Ex-optician with no coding background runs 3 copied apps making $35K/month
Roger_M_Taylor · x · 2026-11-01
Starter Story profiles Samuel, a former optician with zero coding experience who taught himself to code via a 15-hour YouTube course and now runs 3 apps generating $35K/month combined.
His portfolio:
- useArtemis: LinkedIn scraping/email-finding tool competing with Apollo and Lemlist, $15K/month from 10,000 customers
- StoryShort: AI faceless video generator auto-posting UGC-style videos to TikTok/YouTube, $20K/month from 4,000 customers, grown via Facebook ads
- Capacity: AI coding tool, brand new, $900/month
His playbook: only build products that already exist and work — find ones showing Stripe screenshots on X, check traffic in Ahrefs, ship an MVP in 2 weeks, start with ads, then layer on SEO, faceless YouTube channels and affiliates. His takeaway: "Simple, boring tools make the most money."
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