Austin Frankel @afbuild

@LDT0545 yes. easily

Drop your projects URL below and I will rate each 1-10 on design, idea, and uniqueness: 👇

if you're an app founder and your profit margins are not below 50% you are failing: the only way to compete in any space is: - speed - iteration - being right more than wrong without deploying capital you won't be able to work fast enough or iterate enough "you need to spend more to make more" - Titus Maccius

if you are hesitating about pulling the trigger on paying for an AI sub (claude, grok, muse, open ai) do it... i have 2x my productivity with these platforms every SWE should use: - $200 codex/month - $50 muse code - 2-3 bunner $20 codex - 1-2 claude code - 1 supergrok max your subs and the revenue will come

In the age of AI it has never became easier to replicate software It is challenging to justify spending money on subscriptions when you can build it in-house One of my biggest recommendations to founders is if a subscription costs less than $20 a month and you have under 10 subscriptions - pull the trigger There are plenty of subs like salesforce that should be done in-house, but for cheap subscriptions they are almost always worth it Especially if they are dev tools bc b2b founders know that anyone can clone their service and factor that into the price Building in house still require your time, and the second you stop valuing time you will fail

too many startup founders make this same mistake: "all-in-one" - adding AI chatbots - endless features - [x], but for [y] with [z] without establishing PMF you are wasting your time building it is imperative to build for a real user! the more your decisions go from intuition-based rather than data-backed the riskier they become there's a simple fix: 1. ship first 2. collect data 3. iterate 4. repeat don't over engineer and collect data after Remember: - somebody or something that is a jack of all trades is a master at none this rule applies for building an all in everything app you may look at an all-in-platform as tons of ways to market a product, but in reality it causes: - a drop in quality - a drop in speciality - too much when you try to attract everyone, you convert no one don't copy big companies like google, amazon, etc (they are on a different playing field) if you want to become successful in a software business master one very specific thing, and then scale to other verticals as you grow

my biggest advice for anyone with an app is to increase prices So many founders make their lives unnecessary difficult with by creating razor thin margins The best way to get rich is sell to the rich, and the best way to get wealthy is to sell to everyone In order to become wealthy you have to first become rich Almost every founder can increase their costs by 20% and their conversion rate wouldn’t drop 20% If you are running ads or influencer marketing this is even more important Do not guess Run experiments, A/B tests, iterate, and use the law of diminishing returns to find the highest possible price You will make your life so much easier and will move 2x faster

this is one of the craziest scams i've seen to date a scammer made a 1:1 replica of the website Peter Millar, but the domain ended in "sales" they have: - real WooCommerce cart and checkout infrastructure - PayPal payment support detected - fedEx and UPS shipping references - realistic account creation and login pages - properly configured robots.txt - HTTPS redirects, SSL certificate, and HSTS security headers - privacy policy + refund policy petermillarsales.com

Evolution of an app founder: - Fortnite/minecraft/roblox - sneaker reselling/scrappy business - drop shipping/affiliate website - vibe-code website Comment if you tried any of these

Your app is a funnel the goal is to get the highest # of high intent users to the end Optimize by: - autofill text - open keyboard on input screens - avoiding auth until end of onboarding/after payment - minimal text - progress bar

my playbook goes over organic, UGC, influencer marketing, and much more:

before you build a consumer app ask your: "if the app was live on the app store, how would i get my first 10,000 users" this question determines if your app will blow up or tank i have built over 10 consumer apps, and i just wrote my complete 47 page GTM playbook on the repeatable process of scaling comment the word 'scale' and i will DM you a link!

I built 10+ iOS apps. Here's what I learned: - don't build social apps - scale with organic first, influencer/UGC next, and paid ads only - the idea is only 15% - scale 3 months and double down or stop - 1-2 co-founders max - don't be afraid to burn money Follow for more

AI is a multiplier If you are a bad marketer you will produce more bad posts If you are a bad software engineer you will produce more bad code AI only empowers people, and does not replace You need to learn the skills first, and then leverage AI

@anupamrjp seatmakerapp.com

if you are a college student you have ONE of the greatest and most unique opportunities in the world i wasn't thrilled that i was going to college and would have much rather grinded on my start-up i bumped into marc baghadjian @marcbaghadjian in NYC, founder of Hypercard (which exited to Amex), and he completely reframed how i think about college he shared his experience at Babson, and it allowed me to realize what college actually is college can 100% brainwash you, but if you think about college like a pre-paid country club, it changes everything you have: - 5+ hours a day of free time - you're surrounded by experts (professors) in every field - an edu email that gives you credibility and a higher chance of getting responses - parties and social events all the time - an incredible alum network - tons of kids you can create start-ups with you will NEVER live without responsibilities again in your life, and if you have the opportunity to go to college, you should 100% take it

it's annoying to switch between accounts and keep track of limits, but you save a TON of money i truly believe that with ~5-25 codex accounts and some competency it is impossible not to make at LEAST $1k MRR

If you are a college student and want unlimited codex do this: ask 5-10 students a day to give you their EDU email and sign up for: chatgpt.com/students/2026/ if you can get 2 people everyday that is $160 a day or $20,000 a semester if students are reluctant send them up to $20

you can also find a bunch more insane deals you can stack with other students on this site: studentperks.vercel.app

same applies for: gemini.google/students/ v0.app/students perplexity.ai/students jetbrains.com/academy/studen… education.github.com/pack