How Maddox Schmidlkofer Built a $1,000-a-Day Site, Sold it for $120,000, and Started Again

In this week's episode of the Niche Pursuits podcast, Maddox Schmidlkofer and I discuss what happens after an early entrepreneurial win. At 21, Maddox has already built a website generating $1,000 per day and sold it for $120,000. His current project, Tallow, is growing and generating revenue, but it still falls short of his expectations.

This conversation offers a rare look at an entrepreneur who built and sold a successful online business before launching Tallow. Now gaining customers and generating revenue, Maddox is candid about whether it's growing quickly enough to justify continuing at the same pace. His story captures the uncertainty and decision-making involved while the outcome is still taking shape. 

Watch the Full Episode

The Early Experiments

Maddox's entrepreneurial journey began around age 16 or 17, after he saw someone younger than him on TikTok building an unblocked gaming site. He had some coding experience from an AP class, so he decided there was no reason he could not make one himself.

He built his first version with Google Sites before moving into writing his own code. More importantly, he started posting short-form videos about the project, giving him his first experience connecting a product with an audience. A few early numbers helped change the way he viewed online business:

• Some of his TikTok videos reached 5,000 to 10,000 views.
• The gaming site initially earned around $5 to $10 per day from ads.
• During a college internship paying $20 per hour, the site suddenly produced $240 in a single day.
• That one day of website revenue exceeded what Maddox was earning from a full day at his internship.

That $240 day was the moment entrepreneurship stopped feeling theoretical. Maddox quit the internship and began treating online business as his primary path. His next decision, however, was not to spend more time on the website that had just produced that result. Instead, he moved on to new ideas.

What His Failed Projects Taught Him

One of Maddox's first projects after leaving the internship was Quackprep, a site designed to help college students study using previous exams. Students could work through old tests in a quiz-style format rather than printing them or completing them manually.

The project generated some revenue, though not enough to convince him it had a promising future. Expanding it would also have meant solving the same content and adoption problem school by school. Quackprep was only one of several attempts:

• It earned roughly $1 to $2 per day from advertising.
• Maddox later created Blogbot, an AI-focused SEO blogging product.
• He worked on Blogbot full time for roughly one to two months.
• One customer purchased a $240 annual subscription.
• That customer requested a refund around two weeks later.

Maddox is unusually open about projects like these because they're part of the same story as the $120,000 sale. His early career wasn't a straight progression from one winning idea to another. Eventually, he returned to the business that had been working all along.

DuckMath Breakthrough

The original gaming site, DuckMath, had continued generating money while Maddox explored other ideas. By the end of the summer, he decided to give the site the attention he had previously directed elsewhere.

The product itself was already functional, so Maddox concentrated on distribution. He spent several weeks studying short-form content and the types of videos people in the gaming niche responded to. His publishing volume became aggressive:

• Maddox created around three videos per day.
• Each video could be distributed across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts, and Snapchat.
• That meant roughly 12 individual posts could go live across platforms from three pieces of original content.
• His fiancée also helped produce and publish short-form videos.
• In the final months before the sale, he began paying influencers to create additional content.

The strategy worked. By the end of that summer, DuckMath was making around $1,000 per day from advertising. That success also reinforced a lesson Maddox is applying to Tallow today. A solid product without distribution wasn't enough. Once he concentrated heavily on getting the product in front of people, the economics changed quickly.

Why He Took the $120,000 Exit

By November 2025, Maddox had sold DuckMath for $120,000. The sale gave him a meaningful exit at an age when most people are still figuring out what kind of career they want.

The valuation was lower than the standard multiple someone might expect from a business producing that level of revenue. Several characteristics made DuckMath harder to sell like a conventional content site. Among the issues Maddox faced:

• The higher revenue level had existed for only about three months.
• He didn't own the games appearing on the site.
• The business operated in a legal gray area.
• Maddox had been threatened with legal action twice.
• The unusual business model reduced the number of potential buyers.

He initially received a $100,000 offer and eventually countered at $120,000. Given the risk involved and the limited buyer pool, Maddox accepted. There was also a personal reason for selling. Maddox no longer played games and wanted to work on something he considered more meaningful.

Today, he has mixed feelings about the decision. Maddox estimates that DuckMath might have continued producing $5,000 to $10,000 per month even if he had stopped working on it. That recurring cash flow would have given him more freedom while experimenting with new companies.

The sale still gave him capital and proof that he could create something people valued. It didn't make the next company easier.

Starting Tallow in a Crowded Market 

After DuckMath, Maddox considered several ideas before eventually beginning work on Tallow on May 1, 2026. Tallow is a consumer app that lets users scan foods and other products and receive information based on Maddox's approach to health-related ingredients and product quality.

One major company in the category is Yuka, an app that scores products on a scale from 0 to 100. Maddox saw room for another product with different criteria, features, and positioning. Tallow includes several characteristics designed to separate it from competitors:

• A restaurant map lets people find places that match specific food preferences.
• Users can contribute products that are not already available in third-party databases.
• Maddox has focused much of the marketing on people concerned about seed oils.
• The app operates on a freemium model.
• Its current paid plan costs around $40 per year.

Competition didn't discourage Maddox from entering the category. In some ways, it did the opposite. He believes a crowded market shows people are willing to pay for the product category.

A founder may not create the largest company in the market simply by matching existing competitors, though there can still be enough demand to create a profitable business. Tallow has begun doing that. The question is whether it can do it quickly enough.

When Growth Falls Short of Expectations 

At the time of the interview, Maddox said Tallow was generating less than $2,000 per month. That is meaningful revenue for a project only a few months old, especially from a 21-year-old solo entrepreneur.

It was also far below what Maddox expected. He had set a goal of reaching $4,000 in monthly revenue by around August 22. When that date arrived, he said the business was producing closer to $1,000 per month.

That gap forced him to reconsider how long he was willing to keep pushing the project. The app business has also introduced problems he didn't face with an advertising-supported website:

• A potential customer has to move from content to an app store.
• The user then has to find the correct app, download it, complete onboarding, and decide whether to pay.
• Apple can delay or reject updates that affect the customer journey.
• Search visibility inside the App Store can create another point of friction.
• Tracking which influencer, advertisement, or post produced a purchase is much less precise than tracking website traffic through tagged links.

At one point, searching for Tallow in the App Store surfaced unrelated results and prompted people with a "Did you mean Talo?" message. Maddox estimates that issue alone may have cost him at least $500. Those small leaks matter when a company is still trying to reach a few thousand dollars in monthly revenue.

Spending 80% of His Time on Marketing 

One of Maddox's biggest changes has been accepting that a consumer app like Tallow is primarily a marketing operation. He estimates that around 80% of his time now goes into marketing rather than product development.

That realization came after spending the first few months more heavily focused on the product itself. His current priority is finding repeatable content that drives users and paid subscriptions.

Short-form video remains his largest acquisition channel, with Snapchat currently generating some of his best reach. The drawback is that much of the Snapchat traffic has not matched his highest-converting audience. Maddox is also experimenting with search traffic less traditionally:

• He creates blog posts around current stories in the food and health space.
• He discusses the same stories on Reddit and links back to his own coverage.
• Those Reddit conversations can help his pages surface when people later search for the topic.
• The resulting traffic is small, though Maddox says the conversion rate is high.

One example involved research Maddox referenced during the interview concerning avocado oil. He said UC Davis testing found that 80% of the avocado oil products examined didn't match what consumers might have expected, giving him a timely topic tied directly to the problem Tallow is designed to address.

For short-form content, he takes a similar approach. Rather than publishing generic advertisements for the app, he builds videos around stories likely to create curiosity, concern, or discussion among people who already care about ingredients. Tallow then becomes the proposed way to check products rather than relying on individual news stories.

Competing With Influencer-Backed Apps 

Maddox's competitors have also shown him how difficult consumer app marketing has become. In his view, one of the most effective models pairs an app founder with an established influencer who already owns the exact audience the product needs.

An influencer with millions of relevant followers can regularly promote the app to people who already trust them. That creates a very different starting point from launching content through a new brand account. Maddox sees several ways to expand his current marketing:

• Test Meta advertising alongside organic short-form content.
• Find video formats that can reach much larger audiences.
• Pay established influencers once the business can support the expense.
• Build a network of UGC creators who publish videos from their own accounts.
• Compensate those creators with a per-video payment plus performance-based payments tied to views.

He would consider giving an influencer equity if the partnership were right. His concern is that handing over 50% of a company can create a ceiling if the influencer is great at distribution and less capable in other parts of the business.

There's also a timing problem. The influencers who could transform Tallow's growth are hard to recruit while the company is still small, and reaching the size that attracts them may require stronger distribution first. Maddox is trying to solve that tension.

The Economics of the App

Despite the difficulty of customer acquisition, Tallow's operating costs are currently very low. Maddox said the product effectively costs him nothing to run at its current stage.

A visit to a Y Combinator event also provided credits that reduced his early infrastructure expenses. His current cost structure includes a few favorable details:

• Maddox received roughly $3,000 in service credits.
• Free tiers or credits currently cover database usage and AI calls.

Maddox says both Apple and Android allow qualifying app developers earning under $1 million per year to apply for a 15% revenue cut, which is the rate he currently pays. That reduced rate applies to qualifying developers earning less than $1 million annually through their apps.

For Maddox, the 15% platform fee isn't the central concern. The margins are high enough that acquiring far more customers matters much more than recovering another 15 percentage points. The challenge is demand generation, not server bills.

October 31 Becomes the Decision Point 

Maddox has now extended his revenue target to October 31. His goal remains $4,000 in monthly revenue. If he doesn't reach it, he currently plans to move on.

That decision is what makes his story so interesting. Tallow isn't a dead project with zero customers, zero revenue, and no signs of life. It's growing. The harder question is whether growth alone is enough.

Maddox has limited runway and wants consistent income. He also knows firsthand that spending months on a project can create emotional attachment that makes leaving difficult. His October 31 test creates a clear standard:

• Tallow needs to reach roughly $4,000 per month.
• Maddox wants evidence that his content can go viral.
• He needs proof that customer acquisition can expand beyond his current level.
• Stronger revenue would allow him to hire more influencers and UGC creators.
• Missing the target would push him toward another business idea.

That deadline may change as new data comes in. During the interview, Maddox openly questioned whether he should treat it as completely fixed. Even that uncertainty is useful to hear.

Entrepreneurs rarely get perfect signals telling them when to keep going and when to stop. More often, they have partial traction, incomplete data, limited time, and a decision that still has to be made.

Final Thoughts

Maddox Schmidlkofer’s story extends beyond his $120,000 exit. He has already proven he can find effective distribution, grow a project from a few dollars per day to $1,000, and turn that momentum into a six-figure sale. However, that success does not guarantee his next venture will work.

His current app, Tallow, is generating revenue, attracting customers, and improving, but growth remains slower than expected. Maddox must decide whether the app has enough potential to justify continued investment or whether it is time to move on. That decision is difficult because Tallow isn't failing outright; it's growing, just not quickly enough.

The coming months will determine whether Tallow becomes another major success or simply teaches Maddox what to build next. At 21, he has already learned that one successful exit does not make the next company easy, and that knowing when to persist or pivot may be an entrepreneur’s most valuable skill.

Links & Resources

• Learn more about Maddox's projects
• Check out Tallow

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