Launched by RevenueCat

On the podcast: Sofia Larsson and César Pinto Castillo share how they built their company Ambi Studi and their flagship app Ambre, a recipe book and meal planner that lets you save recipes from any site, photo, or app and syncs privately across your Apple devices. 
They talk about César's college thesis turning into real production software for Volvo, Sofia's pivot from textile engineering into iOS development during a career burnout, a $150 Mac that couldn't even compile his first app, a "welcome call" from Apple Entrepreneur Camp that turned out to be a two-hour technical interview, and why design is becoming the real differentiator now that building software is easy.

Top Takeaways:
🍎 The scary outcome is getting in 
Applying is easy to put off when the worst case isn't rejection but acceptance, because then you have to do the thing. Apply anyway; the program will build the confidence you were waiting to feel first.
💻 Say yes, then buy the tools 
Agreeing to build an iPhone app with no Mac, no iPhone, and no idea what Xcode was worked out fine; the fee paid for the first Mac, and the wrong Mac before it was just tuition.

🔤 The first barrier to coding is vocabulary, not logic 
You can't Google a modifier if you don't know it's called a modifier. Describing the problem in the wrong words to a tool that answers anyway is what gets a beginner unstuck.

🎨 Post about what nobody else in your community posts about 
When every timeline is APIs and SDKs, a thread about a color combination or a layout that reads better stands out, and that difference builds a following.
✨ When AI writes the features, the experience is what's left to compete on 
Users don't read the code any more than they read assembly. Performance, solving the problem, and doing it in a beautiful way are what you own now.

About Sofia Larsson and César Pinto Castillo:

Sofia Larsson is a Co-Founder, iOS Engineer, and UI/UX Designer at Ambi Studio, and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Textile Sciences and Engineering. 
César Pinto Castillo is also a Co-Founder at Ambi Studio, a product company focusing on the Apple Platform. Our goal is to make accessible and user-friendly apps with a focus on privacy.
👋 Sofia Larsson’s LinkedIn 

👋César Pinto Castillo’s LinkedIn
🌐 Learn more about Ambi Studio  
🥘 Learn more about Ambre

🖥️ Ambi Studio GitHub

💭Ambi Studio on Mastadon

Follow us on X: 
Charlie Chapman - @_chuckyc
RevenueCat - @RevenueCat
Launched - @LaunchedFM 

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Meet Sofia Larsson and César Pinto Castillo
[03:29] César's winding road to a computer science degree
[09:12] César discovers iOS and builds his first app
[15:47] Sofia's path from textile engineering to software
[28:22] Learning Swift without a traditional tech background
[29:46] The forgotten "Cooking" app users wouldn't let die
[33:32] How rewriting it in SwiftUI became Sofia's real classroom
[37:06] Apple Entrepreneur Camp and the "welcome call" that built her confidence
[46:39] Turning a forgotten side project into client opportunities
[47:43] Why design helped Ambre stand out
[51:27] Finding inspiration beyond famous tech icons
[54:12] Why finishing projects is harder than starting
[58:49] Why design and user experience matter more in the AI era
[1:02:07] AI makes building more accessible to creators

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

On the podcast: Matt Birchler shares how he went from a self-taught blogger and content creator to building a growing catalog of indie apps by solving problems he personally encountered. He talks about why he separates his opinion-driven blog from his educational YouTube channel, how AI tools helped him finally break through the barrier of building iOS apps, what he learned from turning Quick Reviews from a manual Sketch workflow into a native app, why solving your own frustrations can be the best product strategy, and how small “micro apps” could become the future of independent software development.

Top Takeaways:
🛠️ Repeated personal friction is the best app brief
The strongest micro apps start as manual workflows that you finally get tired of repeating.

🤖 Bad AI output forces you to learn the code
When early AI tools make mistakes, fixing them forces you to understand your app's structure instead of just pasting a solution.

📦 Name your app to set honest expectations
Calling a tool "Quick" or "Micro" signals to users that it is a focused utility, not a massive platform that requires heavy support.

💸 Price your app to cover your API exposure
If your app relies on third-party data that might not stay free forever, charge a subscription from day one so the project never loses money.

📂 Let your private experiments stay private
You can build dozens of tiny tools and tests without turning every single one into a public product.

About Matt Birchler:

🚀 Indie app developer, blogger behind BirchTree, creator of A Better Computer, and co-host of the Comfort Zone podcast. A self-taught technologist with a background in product, design, and software. Matt builds practical tools like Quick Reviews, Quick Subtitles, and Chapterize while sharing his perspective on technology, creativity, and independent software development.
👋 LinkedIn
🌐 Learn more about Quick Reviews
Follow us on X: 
Charlie Chapman - @_chuckyc
RevenueCat - @RevenueCat
Launched - @LaunchedFM 

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Introducing Matt Birchler and his creative journey
[01:58] Growing up, studying TV production, and finding tech
[05:54] Starting BirchTree as a creative outlet
[06:35] Building an audience through blogging and sharing ideas
[09:50] Learning to handle feedback and write with context
[12:52] Separating opinions from education through different platforms
[15:53] Moving into software through a support role
[20:00] Building a career without a traditional path
[21:46] Starting A Better Computer during the pandemic
[23:56] The challenges of turning content into a business
[31:59] Creating Quick Reviews from a personal workflow
[36:50] Using AI to build his first real iOS apps
[38:38] How AI changed the development process
[44:04] Turning Quick Reviews into a paid app
[46:59] Building a growing catalog of utility apps
[52:12] Why Matt releases small, focused tools
[54:21] The future of micro apps and AI development
[56:34] Building Comfort Zone with a creative team
[58:32] The value of collaboration and shared creative work
[1:04:35] Creative influences and lessons from other builders

On the podcast: Romain Lefebvre shares how he built Sequel, a media tracker for movies, TV, games, books, and audiobooks, after years of designing fintech apps left him craving something more visual. He talks about writing down two founding design principles before coding a single feature, why he still thinks his original pricing model backfired, and how a MacStories review turned a quiet hobby project into the most word-of-mouth-recommended media tracker on the internet, catching the attention of Quinn Nelson of Snazzy Labs and David Pierce of The Verge without spending a dollar on ads.

Top Takeaways:
🎨 Design your app to be recommended
Word of mouth doesn't happen by accident; design your core screens so that when a user shows their friend, the friend immediately asks, "Wow, what app is that?"
🛑 Write down your design principles before you code
Defining your core thesis upfront (like "unification, ease of input, artwork first") makes it much easier to say no to feature bloat in V1.
💸 A capped free tier is just a trial in disguise
If your free tier has a hard limit that users will inevitably hit, they will treat your app like a trial from day one and constantly look for the paywall.
📉 Set a deadline for your indie bet
When growth is slow, setting a concrete milestone (like "hit £1,000 in the first month of V2") turns an endless grind into a clear decision point.
⚠️ Free APIs are an existential business risk
When you rely on third-party data sources, you have to be prepared for the day they break without warning or suddenly introduce a paid tier.

About Romain Lefebvre:
🚀 Product designer based in London and creator of Sequel, a unified tracker for movies, TV shows, games, books, and audiobooks. Previously worked as a product designer and product manager at UK startups before going indie full-time.
👋 Linkedin 
🎬 Learn more about Sequel

Follow us on X: 
Charlie Chapman - @_chuckyc
RevenueCat - @RevenueCat
Launched - @LaunchedFM 

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] The power of word-of-mouth growth 
[00:45] Introducing Romain Lefebvre and Sequel 
[02:09] What Sequel does across movies, TV, games, and books 
[03:30] Growing up in France and studying computer science at Oxford [04:49] Choosing design over a purely technical career path 
[07:52] Hired as an engineer, becomes the company's designer within a week 
[10:44] Product management versus design, and the choice that stuck 
[13:28] Building Remindly to relearn UIKit 
[16:53] What a low-stakes side project teaches about shipping to real users 
[20:41] Leaving fintech UX behind to revive an old movie-tracking idea 
[23:44] Expanding the idea to include games and books 
[28:14] Writing down Sequel's founding design principles before coding 
[35:00] Early monetization thinking and the 25-item paywall 
[39:53] Where Sequel's movie, game, and book data actually comes from [
44:23] The V1 launch and reaching out to Mac and app blogs [46:10] Volunteering for redundancy to go full-time on Sequel
[47:21] V2: the real launch, eight months later 
[50:52] Building in public ahead of the MacStories review 
[54:59] How a MacStories review turned into organic word of mouth 
[55:14] Quinn Nelson naming Sequel the most-recommended app 
[56:22] David Pierce's newsletter and the email that led to a call 
[59:23] Designing the share screen to sell the app 
[01:00:36] What's next: App Clips and localization before wider sharing 
[01:04:27] Romain’s creative inspirations

On the podcast: Matthew Skiles shares how a self-taught teenager in New Zealand went from building his dad's tennis coaching website to becoming one of the most recognizable names in app icon design — including Launched's own icon. He talks about how getting tapped by Christian Selig to design icon alternates for Apollo turned him from unknown to in-demand almost overnight, why he calls chasing app icon work "not a smart business decision" he'd still make again, why Apple's Tahoe squircle rules and Icon Composer's forced glass effects frustrate him more than they excite him, and how AI-generated reference images are quietly reshaping his client conversations.

Top Takeaways:
🎨 You don't need a portfolio, you need people who trust your work
The first paid gigs in a new niche usually come from existing clients who already know you deliver, not from a polished portfolio you don't have yet.
📉 Constraints make you a better designer
When a platform strips away textures and details, you can't hide behind coolness anymore; you're forced to learn what actually matters — a great shape.
🧲 Don't be literal with your app icon
The best icons aren't diagrams of what the app does; they're objects so fun to look at that people download the app just to keep them on their home screen.
📐 The #1 app icon mistake: your symbol is too big
Shrink it down a few pixels past where you think it should stop; breathing room almost always looks better than filling the frame.
🤖 Infinite AI options are a trap
Generating 50 more variations feels like progress, but at some point you have to commit to a direction — endless options create choice paralysis, not clarity.
🎯 "Fun" can be a business strategy
Choosing the work you love over the work that's economically sensible isn't smart on paper, but passion compounds: do the thing you love publicly and consistently, and the market finds you.

About Matthew Skiles:

🎨 New Zealand-based icon and visual designer for 15+ years, creating hand-crafted artistic expressions for developers big and small.
👋 LinkedIn
🌐 Learn more about Matthew Skiles

Follow us on X: 
Charlie Chapman - @_chuckyc
RevenueCat - @RevenueCat
Launched - @LaunchedFM 

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Designing Launched's Icon and Meeting Matthew Skiles
[03:13] A Self-Taught Designer in New Zealand
[04:57] Learning Through Websites and Early Dribbble
[05:40] Building Rockin' Rockets With His Brother
[09:46] How Existing Clients Opened the Icon Door
[10:46] Discovering Classic Mac App Icons
[11:53] Skeuomorphism, Texture, and the Adobe Workflow
[15:58] How iOS 7 Changed the Craft
[18:59] Learning to Start With Shape
[20:24] Big Sur, Tahoe, and Squircle Constraints
[22:52] Icon Composer and System-Generated Glass
[25:03] Becoming Known for One Kind of Work
[25:54] How Apollo Expanded His Audience
[27:59] Building a Business on Short Engagements
[30:10] Apple's Role in Elevating Icon Design
[34:55] Dribbble's Decline and a Fragmented Community
[38:05] Finding Inspiration and Today's Icon Trends
[41:18] Why Great Icons Needn't Be Literal
[42:56] Sketching Concepts Before Adding Color
[44:20] Designing for Scale, Competition, and Color
[47:44] Refinement and Giving Icons Breathing Room
[50:14] AI, Infinite Options, and Choice Paralysis
[57:04] Waiting for New Tools to Prove Themselves
[59:40] Jasper Hauser and the Icons That Inspired Him