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TL;DR
Steven Cravotta builds mobile apps without writing a line of code, in four phases — idea/research → design → development → marketing. Lifetime $683k+ App Store revenue, ~$30k/mo, with under 2 hours/day of work. The build (real-time demo of an AI macro tracker) costs <$5k via 99designs + Upwork.
Phase 1 — idea & validation
- Solve a problem you have (Puff Count came from his own college vaping addiction). Solving a problem makes the app valuable and marketable.
- Validate with: Sensor Tower (competitor revenue — My Fitness Pal $10M/mo, etc. proves a market), Google Trends (interest trending up), and social media virality.
- Competition is good — it proves people make money in the niche.
- Brain-dump everything into a Google Doc (features, pages, competitors), then sketch a paper wireframe.
Phase 2 — design (no design skills)
- Upload the brief + wireframe sketches to a 99designs contest (~$600–900). Get 60–90 designs from many designers, pick the best (vs working with one designer). Winner delivers Figma/Photoshop files.
Phase 3 — development (no coding)
- Hire on Upwork, not Fiverr. Post a fixed-price job (~$3,500), React Native, scope “medium” (1–3 months), expert level.
- Hire from Eastern Europe — high quality, ~50% of US cost. Require 90%+ job success and non-zero earnings; avoid agencies unless budget is large.
- Always fixed price, never hourly — pay only when the app is live, bug-free, in the App Store. 15-min vetting call first.
Phase 4 — marketing (covered in how-i-market-apps-that-print-30k)
TikTok organic market research → hard paywall + Superwall → scale with paid ads → his own creator platform Posted.
Related
- outsourced-app-building — the 99designs + Upwork no-code build, in depth
- idea-validation · micro-saas · steven-cravotta
- how-i-market-apps-that-print-30k · print-money-with-apps-full-course