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TL;DR
Chris turned a simple cross-platform side project, Wishlist, into a highly profitable $150,000/year business with a 99% profit margin, enabling him to quit his full-time app development job. Over a six-year marathon (spanning university and a 9-to-5 job), Chris grew his user base to 1.1 million registered users with zero standard marketing spend. His growth was fueled entirely by building for users, integrating a high-touch user-support review loop, and leveraging winter seasonality.
The Founder’s Story
In 2019, while at university, Chris wanted to work as an app developer for a cool bike startup. Despite having no mobile development experience, he applied anyway. The startup declined his application but praised his enthusiasm. This rejection motivated Chris to teach himself app development.
To avoid building a generic to-do list app, Chris built a mobile-friendly wishlist app to replace the clunky Excel sheet he used to track his Christmas and birthday wishes. Chris spent three years in university and another two and a half years working a full-time 9-to-5 developer job while building Wishlist on the side. In 2025, he negotiated a 4-day work week with his employer, and shortly after, quit his job to run Wishlist full-time.
The Building Process
Chris developed Wishlist using Flutter for cross-platform efficiency and Firebase for backend operations. While it took him nearly a year to ship the first MVP (2020), his messy initial codebase forced him to rebuild and relaunch Wishlist 2.0 in 2023.
Structured Side-Hustle Routine:
- Morning (8:00 AM – 9:00 AM): Answered support emails, checked analytics, and reviewed bug reports.
- Day (9:00 AM – 6:00 PM): Maintained his full-time employment as a mobile developer.
- Night (8:00 PM – 11:00 PM+): Dedicated to active feature development, coding, and system upgrades (especially during winter months).
- Working Holidays: Traveled with other motivated developers and peer groups to stay social and productive.
Launch & Marketing Strategy: The Support-to-Review Loop
Operating with zero budget and self-proclaimed “bad developer marketing skills,” Chris grew Wishlist entirely through word of mouth and highly optimized App Store reviews:
- The In-App Review Timing: Instead of annoying users with immediate pop-ups, Chris prompts in-app review requests only after a positive accomplishment (e.g., immediately after a user successfully adds or fulfills a wish).
- The Support-to-Review Loop: Chris integrated a direct support system from day one. He maintained a spreadsheet of every customer email and feature request. Whenever he fixed a specific bug or shipped a requested feature, he emailed the user personally: “Hi John, I just implemented the feature you requested. Let me know what you think.” Once the user replied with enthusiastic positive feedback, only then would Chris ask: “Would you mind leaving a review on the App Store?”
- Dual Monetization Strategy:
- In-App Purchases (IAP): Premium memberships unlock design features, like custom wishlist background images.
- Automatic Affiliate Link Injection: When users paste a shopping product link (e.g., from Amazon) to add a wish, the app automatically converts it into Chris’s custom affiliate link, taking a commission on any resulting purchase.
Technology Stack
- Cross-Platform Framework: Flutter
- Coding IDE: Cursor & ChatGPT
- Backend & Analytics: Google Firebase
- In-App Purchases: RevenueCat
- User Feedback Board: Frill (“thrill”)
- Deep Linking: AppsFlyer / OneLink (“One link”)
- Accounting Software: sevDesk (“selfesk” - German accounting platform)
Key Quotes & Metrics
- Annual Revenue: $150,000/year (low season average: $6,000/month | high season: multiplies up to 5x, reaching ~$30,000/month during Christmas)
- Registered Users: 1.1 million
- Monthly Active Users (MAU): 110,000
- Paying Customers: 4,000+ premium subscribers (plus affiliate shopping revenue)
- Profit Margins: 99% (virtually zero overhead besides server and software costs)
- “Monetization should not be your priority. Users first, monetization later. Most importantly, just have fun—it’s a side project.”
- “Do not overcomplicate things. Not everyone has to fly to Mars… Find a problem you can solve by yourself… even if that just means making a prettier version of an existing app.”
Related Frameworks & Playbooks
- micro-saas — Hyper-focused single-purpose SaaS and niche monopolies