YouTube Transcript:
How I Coded ANOTHER Profitable App SOLO (step by step / from scratch / with AI)
Skip watching entire videos - get the full transcript, search for keywords, and copy with one click.
Share:
Video Transcript
Another day, another startup. Recently,
I moved to Malaysia and from there, I've
pretty much been spending most of my
time coding my latest project. And it's
been super fun hacking away at something
new again. And luckily, I've been
documenting the whole journey from
coming up with the app idea to building
the app to getting that first paying
customer. In this video, I'll show you
every step of the process so you get an
idea of what it takes to build and ship
a profitable app from scratch completely
solo. And feel free to stick around
until the end to see how much money my
app actually made. My app idea is just a
simple tool that allows me to download
video transcripts in bulk from YouTube
channels or playlists. And you're
probably asking, why do I want a tool
like this? Well, it's no secret that
YouTube is a gold mine of knowledge and
information, but it's all trapped in
video format. So, I'm building this tool
for one main reason. I want a quick and
easy way to extract all this gold from
YouTube videos in text format so that I
can feed this data directly into my own
custom AI models to help me with
everyday tasks like writing better
YouTube scripts or creating custom AI
agents to help me with my startups. Then
after giving it some more thought, I
know I'm not the only one who needs this
tool. Pretty much anyone wanting to
train their own custom AI models with
YouTube content is facing the same
problem. Manual transcript extraction
from YouTube is painfully slow and
tedious and currently there aren't many
good solutions out there. So then I
thought why not try building this tool
myself. It solves a real problem I am
facing and it could potentially be
another stream of income if I execute
and market it well to the other users
who are facing the same problem. But
before I start building, I need to do
some quick market research to see what
my competitors are offering. First,
there's YouTube transcript.io IO, which
offers bulk downloading but requires a
subscription with a credit system. So, I
can definitely see an opportunity for my
app to compete by offering a simpler
pricing model. And from looking at their
landing page, they report having over
350,000 users worldwide, which is a
clear sign there's already real demand
for this type of product. This gives me
even more confidence in my idea and
extra motivation to compete with them to
take a slice of the market. There are
also other sites like Note GBT and
Tactic, but those sites only let you
download transcripts. one video at a
time. So, my approach will be simple.
Create a tool with a simpler pricing
model and a super clean interface that
makes downloading YouTube transcripts in
bulk cheap, quick, and painless. After
scouting out my competitors, I was ready
to jump into my code editor and start
building. But before I could write a
single line of code, I had to plan out
what the first version of my app would
be like. Otherwise, I'll either end up
building something that's not useful, or
I'll constantly get distracted adding
shiny new features that don't actually
solve the root problem. I prefer using
the SLC framework to plan the early
versions of my app. I'm not a fan of
shipping MVPs that are buggy at launch
and don't do the key one to two features
they promise just for the sake of speed
or shipping fast. The SLC framework
stands for simple, lovable, and
complete. And I think it's a much better
approach than just building something
that's minimum and viable. For my app to
be simple, it needs to have one
straightforward path to solving the root
problem, and that's extracting YouTube
transcripts in bulk. This means users
should be able to complete the task in
as few steps or clicks as possible.
Nobody likes using a halfbaked product
for version one. This means users should
be able to download thousands of
transcripts quickly. My app won't be
feature- packed at launch, but it will
be complete. This means users should be
able to sign up, make a purchase, and
immediately download transcripts. This
is the leanest possible version of my
app and the goal is to provide value
from day one and then iterate the
product based on real feedback from
users. Like I've said before, I'm aiming
to ship a version one of something
simple instead of a version 0.1 of
something complex. Now that I have a
basic plan in place, it's time to commit
and secure a domain for the app. I
decided to go with YouTube
transcripts.io as it's short,
descriptive, SEOfriendly, and doesn't
break the bank. Now that the domain was
purchased, it was time to start
building. For this project, I'm using
the standard web text stack, React and
Next.js for my front end and API,
Superbase for my database and
authentication, and Stripe to handle
payments. Normally, setting up my
projects would take me a few hours to
get everything connected and working.
But this time, I am using Tempo to help
me with the setup process, and I was
able to get my OR, database, and
payments all working in under 10
minutes. All I had to do was click
through their guided setup, paste in a
few API keys and within minutes I had a
fully functioning project with all the
annoying stuff correctly configured.
Then I gave a simple prompt to Tempo
describing what my app does. And then it
just starts generating the project
files, documenting project requirements,
and building out the UI. And honestly,
the first version of the landing page
tempo generated was pretty impressive.
It wasn't perfect, but it was a solid
starting point with a clean layout and
some decent copy. From there, I gave the
AI a few more prompts to refine some
sections, like updating the feature
section to better highlight what the app
actually does, adding a use cases
section and an FAQ section to answer
common questions or objections up front.
Before we move on, let me give you a
quick tour of the Tempo UI. The
interface is split into three tabs:
product, design, and code. In the
product tab, you can write out your
product requirements, features, and even
create full user flow diagrams of your
app. The most useful thing about this is
that all this information gets fed
directly to the AI as context, which
reduces hallucinations massively. In the
design tab, you can build out your UI
just by clicking and dragging elements
pretty much just like any other design
tool like Figma or Web Flow, but it
generates actual React code behind the
scenes. They also support importing your
custom Figma designs, so you can use
them as a starting point and ask the AI
to generate React code for you based on
the designs. Finally, the code tab is
where you can open and edit any file in
your project just like you would in VS
Code or cursor. It also integrates
nicely with GitHub, so you can push your
code directly to a repo and keep
everything version controlled. With the
initial setup all done, I push the code
to GitHub and fired up Cursor so that I
can start building out the core features
of my app. So, enjoy this time-lapse of
me hacking away over the next couple
days whilst I get this app ready for launch.
[Music]
[Music] Heat. Heat.
After days of non-stop coding and
testing, I think the app is finally
ready. It's time to launch and get some
users. My plan for the initial launch is
pretty basic. I'll post on all of the
typical launch platforms like Product
Hunt, Hacker News, and Twitter to try my
luck going viral, but I'm not banking on
this too much. My tool is quite niche
and solves a very specific problem. So
there's really no point trying to appeal
to a wider audience at this stage. And
hot take, I don't think Product Hunt is
actually a good platform to launch for
most indie hackers. Unless you're making
a product specifically targeted to other
founders because the truth is regular
customers aren't going to Product Hunt
to find tools to solve their problems.
It's usually just a bunch of other
founders looking for a place to share
their products. But you do get a nice
backlink for SEO and a bump in traffic
if you can rank highly. So, it's at
least worth trying. That's why I'll be
spending most of my time going directly
to my ideal customers and building
relationships with them first. This
means finding niche subreddits and
forums and sharing my launch there
instead. So, how did the launch go and
how much money has my app actually made?
Well, I can tell you my app didn't blow
up overnight. And I'm not going to lie,
it was discouraging at first seeing my
launch get less traction than I hoped.
It's disappointing, but this won't be
one of those videos where I launch my
product and it magically goes viral. And
honestly, I think sharing realistic
launches like these can be more valuable
than the overnight success stories
because whilst they can be inspiring,
they can also create unrealistic
expectations and discourage you to keep
going if you don't see immediate
results. So, even though the launch
wasn't what I hoped for, I'm not going
to let it distract me from improving and
growing my product until I can get it to
a point where I'm satisfied and feel
like there's nothing more I can do.
Since the launch, I've managed to get 13
user signups with six of them converting
to actual paying customers. And so far,
my app has earned over £200 since the
launch. It's not some life-changing
money, but at least it's proof that
people are willing to pay for my
product, even at its earliest stage. So,
what's next? I have a bunch of ideas and
improvements I want to make to this app
already. And of course, I'll be
documenting everything on this channel.
So, if you want to see how I grow this
app from these humble beginnings into
something bigger, feel free to subscribe
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
Works with YouTube, Coursera, Udemy and more educational platforms
Get Instant Transcripts: Just Edit the Domain in Your Address Bar!
YouTube
←
→
↻
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
YoutubeToText
←
→
↻
https://youtubetotext.net/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc