Case Study
YTCount
Starting as a fun side project, YTCount has grown to over 60,000 monthly active users on iOS alone. Built with a native Swift frontend and a Backendless backend, YTCount shows the powerful versatility and scalability of Backendless to support a startup from infancy through explosive growth.
Track YouTube Subscribers In Style
YTCount is the app to stay abreast of the growth of YouTube channels. With a live counter, it provides real-time updates on the number of subscribers to a YouTube channel. Whether you are a Content Creator or a fan, you alone determine which channels are important to you. The app is available on both the Apple App Store and Google Play.
- Livecounter
- Subscriber Progress
- Overview
Backendless: Tell us about YTCount. What is the app designed to do?
Bjorn Antonissen, Founder of YTCount: YTCount is a lightweight companion app for YouTubers. It can let you track real-time subscribers of any channel you want easily and without paying anything. You can track multiple channels at the same time so you can add your youtube channels or any of your favorite channels without worries. We take advantage of Backendless’ real-time database updating to update our app automatically every second to keep users updated with any increase or decrease in the follower’s count.
How did the idea come about?
In 2016, I started YTCount as a project for myself. I wanted to learn Swift and had a great idea. I have a lot of YouTube friends and I wanted to see their subscriber count in a simple overview. I started with this idea and built the first version of YTCount. I told my YouTube friends about it and they posted it on their Twitter timeline and Instagram. After a few weeks, we had enough money to make a new version with push notifications using Backendless.
What led you to decide to use Backendless for your backend?
We didn’t have enough money to make a custom backend, so we found Backendless which has a very reasonable cost to get started. Backendless feels like plug and play; it was easy to integrate push notifications for our new features. We chose Backendless because it’s inexpensive for startups. We didn’t have enough money for other, much more expensive services. Other push notification services that we researched are very expensive while Backendless has a very good price.
How has Backendless made impacted your development time?
I don’t have stats about how much time I saved with Backendless, but it is definitely a lot. YTCount was my first Swift project, so I had no idea where to begin with a backend. Backendless has saved me a lot of money and time.
What has the reception to your app been like?
In 2018 we started with our Android and Web version. Now we have more than 60k active users every month (iOS). YTCount started as a funny side-project and now it’s my fulltime job. In early February, we opened an office and I’m so [freaking] proud, haha.