Notes from Chris

Episode 1436

In December of 2018, Jonathan Wilson was searching for something to help him get out of bed. He wanted to be motivated to start the day, and thought the perfect way to do that would be to have a podcast wake him up.

He looked around the App Store, but couldn’t find any app that would function as both an alarm and a podcast player. All he came across was an old Android app that had been taken down, and a few people asking on Reddit and Quora if an app like that existed.

Although Jonathan was disappointed that he couldn’t find the app he was looking for, he was also a little excited. If other people were looking around for the same kind of app—one that didn’t exist—he had a strong feeling there was a significant consumer base for the idea.

To start the process, he made a list of the things he needed the app to do. First, it needed to be able to download a podcast episode. After that, it had to be able to play the episode at a specific time. Since Jonathan wanted to combine an alarm app and a podcast app into one, he downloaded both kinds of apps and figured out what made each of them so successful. He then took the best parts of the apps, and combined them into one. (Fun fact: the second task was harder than the first.)

He worked around the clock and by September of 2019, Jonathan was ready to launch Podcast Alarm for the first time. He was so excited to finally release his product, especially because he already had 300 pre-orders. Wait, how did he do that? He was able to find so many early customers by posting on the Reddit and Quora pages of people asking about an app like his, and then directing them to his website. This is a helpful feature that Apple makes available.

Now, a little over a year since it’s official release, Jonathan is bringing in a few hundred dollars every month from Podcast Alarm. In the future, he hopes to make his app free. From there, he will have a subscription model that people can pay for with advanced features. It’s only a matter of time.

 

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  MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Checkout Jonathan's helpful app at this website, PodcastAlarm.app .

SEE ALSO:

• Young Analyst Turns College Debt Into $100k Profit: While struggling to pay his student loans, this enterprising graduate finds a way to “round up” his spare change to a six-figure side income.
• Instagram Scheduling App Becomes Wildly Popular: A New Zealand advertising executive and artist unlocks the magic formula of Instagram, creating an app that now serves hundreds of thousands of users.
• Exercise App Encourages Fitness While Helping Sick Kids: A North Carolina man’s software app forces users to make donations when they slack off their fitness routines.

Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work! Yours in the revolution,

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