5M ARR), Umax (\$5M ARR), and CI (\$1M+/month)—collectively grossing over ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u9u8yzPEpA
He Made $10M with 3 iPhone Apps

TL;DR

Within two years of learning how to code using ChatGPT, Blake Anderson co-founded three AI-driven mobile apps—Riz GPT ($2.5M ARR), Umax ($5M ARR), and CI ($1M+/month)—collectively grossing over $10 million in revenue by exploiting algorithm-driven short-form video distribution (TikTok/Instagram) and aggressive influencer outreach.

The Founder’s Story

Blake Anderson was always drawn to entrepreneurship, raking leaves, mining Ethereum in high school, and building meme pages. However, during college, he fell into a degenerate lifestyle of heavy drinking and drug use. Upon graduation, he found himself jobless, living back at his parents’ house, borrowing money from his older brother for groceries while his parents put the family home up for sale.

Determined to escape a standard 9-to-5, he set a goal to make $50,000 on his own within 12 months. In May and June of 2023, he taught himself how to code using ChatGPT. That single decision sparked a massive turnaround, resulting in multiple multi-million-dollar consumer applications.

The Building Process

  • Riz GPT: Built entirely by Blake in his parents’ basement, the dating assistant app was highly unpolished at launch—lacking push notifications, reviews, or optimized paywalls. Yet it served a clear, validated human problem: people on dating apps don’t know what to say. With the advent of LLMs, building a real-time dating assistant became possible.
  • Umax: An AI-driven “glow-up” application designed to analyze faces and give recommendations on how to look more attractive. Blake validated this niche by observing the high amount of money spent on physical grooming products (skincare, Gua Sha, hair care), proving that the niche converts.
  • CI: An AI assistant co-founded with two operational partners. Although Blake didn’t write the code for CI, he drove the design and strategic direction. CI scaled to over $1 million a month in revenue within 6 months.

Blake emphasizes using Figma with high-fidelity reference apps to model layouts, and building mobile products in React Native via the Expo framework inside Cursor as the primary IDE.

Launch & Marketing Strategy

  • Algorithmic Arbitrage (TikTok & Instagram): Blake notes that modern short-form video platforms (TikTok, Instagram) are locked in a bloodbath competition for attention, incentivizing them to push massive organic views to brand new creator accounts. This makes organic mobile app distribution highly solvable.
  • Micro-Influencer Promos: To launch Riz GPT, Blake paid two undiscovered creators just $50 each ($100 total) to post promos. Overnight, the videos gained 5 to 10 million views, driving 45,000 downloads in 24 hours, 500,000 downloads in month one, and generating $80k MRR instantly.
  • Relentless Influencer Outreach: Blake bypassed ignored DMs by searching for hidden Discord links in creator bios, messaging every 10 minutes until they replied, or even direct messaging the creators’ mothers on Instagram to secure partnerships.
  • Internal UGC: Rather than relying on expensive paid ads (which yield tight 0-30% margins), Blake utilizes internal UGC—hiring creators or filming videos in-house using CapCut to publish faceless slideshows or direct-to-camera pitches. This retains highly profitable 50–80% margins.
  • Paywall Split-Testing: Blake uses Superwall to relentlessly split-test price points (weekly, monthly, yearly options) and placements in the app, which frequently boosts lifetime value (LTV) per download by 1.5x to 2x.

Tech Stack

  • App Framework: React Native with Expo
  • Backend: Node.js
  • IDE & AI Tools: Cursor, ChatGPT
  • Design & Video: Figma, CapCut
  • Paywall Management: Superwall
  • Startup Banking: Mercury
  • Contracted Labor: Upwork (testing 5-10 contractors with 1-2 hour tasks and keeping only the absolute best performer)

Key Quotes & Metrics

  • Total Portfolio ARR: ~$19.5 Million (Riz GPT: $2.5M ARR; Umax: $5M ARR; CI: $1M+/month)
  • Umax Monthly Profit: $100k+ consistently
  • AI Cost Efficiency: Sub 3% of total revenue on LLM API costs (myth of high AI backend costs)
  • “English is the hottest programming language right now… if you feel like you have that dog in you, create a sense of urgency.”
  • “If you want to make the wrong decision, ask everybody.” (Quoting Naval Ravikant)

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