I Cloned 3 Apps and Now Make $35k/Month

"My name is Samuel, and I run three apps making $35,000 a month. I used to have a full-time job, but I quit a few years ago, and I taught myself to code on YouTube."

This is the story of Samuel, a former optician with zero coding experience who taught himself to code and built a portfolio of profitable SaaS apps by following one simple rule: never build something that doesn't already exist.

1. The $35k/Month App Portfolio

Samuel runs three successful SaaS applications:

Usimus.com ($15k/month): A LinkedIn scraping tool with ~10,000 customers.
StoryShort.ai ($20k/month): An AI video generator for TikTok and YouTube with ~4,000 customers.
Capacity.so ($900/month): A brand new AI coding tool with ~50 users.

2. The "Lazy" Founder's Framework for Finding Ideas

Samuel considers himself lazy and doesn't have unlimited energy. His entire strategy is built around de-risking ideas before he starts.

"My number one rule that is really crucial for me, is to never build something that doesn't already exist and isn't already successful... This way, I reduce my chance of failure."

His 4-Step Validation Filter:

Find Proven Traction: His #1 source is Twitter (X). He looks for founders in the "build in public" community sharing their MRR or Stripe screenshots. This is the ultimate proof that people are paying.
Analyze Traffic Sources: He uses Ahrefs to see how the existing app gets customers. If they are growing with both paid ads and SEO, it's a strong signal of demand and easier to replicate.
Assess Technical Feasibility: Can he build and, more importantly, maintain the product easily by himself? "Simplicity is very important for me."
Personal Interest: Does he actually like the product? He won't work on something he doesn't care about, as he knows he'll lose motivation long-term.

3. The Growth Stack: From Ads to Virality

Once an idea passes his filter, Samuel follows a clear, multi-stage growth strategy.

Start with Ads (Day 1): "I always start by running ads. It's always the first thing I do." He uses Google and Meta ads to get immediate traffic and test the market.
Build SEO (After Traction): As soon as the ads show promise, he immediately starts building out SEO content. He uses AI writing tools like outrank.so to automate article creation.
Faceless YouTube Channels: He uses his own tool, StoryShort, to automatically create and publish daily UGC-style videos about his products across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.
Affiliate Marketing: He offers a commission to users and influencers who promote his products. He finds this is critical for creating virality, as it incentivizes people to make videos and write articles about his tools.

4. The Tech Stack & Costs

Framework: Next.js and Node.js.
SEO & Content: Ahrefs for analysis, and AI writers like SEO.ai and outrank.so.
Deployment: Vercel.
Payments: Stripe.

The Costs:

Usimus costs ~$4,000/month to run (due to expensive automations).
StoryShort costs ~$5,000/month to run.

5. The "Don't Innovate" Philosophy

Samuel's biggest lesson is that you don't need a revolutionary idea to succeed.

"What really surprised me is that you don't need to innovate. You just need to see what is working on X, in communities, on forums, and build your own alternative, your own version of a product."

His advice for new builders:

Use AI to Learn: If he were starting today, he wouldn't learn to code the traditional way. He'd pick a real project and use AI coding tools to build it step-by-step.
Launch ASAP: Skip the boring parts like password reset pages. Launch the most minimal version of the product and run ads immediately to test demand.
Automate Everything: Use tools to automate content creation and posting so you can focus on growth.