100: Launch Center Pro & Sub Club — David Barnard

On the podcast: David Barnard shares how he went from recording engineer to one of the App Store’s earliest indie developers, building apps for the iPhone since 2008. He talks about borrowing $20,000 to start his company, turning Mirror into a million-dollar app through App Store search, why Launch Center Pro was more influential than profitable, and the lessons that eventually led him to RevenueCat.

Top Takeaways:

💸 Fame and revenue are different metrics

An app can live in people's docks for years, get covered by every major outlet, and gross $1M over its life while never paying its maker a tech salary.

🔍 Own one search term and you own a foundation

A single high-intent App Store query, held for years, can quietly fund every other experiment you want to run.

✉️ Pitch their audience, not your story

Three short paragraphs about why a writer's readers will care beats five pages about how much you need the coverage.

🤝 Write the partnership exit before you need it

Decide up front who does what and what happens when one of you stops doing it, because unwinding a 50/50 split is where it gets ugly.

🎯 Build the reason your app exists first

Covering the category's table stakes before the thing that makes you different is a sequencing mistake that can sink a good app.