When we kicked off the RevenueCat Ship-a-ton this August, we weren’t sure what kind of response to expect from the community. Our theory was that mobile developers were always thinking of great ideas, and that a little bit of extra motivation and a deadline would encourage a lot of amazing developers to ship a new app to the world. But you all blew our expectations out of the water!
When we closed submissions on Thursday, we had over 400 apps to judge! The creative energy we witnessed across the internet as developers embraced #BuildInPublic was incredible. We saw inspiring tweet threads, creative YouTube videos, and even some fun TikTok series. And as of this morning, Ship-a-ton apps have collectively made over $40,000 in revenue!
There were so many amazing, creative apps, our judges have had a challenging time trying to select winners. But we did the work, and here are the winners of the 2024 RevenueCat Ship-a-ton.
Most Likely to Make Money Award
This award is for the apps with the best overall business viability. Criteria include app design/execution, monetization strategy, onboarding and paywall design, and ASO best practices.
The task management market is extremely competitive for a good reason. Almost everybody in the world needs a system for managing the things they need to get done, so the total addressable market is gigantic. But in order to succeed in that space, you must do something innovative to stand out.
Karo does just that with an innovative approach to collaborative task management by treating tasks more like a chat app. Here’s how developers Mustafa Yusuf and Riken Shah describe it:
Send tasks to anyone in your contacts! A task manager disguised as a chat-like app to make task delegation people centric. The person assigned the task doesn’t even need the app to complete it. We send the tasks to people not on the app by WhatsApp or by text. Karo also takes up the role of a great assistant, reminding the assigned user to complete the task and notifies the sender about the actions taken on the tasks!
One of the clever parts of this model is that, unlike most collaborative task management systems, you don’t have to convince everyone you work with to download and start using the same app as you. This should reduce the friction for onboarding people into the app and could also result in some organic growth as people naturally share the app with coworkers and friends through its normal use.
Figure 1: Karo’s use of the Blinkist style paywall with an additional a “View all plans” view.
Karo uses the well performing Blinkist style paywall with a secondary list of products behind a “View all plans” button. The free tier allows users to get a feel for the app but does a good job of requiring payment for users getting value out of the app by having restrictions on the collaboration features and the AI assistance features.
You can find Karo: Social Task Manager on the App Store.
Zerocam Mono is a tightly crafted “Anti-AI” black & white camera app designed with a focus on simplicity and user experience. Designer Dmitry Novikov and developer Sergio Rodríguez Rama built a highly polished app well targeted at the professional and prosumer photography community that is apprehensive about the latest trend of computational photography and AI enhanced imagery.
The camera market is huge, and Zerocam Mono is well placed to capture a segment of that market with an affordable $1.99/month, $0.99/week or a $19.99 lifetime option.
Party Animals is a delightfully designed take on the classic truth or dare party game. Developers Marcin Krasowski and Don Urbano said their discovery of the niche of successful party games on the App Store led to the development of their new app.
Some time ago we came across this niche of party games and it immediately spiked our interest. We’ve spent the next week researching the market and found out that there is quite a big interest in applications of this type. Some of them gather hundreds of thousands of downloads each month and generate surprisingly high income. We’ve studied their business models and made notes.
With that in mind the only thing that we could do was to create our own party game.
This is for the most interesting apps separate from viability as a business. We’re looking for innovative ideas and/or beautiful app design and animations.
Flowmino is an app dedicated to helping users manage two things: time and attention. And it does so as not only one of the most beautiful looking and feeling apps we saw, but with some really clever innovation with the user experience as well. This is how developers Raphael Saing and Florent Perillat describe it:
Flowmino is built for professionals, neurodivergents, and anyone struggling with distractions. Our goal is to help you reclaim your time, protect your attention, and bring balance to your life. Whether you’re managing a busy career, family life, or personal projects, Flowmino can help you stay on track and accomplish what matters most to you.
To manage time Flowmino has an intuitive time blocking UI for laying out a plan for your day. When you’re ready to get into a “Flow State” and boost your productivity, you simply tap to enter flow and the app uses the iOS Screen Time APIs to block you from using any distracting apps on your phone.
Figure 2: Flowmino’s wonderful breathing animation (left) and fluid transition animations when starting a flow state (right).
The gentle animations throughout, combined with fantastic use of haptics make Flowmino an absolute joy to use. It’s the perfect app to receive the first RevenueCat Design Award.
You can find Flowmino: Time Block & Focus on the App Store.
Rakun Talk is an iOS app designed to help neurodivergent people who have issues voicing their needs due to being non-verbal or auditory processing challenges.
The app gives users a set or predefined cards, or custom built cards, to help order food, ask for a quiet table, or even get the correct medicine at the pharmacy. The intuitive UI makes it easy for others to respond with a simple positive or negative reaction.
Like most accessibility tools, Rakun Talk can be useful for everyone too. Rakun Talk can be used when traveling abroad to help translate your requests in the same simple interface.
Using AI, developer Dario Digregorio set out to create a unique experience to help users expand their perspective through debate, while avoiding the negativity found online.
Watching how people argue online inspired me to create Apol. You just need to spend 5 minutes on Twitter (X) and you know what I mean. Social media debates often turn into pointless shouting, so I wanted to build a platform that encourages more fun and engaging conversations and helps people see different perspectives.
I wanted to create something new and am really looking forward to how it will be received by others. I really had fun building it and want to add many more features!
Apol is an Android (and soon iOS) app that allows users to create debate rooms around specific topics. Users can create multiple AI personas to engage in each room to bring unique perspectives.
This award is for the developers who shared the most interesting development journey on their social platform of choice. We’re looking for the most interesting lessons learned, or new ideas brought into the app from feedback from their community.
Meshing is an app that lets you quickly and easily transform your ideas into beautiful color gradients. Perfect for creating wallpapers, designing websites and app backgrounds, or just playing with colors.
Developer Rudrank Riyam truly embodied the spirit of #BuildInPublic through the entire Ship-a-ton. His regular tweets and daily video log on YouTube were an inspiration to the whole community.
When we asked Rudrank how building in public benefited the development of Meshing, here’s what he had to say:
I can say with a straight face that if it was not for the Ship-a-ton and #BuildInPublic, this app would have never made it to the App Store. And the design would still look similar to those AI generated images with twisted six fingers. I have no idea what I was thinking when I look back at the UI from the first week of the hackathon.
When I started #BuildInPublic, I thought I would regularly post about the app progress, other developers would like the tweets, and that’s it. Oh boy, I was so wrong. Most of the features implemented in the app, and the ones on the roadmap have been suggested by people who love the app, and want it to succeed.
I even reached a point where I felt like a project manager and had to prioritize requests, and with a broken heart, reject a few of them. Noise, animation, text masking, favorites, copy to clipboard, all were driven by the feedback from the community.
Figure 3: Using Meshing to craft beautiful mesh gradients.
There were days I did not want to work on the app at all, even quit the hackathon and get back to the regular life of shipping nothing. But, I would get messages or tweets about things that reminded them of Meshing. Awestruck that things in their everyday life reminds them about my cute little app. That motivated me to persevere, and I finally made it.
Thanks to them. I owe them to the point that now I have a list of people I want to treat in their respective countries. That is going to cost me a lot to fly over haha. As I tell myself, Meshing _became_ an app by the community, and for the community. I realized that the app is being completely shaped by their feedback, and it was time to give it back.
So I started writing about the components that I use in my app. Whether the slider control, or the dramatic noise effect, I will write about it all. A tiny bit that I can do to return the favor of #BuildInPublic!
You can find Meshing: AI Mesh Gradient Tool on the App Store.
Food Sense is a meal journal that tracks what you eat and how you feel. Discover which foods trigger symptoms, and easily log, analyze, and share data with your dietician.
Developer İrem Karaoğlu documented her daily development journey from repo creation to submission to the App Store in this excellent Twitter thread.
You can find Food Sense – Meal Journal on the App Store.
Figure 4: Screenshots of the BJJ Evolve app for practitioners of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
BJJ Evolve is an app for practitioners of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Developer Mansour Mahamat-salle shared inspiring video updates on TikTok throughout his time building the app. The vibes, as one of our judges commented, are “just so so good”. He perfectly encapsulated the spirit of #BuildInPublic: inspiring, fun, and uplifting.
To everyone who participated, congratulations for shipping! It’s a big accomplishment and you should all be very proud. To celebrate your achievement, we have a little reward we’d like to send to everyone who submitted a valid app in this year’s Ship-a-ton. Keep your eyes on your email for more details on how to redeem your prizes.
For the winners in each category there’s even more prizes heading your way! This week over 150 digital billboards throughout San Francisco will be featuring our first place winners apps. We’ve got cats on the ground who’ve already spotted a few in the wild.
Figure 5: Ship-a-ton winner billboards spotted in the wild in San Francisco this morning.
In addition, all first place winners will each be receiving a Shippy, our unique RevenueCat trophy for outstanding mobile apps. We’ll announce each winner on stage at the RevenueCat App Growth Annual conference happening this Wednesday in San Francisco (and virtually) as well!
Figure 6: Photos of the RevenueCat Shippy Award.
There’s also cash prizes for all of our winners in each category:
1st Place: $5,000
2nd Place: $2,500
3rd Place: $1,000
Let us know your thoughts!
Your creative energy over the past six weeks has absolutely blown us away, far exceeding our expectations. Frankly, we’re a bit sad to see it come to an end—but that only makes us more excited about the possibility of doing something like this again.
So, how did you find the Ship-a-ton? Did you have fun? Were there things you wish we had done differently? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Let us know on Twitter or LinkedIn, and keep an eye out for a survey we’ll be sending to all participants to gather your feedback. Because if there’s one thing you know about RevenueCat, it’s that if we do this again, it’s going to be bigger, better, and maybe even a little weirder next time.
