If you want to work for yourself, build passive income, or live that digital nomad life, building a profitable app solo is one of the cleanest paths I’ve found. In this video I walk you through my full playbook: idea → build → ship → marketing. I’ve built a bunch of apps over the last 5+ years (finance, AI, SaaS), and I even made a mobile app from scratch that’s about to be used by the UK government—so this is the exact roadmap I’d follow if I was starting again today. I start with the part people overthink: the idea. I like solving real problems I actually have, but I’m also very pro “just copy what already works” (with your own twist) because demand is already proven. Then we get into the build: you don’t need to go super deep into CS theory if your goal is shipping an app—learn fundamentals and do project-based learning so you don’t get stuck in tutorial hell. I recommend a popular stack (full-stack JavaScript / MERN) because AI coding assistants and documentation are way better. Finally, I cover how to ship (Vercel for web, Expo for mobile), pricing (subscription or one-off + free trial, Stripe for payments), and the real game in 2025: distribution. Building is step one—marketing and building in public is what gets you real users.