How I Quit My 9-to-5 to Build a $15K iOS Boilerplate and Surf Every Day

About The Company

Juanjo Valiño (@juanjovn) is a solo iOS developer based in Spain who took the ultimate leap: quitting his 9-to-5 job to become a full-time indie hacker. His flagship product is WrapFast, a premium SwiftUI boilerplate designed to help developers build and launch AI-powered iOS apps in a matter of minutes. By providing pre-configured setups for OpenAI, DALL·E, Stripe, and native Apple UI components, WrapFast essentially sells "shovels during the AI gold rush" to aspiring mobile developers.

How do you come up with the idea for WrapFast?

The idea was born out of Juanjo's own repetitive frustration. After quitting his job to build apps, he started experimenting with the "new" OpenAI Vision APIs. He was building various micro-apps—a macro and calorie counter, a caption generator, a kids' drawing analyzer—but found himself coding the exact same underlying architecture every single time.

He was wasting days setting up paywalls, API connections, and basic UI skeletons. He realized that if he was dealing with this friction, other iOS developers definitely were too. Instead of just building another AI wrapper, he decided to package his clean, organized, reusable code into a premium boilerplate—giving other builders a massive, time-saving shortcut.

How did you launch WrapFast and get initial traction?

Juanjo's launch strategy was brilliantly pragmatic. Because he is primarily an iOS developer with limited web development skills, he knew building a highly-converting landing page from scratch would take months. Instead, he swallowed his pride and bought another indie hacker's product—Marc Lou's Next.js boilerplate, "ShipFast."

He used a web boilerplate to sell an iOS boilerplate. This ironic, transparent "build in public" story resonated perfectly on Twitter (X). He launched on Product Hunt hoping for the best but expecting zero sales on day one. To his surprise, that honest narrative paid off instantly. He made 3 sales ($747) in his first 24 hours, and within 9 days, WrapFast had pulled in $2,650.

What was the growth strategy for WrapFast and how did you scale?

WrapFast’s growth was fueled by the booming interest in AI and the indie developer community. His strategy to scale beyond the initial launch included:

• Productizing a Service: Beyond just selling the code, Juanjo added a high-ticket tier where he offered to build a custom 1-feature MVP using his boilerplate for clients. This turned a one-off digital product into a hybrid service, landing him direct client work immediately.

• Authentic Lifestyle Marketing: He didn't just sell code; he sold the "indie" dream. Juanjo openly shared his daily routine in Spain: waking up naturally, getting morning sunlight, doing focused deep-work sprints, and taking breaks to go surfing. This lifestyle resonated deeply with burned-out corporate developers who wanted the same freedom, making his product highly aspirational.

• Selling Time Over Free Code: He tackled objections head-on. Yes, a developer could figure out Swift, OpenAI APIs, and RevenueCat for free using open-source tools. But Juanjo marketed WrapFast as a time machine, saving buyers weeks of frustration so they could get straight to making revenue.

What were the biggest lessons learned from building WrapFast?

1. Provide the Infrastructure: In a booming trend (like AI apps), creating the infrastructure for other builders is often more profitable and less risky than trying to build the next consumer unicorn.

2. Pay for Shortcuts: Juanjo didn't waste time trying to learn Next.js just to build a website. He paid for a shortcut so he could focus his energy entirely on his core product. Time is a solo developer's most valuable asset.

3. Minimize Distractions to Ship Faster: He actively simplified his life to maintain consistency. He even downgraded his desk from a massive 3-screen setup to a simple closed-laptop clamshell mode because he realized too much screen real estate was distracting him from deep work.

WrapFast Acquisition: How much did it sell for and what was the acquisition?

WrapFast remains proudly independent and bootstrapped by Juanjo, growing to over $15,000 in revenue as a solo venture. However, Juanjo does have a successful micro-acquisition under his belt! Before WrapFast took off, he built a smaller tool called "Marvin"—a Chrome extension for auto-filling Stripe Test Cards. He successfully sold Marvin for $1,750. That early, small exit provided the exact psychological validation he needed to take bigger swings.

Discover Similar Business Ideas Like WrapFast

If the boilerplate and developer-tool model interests you, here are similar highly-profitable niches:

• Niche Boilerplates: Creating ready-to-use codebase templates for specific, underserved frameworks (e.g., a Flutter boilerplate strictly for fitness apps, or a React Native template for local e-commerce).

• Productized Dev Services: Selling a fixed-price, fixed-scope development package to non-technical founders (e.g., "I will build your AI Chrome Extension MVP in 48 hours for $2,000").

• Quality-of-Life Dev Tools: Building small, hyper-specific tools that solve annoying workflow problems for coders (just like his previously acquired Stripe test card filler).

More about WrapFast:

• Founder: Juanjo Valiño (@juanjovn)
• Location: Spain
• Tech Stack: Swift, SwiftUI, OpenAI API (Vision/ChatGPT), DALL·E, RevenueCat