06 — App Business Desk
10 Committed Customers Before One Line of Code
Brian Shin's disposable-camera app Once hit $20K a month in 83 days. The unfashionable secret: he refused to build until ten real events, with real dates, had committed to using it.
Once sells shared disposable cameras for events — guests shoot candids into one album that reveals later, priced from $2 for a small party to $50 for a wedding. Before it existed, Brian DM'd 250–300 strangers under #wedding and #birthdayparty, got 15 replies, and turned 12 into committed bookings. Only then did he build — a first web version in under two weeks.
Stop overthinking and just launch. All of your assumptions may go to nothing once you launch.
— Brian Shin, Once
Eighty-three days after launch: $20–22K a month, 10–12K weekly actives, 300 events in February and 700 booked for March. A commitment, he argues, is 'almost proxy to a payment' — which makes it the cheapest revenue forecast a solo developer can buy.