Simple Alarm Clock App = $11 Million a Year

Jaemyung ShinFounder of Alarmy $11 Million Alarmy revenue in 2021
Published June 26, 2023 by Niall Doherty

The Financial Times recently released their list of High-Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2023

Glen Allsopp combed through the 500 companies on the list and highlighted some that caught his eye.

Including…

Alarmy: An alarm clock app for iOS & Android with a twist — you have to complete “missions” in order to turn it off.

Started in South Korea they’ve had over 65 million downloads worldwide.

[2021] Revenue: $11.21M
3-year growth rate: 292.6%

Check out the app on the App Store and Google Play.

DelightRoom is the company behind the app, and it looks like Alarmy is their only product

It’s a freemium app, with premium pricing starting at $4.99.

Although according to a 2017 article by the founder, “Alarmy’s main source of revenue [was] advertising”.

Here’s how founder Jaemyung Shin came up with the idea (source)

“I put my phone in the bathroom before I went to bed. Next morning, when the alarm rang, I had to go to the bathroom to turn it off,” he said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency last week. “That was the most unfailing way to get me up on time. And I wanted to make this pattern automated on my smartphone.”

His Alarmy app, first launched in 2012 and now available free both for Android and iOS, is different from basic alarm clock apps that are simple to set to snooze.

The so-called “photo from a location” function is its signature feature. Users mark their routine destination, which is far from their bed, and the only way to dismiss the alarm is to take a photo in that place.

The app was initially called Sleep If U Can. 

Here’s a grainy promo video from 2012. And here’s what their website looked like in 2014…

Humble beginnings.

I get the impression they’ve seen mostly organic growth over the years. People would find the app on an app store, try it out, find it useful, and leave a positive rating and/or recommend it to a friend

Back in 2017, Shin posted Korean translations of the following articles to Medium. I assume he found them helpful for building his business…

Do Things That Don’t Scale by Paul Graham10x Not 10% by Ken Norton (YouTube version)… Everyone is a designer. Get over it. by Daniel Burka

Check out Glen’s Twitter thread to see a bunch more interesting businesses like Alarmy.

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