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My first app had thousands of users, winning a fund from my university and my second app has over 17,000 users and has generated thousands of dollars of revenue every single month. Here's everything you need to know about building an app in 2026 and under 60 seconds. First, stop obsessing over an idea. McDonald's did not need to disappear for Burger King to succeed and the same thing is true for apps. Use Sensor Tower or Trust MRR to find apps that are already generating real revenue and find ways to tweak them slightly or improve them to make your own version. Next, you need to decide whether you're building an app on web or on mobile. If it's a web app, you should build it with next JS because this lets you do front end and back end development all in one. If it's a mobile app, build with React native and expo go because it lets you build for both Apple and Android and one go. Once you have that down, you need to be familiar with AI tools. I strongly recommend familiarizing yourself with one of cloud code or codex. Cloud code is stronger or front end design or user experience and codex is better when the architecture is more complex. Now, for actually developing, you're going to hook up your database through super base, any back in again through super base for fire base and to actually start getting some money, use stripe or revenue card. Now, I cannot stress this enough. releasing your app early. It's so critical because you need to get user feedback as early as possible on this development cycle. If it's a web app, deploy it on Shopify completely for free, and if it's a mobile app, you'll have to pay $99 for the App Store and $25 a year for the Play Store. Now, this is the most important part in 2026 and it's your distribution or marketing. And I grew my apps user-based organically through TikTok or Instagram. You could also do UGC, post on Reddit or try to get your app ranked on product on. Then Rins and repeat the winning formulas in the marketing strategy boosting them as ads and the users and revenue will start flowing in.