Social Media App Business

3 Social Media App Business Success Stories [2024]

Pat Walls

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Updated: October 9th, 2024

In today's digital age, launching a social media app is an exciting opportunity with immense potential.

At its core, this business idea involves creating a platform where users can connect, share, and interact with content from around the world. Whether it's focused on niche communities or broad audiences, your app could fill existing market gaps or offer unique features that current platforms lack.

The market for social media is continually evolving, driven by trends and user behavior. Building a successful app requires thorough market research, innovative design, and a clear monetization strategy through ads, subscriptions, or in-app purchases. The development phase will involve hiring skilled developers or partnering with a tech firm, alongside an effective marketing plan to attract and retain users.

This venture appeals particularly to those with a passion for tech and community-building. It offers both challenges and rewards, promising a dynamic and potentially lucrative journey. If you’re ready to innovate and adapt, a social media app can be a compelling business to develop.

In this list, you'll find real-world social media app business success stories and very profitable examples of starting a social media app business that makes money.

1. OneUp ($1.2M/year)

Davis Baer, the co-founder of OneUp, came up with the idea for the social media scheduling tool after experiencing the dissatisfaction and boredom of working in the corporate finance world. He wanted to create a tool that would automate time-consuming tasks and help businesses increase visibility on social media. Baer used unorthodox marketing techniques, such as creating a spreadsheet comparing 90 different scheduling tools, to attract and retain customers.

How much money it makes: $1.2M/year
How many people on the team: 4

How Davis Baer Used Unorthodox Marketing To Reach $1,000 MRR

OneUp is a social media scheduling tool that helps businesses make more money by automating time-consuming tasks, allowing you to schedule Google My Business, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn posts, with the unique feature of allowing for posts to be set on repeat automatically.

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2. SocialBu ($144K/year)

Usama, the CEO and co-founder of SocialBu, came up with the idea for his social media management platform while freelancing as a developer and managing social media accounts. He saw a need for a more powerful and affordable solution, so he built a simple tool that gained traction and eventually led him to create SocialBu. Since its launch, the bootstrapped company has made $300K in revenue and has plans for future improvements and features.

How much money it makes: $144K/year
How much did it cost to start: $2K
How many people on the team: 6

How I Leveraged My Coding Skills And Built A $144K/Year Business

Social media management platform SocialBu is 100% bootstrapped and has made about $300K since its launch, and CEO Usama shares his process of building a social media management tool that solved a real problem and attracted users through online communities and organic traffic.

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3. MiloTreeCart ($72K/year)

Jillian Leslie, co-founder of MiloTree Easy Payments, came up with the idea while running her first online company, Catch My Party. She needed to grow her Pinterest followers for traffic and monetization and built the MiloTree pop-up app to solve that problem. Based on the success and feedback from their own experience, they expanded MiloTree to help other bloggers and creators grow their real followers on multiple platforms.

How much money it makes: $72K/year
How much did it cost to start: $1.5K
How many people on the team: 2

We Solved Our Own Problem And Built An App That Helps Grow Your Social Media Following [$72K/Year]

Jillian Leslie launched two businesses, Catch My Party and MiloTree, to grow her social media followers and monetize her content, and recently launched MiloTree Easy Payments, a platform to help creators monetize their expertise, which is projected to generate $40k ARR by year's end.

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Read by 4,950 founders