Launching and Monetizing a Mobile App with RevenueCat
Recently, I did something daring. I teamed up with total strangers to launch and monetize an IOS app, all within 2 weeks. This is how we did it.
The Hackathon
I joined a hackathon tagged “RevenueCat Subscription Hackathon” organized by a collaboration between MeltingHack Tokyo and RevenueCat. The objective of the hackathon was to build and publish a mobile app to the store in just a few days and monetize it. Where RevenueCat comes in is that they provide tools to manage subscriptions and handle purchases through an easy-to-use SDK.
The Idea and the team
I had been playing with an idea for a while. Imagine an assistant helping you organize and prioritize your tasks across multiple goals. This is a small part of a bigger framework I’m calling the Open Assistant Framework (OAF). I talked more about OAF in a previous article.
I pitched the idea at the opening of the hackathon and 3 other people were interested in joining the team, and together we became the TaskAlly team.
Mokoto, a solutions architect with a wealth of knowledge in the integration of 3rd party software into enterprise systems, focused on our integrations, subscription models and making sure that our app is ready to pass the scrutiny and the fine prints of the app store.
Misaki an iOS developer with a knack for UI/UX design, focused on the app’s UI and UX.
Reef, a web designer decided to focus on our design, branding, and landing page setup, and,
I, who focused on the backend, the AI core implementation and whatever was necessary to make the app a reality.
In hindsight, I would say we had the perfect team with each member in core areas. This helped us to work together well and complement each other’s skills.
To be able to achieve the goal of the hackathon, we decided to focus on the following core functionalities;
- The user is able to create tasks and goals with natural language. This means that from the user-assistant interaction, the assistant can create tasks and goals that can be tracked, managed, edited, and completed by the user.
- The assistant can give task suggestions based on the user’s goals.
- The assistant can prioritize tasks based on a combination of factors that we defined in the prioritization model. Factors such as deadline, priority, being part of a goal, and tags are combined to create a priority score for each task.
- The assistant is able to give task suggestions based on the user’s goals.
- Some functionalities are limited for free users and full functionalities are unlocked for paid users. This was achieved through the implementation of the RevenueCat monetization layer.
About RevenueCat Monetization
RevenueCat is a company that provides a subscription management platform designed for mobile apps. Their platform helps developers integrate and manage in-app purchases across multiple platforms like iOS, Android, and the web.
Some key features of RevenueCat’s platform include:
- Automated receipt validation: Ensures that in-app purchases are correctly processed.
- Customizable paywalls: Allows developers to create and manage subscription offers.
- Analytics and dashboards: Tracks important metrics such as subscriber growth, churn rates, and revenue per user (ARPU).
- Cross-platform support: Manages subscriptions across multiple platforms seamlessly.
RevenueCat’s tools are used in over 30,000 apps worldwide, handling more than 1.2 billion API requests daily.
To enable each team to get started easily, and achieve the goal of the hackathon, each team was given a grant of 100,000 JPY (around 710 USD). This will be spent on development tools, services, and anything else needed to build the app.
For more information about RevenueCat implementation please see the documentation. It is really easy to read.
Ahead of the app launch, we are now allowing beta testers. please join the waiting list for the app at https://taskally.work
What Next?
This was an interesting idea to work on. Coupled with an exciting team and incredible motivation from the organizers. We want to keep building the app by focusing on the following in the next few weeks.
- Keep validating the idea and the product-market fit.
- Improving the app’s UI and UX for the current core functionality.
- Evaluate the use cases of initial users and narrow down to more important user segments.
If you are interested in any part of this, please contact me. I will be happy to touch base on any topics. Watch out for more updates in the future.
