Monai

Flo built the first version of Monai in roughly one to two months, shipping fast to avoid the mistake of his previous app which took two years and launched to no audience. He added his social media handles directly inside the app — a move he calls foundational — which is ultimately how the key influencer partner discovered him organically. Beyond that, for the first year and a half he attempted to grow the app largely on his own without a clear distribution channel, reaching only $300 MRR. There is no detailed description in the transcript of specific tactics used to get the very first users (e.g., a specific Reddit post, App Store launch, or social campaign). The transcript implies the early user base was small and organic, likely driven by App Store discoverability and minimal social presence, but no concrete actions are described for the first 100 users specifically.

Flo had a strong mobile UX and iOS development background (former mobile UX lead), allowing him to ship a polished, well-designed product quickly. However, the primary unfair advantage in scaling was that a large Colombian content creator organically discovered the app through Flo's social handles embedded in the app and reached out first — giving Flo significant negotiating leverage and a pre-validated creative partner.

influencer_partnership_profit_share

Solo growth efforts over the first ~1.5 years yielded only $300 MRR — no single channel is named explicitly as a failure, but the implication is that organic/self-driven distribution (without influencer leverage) simply didn't scale. Flo also mentions he was slow to start Meta ads, which he now considers a missed opportunity — they only started experimenting with paid ads recently and saw early positive results.