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Cover art for the App Minded episode "How to Build an iPhone App With No Tech Background" with Samantha Black
Episode 4 45 min

How to Build an iPhone App With No Tech Background

Samantha BlackEducation professional turned iOS app builder. Hosted by Nina Kolari.

Episode summary

Samantha Black moved from education into app development without a technical background. She talks through the tools she leaned on, what app submission actually involves, how AI changed the learning curve, and why shipping before you feel ready is the fastest way to learn.

Show notes

In this conversation, Samantha Black shares her journey from being an education professional to becoming an app developer without a technical background.

She discusses the challenges she faced while building her apps, the tools she used, and the learning process involved in navigating app development and submission.

The conversation highlights the importance of problem-solving, the role of AI in development, and the continuous learning curve that comes with creating technology solutions for educational purposes.

In this conversation, Nina Kolari and Samantha Black explore the journey of app development, particularly focusing on the empowerment of women in tech. They discuss the challenges and innovations in creating apps, the importance of marketing strategies, and the value of feedback and iteration. Samantha shares her experiences in launching her app, Earnling, and emphasizes the significance of starting projects even when one feels unprepared. The discussion highlights the unique perspectives women bring to tech and the practical solutions they create to address everyday problems.

Find more about Samantha's app Earnling here.


Takeaways

Samantha transitioned from education to app development.
She created an app to help her daughter with math homework.
The app development process involved significant problem-solving.
Samantha used AI tools like Claude to assist in coding.
Navigating the App Store submission was a complex process.
She learned from bugs and challenges during development.
Samantha emphasized the importance of financial literacy for kids.
The coding aspect was easier compared to marketing the app.
AI tools can enhance the learning experience in app development.
Samantha's journey reflects the power of perseverance and continuous learning. You have to have the patience and the idea.
The gap between being a developer and having a good idea is smaller.
Women can just sit down and fix problems now.
It's so cool to watch what women create.
Don't let your ideas stop you from launching.
Ship before you think you should.
You just have to be willing to learn.
Pinterest is the secret weapon to success.
It's important to recognize your accomplishments.
Feedback is crucial for improvement.

Topics discussed

  • Learning app development with no tech background
  • Building educational apps
  • App Store submission
  • Shipping early and iterating

Tools & platforms mentioned

  • AI coding assistants
  • Xcode
  • App Store Connect

About the guest

Samantha BlackEducation professional turned iOS app builder.

Full transcript

Auto-generated transcript of “How to Build an iPhone App With No Tech Background”. Lightly unedited.

nina: This is so much fun because all the ideas that you have that you feel like you could never create now you can and yeah, you have to have the patience and the idea and you have and you have to have the you know t time or to kind of go back and forth and understand that things will break and be f okay being frustrated. And that part's still frustrating. But now all of these ideas you have had that you thought, ⁓ that would be really cool, I mean you have what, eleven apps? Yeah. You know, all of these ideas that you have now, they can come to life so much faster ⁓ than they ever could have before. Hi everyone. In today's episode, I'm speaking with Samantha about her journey becoming an app builder without any technical background. So in the beginning I would like Samantha, if you can introduce yourself and talk a little bit about your background and who you are. Sure. ⁓ well thanks so much for having me. I'm Samantha and I'm actually an education professional. I work in higher ed. I've been ⁓ at a university for fifteen years and I run our online course production team. So our editors and developers and video production team. And I decided I wanted to sort of catch up on AI. I felt like I was really behind. Yeah. So I started kind of messing around with learning the tools that primarily started with Claude. And as an education professional, I'm kind of a lifetime learner, I think a lot of us are. So I had taken coding courses just kind of for fun. Okay. Several years ago. So I knew what HTML was and I knew what CSS was and I knew what GitHub was. Okay. And ⁓ I remembered we did some sort of API call for a weather app, but I didn't remember how to do it. So I ⁓ kind of the thought about what I would want to create. Originally I actually did a ⁓ AI parent homework tutor. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, can we talk about how did you even like Yeah that's what you started with, but was it like I want to build an app to learn or was it like I have a problem, maybe an app could be a solution? Yeah. It was ⁓ I had to homeschool my youngest daughter for part of last year when she was in third grade. Okay. And it was in conjunction with a local charter. And I opened up her math book and I was like, ⁓ I don't know how to do this anymore. And it was all really, really different from how I learned math because I didn't learn common core math. So I learned stack and carry and not how to like make tens and decompose numbers. So I I spent a lot of time teaching myself before I taught her. And that sort of made me think other parents probably have the same problem. So originally I launched Method Wise, which is still there and it's an online chat. But then I thought, ⁓ I wonder if I could kind of spin off that same idea of using AI tools to help me create something, code something, and make an app. And again, it's from a problem I had. My older daughter makes and sells jewelry. So she makes earrings. And necklaces and bracelets, and it was from a business proposal she had to do in sixth grade last year. And then they allowed them to sell at their school spring fest. So she builds up all these earrings and things and buys supplies and sells them there. And I made her a spreadsheet to show her how much she was spending on supplies, how much she was getting from sales, what her inventory was. And she just stood there and was like, This is really boring. And it's like, yeah, it's not this is not the exciting part. So I thought, man, I wonder if I could make something more simple for her to just see basically where she's starting to make money. So that's how I made Earnling. That was the idea of Earnling, was just like a really simple business tracking app for kids where they put in what they buy and they put in what they sell and it has a meter and it shows you where you break even and shows you where you're making profit. Yeah. So w when you were doing the spreadsheet and you were thinking like, okay, this is, you know, this this is doable. This should work. Yeah. How did you go from that into an app? Was it your daughter saying like, could this be an app or something else? Or was it like what happened in like she was not impressed by the spreadsheet? She was not impressed, no. So how did you come up with like Maybe it could be an app, an iPhone app of that. I kind of like to just see if I can figure things out. And I was like, ⁓ I wonder if this would be a cool app. So I just sort of started playing around and seeing if I could get something. First I started it with just like a web app looking product, just to see if I could get it to kind of look and feel right. ⁓ and then I wanted to see if I could get it into the app store. So I just started trying. I did it through Expo, ⁓ and Claud Code and doing the app simulator on ⁓ my Mac and then getting it onto test flight and it's been approved for external test flight. And now I'm working on getting it the whole app store submission done so that it can get on the App Store. So I did a what they call I think like false store advertising, right? So I made a landing page at Ernling dot co and s has a wait list sign up just to kind of gauge interest because I was like, I don't know if this is even something people will be interested in. And then I'm, you know, either way I wanna get it to work on a phone. But I if I get it in the app store depends on if people want it. Yeah. And I actually had way more response than I ever did to method wise. And I think it's because it's so tangible the idea of learning how money works, what you spend, what you earn, that financial literacy is so different than just like math homework. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. And I think there's also like a little parents get i excited to brag about their kids making things and selling things. Yeah. Yeah. So you are almost in the App Store. Yeah. But if we go a little bit back and go like you said you used Claude as your, I guess, developer. Yeah. If you're a webcoder. So how did you like how was the first time you started building in Claude? Mm-hmm. Was it like simple or like what did you even do in the first prompt? What what happened? I just said what I wanted through Claude. I started with Claude Code. So I kind of thought through ideas for names and things with just claude chat, but then I started building it with Claud Code. And I got a domain and I set up a GitHub repository and I pushed it to Vercel. ⁓ and then I have Superbase in the back end for account and data kind of tracking. ⁓ so I just basically said what it is I wanted it to do. It I pushed through GitHub and Vercell so it was actually on the website. And ⁓ just kind of worked through it that way and adjusted ⁓ kind of what I wanted it to look like, adjusted the functionality. I worked on a ⁓ logo and kind of colors and things like that, design stuff and then did the landing page. So once I had the landing page up and then the actual web app as an HTML file, then I could move into turning it into the actual you know, JavaScript files that make the app. Yeah. Y how did you know to use Superbase or Vercel or even GitHub? Well you said mentioned earlier that you know GitHub but all these other like Who who told you to go to Vercel or Mm hmm ⁓ nobody told me to go to Vercel. I had used Netlify to push ⁓ a kind of portfolio project and those coding courses I took years ago. They were through sheet codes. And I had that originally set up with MethodWise. But Vercell is node native. And so Netlify kept kind of breaking methodwise this page. So I just did research and found that Vercell doesn't have that problem as much because it is node native. And so I was able to kind of switch it over to Vercel, which was a lot easier than I expected. ⁓ I kind of worried that it would break everything. And so for this round, because I was already in those things with accounts, then I just set it up that way. In Supa base, again, I just looked it up what I could have as a back end database. That was sort of easy to put in environmental variables and DNS records and domain hosting, because I bought the domains in Squarespace and then I had to switch over the DNS records and figure out OAuth for Method wise and so honestly I think the way I've been learning things is just when something breaks. Then I have to go figure out how to unbreak it. Yeah, yeah. I think that's the only way. I I I think that's the best way, rather than watching just tutorials is actually build and then see when you get stuck, like what's next? What do I what can I fix? Yeah. What can I fix definitely? And I think I that's what I keep telling people is like you just have to be willing to be the one who sits there and tries to fix it when it breaks and realize that it's not every time something breaks, I learn something completely new. And so that's been fun because I like getting things to work and figuring things out and learning new things. So the building part's actually way more fun to me than like the marketing. That's that feels so much harder to me than the actual coding. So Yeah. Yeah. I think ⁓ every developer is nodding their head right now. They find the marketing the most hard hardest part. And we can maybe talk about a little bit about the marketing later on, but how did you if we go now into the iPhone because I'm also curious that you went into iPhone route because that's my route as well. Yeah. ⁓ it's no joke. building an iPhone app on any language or any tool, developer or not. The whole process, like you said also earlier, like it's the code is like this part and there's like a whole nother ninety percent left that nobody really talks about. Yeah. I had no idea that once I was able to kinda get it into an internal test flight where I, you know, run the build on the terminal and then it appears. through expo that I and then I get it on test flight that that was like easy. That was the easy part. Getting it reviewed for external test flight, it kind of got stuck for like six or seven days, which I guess is not super normal. So I thought I did something wrong. And then as soon as I was about to try to contact somebody, it said it was approved. And then doing like another layer, another build number, like the next iterative number up. Because I had to be able to have parents change the PIN, that's a requirement. I have to be able to have them delete their account altogether, that's a requirement. Especially because it is kid friendly. It is not a kid only app. It's meant to be in conjunction with parents, so it doesn't hit all of the cop of rules. Yeah. But I have to have the purchasing behind a parent. gates and all of these things that are requirements in order to get it up even up on there for ⁓ submission and then the actual submission form itself is so it's so intense. It's so long and there's so many fields and you have to fill out all of the legal requirements and the financial information and then I didn't even know you have to submit a whole other portion to be listed. in EU countries. ⁓ so you have to put in other contact information, which I guess is shown on the app in those stores, but you can't use your per you don't want to use your personal information. So you have to go get a f Google Voice number and a luckily I had a business address, like virtually kind of P.O. Box one with method wise, and I'm kind of running it under that same like an offshoot of Method Wise's LLC. So at least I already had that. But if I didn't have that, I would have had to do that too first. Yeah. I'm very curious. You mentioned there that the payment was different because it's not the child is not paying for it. How did you even tackle that? Are you using store kit with Apple or No, it's called revenue cap. Okay, yes, I know them both. Yeah. Yeah as well. So I just figured out how to set that up because what I'm doing is not a subscription. And so I guess the free trial option native through the Apple store is only if your app has a subscription. But I wanted to do a free seven day trial before the like one time payment because I wanted parents to be able to see it and kind of feel how it works and then after the seven days it then you just pay the one time fee instead of a fee at the initial download. And so that that required revenue cat. Okay. Which, you know, took setting up as well and creating all of the the product and the ⁓ you know integration or entitlements and the offerings and all of that in there. That was all sort of like the second iteration of the app once I got it to actually work. An internal test flight, yeah. Yeah. So in term 'cause you're you're a vibecoder, right? Did you look at the code at any point when you were doing you're using Claude code? So I assume you were either typing or talking to Claude and saying like this is the feature we want, but did you actually look at the code? And if you did, how did you verify that it's correct? Yeah, so I looked at the original HTML files in VS Code. I opened it up to be able to see it in there. I have a little bit of understanding of how HTML all works. Outside of HTML and CSS, like once you start getting into React and JavaScript and JSON or things like that, I can't really look at it and be like, Yeah, that's right or wrong. I basically just go off of if it's working or not. Yeah. And you are using Subabase for your b ⁓ database? Yeah. How because having a back end always complicates things and that's where the security flaws are. Have you or how have you ⁓ tried to limit any security breaches or you also have co you don't have really children's information but it's so Yeah, so that was kind of the big design decision is that I'm not storing any children's information on either method wise or earnly. The privacy policy states that ⁓ it's just the parents' information and it's not a requirement. So if somebody downloads the app, they don't have to sign up for an account on the app. They can use it just stored locally, the information just stored locally on their machine or their phone. iPad or whatever they have it on, but they can sign up for an account and if they want it to sync between devices. So if they want it on a kid's phone or kids' iPad and theirs, then they can sign up for an account and it syncs, and that's where the superbase is. ⁓ but it's not storing it's all ⁓ you know anonymous user IDs. I can't see anybody's names or information. It's basically just allowing it to sync between devices. So that is what the And then I had to kind of figure out how to put that in the privacy policy. The only time I'm actually collecting that information is on the wait list, the emails. ⁓ and then those emails are going out in a campaign through customer. So it does say that in the privacy policy that I'm collecting emails for that purpose, but never kids' emails. So Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like there's a mountain of things that you had to learn. It's not just, you know. the landing page is also a revenue cat, which is also not simple thing to do for newbie and and then App Store and like it's it's w you feel like okay I'm there now and then there's another mountain coming up. How did you tackle that as a Like it's it's frustrating sometimes. Yeah. I think what I always kinda tell people who wanna test out making things with AI is that if you don't understand or if you get stuck, that is sort of the magic of AI, is that you can ask it. Like I can't figure out where I find the API key for Yeah. You know, in the app store, the Apple ID for cus you know, ⁓ revenue cat, where do I go find that? And then it will help you with that. So you just have to kind of treat it like a partner where you're asking questions and it's helping you walk through steps. I think having to ask it to walk through each individual step where you get stuck sometimes can feel kind of ⁓ demoralizing because you're like, Well, I don't know what I'm doing at all. But then once you figure it out, then you learned a whole new thing. And so then next time, like that's sort of how it was with method wise. I had already learned super base. So then for Earnlink, I was able to set that up. I knew how to run the SQL to SQL. And so when it told me here, put this in the SQL editor, I knew what that was and where that was, because I had done it. Yeah. The first time I was like, Where is that? But then the next time I remembered where that was. So it was easier to set up sort of those things the second round. But the whole app itself, that component, was all brand new. Yeah. Yeah. It it feels like sometimes it's like never ending learning curve. Yeah. So in this journey, ⁓ you mentioned ⁓ in the questionnaire before the podcast that you had a bug that was really messing up everything. It was a space in a folder that should have not been there. What happened there? changed the name of a folder after I first started. and I put a space instead of an just like one word. And then it kept breaking and wasn't loading and it kept giving me errors. And again, I'm just copying those errors in the from the s you know, terminal and putting it into Claude and saying, What is this? What's happening? And it kept saying, ⁓ did you do this? Is it this? Check this and then I realized when I put in the direct like ⁓ path for the folder into Claude, it said, ⁓ you have a space. Yeah. And I was like, ⁓ my gosh, that took hours to figure out and I was just because I out of habit, that's what you type, right? You put a space between words. Yeah. But it's like something so simple that you didn't catch that it's said to name it or you didn't catch that it's said to label feels really frustrating because it breaks everything. And it's something so small like that. And then you just have to kind of take a minute and again be okay sitting there in that kind of uncomfortable space where you don't know what to do and just keep trying things. Did you ever get like incorrect information from Claude or any AI tools you use like Wrong advice, so to speak. Yeah, I think originally when I first started trying to kind of mess around in Vercel and GitHub and Superbase, it I would say, where is that located, right? Where am I putting that information? And it's going off of obviously whatever, you know, publicly available information it's tr that LLM is trained on. And so sometimes the interface is different than it was. And so if I wasn't finding it from the instructions on Claude, sometimes I would just Google and see if anybody else had a similar problem. ⁓ a lot of these tools have their own AI kind of components now, and so that you can kind of use that in some of them. But basically I would just try to find what it was saying. So if it would say don't ⁓ you know, environmental variables and it's here, here, here, but it's not there anymore, then I would just kind of dig through all the pages trying to find a word for Like the word environmental variables. And then I was like, that must be it. So it's just kind of a lot of trial and error. Yeah. How long did it take you to build the first app and then versus the second app? I know they're quite different apps, but g can you somehow like weigh which was longer? I think in terms of the actual technical part, Ernling is definitely longer because it's the actual iOS app. Yeah. But in terms of getting it to work the way I wanted, method wise was longer. That's a web app, but the API call for the tutor, the homework tutor, trying to get that instructional design component where it's scaffolding for parents correctly was a lot of back and forth and trial and error. And I mean that's probably the only part that I felt really comfortable in was that like education based area because that's my background. But everything else was just kind of learning as I went. And then I found skills in Claude for like SEO and design and accessibility so it can review the website and kind of highlight things that weren't right. Like there's not good alt text or the colors won't work for a screen reader. ⁓ or here's like how you can make a better SEO optimized page title or description. And so it was a lot of learning that the first time around. And this time around for Ernling at least I knew where to go to do those things. But I'm finding that it's just they operate. Like the people that they're hitting or attracting to sign up are so different, even though it's still parents, but it's such a different demographic. Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned at one point that ⁓ that the coding was kind of the easy part. Can you walk me through you're not technical, so the code is also hard, but Yeah. And again I think it's the idea that people have the idea that you have to understand exactly like you would have to be able to code that by hand. And now these tools allow you to not have to code it by hand. And I have coded something by hand that in those coding courses and it was incredibly frustrating because one missed, you know, semicolon or curly bracket and nothing works. And this made it so much more fun to see the result right away because you can just open up that HTML file or push it to a domain so much quicker and then iterate from that to make it look more like what you want instead of trying to hand code it. you know, in VS Code or whatever you're using and open up the preview and get that to work. My biggest thing is the spacing on websites. That frustrates me to no end to get things to be responsive for mobile. Yeah. And I did learn some of it again in the class, but it's like I just without help I feel like I'm just kind of floating about and I don't understand how anything works. Like why is this all the way to the right? I don't know. I can never figure out is it floating? Is it supposed to not be floating? Is it supposed to be only left aligned? And so this is so much fun because all the ideas that you have that you feel like you could never create now you can. And yeah, you have to have the patience and the idea and you have and you have to have the, you know, t time or to kind of go back and forth and understand that things will break and be f okay being frustrated. And that part's still frustrating. But now all of these ideas you have had that you thought, ⁓ that would be really cool. I mean you have what, eleven apps. Yeah. You know, all of these ideas that you have now, they can come to life so much faster than they ever could have before. And I think that's kind of that gap between being a developer and just having a really good idea is smaller. I know. And it's so cool. It is. It is I'm every time I ship enough I was like, I just did that. I don't know how, but I just did that. Yeah. You just have to I mean in every so many people have so many good ideas and they just never act on it 'cause they don't know how to do any of the technical I know. I know. Especially women. I think women have such a great idea it's they're very practical. And well, some of them are very practical, but some of them like it's it's insane what kind of ideas I've heard and apps that I've seen. It's it's really, really unique and I really love it. Yeah. I think I joined some women in AI groups, ⁓ and that really kind of made me feel motivated to keep trying things out and testing things out because they just have there's like so many amazing things they're creating and a lot of it, like you said, is really practical, like really things that will help you day to day manage a house, manage schedules, manage, you know, between a house and work. And so all of the stuff we're seeing women create is like so helpful and useful and practical and it's so cool to watch. Like I love being part of the groups and watching what they create and reading their stories and listening to the stories. And they're really you know, it's really motivating and it's awesome to see so many women kinda jump into this area that they weren't than before. Yeah. I totally agree. I think ⁓ you know the stereotypical developer is a young guy and so then they don't understand what a 30 or 40 or 50 year old woman what is going through their life yeah or their mind or work and all the balancing everything. And now women can just sit down and like okay this is a problem I could fix this now and then act put it out in the world and for other moms or women to use, which I think it's it's like it's so cool to watch. It's so cool. I just watched a demo of a woman who basically took pictures of everything in her house, like groceries and supplies, and created like a whole database where it's basically tracking when they start running out of things that they usually get and then it's connected to, you know grocery ordering and helps her automate that process and create like buckets of dinner ideas. That's so smart. That's such a cool use of these tools because that and every nobody wants to think of what's for dinner every day. And we always forget things when we order groceries or go get groceries. And it's such a cool it's just such a cool use of the technology. It is, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. If we go back to Ernling, what is what where is it now and what's coming next with it? So now I'm working on the giant app store submission requirement list, the description and the testing and all of that, ⁓ which was so much longer than I expected it to be. And then once I'm able to get it launched into the app store, I have ideas for sort of other levels of the app. For maybe kids who are a little bit older, breaking down the cost of each item more versus just what's going out and what's coming in. Possibly a s another kind of savings bar where they can see when they are able to get more supplies, like they've earned enough to reinvest it back into the business. Right now in the parent area, I have some prompts for parents to sort of talk with their kids about like where they're selling best, what like it means that they're in the green, you know. that's what it is on there. ⁓ not in the I think it's what in the black is usually what they say that you're break even, but in the green ⁓ and they're seeing a profit. And just sort of like more information about how the background of like business runs. Because I'm have a space for them to put where they sold it, like a craft fair or to friends and family, then they can track where it is that they're selling the most. and kind of push more resources into that area. So I wanna kinda build out more levels of the app for parents and for kids, especially as the kids get older and they can understand that a little bit better. ⁓ because that's really what you need to understand in terms of like a business as you get older or being an entrepreneur as you're an adult is like how much to charge for each thing so that you know you're covering the cost of the supplies. That was a hard thing for my daughter to understand. She just kind of made up prices. You know, as we all do. And like, well, how much beads are in that earring? How much, you know, is the hooks, how much and that's such ⁓ granular kind of math that that's definitely for a good a level for older older kids that can be unlocked. So that's sort of what I want to work on next. Okay. I've heard from many that it's really hard to ship the first version because there's so many I once you start actually building you get many new ideas. ⁓ I should have that feature and yeah, how did you stop yourself not actually adding those already now? What was your thinking there? It's actually those women in AI groups. ⁓ a lot of talk about like don't let your ideas stop you from launching 'cause you'll just be stuck in this never ending testing phase. Yeah. And somebody said if you're not ⁓ kind of embarrassed of your first draft, you waited too long to ship. And I'm not embarrassed by the first draft, but I do I did get the understanding that okay, doesn't have to be exactly the way you wanted. Everything doesn't have to be exactly done. You want the basic out there. And I didn't even know about that false store advertising until one of those ⁓ sort of events through the women in AI group. And the ⁓ woman who develops apps talked about that idea. And so it made me feel at least like I'm working towards something that people are actually signing up on a wait list for, and that makes me feel like I need to get it out faster. Yeah. I think if I didn't have anybody waiting, I would kind of still be iterating. Yes. Yeah, a deadline or some, you know, external pressure is always great. Yeah. Yeah, external pressure for sure. That that gets you going. Do you have a date when you're aiming to launch? I'm hoping in the next couple weeks. ⁓ I'm not sure how long that review takes once you get all of the stuff in again the my first round. I didn't expect the external test flight to take a week to get approved. So I'm hoping I can get all the form and screenshots and everything up this week and then hopefully once it's approved, then it's up and I can send out ⁓ a notice to everybody on the wait list and hopefully start seeing some downloads. Yeah. Yeah. So Earlier we mentioned marketing very short. If we go back, how do you feel about marketing you off? I feel like again, the second time has been less f frustrating because at least I have some information. Started for method wise, I started a Pinterest account because my sister Yeah. Well my sister said, you know, our moms are on Pinterest all the time. Yeah. And Pinterest has a really cool thing, not to l I'm you know, not ⁓ trying to like promote I'm not getting not a partner or anything, but they reached out and they were like, hey, we have a marketing like kind of campaign account manager person. And I thought it was kind of fake. And then I looked it up and it's real. And I was like, ⁓ what do have to pay? But they and we meet and they helped me create the right types of pins and the right types of campaigns. ⁓ they did this with me for MethodWise. They still are and now I'm seeing more conversions for MethodWise and I just took that same knowledge and did the same thing for Earnling, but again, the budget is different and I'm seeing way more engagement. And I think it's just the nature of what the product is versus like, well, A, we're in summer, so there's no homework. ⁓ and and B, I just think that the idea of it's like the ⁓ project based learning. When you're learning something where you're hands on and you're seeing how it works, you're hitting those standards for writing and ⁓ reading without realizing that you're doing it. And that's sort of what the idea of a tangible business is teaching you math and it's teaching you business ideals and financial literacy and all these things that you're not realizing you're learning. And so it is an educational app. But it is, yeah. Yeah. But it's just formatted in a different way than something like Method Wise where you're actively asking about homework that day. Yeah. So I do think that this time I'm getting way more response up front, which feels nice because the marketing is like organic growth is so slow. It is. And I didn't realize that when I first started. So I have a friend who was in marketing and she took a look at everything and said it looks good. It's just she said realistically, if you don't have tons of money to throw at marketing it is organic growth is slow. And I'm just this is all just me. So you know, gotta balance the marketing with costs. Yeah, yeah. I have to say go like I'm so happy you mentioned Pinterest. I'm a former Pinterest marketer. ⁓ really? I love Pinterest and I think this it it is the secret weapon to success. Yeah. 'Cause nobody's there and you you kinda get a complete field for yourself and Pinterest users are shoppers and buyers. They love to spend money, they love to improve their life and their family's life. Like I think it's like absolute Perfect and I know. They genuinely have great account managers and you can get free mentoring every month. I've learned so much. I didn't even realize I was making like the wrong kind of pins. I wasn't making static pins. I was making idea pins. And those don't work in the campaign as well. And it was just so helpful. And my account manager I work with is so nice and so helpful and motivating and I'm just so glad my sister mentioned it. My sister's a baker, so she uses Pinterest for recipes and ideas all the time. And ⁓ I was like I kind of was like, I don't know, but it's so true. There's so many parents on there looking for for ideas to help with homework or or enrichment or ⁓ anything really for their kids. It's like such a huge resource I didn't even think of until she mentioned it. So Yeah. So Do you think you'll continue with paid advertising? Because it's actually a lot of people don't want to do paid advertising in the beginning. They're worried that they lose all the money. Do you think you keep doing the paid part as well? Or Yeah, I think as I continue to try to grow, then I will keep doing it. I'm not doing huge amounts of it, but I am seeing regular sort of sign ups on MethodWise and I am seeing a lot of waitlist sign ups for EarnLink. Good. Yeah. Just from those campaigns. And I did test like a Instagram campaign for MethodWise when I first started and it I don't know if I just don't understand how to do it, which is probably correct. But I didn't see a ton of traction. So I think I'll keep doing it, you know, as much as I can. Yeah. Budget it in. Because I it really drives good traffic and good results. And once you get the conversion campaign going and the Pinterest tag set up, then you start seeing so many more results so much quicker. Yeah. Which again I had no idea until they were were helping me. So it's really kind of an amazing resource. Yeah, I kinda recommend it now. Anybody who mentions that they're trying to do something that's where I did the the campaign for Ernling, just to the landing page. Yeah. Yeah. That I'm really happy to hear. I think it's genuinely the hidden gem for many kind of businesses. Anybody who wants to reach women, they should be marketing on Pinterest for sure. Yeah. It's ⁓ and now I kinda find it fun on there too. Like I pin things and have boards and it does give you really good ideas, so it does. Almost too many. Yeah. Yeah, maybe too many. Yeah. ⁓ and it's just yeah, it's just fun. I really like really impressed with the support from the platform and kinda would gush about it I think more. I think it's really like great that people have that option and they should really use it 'cause it's kind of amazing. It is. Yeah. Yeah. So you now have a wait list and in a couple of weeks it's going live. Yeah. You also have some testers now. What kind of feedback have you got so far? And are there some of the feedback that you are implementing before you even launch? Yeah. ⁓ some of the feedback was about being able to ⁓ change the pin for the parent area, being able to sync it between devices. I was asked about that, so that was one of the things I did for that second kind of iteration of it. Because yeah, you would want the same app used between you and your kid because you're both watching the same data. Yeah. So that makes sense. Yeah. You know, again just something I wouldn't have thought of or maybe right away not thought of. So really good feedback and I'm actually really surprised at the amount of former child entrepreneurs who have reached out to and were like, Yeah, this is great. I would have loved this. This is so helpful. Or ⁓ you know it's really like valuable to see when you kind of break even because kids think, ⁓ I have twenty dollars I have made twenty dollars, but it's like, did you make twenty dollars? Or did you just like earn back what you spent already? So really been ⁓ good feedback and good ideas, which I love. Yeah. Good. Hearing you or listening you for the last, I don't know, forty minutes, you thrown a lot of technical terms with like, huh, you know, I just did it. I think you've had a huge learning curve and it's really impressive to hear. I have to say Thank you. I think again women are sorted for like by habit and and trained to not Frag very much or like be kind of down like, ⁓ anyone could do it, right? But every time I talk to somebody about it, they say the same thing, ⁓ I can't believe you figured that out. And I'm like, Thank you. Like it's so nice to hear because I'm like, Well, if I could figure it out, anyone could figure it out. So I don't think it's that big of a deal. But it's so nice to hear because ⁓ it's a good reminder that it is a big deal when you learn something new and you should be really proud of yourself. Yeah. And it's okay to talk about it. Yeah, yeah. And that's why I also wanted to do the podcast is feature all these non developers doing things that they never thought they would do a year ago. Yeah and just figuring things out and ⁓ and hear the journey ⁓ and all the cool idea there's such a cool idea. So many I so many cool ideas. I know and I love looking at you once you reached out, I was looking at your apps and there's it's it's like Kind of addicting once you get one, you just kinda keep going, huh? Because eleven is lot. I know. I stopped now. Well, kind of. Temporarily paused a couple of things. But it is so much fun. So so if somebody's listening now and they're like, Well, I you know, I have a couple of ideas. What do you recommend they would do next? Where should they start? Just start. Just start. Just try. Ask AI to help you think about it. Ask AI to help you start, even if it's just a HTML file at the start, and even if only you can see it and test it. It's shipping teaches you things that no course can, no other person can. It's messy, but it's amazing and it gives you such comp once you can get one thing to work, then you won't really want to try and get that next thing to work. And it just sort of escalates from there. And it doesn't have to be, you know, technically perfect. It just has to work and then you can iterate from there. It doesn't have to be a hundred percent to push it out to the public or get input or testers or even to talk about it, you know? Yeah. I just say start before you think you're ready to start. That's really well put. I d I totally agree. And ship before you think you should. Mm-hmm. Yes, that's the biggest thing I've learned from other women, honestly. Ship before you think you should. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So is your daughter using the app to track her jewelry? She is using the app and she loves it. It's easy to use for her and easy to keep track of and She was kind of disappointed that once she put in all the ⁓ costs that she did not make as much money as she thought she did. But I'm like, but you reinvested so much into the business and that's the important part too. So Yeah. That'll definitely be the next kind of adjustment to the app is being able to say, I put this back into the business, right? I reinvested into it. ⁓ 'cause that was profit before. Yeah. So It's a it's really cool. She likes it a lot, so she was really excited that it was able to get on her phone. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. That's really awesome. So if anybody's listening here, they would like to know more about your app and you, where should they go? I can be found on LinkedIn. I think my I don't know if you're gonna put the URL or anything, but well, yeah. Okay. Or ⁓ can always message me at hello at earnling dot com or dot co. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you very much for joining and sharing your story. I wish you all the best. And if you get stuck in the last minute with App Store, give me a call and we'll thank you so much. I might take you up on that. Yeah. It's like a never-ending application. It is. Thank you so much. It was really lovely speaking with you. Likewise. Thank you.

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