My Mobile App Can Build Websites And Makes $5K/Mo
I’m Matthew, founder of Watermelon, a website builder platform powered by AI that allows small businesses and entrepreneurs to create fully functional websites including a landing page and topical pages quickly using their mobile devices. Currently, you can only create your website using the free iOS app.
Over the past 5 years, I have created several products and apps many of which failed and didn’t work out while a few such as my Sugarfree App generated some income and downloads in the healthcare niche. I currently work as a product manager in the health tech industry in Australia freelancing on contracts that are mostly SaaS or native mobile-based while building and growing my product portfolio with a goal of $10k MRR in the next 6 months.
Both products Sugarfree and Watermelon make around $8k MRR (USD) combined. Watermelon being the newer makes $5k MRR of the total due to me focusing the most over the last few months.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
I have a background in UX and Product Management working in Australia, the USA, and the UK. I have tried creating several products ranging from education to event-style discovery apps. One common thing was the difficulty creating the first prototype or MVP - having to outsource or finding the time to collaborate with others. I felt I had the design sense but lacked development and marketing skills for distribution.
During the infamous lockdown period 2020-2022 due to coronavirus, I started to learn to code using Flutter which is a cross-platform native framework, spending a good 2 or 3 years building on my development skills. One of the apps I created was a Linktree clone app as I saw an opportunity on the app stores where Linktree had not created a native mobile app (just yet). A few months after I launched my app Linktree launched their app on the stores which saw others similar fall out of the top ASO rankings and downloads.
I received most feedback from my users during this time where many wanted to create fully functional websites easily using their mobile device as they didn’t have constant access to a desktop computer. I decided to pivot and create Watermelon! - A website builder that creates a landing page and service pages based on customers' business niches.
The idea I validated by looking closely at my conversion metrics, even though I currently get a low amount of installs for the website builder the users that do sign up usually end up purchasing a yearly subscription and connecting a custom domain.
I think with the advancements of chatGPT it is now much easier to learn to code. And low-code tools like Bubble make it much easier to validate and build products without much development knowledge.
Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.
After gathering feedback from my Linktree clone I organized the feedback into common topics and what was most said. I also ran a survey where I gained interest from users of the clone app, these users I sent an email when Watermelon was launched and would become some of the first customers of Watermelon.
Common pain points that influenced the features for the first version were wanting to add a custom domain, creating pages, and adding images and information on their small business. Most of these users that sent feedback were small business owners where the Linktree clone targeted creators and the influencer market.
Figma discovery and first mockups
I mocked up the designs in Figma from onboarding through to how the product would look and function, carefully thinking of how I could simplify creating a website for small business owners with AI being the solution for content generation and allowing users to get a site live quickly.
This is a pretty messy process as seen by my figma artboard above. Being quick and messy at this stage allows me to move into code quicker and I won’t be so attached to the designs. As I’m a pretty amateur developer I have to usually change the UX to take an easier path that’s simpler for me to code.
Decided on using Flutter and launching on iOS only for now as it is quicker than configuring for both iOS and Android. I used Flutter Web for my customers' websites in the first version, this was a decision to get the MVP out quicker, and later I used Sveltekit for the web as this is more suitable for speed and SEO.
Flutter development vscode
When creating the app I would think about feedback loops such as asking for a review during the ‘aha’ moment when a user taps their share website link. Push notifications to prompt users back into the app and the onboarding guide tutorial. Also being a website builder having my website link on each of my customer sites helps with SEO link juice when they have a custom domain.
The only costs so far are hosting costs and other SaaS products I use such as Ahrefs for SEO, Chat GPT pro, and API all totaling around $300 per month.
Describe the process of launching the business.
I did a soft launch and decided to focus on ASO as my first acquisition channel on the app store. I ran a few Apple search ads yet the CPC was too high to be sustainable in the long term. There were no development or design costs due to me creating the app. I think a lesson learned is if you have a mobile app to focus on SEO as well as ASO where you can create a funnel from web2App downloads.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
SEO and ASO as mentioned above are my main acquisition channels, it can take much longer to see the benefits but the constant organic traffic is beneficial for a solo indie creator like myself where I don’t have the $ for paid campaigns.
I’m not very good at social media marketing and briefly tried to create some TikTok content but none of this resulted in many downloads of the app. I believe that if your social accounts do not have much activity then don’t bother with social media as you may likely fail in that channel too.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
I see I will be over 10K MRR in the next few months with a target to hit 20K MRR by the end of the year. I will keep the focus on ASO, learning using YouTube ASO best practices, creating content that targets low-competition keywords, and trying a few programmatic SEO techniques. I will also experiment with some Google paid search campaigns and try to get that channel working.
Most of my customers subscribe to the yearly paid plan, which does affect MRR, possibly I will focus on ARR. Operations are very lean at the moment with a focus on distribution and only building key features that my users request, I will keep it that way for this year.
Plan to release the app on Android once I see growth on iOS possibly at the 20k MRR milestone. I have found that only 20% of revenue comes from Android so it only makes sense to build for this platform when the time is right.
Optimizing for different languages is another task that I will do in the coming months to boost my ASO internationally.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
When Linktree released their iOS and Android apps caused me to think more creatively about how I could pivot while still being in the same market as this is what I have enjoyed. The start was difficult but some thorough planning and decisions on what and how I would build have made me focus on what I need to do next.
Distribution and Marketing are something I have had trouble with so over the last few months I have been learning as much as I can about SEO.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
I use Flutter to create mobile apps as dart programming language was the easiest for me to learn coming from a design background due to the declarative way it is structured made the most sense. Firebase I always use it as it is easy to use and has great analytics plus some nice features such as In App Messaging and remote push notifications and integrates with Firebase Cloud functions which I use for custom backend functions. Brevo for transactional email as the API’s were easy to understand with a free plan that allows 300 emails per day.
Google App Engine with a load balancer was needed due to allowing custom domains for my users. Cloudflare for Hosting the custom domains and auto-authoring SSL/HTTPS for customer websites. Cloudflare custom domains are free for the first 100 then only 10c each after. Message me if you are looking to create custom domains for your users as I found it difficult to find how to do this by searching Stackoverflow or search.
Mixpanel for product analytics, the free version has worked well for me so far. Sveltekit I use for my user's websites as this has Server Side Rendering (SSR) which allows fast loading and is SEO optimized, plus I find it developer-friendly compared to next.js.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
Hooked by Nir Eyal: Great lessons in product design and psychology, Nir has developed a neat framework that uses our behavioral patterns to build habits in which we want to keep coming back and using certain apps or products. - I tend to use the model in his books quite a bit when thinking about why and if I should build a feature.
The E-type Revisited by Michael E. Gerber: I liked this one as it explains that being skilled as a ‘technician’ is not always good in building a business. Michael explains how to think more like an entrepreneur which will give some insight into how to approach business problems.
Lean Startup by Eric Ries: You pretty much have to read this one before doing anything. Explains the whole end-to-end process of customer validation through to launching a startup.
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman: If you don’t know much about UX design this one teaches the fundamentals while giving physical examples of products such as VCRs (remember those?). Don Norman is said to be the grandfather of UX design if there was one. Old book but completely relevant to online apps.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
I think with the advancements of chatGPT it is now much easier to learn to code. I feel like the barrier of entry to learn coding is lower so it does make sense to start building your products. Also, low-code tools like Bubble make it much easier to validate and build products without much development knowledge.
If you are a marketer or salesperson with knowledge of how to build acquisition funnels you will have an advantage in creating new products. Read the cookie cutter books like Lean Startup, Zero to One, The Mom Test, Hooked, etc.. to gain an understanding and theory then start to build something you want using the principles outlined in those startup books while gaining customer insight of course.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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