I built this website in 8 hours with Claude. Now it makes $40K/month

The other day I got a DM from this guy

named Frank. He said, "Hey, I built this

app. It took me a few hours. I'm making

real money. Want to chat?" I was

intrigued. So, I said, "Sure." It's a

very simple game in nature, and I think

that's one of the reasons it's been

successful.

>> When he showed me his website, I thought

it was pretty awesome. But then when he

told me how much money it was making, I

knew we had to bring him on to the

channel. I built this game in just

[music] a weekend, and we make about

$40,000 monthly. So, in this episode,

we're going to dive into the dead simple

website he built that now makes over

$40,000 a month, how he built [music]

the entire thing in just a few hours of

the quad, and his advice for building

apps here [music] in 2026. Trust me,

this is one you do not want to miss.

Let's dive in. I'm Gus and this is

Starter Story.

All right, Frank, welcome to Starter

Story. Excited to have you here. Tell us

who you are, what you built, and what's

your story. It's great to be on. My name

is Frank Smith. I built the Geosports

web game. Right now, it's making about

$40,000 per month, but three months ago,

I built this game in just a [music]

weekend. Since then, we've created

several spin-off games. We've been

featured on national TV twice. Today,

I'm excited to be on Starter Story and

share more. Awesome, Frank. Yeah, I'm so

excited. Um, when when we first talked,

I played I played the game and I kept

playing it a couple days after then. So,

it's so fun. And when we first talked,

you were making only a couple thousand

and now you're up to $40,000 a month so

fast. So, I'm really excited to dive

into all of this. So, let's get into Geo

Sports or Geo Games. Just explain what

it is in a few sentences and who your

like users are. Geo Games is the name of

the app. It hosts all the spin-offs, but

right now we have several. We have uh

Geo Sports, Geo History, Geo Footy.

They're all the same game just for

different niches. We have about 700,000

monthly active users, and we make about

$40,000 monthly. A smaller percentage of

this is the pro subs, which I just

showed you. That's about 1,800 pro subs

right now. The much larger number uh

comes in through the ads, which is

closer to 30 $35,000 in programmatic

right now. And what what keeps this game

running is how sticky and sharable it

is. This is my favorite stat. We have a

53% organic share rate, which means if

we have, you know, 100,000 people who

play around in a given day, which we've

done before, 53,000 of those people are

going to share their score. All right,

so here we have our programmatic ads. As

you can see, they're they're very young

here. We actually don't even have a full

30 days yet. So, we hover around um

$1,200 a day. So, here we go. Here is

our Stripe. This is last 4 weeks, but

we've had Stripe on here for much

longer. All right, here's our landing

page. As I mentioned, very simple on

purpose. Geosports daily sports

geography game. Tap where it happened.

Five questions. This is part of the

magic here is that we never had to teach

people how to play this game. So,

[music] play today's round. You get a a

clue right here at the top. Tailgating

super fans themselves through tables in

this NFL town. Tap right there and it's

going to score you. Oh, I didn't even

get a 100. I didn't get close enough.

Now you see if I if I click very far

away, the score is going to be much

different. This one's going to be 72 and

it's a yellow dot instead of a green.

You'll go for all five and you get your

result. Hey, real quick. I hope you're

enjoying Frank's story about how he

built this awesome website. We're going

to get back to it in a second, but I

wanted to share something really

exciting. If you're a big fan of Starter

Story, which I hope you are, then you've

watched a ton of our videos and are

probably wondering, "How can I start my

own side project or my own business?"

Well, that's exactly why Starter Story

[music] exists. to figure out ideas that

are working right now, how to grow them,

and ultimately how to build [music] a

successful business. If you check out

the link in the description, you're

going to see a brand new starter story

website. You can really think of it like

a research platform. [music] Now, inside

you're going to find literally thousands

of business ideas, all with the actual

data behind them. Stuff like revenue,

[music]

how they grew, cost to start, and

everything else that you might need to

validate your idea and start building.

Every month, we're going to be rolling

out a ton of new and free resources. And

the latest one is a database of over a

100 business ideas that you can start

for less than 500 bucks. [music] We want

to show you that capital and money

doesn't have to be the biggest

constraint when it comes to starting

your business. So, if you're interested

in this or any of the other thousands of

business ideas we have inside Starter

Story, just head to the link in the

description and check it out 100% for

free. All right, let's get back to the

story. Well, Frank, that is that is

awesome. Yeah, it's a it's a cool game.

It's fun. and it's easy to use and like

you like you said it's really sharable

which I imagine is going to be something

we talk a little bit about later when it

comes to growth. But let's take a few

steps back and just talk about your

background. What were you doing before

this? What were you doing before you

launched uh this website or this game

that now makes roughly $40,000 a month?

Sure. So, I've been working as an

independent sports creator since 2020.

Right during co is when I got my start.

I've grown the audience now to over 4

million followers across social media.

I'm very well known for that. Most

people don't know me as someone who

created a game. although it's becoming

more popular, they know me as someone

who creates very high-quality short form

sports videos, mostly commentary. Um,

but I have always had a passion for

games. You know, very very shortly after

I became an independent sports creator,

I launched my first game. It was called

Five Card Draw. We probably had 110,000

people play it. It was not a small game,

but it was very, very niche. But I had

been doing this for a while. I I

launched several games after that. You

know, it's funny that that Geos Sports

even happened because we were very set

on on on launching a different game and

and this kind of just [music] exploded

out of nowhere after a weekend of work.

You know, on this point, I want to just

kind of talk a little bit about

something I know cuz I know Star

audience, they're probably thinking, you

know, you're only successful, Frank,

because you have this huge audience. You

mentioned 4 million followers early on

social media. We talked to a lot of

founders who have an audience, and

that's that's a common thing that we

that we see on the channel. But I just

want to give you an opportunity to share

like for anyone who is watching and

thinking, well, I can't do this because

I don't have an audience or, you know, I

have 200 followers on X or whatever the

case may be. Uh, what would you say to

someone watching who kind of has that

objection in their head or objection

about, you know, your story? Number one,

I'd say it's always smart to build an

audience. Even if that's a small

audience and you're building in public,

it is a good strategy today. Yes, it

helps that I have 4 million followers.

I've worked very hard to do that.

However, geosports relies very very

little on my audience and I I have the

stats to back it up here. I've made one

video about geosports. What I do every

day is I post geosports, [music] you

know, one of the question, one of the

five questions um on X and I post it on

my Instagram story. We drive roughly

about 2,000 clicks from those two posts

I do every day. So, in other words,

that's about 2% of our daily traffic.

The other 98% is daily players that

probably don't even know that I'm the

founder of this game. Now, this game is

about word of mouth. Most of these

people are people who are in group

chats. One of their buddies sent them

the game and they just decided to play.

They had no idea who the founder was.

Look, it's always helpful to have a

following. I recommend building a

following, but that is definitely not

why this game has succeeded. Cool. Yeah.

So, let's get into that then. So, you

you kind of said it came a little bit

out of nowhere. So, I can imagine the

answer because you've been working in

sports for a long time, but how did you

come up with the idea for this

particular [music]

website?

>> Yeah. So, I I have to give credit to my

brother here. He showed me this game

called MapTap and I loved it. I was

always someone who loved maps and globes

and Google maps in particular. I loved

it and I was uh you know I was at a

buddy's wedding and I was driving home

that Sunday. I just had this thought

running through my mind on the way home

where it's like you know I I really am

I'm excited to play MapTap when I get

home. What if I had a sports version

because MapTap doesn't do any sort of

trivia. It doesn't have a sports twist

on it. I thought I could do my own thing

and and and make a remix of sorts and I

did and I I I just got to work right

away and it slowly blossomed.

>> So you mentioned earlier kind of like

you you coming home from this wedding,

you started working on it. It's my

understanding that you built this kind

of really quickly, but tell us a little

bit about the build story. How'd you

build it? How long did it take you?

Stuff like that.

>> You know, I went to regular cloud first

and I just gave it a bunch of detail.

Here's all this information I have for a

game. You know, do some research on map

tab and I had to build a spec. I'm not

technical. I don't know how to code. you

know, every step of the way when I would

get stuck, I would just ask Claude and

we'd refer back to the spec and, you

know, when we needed to install other

tools, it recommended a lot of these

things for me. You know, it it's really

beautiful how much you can accomplish

now having my background and and not

being technical. So, on that Sunday, I

worked for about 8 hours. I I kind of

just canceled my schedule on that Monday

and and kept working on this and it got

to a point where I was able to send it

out.

>> So, you know, you you say you're

non-technical. Uh what what is the tech

stack that you use to build this?

>> Okay, we have cloud max the 20x version.

Uh we have Verscell Pro for hosting. Uh

custom domain which I bought from

Verscell. We use map libre for the

globe. Up stash reddish for leaderboards

and stats. Google sheets for the

questions and stripe for the pro

subscriptions. Pretty lean tech. I think

that's awesome. Let's get into a little

bit of advice. I think people who are

watching this might be thinking to

themselves, oh, I have like a niche or a

strong interest in a particular space

kind of like you had for sports and you

ended up building this game. What would

be your, you know, a couple pieces of

advice that you would give to people

who, you know, are interested in

building maybe their first app or their

first project? Yeah. What kind of advice

would you give to them? Don't be afraid

to build for web first. [music] I've had

success here. One of the main reasons

that geosports was able to become so

viral was that there is near zero

friction. People could play this, you

know, the game blew up on social media,

specifically on X. So people could play

without ever leaving X. They found it,

they played it, they shared it all

there. It was a very seamless

experience. So that's number one for me.

I think that's very important and

something that, you know, people

shouldn't just skip over. Sure. Number

two would be make your product sharable.

This sounds obvious, but it's not. So

Geosports is only a success because of

word of mouth. That is true still to

this day. You know, most people might

think that I'm a content creator and I'm

pushing it. It's really not. like 99%

[music]

of the traffic, 98% of the traffic is

from word of mouth because the product

is sharable. We reached over 1 million

unique players in less than one month

without a fancy email campaign. Uh so

make your product sharable. Lastly is do

not wait to get started. Try to block

off 8 hours of uninterrupted work to

give yourself a chance to build [music]

something. You know, again, it sounds

obvious, but you but getting started is

so difficult and that's not lost on me.

And if you do get stuck in those eight

hours, just ask your LLM and keep

building. This is what I did to build

geosports. I, you know, I was, I was

taking a ridiculous amount of

screenshots when I was using Verscell

and having to pinpoint, [music]

you know, the different platforms and

the domain and all of this stuff. I

don't know how to do this stuff. So, I

relied on screenshots and tons of

[music] questions and recommend everyone

else do the same. I remember doing that

for the first time that I built stuff. I

would literally just like take an entire

screenshot of my screen and say, "Can

you explain what the heck I'm even

looking at?"

>> Yeah. And it would

>> And then when I'm doing it, I say, "Is

this right? is what I'm putting in here

right. Make sure it's right. Yeah. Okay.

It's right. Let's go.

>> Exactly. And sort of the fud didn't

always get it right, but I got it right

most of the time. So, let's switch gears

here and talk about the growth of this

game because, you know, you grew really

fast. Zero to 40k per month in 3 months.

Give us an overview of that growth

timeline and maybe at a high level or

like how it grew so fast. Like I said,

we had a stealth launch. I sent it to a

couple family members, friends, and I

noticed that they were sharing it. So, I

felt comfortable putting it on some of

my social media stories. So, I I, you

know, I made a couple posts about it on

X, you know. Interestingly, the post I

made about it on X wasn't even a post

about geosports. It was, you know, a

post about the NBA or something. And I

replied to my own tweet saying, "Hey, by

the way, I made this game. I'd really

appreciate if you guys all checked it

out." And that reply went completely

viral. I had about 40,000 players. And

[music] then that following day, that

Saturday, we did 150,000 players in one

day. Uh it's the it's the type of launch

that every founder dreams of, but we

were also very unprepared on the

retention side. You know, this game was

only 5 days old. [music] So I I was not

expecting this type of growth, so we got

to work very quickly. So yeah, thanks

for giving that overview. Let's just go

a little bit deeper on growth. Like give

us some of the tactics you use. I know

you already kind of mentioned a few of

them, but just give give us a little bit

more around like what you did to take

this from zero [music] to where it is

today. $40,000 per month and growing.

>> What we rely on is a large group of

players coming back and playing every

day. It's a very habitual game. So I

realized very early on that geosports

was extremely viable and sharable and X.

So I created this new role called a

hosting role specifically designed for

sports media personalities and athletes

on the platform. And basically what I

did is I realized some of these people

were playing. So I DM' people with large

followings who had been liking the post

about the game and asked if they wanted

to host. And naturally they asked what

does that mean? All it means is they

would write the five daily questions

which often times they're very excited

to do. You know, when the game with

their questions goes live, I make a post

saying, "Hey, you know, we have this

person as host today." And almost always

they retweet it and the game reaches a

new audience. This still feels like a

cheat code that people are willing to do

this, but it's also an amazing

networking tool. I I get to connect with

all these people and we both grow

together.

>> Final question for you, Frank. Um, if a

question we ask all founders who come on

the channel, if you were standing on

your shoulders 3 months ago, a couple

years ago, or for people watching who

are just getting started, what would be

your final piece of advice to them? If I

could go back, I would say stay in the

game. I learned this lesson from my

career in video production. I started

producing YouTube videos when I was in

middle school. This was about 2007.

YouTube [music] was very new. My videos

didn't really become popular until 2020.

I had a few that took off, but I didn't

make a name for myself really until 2020

when I became an independent short form

creator. You know, for those who are bad

at math, that's about [music] 13 14

years. When I started making digital

games later that same year in 2020, I

had this lesson in my back pocket. I

knew [music] that you had to be patient.

You have to keep your feet in the water.

And ultimately, that paid off. The games

exploded in 2026. But again, that's 6

years later. This did not happen

overnight. So, um, none of this happens

if I don't stay in the game, if I don't

practice patience and suffer through

some of the hard times that come with

that.

>> Frank, that's great advice. Thanks so

much for coming on Starter Story. For

whoever's watching, leave a comment for

Frank. Any other questions you might

have or what your thoughts are on this

episode. Thanks for coming on Starter

Story. U, maybe we'll talk to you again

when you're at 100K per month or more.

>> I look forward to it. Thank you, Gus.

>> Okay, I just wrapped up with Frank. That

was a really fun interview, but I it's

really coming down to like two main

takeaways for me, which we mentioned

kind of throughout the interview. The

first one, and this is like the obvious

one we talked a lot about, was whatever

you're building, think about the

sharability of it. I've created a few

different apps myself, and I'm just

starting to think about for some of them

that are like mo slightly very slightly

successful. How do I get more users to

this? There's lots of, you know, lots of

ways to grow something, but something

that he made really obvious to me was

try to build some sharability into it.

Whether that's sharing a screenshot or

sharing some stats [music] or something

that someone can use your app for and

tell someone else about it is a really

obviously smart way to grow. The second

thing, and this is one of the main

reasons I wanted to bring them on the

channel in general, was sort of this

theme of like tools like Claude and

[music] Chad GBT codeex have really

changed the game on who can be a

builder. A small example is someone like

me. I have zero technical experience and

I'm I'm not successful by any means like

these guys that we feature on the

channel, but it's allowed a regular old

Joemo like me to have an idea and

actually bring it to life and make, you

know, a couple hundred, which is what

I've made so far. And for someone like

Frank and other people we featured on

the channel who already have this sort

of like content creator mindset, those

kind of people are the folks that are

most successful in the coming wave of

apps that are built or products that are

built because they have the distribution

in mind and now the technical aspect of

building that blocker is completely

gone. And I think it's really fun that

he just started this as a fun project

for himself and now it's become this

$40,000 per month business that is

probably changing his life. So, one of

the things we always say here at Sertory

is you just have to go build something

and you can and will figure out the rest

later. That's why at the link in the

description, you can find over 100 side

projects that people have started. So,

if you yourself are looking to build

your first side project, but are still

trying to find the right idea that might

work, go ahead and check that out.

Download it 100% for free. All right,

thanks for watching. We'll see you in

the next one. Peace.