Most people think you need to grind on code for months before you can launch an app. Jack and Nick Sweeney did the opposite. They built a profitable startup story around breathwork by mastering content first, then turning what already worked into a product.
In less than a year, their app Coherence passed 15,000 downloads and $85,000 in revenue. They did it without writing a single line of code by hand and without a big budget. This is a calm, focused way to build: listen to people, test ideas in public, then ship only what is already proven.
In this guide, you’ll see how they did it, step by step, so you can borrow the same approach for your own app idea.
Meet the Founders: Jack and Nick Sweeney
Coherence is a breathwork app that helps people regulate their nervous system so they can relax, focus, and sleep better. Behind it are two brothers, Jack and Nick Sweeney, who decided to build a business around something that actually changed one of their lives.
In just 8 months, Coherence hit:
- 15,000+ downloads
- $85,000 in revenue
- $11,000 average monthly revenue
- $22,000 best month so far
- 2,000+ paying users
They did this with a content-first approach, a tight focus on one problem (stress and nervous system regulation), and a simple tech stack powered by AI tools.
You can check out the app itself on the official Coherence site, where they share more about their breathwork techniques and offer subscriptions to the app.
The Brothers Behind Coherence
Jack: From YouTube Creator to App Founder
Jack’s background is in content. During university, he started a YouTube channel and grew it to around 20,000 subscribers. That gave him some early proof that he could attract attention and tell stories online.
When COVID hit, he left school and decided to go all in on entrepreneurship. He began building simple web apps using no-code tools. His first few projects flopped, but he kept iterating, learning what people cared about, and getting a feel for product and distribution.
This content and no-code mix would later shape how Coherence was built and marketed.
Nick: An Athlete Saved by Breathwork
Nick comes from a very different place. He was a Division 1 cross-country skier, training at a high level, until a major injury stopped everything. Doctors told him his career was over and that he might never walk normally again.
He spent about 10 months unable to walk. Out of desperation, he turned to breathwork and committed to it fully. In 3 months, he was walking again. About 6 months after that, he was back to full-time training.
That experience flipped a switch. After seeing what breathwork did for his own body, Nick started coaching others, helping people with chronic conditions and nervous system issues. But coaching has limits. He wanted a scalable way to take breathwork to thousands of people, not just one person at a time.
Why Being Brothers Helps
Building with family can be messy, but for Jack and Nick, it has been a stabilizing force.
When Jack was burned out, Nick held things down. When Nick got sick, Jack kept the pace. They share the mission, divide the workload, and cover for each other during the low days.
As Jack put it, “It’s been an absolute blessing… super grateful to have a brother to build a business with.” That shared trust made it easier to move fast, take risks, and keep going even when early projects failed.
The Game-Changer: Content Before Product
Most developers start with an app idea, grind on the build, then pray someone cares.
Jack and Nick flipped the script. They started with content, not code.
They made posts about topics that genuinely interested them:
- Jack wrote threads on spiritual and esoteric ideas on X (Twitter).
- Nick focused on breathwork, nervous system health, and healing.
They treated X as an “idea battleground.” If a post took off, they treated it as a signal. If it died, they moved on. This simple approach lines up with how social media idea validation works in general. You can find similar advice in guides like this social media idea validation overview.
Their rough system looked like this:
- Post threads and short takes on X first.
- When a thread did well, they turned it into short-form videos for Instagram and TikTok.
- If those videos performed, they scaled the idea into a longer YouTube video.
In other words, content that survived each level of this funnel proved that people cared enough to watch, share, and comment. Only then did they think about building product around it.
The Vortex Breath Spark
Everything changed with one post about something they called the “vortex breath.”
Jack wrote a tweet about the vortex breath, went to bed, and woke up to a message from a friend: the tweet was going super viral.
That was the moment they realized they had something people were deeply curious about. The idea was not random. Breathwork in general has strong backing from research showing it can reduce stress and support the nervous system. For example, this review of breathing practices for stress and anxiety reduction explains how specific breathing patterns help shift the body into a calmer state.
Once they saw the interest around vortex breath and nervous system regulation, they decided to build an app centered on those ideas.
Building Fast With AI Coding Tools
Here is the wild part. Jack says, “I didn’t actually write a single line of code in this entire codebase.”
They used AI coding tools (such as Cursor and other coding agents) to turn their product vision into a working React Native app. They went from idea to MVP in a matter of weeks and shipped the first version in February 2025.
You can see a similar trend across new AI app builders, where founders can go from prompt to working app in minutes using platforms like Base44’s AI app builder. The tech is catching up with the dream of “describe it once, get a full stack app”.
Their basic timeline looked like this:
- Viral vortex breath tweet.
- Repurpose and validate across X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube.
- Decide to turn that proven interest into a breathwork app.
- Use AI tools to build and ship the MVP in weeks, not months.
The 5-Step Content-First Playbook For App Ideas
Nick laid out a clear 5-step framework that almost anyone can copy, even if you can’t code.
1. Pick a painful niche
Start with a painful problem, not a clever feature.
For them, the niche was chronic stress, nervous system dysregulation, and health issues that traditional solutions often miss. Breathwork was the tool. The pain was clear: people who feel anxious, wired, unable to relax or sleep.
Your version might be:
- Freelancers drowning in admin.
- Parents struggling with bedtime routines.
- Indie hackers fighting procrastination.
You create content that speaks directly to that pain and see if people react.
2. Batch your ideas weekly
Every week, they sat down and wrote batches of content ideas around that niche.
This was not random posting. It was structured:
- They picked common questions and frustrations.
- They wrote hooks and short scripts that presented Nick as a guide or solution.
- They batched many ideas at once so they could focus deeply, then record later.
This habit kept them from waking up each day wondering what to post.
3. Film in bulk
When it came time to record, Nick would sit down and film 30 to 60 videos in a single sprint.
The format was simple:
- Strong hook.
- Clear teaching or insight.
- Short and direct.
He would record one, finish it, move to the next. No overthinking. That gave them about two months of daily content in one or two sessions.
This is how they stayed consistent without burning out on content creation.
4. Amplify your winners
After posting for a while, patterns appeared. Some videos hit harder than others.
Their rule: double down on winners.
Here is what they did with the content that performed best:
- Reposted it across platforms.
- Turned it into series or follow-ups.
- Put “spark” ad money behind it on Meta to reach new people.
If a piece of content not only went viral but also brought in leads or trial signups, that was proof of a real offer. This is the stage where you can connect content to a product, such as a simple paid guide, a workshop, or in their case, an app.
If you want a deeper breakdown of this style of idea testing, you can check guides like this one on validating an app idea without spending thousands.
5. Outmarket everyone
Nick’s view is simple: outmarket people who might have better tech but weaker storytelling.
For them, that meant:
- Posting daily, sometimes multiple times per day.
- Treating Nick as the face and teacher of the brand.
- Hiring short-form video editors to clip, caption, and polish videos.
- Working with a ghostwriter for threads.
- Staying fully bootstrapped while pushing content as hard as they could.
As Nick said, “You could sell whatever you want to sell, but with software, you have a lot of leverage. Find a technical co-founder, write the software, make the app, ship it, and then suddenly you have a business.”
The Viral Video That Changed Everything
One specific piece of content shifted their business.
In July, they posted a video with this hook:
“Do you want to know something that they don’t want you to know?”
Nick says he thought it would flop. He was so unsure that he filmed it three separate times, unhappy with each take.
The next day, that video had 1 million views. Over time, it picked up about 8 million views across all platforms.
The key parts of why it worked:
- The hook was polarizing and curious.
- “They” was vague but clear enough in context. In the health space, “they” hinted at forces that profit from people staying sick.
- The video taught something practical and surprising about breath and health.
That one video turned into a series, more followers, and more downloads. It showed how a single strong idea can become the foundation for a product and a brand.
If you are curious about vortex-style breathing practices in general, there are other explanations of similar techniques, such as this overview of vortex breathing and its meditative effects.
Inside Coherence: What the App Actually Does
Coherence is a breathwork app built to help users relax, focus, and sleep better by guiding their breathing patterns.
Here is what it looks like in practice.
Core experience
The home screen gives you:
- A streak counter for a bit of gamification.
- Six main techniques, including:
- Coherence breathing
- Vortex energy (for a quick energy boost)
- Focus
- Stress relief
- Sleep
When you tap into a technique like Coherence, you see a minimal, clean screen. You can adjust the timer and volume, then hit start. The app plays one sound as you inhale and another as you exhale, so you can follow without staring at the screen.
These kinds of guided breathing tools line up with what many health sources recommend. For example, guides on breathing to reduce stress explain how slow, controlled breathing can calm the nervous system and support relaxation.
Pricing model
Their business model is subscription based:
- 3-day free trial on the yearly plan.
- Yearly plan around $40.
- Monthly plan around $10.
Short trial, low monthly price, and one clear problem: help your body calm down.
Also Read: From Tiny Teams to Huge Rounds: The New Rules of Startup Funding
Tech Stack And How They Built It
Even though Jack did not handwrite the code, the app runs on a solid, standard stack.
Here is the breakdown:
- Framework: React Native with Expo for building a cross-platform mobile app. If you want to try something similar, this official React Native + Expo tutorial is a good starting point.
- Backend and database: Supabase for authentication, database, and backend logic.
- AI coding tools: Cursor and other coding agents to generate and edit the codebase.
- Analytics: Mixpanel to track events and user behavior.
- Subscriptions: RevenueCat to manage in-app purchases and subscription logic.
- Marketing site: Next.js deployed on Vercel.
- Design: Figma for UI design and Rot for 3D design.
- Marketing automation: ManyChat for handling Instagram DMs.
If you are non-technical, the good news is that a lot of this can now be wired together by AI tools or no-code builders. Lists like this overview of the best no-code app builders with AI show how many options you have if you are more marketer than engineer.
Costs, Margins, And How The Business Runs
Coherence is lean but not free to run. Most of their monthly spend goes into content and growth, not servers.
Their rough monthly expenses:
- Video editors: about $2,500
- Influencers and partnerships: $1,000 to $2,000
- Ghostwriter for threads: $800
- Virtual assistant for admin: $500
- AI coding agents: about $300
- RevenueCat and other smaller tools: around $200
Total: roughly $5,000 to $6,000 per month.
With revenue averaging about $11,000 per month, they are operating at about 50% profit margins, fully bootstrapped.
They are not burning investor money. They are using profits to buy their time back, buy more content, and keep improving the app.
Final Advice From The Sweeney Brothers
Their closing advice to other builders, especially coders staring at a blank screen all day, is simple and grounded.
- Keep meditating. It might not look productive, but it gives you more clarity and better decisions.
- Breathe more. Learn how to use your breath to settle your nervous system before you burn out.
- Do not sit all day. Get up, move, and take small breaks. If you code for 12 hours straight, your body will eventually push back.
Their story is a reminder that a strong startup story does not have to be frantic. You can build calmly, listen closely to what hits in your content, and then let product grow out of that.
You do not need to write every line of code yourself. You do need to care deeply about a problem, show up with content, and ship something real when the signal is clear.
Key takeaway: Start with pain, speak to it in public, prove people care, then build only what has already been validated.
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