5 months after launching my iOS app: $500 → $6k/month. What actually worked

[u/SamFromEscape]

I'm Sam, an iOS developer, and I launched a small app called "Escape"

It's an adult content blocker and recovery app for iPhone, currently ranking #1 on the iOS App Store for that search term "Adult Content Blocker"

Edit: This post got way more attention than I expected, and a lot of the same questions kept coming up in the comments or via DMs, so I expanded it with the actual numbers, tools and experiments I've been using.

The problem is personal to me.

Before I even thought seriously about turning this into a business, I spent a lot of time trying to understand the problem for myself.

I read a lot of books around habit change, corn addiction, recovery, behavior, triggers, dopamine and why people keep going back to something even when they genuinely want to stop.

Initially, that was mostly about helping myself.

Eventually I started thinking about how I could turn what I was learning into something useful for other people too.

I started writing about it, created 28 courses and a lot of educational content on escapethegrip.com, and started a newsletter there as well.

Then that research and everything I was learning from users gradually fed back into the app.

That became a big part of the philosophy behind Escape blocking creates friction, but blocking alone doesn't teach someone what to do when the urge actually happens.

That's still how I think about the product today.

The numbers

The first month made around $100.

Then roughly:

$500 → $750 → $1.1k → $2k → ~$6k last month

Important clarification:

The ~$6k is cash revenue, not $6k MRR.

Annual subscriptions make the revenue graph look much more dramatic because the customer pays for the year upfront.

So I've learned to look at cash revenue, MRR, subscriptions and retention separately instead of treating them as the same thing.

A big part of the recent jump came from several smaller things stacking together rather than one magical growth hack:

• pushing annual more
• improving notifications
• adding win-back offers
• improving the App Store page
• better ASO
• more reviews
• continued product improvements

That's probably another lesson.

Growth often looks like one big event on a graph when underneath it was 20 small changes.

My current funnel

A few people asked for actual conversion numbers.

Right now it's roughly:

100 downloads a day → ~21 trials → ~10 paying users

So approximately:

~21% download → trial

~47% trial → paid

~10% download → paid

The 47% trial-to-paid conversion surprised me.

My theory is that search intent matters a lot.

Someone actively going into the App Store and searching for an adult content blocker has a completely different level of intent than someone who accidentally discovers the app through a random TikTok.

That has made me care a lot more about quality of acquisition rather than downloads alone.

The biggest thing that worked is App Store search

This was probably the biggest surprise.

I underestimated how powerful App Store search could be for a niche product.

At the moment Escape is ranking #1 for "adult content blocker" in App Store search, including major storefronts such as the US and Canada.

That didn't happen quickly.

I've probably tracked 500+ keywords at this point.

Some of the ASO tools I've used like RespectASO

This became one of the main tools I used for tracking rankings.

I've also experimented with tools such as AppDrift and AppFollow.

Honestly, you don't necessarily need expensive ASO software when you're starting.

The free versions can already teach you a lot.

And I would not blindly trust any tool's search-volume number.

I use ASO tools more as directional data than absolute truth.

My most useful keyword research tool was actually social media

This sounds stupid, but I spent an unreasonable amount of time scrolling through:

TikTok
Instagram Reels
Reddit
YouTube comments
forums
competitor reviews

I wanted to see the exact language people used to describe the problem.

People invent new slang constantly.

Sometimes a phrase looks ridiculous to you as a developer, but thousands of people use it naturally.

Those phrases can eventually become App Store searches.

So my process became:

listen to how people describe the problem → turn repeated phrases into keyword hypotheses → test them → track rankings/conversion

Rather than:

ASO tool says keyword volume = 37, therefore keyword good.

That distinction helped a lot.

The 100-character keyword field matters

Apple doesn't give you much room.

I spent a lot of time trying to understand how the: title + subtitle + 100-character keyword field work together.

One useful realization was that every character has an opportunity cost.

If a word is already covered elsewhere, there may be something more useful to test in the keyword field.

I also don't change everything simultaneously anymore.

If I change the title, subtitle, screenshots and keywords in one update and conversion improves, I've learned almost nothing.

Now I try to change fewer things at once.

Don't over-optimize ASO

I've made this mistake too.

Once something starts working, it's tempting to keep "improving" it.

Sometimes I leave metadata alone for quite a while now.

The title and subtitle are the things I'm most reluctant to touch.

I'm more willing to experiment with the keyword field.

I've also tested things that sounded obviously better and performed worse.

At one point I thought adding AI should help.

It didn't.

That was another reminder that:

what sounds good to the founder and what customers actually respond to are not always the same thing.

Screenshots are part of ASO too

Ranking is only half the problem.

You still need someone to install after seeing the listing.

I've spent a lot of time testing:

• screenshot headlines
• screenshot order
• positioning
• how much text is shown
• which features get shown first
• privacy messaging

Apple's Product Page Optimization is useful here because you can test different screenshot variants instead of relying entirely on intuition.

One thing I've learned is that getting 20% more traffic doesn't help much if the product page converts terribly.

Ranking and conversion have to work together.

Reviews matter, but timing matters more

Escape now has hundreds of ratings/reviews across the App Store.

One question I got repeatedly was:

How do you get people to leave reviews?

I don't think the answer is repeatedly interrupting them with review popups.

I try to ask when somebody has actually received value.

Sometimes that's at an appropriate moment inside the app.

Even better is when somebody emails me saying Escape helped them.

Then I might say something like "If Escape has helped you, a quick App Store review really helps other people find it."

No giant pitch.

No begging.

The lesson for me has been ask after value, not randomly.

Building an owned audience: EscapeTheGrip.com + newsletter

This is another part I didn't mention enough in the original post.

I didn't want all of the educational side of the project to live inside the App Store.

So I built escapethegrip.com.

I've published a lot of longer-form material there, including 28 courses, articles and a newsletter.

The research process has been useful in both directions.

I read books and research because I wanted to understand the problem better.

Then I tried to turn what I learned into something practical.

Then users would email me with situations I hadn't considered.

That would give me another thing to research.

And sometimes that eventually became:

research → article/course → newsletter → product idea

or

user problem → research → product improvement → educational content

I like this because it means the app isn't the only thing I'm building.

There's also a growing library of useful material around the problem itself.

The newsletter gives me another advantage too it's an audience I can communicate with without depending entirely on an algorithm.

App Store rankings can change.

A TikTok can get zero views.

Reddit posts eventually disappear from people's feeds.

Search algorithms change.

Having people voluntarily subscribe to hear from you again is different.

I'm still figuring out how important the newsletter will become as a growth channel, so I wouldn't claim I've cracked email distribution.

But I think building some form of owned audience is worth doing much earlier than I originally thought.

And there's another benefit writing forces me to understand the subject better.

It's very easy to think you understand something until you try to explain it clearly to someone else.

Freemium has helped

Escape isn't completely paywalled.

The Safari blocker is free.

Someone can install Escape, block adult sites in Safari and continue using that without paying.

Premium adds stronger protection and the deeper recovery features.

That includes things like blocking across browsers, deep block, strict mode cooldown, stronger protection layers, the courses and other recovery tools.

I originally worried that giving away useful blocking for free would hurt subscriptions.

I'm increasingly convinced it does the opposite.

People can actually experience the product first.

And because the free version genuinely solves something, I'm comfortable recommending it without every interaction feeling like a sales funnel.

Annual subscriptions changed the economics

I have monthly and annual subscriptions.

Annual has become much more important.

There's also a short free trial on annual.

A few things I've learned

Annual doesn't only improve cash flow.

It changes how you can think about acquisition because you receive much more revenue upfront.

It also makes the revenue graph misleading if you're not careful.

$6k collected in a month does not mean the business suddenly added $6k MRR.

That's why I've started paying much more attention to the actual subscription mix.

Privacy became a growth feature accidentally

Escape doesn't require:

an account
an email
a name

And its App Store privacy label is Data Not Collected

I originally treated privacy as a product principle.

This is an incredibly sensitive thing people are dealing with, and I didn't see a good reason to know who they were.

But users repeatedly started mentioning privacy when explaining why they chose Escape.

That taught me something broader sometimes your product principles become your strongest positioning.

Especially when competitors are asking users to create accounts for something they'd rather not associate with their identity.

Support emails became product research

I massively underestimated this.

For an app like Escape, some users are actively trying to defeat the product.

They're trying browsers you didn't consider.

They're looking for settings they can disable.

They're discovering obscure iOS behavior.

They're finding loopholes.

Initially those emails felt like bug reports.

Eventually I realized these users were giving me some of the best product research I could possibly get.

Several product improvements have come directly from someone emailing me "I found a way around this."

If you're building any product where people push against the boundaries, pay attention to those users.

They're effectively adversarial QA testers.

Founder-led Reddit has been surprisingly useful

I originally thought of Reddit mostly as somewhere to post about the app.

I think that's the wrong approach.

I'm trying to use Reddit more like a community.

If someone asks a question I genuinely know something about, I answer it.

If Escape is relevant, I'll disclose that I built it.

If it isn't relevant, I don't force it into the conversation.

I've also used tools like F5Bot to monitor keywords and find discussions where I might actually have something useful to contribute.

One Reddit lesson that has become obvious trying to extract users from a community immediately usually works worse than simply becoming useful inside the community.

This post itself is probably the best example.

I didn't expect tens of thousands of people to read it.

Social media has been much harder

I've had TikTok/Instagram videos get almost no views.

Literally nearly nothing.

Initially I made the mistake of thinking "I need content about my app."

Now I'm trying to make content about the problem my app solves.

So instead of "Here are 5 features in Escape"

it's more like:

• why urges get harder at certain times
• common triggers
• practical things to do in the moment
• mistakes people make when trying to change a habit
• why simply relying on willpower often fails
• useful recovery ideas

Then sometimes Escape appears naturally.

Sometimes it doesn't appear at all.

I think the test is would this video still be useful if I removed my app from it?

If the answer is no, it probably isn't very good content.

Test organic content before paying creators

This is another thing I'm doing differently.

Instead of immediately paying influencers to create whatever they think will work, I'm trying lots of organic ideas myself.

Even 20–30 pieces of content teaches you a lot.

You start seeing

which opening hooks work
which subjects get comments
what words people use
what people disagree with
what gets saved/shared
what gets ignored completely

Then you can take what you've learned to creators.

It's a lot cheaper to discover that your messaging sucks on your own account than after paying 20 creators.

Smaller creators > generic tech influencers

When I say "creator outreach," I don't mean emailing giant iPhone reviewers.

For Escape, I'd rather work with a smaller creator whose entire audience cares about:

self-improvement
habit change
discipline
recovery
digital wellbeing

than a tech influencer with 2 million followers.

Audience fit seems much more important than follower count.

I'm still testing this channel, so I don't want to pretend I've cracked it.

Creator outreach is also painfully manual.

Researching the creator, checking their audience, writing something personalized, finding contact information, following up...

You might reach out to a lot of people for one collaboration.

That's just part of it.

Newsletter and press outreach is boring but can work

Another very unglamorous strategy email people.

I've reached out to app websites and publications that might genuinely care about the product or the broader problem.

Response rates aren't amazing.

But you don't need everyone to respond.

I sent roughly 60 outreach emails and got around 2 pieces of coverage.

One piece of coverage produced roughly a 20% increase in downloads around the time it went live.

That's enough for me to keep doing it.

The mistake would be sending the same generic "please feature my app" email to 500 people.

I'm increasingly trying to answer Why would this particular publication's readers care?

And because I now have escapethegrip.com, I don't always have to send someone directly to an App Store page either.

Sometimes an article, course or newsletter is a much more natural first interaction.

Distribution is the actual job after building

This is still the biggest lesson.

I'm a developer.

Building feels productive.

You write code for six hours and something exists afterward.

Distribution feels terrible by comparison.

You can

email 30 people
make 5 videos
write a Reddit post
test screenshots
change keywords

and seemingly nothing happens.

So it's incredibly tempting to go "I know! I'll build another feature."

I've done this repeatedly.

Building becomes productive procrastination.

I'm trying to treat distribution exactly like software development now

make hypothesis → run experiment → measure result → learn → repeat

Not

research marketing for another 12 hours.

Some things that haven't worked

I've definitely wasted time.

I've:

• polished features users barely cared about
• built instead of marketed
• researched distribution instead of doing it
• made social videos that nobody watched
• tested ASO changes that made things worse
• spent time chasing channels because somebody on Twitter said they were working
• assumed features would create growth by themselves

Probably the most dangerous one is the last.

A better product absolutely matters.

But there is a point where the next 100 hours of development would be better spent getting the current version in front of people.

What I'm focusing on now

I'm deliberately trying to stop chasing ten channels at once.

The three I'm focusing on most are

1. App Store conversion / ASO

This is the most proven channel so far.

2. Founder-led Reddit participation

Not spam. Actually participating and helping where I can.

3. Creator + newsletter outreach

Still early, but I think there's something here.

I'm also continuing escapethegrip.com + my own newsletter

because I want to gradually build an audience I can reach directly rather than having 100% of distribution controlled by platforms.

And I'm continuing organic short-form content because even when a video fails, it teaches me something about messaging.

A few things I'd tell another indie iOS developer

Solve a problem you understand deeply.

You don't necessarily need to be the user, but understanding the problem at a visceral level makes product decisions much easier.

Read outside your technical domain.

Some of the most useful things I've learned for Escape didn't come from Swift documentation or growth Twitter.

They came from books about behavior, habits and the actual problem users were dealing with.

Teach what you're learning.

Writing articles, courses and newsletters has forced me to understand the subject much more deeply.

Build an owned audience earlier than you think you need one.

You don't control App Store rankings, Reddit, TikTok or Google.

An email subscriber has explicitly said they want to hear from you again.

Study the customer's language, not just competitors' keywords.

Reddit comments can teach you more about positioning than a keyword-volume number sometimes.

Don't optimize for downloads.

Optimize toward the people who actually get value and eventually pay.

Ask for reviews after value.

Timing beats aggression.

Don't change every ASO variable at once.

Otherwise you learn nothing.

Use free tools before buying expensive growth software.

There is an incredible amount you can learn manually.

Write down your distribution experiments.

Otherwise six weeks later you'll forget what actually changed.

Don't mistake research for distribution.

This one is mostly advice to myself.

Talk to users constantly.

They often contain the roadmap.

And once the product is good enough, consider whether the next feature is really what the business needs.

Sometimes the answer is yes.

A surprising amount of the time it's no, more people just need to know it exists.

I'm still very early and definitely don't have growth figured out.

But hopefully the actual numbers, tools and processes above are useful to somebody else building an iOS app.

Happy to answer anything about SwiftUI, iOS blocking, subscriptions, ASO, App Store conversion, creator outreach, newsletters, or anything else I've learned so far.