Right now, thousands of Vibe Coders are

launching their mobile app, but [music]

most of them are making the exact same

mistake. They ship the app and just hope

that people will find it. But, the truth

is, if your app store listing isn't set

up right, then nobody will ever see it,

no matter how good your app is. To prove

this, I invited Sebastian, a $50,000 per

month iOS app builder, [music]

to break down the exact app store

optimization fundamentals that took his

app from invisible to top two in the app

store. In this video, I had Sebastian

walk through [music] the three

foundations when it comes to doing ASO

[snorts] right. Specifically, what

everyone gets wrong about keywords, a

simple AB test that you can run to up

your conversion rate, and [music] the

single most important thing you need to

do if you want to rank high in the iOS

app store. These are the highest impact

things you can do today, even this

afternoon, if [music] you want to get

thousands of downloads without doing any

marketing at all. If you've launched an

app, you're building one, or you're even

thinking about it, do not skip this

video. This is our ASO masterclass.

Let's dive in. Welcome to Starter Story

Build.

All right, Sebastian, welcome back to

Starter Story. We had you on recently.

You built this awesome app, and you have

some cool things to share today about

how you grew it. But, before we get into

all that, can you just give me an update

about how things are going and what you

built?

>> I'm Sebastian. I build four apps that

together make over $50,000 per month. My

main app is Habit Kit. It's a habit

tracking app for iOS and Android. I also

recently launched a new app called Focus

Kit, which has been great so far. My

apps crossed $500,000 in total revenue

in 2025, and I made over $100,000

in January alone. And today, I'm excited

to share more about my app store

optimization strategy and show you

everything I know. Wow, Sebastian, when

we had you on to the channel, I think it

was maybe eight months ago, you were

doing like $15,000 a month. Now your app

is making $100,000

a month. You did a lot of amazing stuff,

but a lot of this is just being in the

right place at the right time. And I

think the right place to be right now is

the iOS App Store. So, that's what we're

going to talk about today. How to rank

in the App Store. We have a bunch of

stuff to go over today, but can you let

us know like by the end of this video

and all the stuff you're going to share,

what are people going to get from our

conversation? Yeah, by the end of this

video, you will know exactly what I did

to get my app Habit Kit ranking in the

top three on the US App Store for the

keyword Habit Tracker, which is actually

one of the most competitive keywords out

there. Okay, cool. I'm excited about

this. Before we dive in, can you just

give us a high-level of what is ASO and

what does it mean for your business?

Absolutely. ASO stands for App Store

Optimization. Think of it as SEO, but

for mobile apps. When someone opens the

App Store and types, for example, Habit

Tracker or Fitness App, Meditation App,

ASO is actually what determines whether

your app shows up at the top of the

search results or deep down at position

34, where nobody will ever find it.

About 98% of my users find Habit Kit

directly through the App Store, Google

Play. I literally do no marketing at all

besides that. Not from Twitter, not from

Instagram ads. Just people opening the

store. Okay, cool. I mean, this is

amazing. There are hundreds of millions

of people that are browsing the App

Store looking for apps and you've kind

of capitalized on this, where you don't

have to spend money on paid ads, you

don't need to do Twitter marketing, you

don't need to go on TikTok. You just did

a few things and 98% of your customers

came from App Store search. You are the

example of someone who has nailed it

perfectly. So, I wanted to bring you on

to talk about what are the three highest

impact, lowest effort things that you

can do now that anybody who's building

apps could do right now to rank better

in ASO and get thousands of free

customers. The most important thing you

can do is optimizing your

ASO is basically the strategic placement

of keywords in your apps meet metadata.

This is what Apple and Google use to

understand your app and decide when to

show it in search results. The app name

and the subtitle are the most important

ASO factor. Nothing else comes close to

it. Okay, cool. So, what you're saying

is you may want to think about what the

keywords that people are searching for

when you come up with the name. The name

of your app is Habit Kit or it has Habit

in the name, which is kind of genius.

How can someone watching this do the

same? Yeah, so before you actually name

your app, you have to go one step back

and actually do some keyword research

before that. You need to understand the

keyword landscape you're moving in.

[music] What do people actually search

for on the App Store? LLMs like ChatGPT

or Claude can help you with that. It's a

great tool to brainstorm new keywords.

And then you have to validate whether

people actually search for those terms.

I use the tool called

because it's very affordable and it lets

you track unlimited keywords, which is

perfect when you're building a new app.

ASO Tool shows you a popularity score of

your keyword. That means how often do

people search for this keyword. And the

other is the difficulty. How hard is it

to actually rank for the keyword based

on competition. So, the sweet spot is a

high popularity and a manageable

difficulty. But honestly, my advice

would be for your primary keyword,

rather compete for a hard, high-value

keyword than dominate an easy,

low-volume one. After you got that done,

you can finally name your app. The most

important rule, put your primary keyword

in your app name. This is why Habit Kit

is actually called Habit Tracker {dash}

Habit Kit. My brand name is Habit Kit,

of course, but the keyword Habit Tracker

is much more valuable to me. Companies

like Duolingo can afford to put in

seconds because they are such a popular

app, but you as an indie developer can't

really afford it. The other thing, put

your keywords into the subtitle of your

app. Your subtitle gets another 30

characters on the App Store and you can

use these for secondary keywords. For

Habit Kids, my subtitle is streaks and

accountability. Another important rule

is to don't repeat keywords in the name

and the subtitle. Apple sees them as one

combined string for indexing. And the

last part is the keyword field. In App

Store Connect, there's a keyword field

with 100 characters. Users in the App

Store never see this, but Apple indexes

it for search. There's some rules that

you have to follow for this field. You

have to separate keywords with commas,

don't use spaces, don't repeat words

from your name or subtitle, don't use

plurals if you already use singular,

don't include competitor app names.

Apple might reject this. Try to utilize

all 100 characters. I love everything

that Sebastian is sharing right now

about how to actually rank in the App

Store. But, this is just one of many

ways to grow your app. As you guys know,

right here in this channel, I've talked

to dozens of successful mobile app

founders and they've shared a bunch of

different ways to grow your apps in 2026

and beyond. And from all these

conversations, I've decided to put

together the mobile app growth cheat

sheet. It's a free resource to help you

figure out the strategies that real

founders that are making real revenue

are using right now to actually grow

their apps. Inside this guide, you'll

find the seven different tactics broken

down into bite-size lessons to help you

[music] grow your app today. If you're

ready to stop building and start

growing, then head to the link in the

description to download the mobile app

growth cheat sheet for free right now.

All right, let's get back to the

episode. Okay, so, what I love about

these is these are the things that get

right. They don't take a a of time. You

just do it right the first time or at

least if you're building an app now, you

can kind of make some of these quick

changes, and clearly it's working for

you because you're doing a ton of

revenue on the App Store. So, that's

super cool. What is the second

foundation, the second kind of lowest

effort, highest impact thing you can do

to rank high in the iOS App Store?

[music] Okay, now we're getting a little

bit more visual. The second most

important thing about your App Store

listing are screenshots. Screenshots

affect your conversion rate the most.

The brutal truth is, you only have about

3 to 5 seconds to convince someone to

download on your App Store listing, and

users are scrolling through your

screenshots like crazy. There are some

strategies that I would follow. The

first one is always put your best and

most visually impressive feature on your

first screenshot. For Habit Kit, I put

grid-based habit view there. It's

unique, it's beautiful, it's colorful,

and it immediately differentiates us

from other habit trackers. Don't put

some generic welcome screen or

onboarding screen there. That wouldn't

make sense. Another rule that I would

follow is show real user interface.

People want to see what they're actually

getting. Don't put too many abstract

graphics or lifestyle photos. They might

look fancy in there, but ultimately,

they don't really help someone

understand your app. Make sure to AB

test different versions. Apple lets you

do this with their product page

optimization feature, and this lets you

test different versions of your app

page. For example, I recently had a

designer create beautiful new

screenshots for Habit Kit, way better

looking than my original self-made ones.

I was sure they would boost conversions

because they looked so much better, but

I did the AB test, and my old, less

polished screenshots actually had a

higher conversion rate. So, the lesson,

don't assume fancy is always better.

Always test and sometimes authentic

beats professional. Yeah, visually

showing the user what they're going to

get, keeping it authentic. I can see how

it's super important, especially if

someone is scrolling through the App

Store and you want to catch their eye.

And if you lose them, you may never get

that install. Thanks for sharing that.

What would be the number three

foundation when it comes to ASO? Last

but not least, we have reviews and

ratings in the App Store for your app.

Gathering those ratings and reviews is

super important. They actually give app

social proof. Ratings boost your search

rankings. Apple and Google heavily

factor ratings into their algorithms and

they also up your conversion rate. Even

if you rank well, poor reviews tank your

downloads. Habit Kids has over 7,400

ratings on iOS with a 4.8 star average

and over 10,000 ratings on Google Play

with 4.6. And this took years to build,

but this is a massive competitive

advantage against newer apps. Yeah, I

was just chatting with my buddy who

launched his first app and he kept

asking me what features do I build? Do I

add a paywall? The first thing I said to

him from a lot of the conversations

we've had on this channel is you need to

get a lot more reviews and you need to

up your star rating. That should be like

your number one thing to focus on right

now because, as you mentioned, more

reviews push your app up, get it more

downloads, which sends more data back to

Apple saying we like this app. So it's

this like virtuous cycle. This is maybe

the biggest thing, I think. How can

someone watching this implement this?

Yeah, getting new reviews is really

hard, but I can tell you what worked for

me. So, timing is everything. Show the

review prompt at a happy moment in the

life cycle of your app. Not during

onboarding, not when something breaks.

For Habit Kids as an example, I show it

right after someone completes their

first habit. They feel accomplished at

this moment and that's when you usually

have to ask for a review. Don't be

annoying. If someone dismisses the

prompt, don't show it again for a while.

Respect your user and his needs.

Definitely respond to every review. I do

this since I started building apps. I

reply to every review. I thank the good

ones. I try to help on the bad ones.

This builds massive trust and people

sometimes update their one-star reviews

to a five-star after you fix their

issue. And I have a email signature

trick. I get a lot of support emails for

Habit Kit and after each reply, I always

add, "Hey, if you're enjoying the app,

I'd be grateful for a review." And in

this moment, the user just got a quick

and kind help from an engaged indie

developer and a gentle ask for review at

this moment often works. And that

amounts to a lot of happy five-star

reviews, actually. My last tip, use

reviews as product insights. If 20

people mention wanting the same features

in your reviews, that's a strong signal.

I've prioritized entire features based

on review patterns. That's amazing. I

mean, that's one of those little things

that I see with a lot of founders who

come on to the channel is the care they

have for every single person that uses

their app, almost the feeling of

gratitude. Hey, you're using this thing

that I built and I hope it works for you

and I'll do whatever it takes to try to

fix your issues. This is usually what I

see in founders like you who are

crushing it. Thank you for coming on and

sharing these three foundations. This is

the real stuff here. Last question that

I ask every founder who comes on, if you

could go back in time to just starting

your app, hoping to one day be at this

place that you're at, what advice would

you have for app builders who want to

follow in your footsteps?

>> So, one piece of advice I would wish

someone had given me at the start of my

journey is give it time. ASO is not a

quick win. It's a long game. When I

launched Habit Kit in November 2022, I

was invisible on the App Store. I'd

search for Habit Tracker and scroll

through pages without finding my app. I

was doing all the right things. I did my

keyword research. I made cool-looking

screenshots. I was collecting reviews,

but I [music] wasn't ranking. But, I

kept going. I kept shipping updates. I

improved the app, and very slowly things

started to shift. After about 6 months,

I cracked the top 10 in some non-US

markets like the UK and Germany. That

was pretty encouraging and big for me.

After about a year, I started appearing

in the top 10 in the US occasionally,

not consistently, but I was there.

[music] And after nearly 3 years, I'm

now consistently in the top five. Yeah,

so ultimately, success in the App Store

is a marathon, not a sprint. Okay, cool.

So, one thing that I love about ASO is

that the actions that you take today,

you may not see the results for many,

many months. So, stick with it, focus on

the principles. Thanks for coming on and

sharing all this, Sebastian. Congrats

[music] on all your success. Thank you

very much for having me.