Back in 2020, without knowing it, Apple invented a new and extremely lucrative niche for content creators. One particular designer found this niche early and cashed in big time.

The project took him about two hours and crossed $100K in 6 days.

Here’s the story.

The beginning

In 2020, a designer by the pen name of Traf saw some screenshots of people creating custom icons for their iPhones. This hadn’t been possible previously (only with a jailbreak).

What made it possible was the newly-released iOS update 14 and the Shortcuts app from Apple. With this app (and a little workaround) you could get your own icons on the iPhone home screen.

Traf quickly understood the incredible possibilities here. He could sell well-designed icon packs. He had been doing this with jailbroken phones before, so he already knew how to do it, and probably already had some pre-made icon sets at hand.

A single tweet

First, Traf styled his own home screen with a few icons, widgets, and wallpapers. Then, he shared a screenshot on Twitter. Immediately, people started asking how he did it.

Perfect.

From then on, it took Traf about two hours to package up his icon sets, upload them to Gumroad, set up a simple website using Notion and Super, and start selling.

The very next day, his tweet had hundreds of retweets and dozens of questions. 48 hours, it amassed 1 million impressions.

His screenshots and Gumroad site were featured by huge tech blogs like iMore, Cult of mac, and more. By that time, he had already earned more than $5000 from his icon packs on Gumroad.

The take-off

Then, it happened. The largest tech YouTube in the world, MKBHD, shared a video about customizing iOS with icon packs. He used Traf’s set in the video and put the link to them in the video description.

Boom.

The next day, sales jumped from $6K to over $40K. And it was just the beginning.

Over the coming days, 6 in total, Traf reached $100K in sales on Gumroad.

The aftermath

Since then, hundreds of designers have followed Traf in creating custom icon packs. Many sold well, too. Popular tech YouTuber Oliur created one himself and made over $30,000 in a short period of time.

Sooner or later, the trend had to come to an end. It did a few months later. Icon packs are still selling, but not at this enormous rate. I have a few packs as well, some for free, others paid. I’ve made some money with it.

Traf, however, shared another earnings update of his icon packs after 9 months.

Within these 9 months, he had made a staggering $397,005 from 14,915 total icon sales on Gumroad.

The bottom line

Traf got lucky. He found this new niche early. He’s also a talented designer who knew his way around designing icons. That made it easy for him.

He earned well over $400K to date, I’m sure. For two hours of work, not considering the time he spent learning the design skills beforehand, obviously.

I love inspiring stories like this. It shows that the possibilities to earn money online are endless. And there will come new ones all the time.

I’ve made money with icons packs as well after I read Traf’s story. Moreover, by giving away icons for free, I’ve grown a large email list of potential customers for other content and products from me. That’s still growing.

Content creation is THE big thing of the 2020s, and that won’t stop anytime soon. There’s a niche for everything. I bet you know something that someone else wants to know too. Sometimes, that’s all it takes.