Launched by RevenueCat

On the podcast: Ranjith Ramanan and Kamal Kumar share how a Formula 1 widget concept posted on Twitter became Box Box Club, the F1 app that Mercedes tweeted about and Charles Leclerc was spotted using. They talk about how a fan's TikTok fueled the early growth, why users asking to pay led to a subscription, how day-one lock screen widgets turned one tweet into 250,000 downloads, what they learned from a legal notice from Formula 1, how going full-time led to GO Club, and the bigger vision for their company, Arkade Club.

Top Takeaways:

🗺️ Launch before you know where your market is
Two founders with no marketing background guessed India and got Brazil, Mexico, and the US instead. Shipping and watching the download map told them more than any plan would have.
📱 Be on the App Store the day a platform feature ships 
Lock-screen widgets on iOS 16 day one took "small design and small coding," put the app inside a trend it didn't start, and turned one F1 team's tweet into 250,000 downloads in a week.
🎨 Design so your users do the sharing 
An app that makes someone say "wow" on first open and then show it to a friend is marketing that runs on its own. Build for the screenshot and the reel, not just the feature list.
💬 When users ask how to pay you, that's your pricing research 
A WhatsApp support line meant for feature requests produced the first "I would like to pay you." A survey with 5,000–6,000 responses then settled what to charge.
🔒 Never take back what you gave away for free 
The paid tier was built from new things (themes, a watch app, complications), so early users kept everything and still had a reason to upgrade.
🏁 Ship your biggest feature at the end of the season, as a beta 
Releasing a new feature in the last two races lets users try it, gives the team real-world feedback, and leaves a cliffhanger for the next season.

About Ranjith Ramanan & Kamal Kumar:
🏁 Co-founders behind Box Box Club, the ultimate app for motorsports racing fans, exclusive content, and a vibrant community of fellow enthusiasts. All the tools you need to stay up-to-date with the latest racing events, including up-to-the-minute news, comprehensive analysis, and customizable alerts and widgets at your fingertips.
👋 Ranjith Ramanan on LinkedIn
👋 Kamal Kumar on  LinkedIn

🏎️ Learn more about Box Box Club

👟 Learn more about GO Club

👾 Learn more about Arkade Club

Follow us on X: 
Charlie Chapman - @_chuckyc
RevenueCat - @RevenueCat
Launched - @LaunchedFM 

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] When F1 teams and drivers found Box Box Club
[02:02] Kamal's path into iOS and Formula 1
[06:18] Ranjith's background in design and visual effects
[09:24] Concept habits and discovering F1 through Drive to Survive
[12:17] Meeting Lewis Hamilton at the 2022 Bahrain GP
[14:14] Designing the first F1 widget and searching for a developer
[16:53] Finding a co-founder through an F1 tattoo
[19:57] Building and launching the first version in a month
[22:58] Why design comes before engineering
[27:23] Early growth without a marketing plan
[30:39] Building products people want to share
[32:40] When users started asking to pay
[35:23] Using fan surveys to shape the paid version
[38:58] Day-one lock screen widgets and the Mercedes moment
[43:18] The legal notice from Formula 1
[45:18] Charles Leclerc puts Box Box on his lock screen
[46:16] Raising prices and partnering with a Formula 2 driver
[51:55] Seeing their logo on a Formula 2 helmet and car
[53:28] Letting the app pay for a trip back to Bahrain
[54:19] Quitting their jobs and redesigning the app
[57:34] Inside Apple's Developer Center in Bangalore
[01:02:16] Hiring for passion over skill
[01:04:36] Learning from inside the F1 paddock
[01:06:56] Staying ahead of copycats with the F1 season
[01:10:06] Landing an official Alpine partnership
[01:12:17] Why they built GO Club in the off-season
[01:14:03] Designing GO Club to stand out in a crowded space
[01:17:45] Arkade Club and the quality app studio plan
[01:18:43] Creative influences and inspiration

On the podcast: Sofia Larsson and César Pinto Castillo share how they built their company Ambi Studi and their flagship app Ambre, a recipe book and meal planner that lets you save recipes from any site, photo, or app and syncs privately across your Apple devices. 
They talk about César's college thesis turning into real production software for Volvo, Sofia's pivot from textile engineering into iOS development during a career burnout, a $150 Mac that couldn't even compile his first app, a "welcome call" from Apple Entrepreneur Camp that turned out to be a two-hour technical interview, and why design is becoming the real differentiator now that building software is easy.

Top Takeaways:
🍎 The scary outcome is getting in 
Applying is easy to put off when the worst case isn't rejection but acceptance, because then you have to do the thing. Apply anyway; the program will build the confidence you were waiting to feel first.
💻 Say yes, then buy the tools 
Agreeing to build an iPhone app with no Mac, no iPhone, and no idea what Xcode was worked out fine; the fee paid for the first Mac, and the wrong Mac before it was just tuition.

🔤 The first barrier to coding is vocabulary, not logic 
You can't Google a modifier if you don't know it's called a modifier. Describing the problem in the wrong words to a tool that answers anyway is what gets a beginner unstuck.

🎨 Post about what nobody else in your community posts about 
When every timeline is APIs and SDKs, a thread about a color combination or a layout that reads better stands out, and that difference builds a following.
✨ When AI writes the features, the experience is what's left to compete on 
Users don't read the code any more than they read assembly. Performance, solving the problem, and doing it in a beautiful way are what you own now.

About Sofia Larsson and César Pinto Castillo:

Sofia Larsson is a Co-Founder, iOS Engineer, and UI/UX Designer at Ambi Studio, and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Textile Sciences and Engineering. 
César Pinto Castillo is also a Co-Founder at Ambi Studio, a product company focusing on the Apple Platform. Our goal is to make accessible and user-friendly apps with a focus on privacy.
👋 Sofia Larsson’s LinkedIn 

👋César Pinto Castillo’s LinkedIn
🌐 Learn more about Ambi Studio  
🥘 Learn more about Ambre

🖥️ Ambi Studio GitHub

💭Ambi Studio on Mastadon

Follow us on X: 
Charlie Chapman - @_chuckyc
RevenueCat - @RevenueCat
Launched - @LaunchedFM 

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Meet Sofia Larsson and César Pinto Castillo
[03:29] César's winding road to a computer science degree
[09:12] César discovers iOS and builds his first app
[15:47] Sofia's path from textile engineering to software
[28:22] Learning Swift without a traditional tech background
[29:46] The forgotten "Cooking" app users wouldn't let die
[33:32] How rewriting it in SwiftUI became Sofia's real classroom
[37:06] Apple Entrepreneur Camp and the "welcome call" that built her confidence
[46:39] Turning a forgotten side project into client opportunities
[47:43] Why design helped Ambre stand out
[51:27] Finding inspiration beyond famous tech icons
[54:12] Why finishing projects is harder than starting
[58:49] Why design and user experience matter more in the AI era
[1:02:07] AI makes building more accessible to creators

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.
🔋 Save some energy for the week after launch 
Shipping burnt out means the marketing plan you wrote never happens, and the next shiny idea wins instead.

About David Barnard:
📱Growth Advocate at RevenueCat and Host of the Sub Club podcast. A long-time indie iOS developer whose App Store career stretches back to 2008. He’s built and launched dozens of apps, including Launch Center Pro, Mirror, and Weather Up.
👋 LinkedIn
🌐 Learn more about RevenueCat

🚀 Learn more about Launch Center Pro

☀️ Learn more about Weather Up

Follow us on X: 
Charlie Chapman - @_chuckyc
David Barnard - @drbarnard
RevenueCat - @RevenueCat
Launched - @LaunchedFM 

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Celebrating 100 episodes & 18 years on the App Store 
[08:46] South Texas, sound recording, and the studio years 
[13:18] From recording engineer to iPhone evangelist 
[16:46] Why the studio schedule had to end 
[17:42] First in line for the iPhone 
[22:18] A $20,000 loan from family to start AppCubby 
[28:27] Learning enough code to hire the right help 
[31:55] TripCubby and the cubby idea 
[34:04] Missing App Store day one over a developer account 
[45:58] How to pitch the press without begging 
[51:45] Charts, discounts, and the race up the rankings 
[55:37] Building Mirror around the front-facing camera 
[58:03] Camera Plus and the exact-match search trick 
[01:03:43] Why search traffic creates staying power 
[01:07:29] Launch Center Pro and the URL scheme era 
[01:15:34] The notification hack Apple rejected 
[01:22:11] Getting approved by Phil Schiller 
[01:26:01] Why Launch Center Pro shipped as a separate app 
[01:29:02] Well loved, barely profitable
[01:36:51] The paid update David still regrets skipping 
[01:39:07] Workflow, Shortcuts, and a copied database 
[01:50:14] Unwinding a partnership as the app faded 
[01:56:46] The subscription pivot that landed badly 
[01:59:16] The Zapier deal that never happened 
[02:03:34] Why an indie developer went and got a job 
[02:06:08] Weather Up and the cost of building subscriptions yourself 
[02:07:52] Sequencing, differentiation, and finding the right partner 
[02:11:30] Building independently with AI 
[02:15:36] Grit Method and four questions for his kids 
[02:18:16] Burnt out at launch, marketing left undone 
[02:20:36] How RevenueCat and David crossed paths
[02:21:13] Building Sub Club around takeaways 
[02:28:16] Sub Club Live and the weekly cadence 
[02:30:36] Donald Norman and the design of everyday things

On the podcast: Matt Birchler shares how he went from a self-taught blogger and content creator to building a growing catalog of indie apps by solving problems he personally encountered. He talks about why he separates his opinion-driven blog from his educational YouTube channel, how AI tools helped him finally break through the barrier of building iOS apps, what he learned from turning Quick Reviews from a manual Sketch workflow into a native app, why solving your own frustrations can be the best product strategy, and how small “micro apps” could become the future of independent software development.

Top Takeaways:
🛠️ Repeated personal friction is the best app brief
The strongest micro apps start as manual workflows that you finally get tired of repeating.

🤖 Bad AI output forces you to learn the code
When early AI tools make mistakes, fixing them forces you to understand your app's structure instead of just pasting a solution.

📦 Name your app to set honest expectations
Calling a tool "Quick" or "Micro" signals to users that it is a focused utility, not a massive platform that requires heavy support.

💸 Price your app to cover your API exposure
If your app relies on third-party data that might not stay free forever, charge a subscription from day one so the project never loses money.

📂 Let your private experiments stay private
You can build dozens of tiny tools and tests without turning every single one into a public product.

About Matt Birchler:

🚀 Indie app developer, blogger behind BirchTree, creator of A Better Computer, and co-host of the Comfort Zone podcast. A self-taught technologist with a background in product, design, and software. Matt builds practical tools like Quick Reviews, Quick Subtitles, and Chapterize while sharing his perspective on technology, creativity, and independent software development.
👋 LinkedIn
🌐 Learn more about Quick Reviews
Follow us on X: 
Charlie Chapman - @_chuckyc
RevenueCat - @RevenueCat
Launched - @LaunchedFM 

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Introducing Matt Birchler and his creative journey
[01:58] Growing up, studying TV production, and finding tech
[05:54] Starting BirchTree as a creative outlet
[06:35] Building an audience through blogging and sharing ideas
[09:50] Learning to handle feedback and write with context
[12:52] Separating opinions from education through different platforms
[15:53] Moving into software through a support role
[20:00] Building a career without a traditional path
[21:46] Starting A Better Computer during the pandemic
[23:56] The challenges of turning content into a business
[31:59] Creating Quick Reviews from a personal workflow
[36:50] Using AI to build his first real iOS apps
[38:38] How AI changed the development process
[44:04] Turning Quick Reviews into a paid app
[46:59] Building a growing catalog of utility apps
[52:12] Why Matt releases small, focused tools
[54:21] The future of micro apps and AI development
[56:34] Building Comfort Zone with a creative team
[58:32] The value of collaboration and shared creative work
[1:04:35] Creative influences and lessons from other builders

On the podcast: Romain Lefebvre shares how he built Sequel, a media tracker for movies, TV, games, books, and audiobooks, after years of designing fintech apps left him craving something more visual. He talks about writing down two founding design principles before coding a single feature, why he still thinks his original pricing model backfired, and how a MacStories review turned a quiet hobby project into the most word-of-mouth-recommended media tracker on the internet, catching the attention of Quinn Nelson of Snazzy Labs and David Pierce of The Verge without spending a dollar on ads.

Top Takeaways:
🎨 Design your app to be recommended
Word of mouth doesn't happen by accident; design your core screens so that when a user shows their friend, the friend immediately asks, "Wow, what app is that?"
🛑 Write down your design principles before you code
Defining your core thesis upfront (like "unification, ease of input, artwork first") makes it much easier to say no to feature bloat in V1.
💸 A capped free tier is just a trial in disguise
If your free tier has a hard limit that users will inevitably hit, they will treat your app like a trial from day one and constantly look for the paywall.
📉 Set a deadline for your indie bet
When growth is slow, setting a concrete milestone (like "hit £1,000 in the first month of V2") turns an endless grind into a clear decision point.
⚠️ Free APIs are an existential business risk
When you rely on third-party data sources, you have to be prepared for the day they break without warning or suddenly introduce a paid tier.

About Romain Lefebvre:
🚀 Product designer based in London and creator of Sequel, a unified tracker for movies, TV shows, games, books, and audiobooks. Previously worked as a product designer and product manager at UK startups before going indie full-time.
👋 Linkedin 
🎬 Learn more about Sequel

Follow us on X: 
Charlie Chapman - @_chuckyc
RevenueCat - @RevenueCat
Launched - @LaunchedFM 

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] The power of word-of-mouth growth 
[00:45] Introducing Romain Lefebvre and Sequel 
[02:09] What Sequel does across movies, TV, games, and books 
[03:30] Growing up in France and studying computer science at Oxford [04:49] Choosing design over a purely technical career path 
[07:52] Hired as an engineer, becomes the company's designer within a week 
[10:44] Product management versus design, and the choice that stuck 
[13:28] Building Remindly to relearn UIKit 
[16:53] What a low-stakes side project teaches about shipping to real users 
[20:41] Leaving fintech UX behind to revive an old movie-tracking idea 
[23:44] Expanding the idea to include games and books 
[28:14] Writing down Sequel's founding design principles before coding 
[35:00] Early monetization thinking and the 25-item paywall 
[39:53] Where Sequel's movie, game, and book data actually comes from [
44:23] The V1 launch and reaching out to Mac and app blogs [46:10] Volunteering for redundancy to go full-time on Sequel
[47:21] V2: the real launch, eight months later 
[50:52] Building in public ahead of the MacStories review 
[54:59] How a MacStories review turned into organic word of mouth 
[55:14] Quinn Nelson naming Sequel the most-recommended app 
[56:22] David Pierce's newsletter and the email that led to a call 
[59:23] Designing the share screen to sell the app 
[01:00:36] What's next: App Clips and localization before wider sharing 
[01:04:27] Romain’s creative inspirations