How Kyle Fowler Built $42K/Month in Passive Income with Two Simple Apps (No VC Funding)

Making $10,000 a month passively isn't exactly common for bootstrapped apps. Most founders struggle to crack $5K MRR, let alone sustain that revenue for years straight without active marketing. But Kyle Fowler, the founder behind Cardstock and Scanémon, pulled it off using a keyword strategy so simple it sounds almost boring—until you see the $700,000 in lifetime revenue.

In today's podcast interview recap, we'll break down his playbook. Kyle has grown his apps to $41,000 in monthly recurring revenue without taking a single dollar of VC funding, and he's refreshingly transparent about what actually works versus what's just noise.

Our host, Joseph, covered a ton of ground with Kyle. As always, if you haven't seen the interview yet, definitely check that out right here. For now, on to the recap:

The validation that almost didn't happen

Kyle's origin story starts in 2019 when he wanted to catalog his baseball card collection. He searched the App Store for a scanning app—nothing existed. So he did what any curious developer would do: he started building one himself.

But here's where most people get it wrong: Kyle didn't just build in isolation. He made a Reddit post in r/baseballcards before writing a single line of code. The response? About 12-15 people said they'd use it. Not exactly viral validation, but enough to keep going.

The interesting part? Kyle actually abandoned the project for a while. As he explained, "I left it unfinished because I literally couldn't figure out how to put images in the card rows." It wasn't until a stranger on Reddit DMed him six years ago asking if he was still working on it that Kyle decided to finish what he started.

That Reddit DM changed everything. Without it, Cardstock might never have launched.

Launch day reality: $60 and a dream

When Cardstock finally went live, Kyle posted his launch in r/baseballcards. The result? Twelve paid downloads at $4.99 each. That's $60 on day one—not exactly a home run.

But here's the kicker—those were twelve paid downloads, not free trials. Kyle didn't even know subscriptions were an option at the time. He just charged $4.99 upfront because "it seemed easy."

The lesson? You don't need a massive launch to build something sustainable. Kyle's $60 first day eventually turned into consistent $10K months. The key was what came next.

The ASO strategy that generated $10K/month for two years straight

Kyle stumbled into App Store Optimization almost by accident. Apple was running a $100 free ad promotion, and Kyle figured if he was going to spend it, he should use it optimally. That led him down the ASO rabbit hole.

He spent two weeks researching keywords using Sensor Tower's free trial. The winners? "Baseball card scanner," "baseball card value," and "find value for baseball cards." He stuffed these into his app title and subtitle, then sat back and watched.

The result was insane. Cardstock held the #1 ranking for "baseball card scanner" for two to three years. Zero ad budget. Just people searching the App Store and finding his app naturally.

As Kyle put it, "Those two years in between there, that's like 10K a month passive every month." He was making consistent revenue through college, traveling, and barely touching the app. Pure passive income from ASO alone.

Think about it: two weeks of keyword research delivered years of passive revenue. That's the power of getting ASO right in an underserved niche.

The moment everything changed (and Kyle had to pivot fast)

In May 2024, Kyle lost his ASO rankings. Suddenly, the passive income machine wasn't so passive anymore. Downloads dropped, and Kyle realized he needed a new growth channel—fast.

His solution? Hire his friend Jacob from Wendy's to make TikToks.

Neither of them knew what they were doing. Their first videos barely cracked 20 likes. But Kyle had a philosophy: "I always knew that the idea would be mimicking existing content."

They tested everything—memes, silent pack openings, brand content mimicking Duolingo-style posts. Most of it flopped. But they kept iterating until they cracked a format that actually converted.

The TikTok format that generates 7,600 posts per month

Here's what finally worked: Show a desirable card for 3-5 seconds. Scan it with the app in hand. Reveal the value. That's it.

The genius move? The format is endlessly repeatable. Kyle and Jacob could control every variable—the hook text, the first card shown, the pacing, the reveal. It wasn't dependent on unpredictable factors like what someone says in a video or where the camera happens to point.

As Kyle explained, "Every action, every text, every word should have a purpose. Some of the negotiations are better and stuff, but you don't know what people are going to say and then you have to cut it and hope they just say good things."

The goal wasn't even to explain the app in the video. The goal was simple: generate "what's the app?" comments. That social proof signals to TikTok's algorithm that people are engaged, which pushes the video to more viewers.

Kyle and Jacob documented everything. Kyle literally created a master document titled "Core TikTok Strategy" with sections like "Hook users," "Storytelling commentary," and "Every action should have a purpose." This wasn't random—it was systematized from day one.

The result? They're now generating 7,600+ posts per month across multiple creator accounts.

Scaling to 150+ creators without losing your mind

Once Kyle and Jacob validated the slideshow format, they hit a new problem: How do you scale content creation without spending all your time managing creators?

Kyle's first instinct was to hire creators manually—reaching out on TikTok, negotiating deals, managing deliverables. It worked, but it didn't scale.

Then he discovered Noise, a platform that solves the exact problem Kyle was facing. Here's how it works:

Kyle uploads his slideshow images (230+ images for different card combinations) and hook templates directly to Noise. The platform auto-generates slideshows and distributes them to creators. Creators post on their own accounts, and Noise handles attribution and payouts automatically.

The economics? Kyle pays creators about $1 CPM (cost per thousand views). Noise takes half, so creators earn roughly 50 cents per thousand views. It sounds low until you realize the sheer volume—Kyle generated 27 million views for $2,600.

As Kyle put it, "That's not very much money for a lot of views, but it's the sheer bulk of posts that just leads to conversion rate."

Not every post goes viral. Most get a few hundred to a few thousand views. But when you have 7,600 posts running simultaneously, the numbers add up fast.

The "everything works" philosophy that most founders miss

Here's where Kyle's mindset gets really interesting. He doesn't obsess over finding the perfect growth channel. He just tries things until they work.

"I feel like the key is that they all probably work," Kyle said. "I see so much on Twitter everyone being like, 'Oh, everyone says this about X thing but really it's Y thing you need to be doing.' And it's like, well, X thing probably works. You probably just didn't try it hard enough."

He's seen both takes on Twitter every week—someone saying paid ads are a scam, someone else saying they're the best decision they ever made. Kyle's take? Both are probably right for their specific situation.

The lesson here is huge: Stop waiting for someone to tell you which channel is "best." Just pick one and commit until you figure it out. Kyle spent two years on ASO alone before even thinking about TikTok. When he finally did TikTok, he spent months iterating before finding what worked.

From $4.99 one-time purchase to $5/month recurring (and why it changed everything)

For a long time, Kyle resisted switching to a subscription model. He thought, "It costs $15 for a Netflix subscription. Who's paying a third of that for Cardstock?"

But after enough people told him to test it, he finally made the switch: $5/month, $50/year, or $99 lifetime access.

The result? Revenue exploded. You can see it clearly in Kyle's revenue chart—there's a massive spike right when he switched to subscriptions. That single change unlocked the growth trajectory that took him from steady $10K months to $30K+ months.

The takeaway? Paid upfront apps can work, but subscriptions unlock a different level of scale. If Kyle had stayed at $4.99 one-time purchase, he'd still be making decent money—but nowhere near $41K MRR.

How Kyle built Scanémon in record time using AI dev tools

Once Cardstock was working, Kyle saw an opportunity in the Pokémon card space. He was at a card show and saw a Glaceon card that called to him—that same collector's feeling he had as a kid looking through his grandpa's baseball cards.

But here's the thing: Kyle didn't rebuild everything from scratch. He already had the framework from Cardstock. Using AI dev tools, he adapted the existing scanning technology to work with Pokémon cards.

The approach? Same TikTok slideshow format, different cards. Same ASO principles, different keywords. Same subscription model, different audience.

Scanémon now generates about $9K MRR—not as much as Cardstock yet, but growing. And because Kyle already figured out the formula, he's not reinventing the wheel. He's just applying proven tactics to a new niche.

Why Kyle learned to do everything himself before hiring

Kyle's approach to hiring is counterintuitive. Most founders try to hire experts to do things they don't understand. Kyle did the opposite—he learned everything himself first, then hired people.

"You have to learn enough of how to do something yourself in order to recognize someone great at it," Kyle explained. "If you don't do it yourself, you would have no way to tell if they're good."

This philosophy played out perfectly when Kyle started working with a UGC agency. Because he'd already spent months in the trenches with Jacob creating content, he could immediately spot whether the agency knew what they were doing.

The forcing function here was bootstrapping—Kyle didn't have VC cash to throw at agencies and hope for the best. He had to make every dollar count, which meant deeply understanding each channel before scaling it.

The network effect that nobody talks about

Kyle credits much of his success to being "overly on Twitter" and making connections with other founders. But here's what's interesting: He's not precious about sharing what works.

"So many people are just happy to help," Kyle said. "I always figured that if I was asking someone questions, I was a burden to them. But helping is a thing that I love to do now too. If people respect you as someone who knows what they're doing, it's easy to get help."

The key insight? The quality of being willing to learn is rare. Kyle noticed that when he gives advice, many people act like they already know better or aren't really listening. But when he finds someone who's genuinely curious and open to feedback, he'll share everything.

This creates a compounding effect. The more Kyle shares, the more people want to help him. The more people help him, the faster he learns. The faster he learns, the more valuable his own insights become—which makes even more experienced founders willing to share with him.

It's a flywheel, and it's completely opt-in. You just have to decide whether you want to play the gatekeeping game or the abundance game.

Practical advice for bootstrapped app founders

If you're building an app right now and want to replicate Kyle's success, here's his playbook:

Do the ASO basics first. Use Sensor Tower's free trial. Research keywords in your niche for one to two weeks. Find the high-value, low-competition keywords and stuff them in your title and subtitle. This alone can get you to $10K/month if you're in an underserved niche.

Start with Reddit for validation. Find the subreddit for your niche. Post about your idea before you build. If 10-15 people say they'd use it, that's enough validation to start. When you launch, post there again—but make sure you're genuinely contributing to the community, not just spamming.

Test one growth channel deeply before moving to the next. Kyle spent two years on pure ASO before even thinking about TikTok. When he did pivot to TikTok, he spent months iterating formats. Don't channel-hop—commit until you figure it out.

Find a repeatable format you can control. For TikTok, this means creating content where you control the hook, the pacing, the reveal, and the call-to-action. Don't rely on unpredictable elements like what someone says in a video. The more variables you control, the easier it is to scale.

Hire people you trust, not résumés. Kyle hired his friend Jacob from Wendy's—someone with zero marketing experience. But because they could work closely together and iterate fast, they figured it out. Trust and cultural fit matter more than credentials when you're bootstrapping.

Learn it yourself before outsourcing it. Whether it's TikTok, ASO, or paid ads, don't hire an expert until you understand the basics yourself. You need to know enough to recognize great work and spot when someone's BS-ing you.

Wrapping up

Kyle's success isn't about one brilliant hack. It's about committing to boring fundamentals long enough to see results. Two weeks of ASO research. Two years of passive income. Months of failed TikTok experiments. Thousands of creator posts at scale.

Most founders give up before they reach the breakthrough. Kyle didn't have VC funding pressuring him to grow fast or die trying. He just had the freedom to iterate until he figured it out—and the patience to keep going when things didn't work immediately.

The tactics might change—ASO rankings drop, TikTok algorithms shift, new platforms emerge. But the fundamentals stay the same: Pick a niche. Serve it well. Find one channel that works. Scale it until it stops working. Then find the next one.

As always, if you're ready to test your paywall, run price tests and more for your app, then you're already in the right spot. Sign up for a free Superwall account today!