100: Launch Center Pro & Sub Club — David Barnard

On the podcast: David Barnard shares how he went from recording engineer to one of the App Store’s earliest indie developers, building apps for the iPhone since 2008. He talks about borrowing $20,000 to start his company, turning Mirror into a million-dollar app through App Store search, why Launch Center Pro was more influential than profitable, and the lessons that eventually led him to RevenueCat.

Top Takeaways:

💸 Fame and revenue are different metrics 
An app can live in people's docks for years, get covered by every major outlet, and gross $1M over its life while never paying its maker a tech salary.

🔍 Own one search term and you own a foundation 
A single high-intent App Store query, held for years, can quietly fund every other experiment you want to run.

✉️ Pitch their audience, not your story 
Three short paragraphs about why a writer's readers will care beats five pages about how much you need the coverage.

🤝 Write the partnership exit before you need it 
Decide up front who does what and what happens when one of you stops doing it, because unwinding a 50/50 split is where it gets ugly.

🎯 Build the reason your app exists first 
Covering the category's table stakes before the thing that makes you different is a sequencing mistake that can sink a good app.

🔋 Save some energy for the week after launch 
Shipping burnt out means the marketing plan you wrote never happens, and the next shiny idea wins instead.

About David Barnard:

📱Growth Advocate at RevenueCat and Host of the Sub Club podcast. A long-time indie iOS developer whose App Store career stretches back to 2008. He’s built and launched dozens of apps, including Launch Center Pro, Mirror, and Weather Up.

👋 LinkedIn

🌐 Learn more about RevenueCat

🚀 Learn more about Launch Center Pro

☀️ Learn more about Weather Up

Follow us on X: 

• Charlie Chapman - @_chuckyc
• David Barnard - @drbarnard
• RevenueCat - @RevenueCat
• Launched - @LaunchedFM 

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Celebrating 100 episodes & 18 years on the App Store 
[08:46] South Texas, sound recording, and the studio years 
[13:18] From recording engineer to iPhone evangelist 
[16:46] Why the studio schedule had to end 
[17:42] First in line for the iPhone 
[22:18] A $20,000 loan from family to start AppCubby 
[28:27] Learning enough code to hire the right help 
[31:55] TripCubby and the cubby idea 
[34:04] Missing App Store day one over a developer account 
[45:58] How to pitch the press without begging 
[51:45] Charts, discounts, and the race up the rankings 
[55:37] Building Mirror around the front-facing camera 
[58:03] Camera Plus and the exact-match search trick 
[01:03:43] Why search traffic creates staying power 
[01:07:29] Launch Center Pro and the URL scheme era 
[01:15:34] The notification hack Apple rejected 
[01:22:11] Getting approved by Phil Schiller 
[01:26:01] Why Launch Center Pro shipped as a separate app 
[01:29:02] Well loved, barely profitable
[01:36:51] The paid update David still regrets skipping 
[01:39:07] Workflow, Shortcuts, and a copied database 
[01:50:14] Unwinding a partnership as the app faded 
[01:56:46] The subscription pivot that landed badly 
[01:59:16] The Zapier deal that never happened 
[02:03:34] Why an indie developer went and got a job 
[02:06:08] Weather Up and the cost of building subscriptions yourself 
[02:07:52] Sequencing, differentiation, and finding the right partner 
[02:11:30] Building independently with AI 
[02:15:36] Grit Method and four questions for his kids 
[02:18:16] Burnt out at launch, marketing left undone 
[02:20:36] How RevenueCat and David crossed paths
[02:21:13] Building Sub Club around takeaways 
[02:28:16] Sub Club Live and the weekly cadence 
[02:30:36] Donald Norman and the design of everyday things