Braylin Byrd runs track at Texas Tech. His co-founder Christian Rac runs track at Texas Southern - eight hours apart. They were high school teammates who started hustling together at 14: failed Shopify stores, thousands lost on bad products, $6,000 burned on day trading, cutting hair on the side. Nothing stuck. Then they stopped guessing what people wanted and built something from what they already knew.
We tried everything - dropshipping, day trading, cutting hair. Apps were the most successful thing we ever did.
With 112K Instagram followers on Braylin's account alone - plus 42.5K on Christian's - built entirely on organic track content, and DMs flooding in daily asking for training advice, the audience was already there. They just needed the product. Apps kept trying to sponsor them. That's when it clicked: why don't we just build our own?
In January 2026, they launched 3AK Track - the entire app built with Rork, zero code. It hit $10,000 in revenue in its first month. Now it's doing $17,460 in the last 28 days - verified by RevenueCat - and still climbing. On top of that, their Shopify store selling training programs pulls in $100–200 per day in passive income. They've since brought on a third co-founder - Tobi Haastrup, a football player at West Virginia - and already launched a second app, 3AK Football.
From Track Stars to App Builders
Braylin and Christian had been growing their social media for years - documenting their athletic journey from Texas high school tracks to Division I programs at Texas Tech and Texas Southern, sharing training content, building an audience purely on organic reach. By the time they were ready for an app, they had over 150K followers combined and DMs flooding in every day asking the same question: "What's your training plan?"
They saw a bunch of apps trying to sponsor them - and thought, why don't we build our own? They discovered Rork and went all in, spending 8–10 hours a day teaching themselves to build with it and using ChatGPT to debug issues along the way. The entire app was built in Rork - zero outside help, zero coding experience.
The result: an all-in-one running and fitness app with AI-powered stride analysis, smart calorie tracking, custom workout programs, daily challenges, and a built-in AI coach. Not bad for guys who'd never written a line of code.
The Content Machine
Track and field is one of the most underserved niches in fitness content. There are fitness creators everywhere, but almost nobody making content specifically for track athletes. Braylin and Christian spotted that gap early and filled it before anyone else showed up.
Their content strategy is built on what they know best - their own athletic performance. The hook that stops people scrolling? Real results you can't fake. Braylin dropped his 100-meter time from 11.4 seconds to 10.2 seconds in a single year. That kind of transformation is visual, shareable, and instantly credible.
Even before the app launched, their training content was driving the kind of engagement most brands would kill for. This post - "Literal Cheat Code" - pulled 3.3K likes and 34 comments. Look at what people are saying:
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"Show me." "This 3ak method actually looks good." - this is what product-market fit looks like in the wild. People in the comments asking for more, reacting with fire emojis, wanting in. And that comment from p_eiryanderson? A freshman sharing their exact 100m, 200m, and 400m times, asking for guidance on going D1. That's the exact person 3AK was built for.
Seven months after this post, the app launched. The audience was already waiting.
Now look at what happens when they promote the app through the same kind of content. This reel - a POV of every leg on a 4x1 relay - is one of their best-performing videos for the app. 118K likes, 549 comments. The promotion doesn't feel like an ad because it isn't one. It's real race footage with "3AK Method in App Store to get this fast" baked right into the video:
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The comments tell you everything. 4,000 people liked a comment saying "I can feel every moment of that race." Someone's heart was racing just watching. Verified creators are hyping the anchor leg. And right there on screen the whole time: "3AK Method in App Store to get this fast." The app promotion lives inside the content — not as an ad, but as proof.
The growth trajectory tells the story:
The audience engagement creates a natural funnel. Constant DMs asking training questions equals perfect product-market fit for a workout app. They didn't manufacture demand. They just captured it.
5 Failures Before the Win
This isn't Braylin's first business. He and Christian started hustling at 14–15, when COVID hit and everyone was stuck at home. The graveyard of failed ventures is long: five or six Shopify stores that went nowhere, thousands lost on bad product research, $6,000 burned on day trading, plus every hustle a teenager can think of - selling candy at school, pressure washing driveways, cutting hair, launching a clothing brand.
Every single one failed. But each failure taught the same lesson, even if it took years to sink in: they were building things nobody asked for.
The breakthrough came when they flipped the approach. Instead of guessing what the market wanted, they looked at what their audience was already begging them to make. Hundreds of DMs a day, all asking the same thing. The product-market fit was staring them in the face.
3AK Track wasn't their first attempt at a business. It was their first attempt at building something their audience actually wanted. That distinction made all the difference.
Pricing for Their Real Audience
The app launched at $59.99/year and $9.99/month - standard subscription pricing. Revenue was solid but not explosive.
Then they realized something critical: their core audience isn't adults with disposable income. It's high school and college athletes - kids who think twice about spending $60 on an app.
They cut the annual price to $29.99/year. Conversions tripled.
It sounds obvious in hindsight: price for the customer you actually have, not the customer you wish you had. Their audience is young, hungry, and willing to pay - just not $60.
Two Revenue Streams
Most app builders focus purely on subscriptions. Braylin and Christian run a smarter play.
They kept their Shopify store active alongside the app - selling training programs. It pulls in $100–200 per day in passive income. The app doesn't cannibalize the website. It amplifies it. People who discover 3AK through the app end up buying training programs on the site, and vice versa. App promotion drives website sales organically without any extra effort.
This multi-channel approach means they're not dependent on a single revenue source. App subscriptions grow the recurring base. The Shopify store provides daily cash flow. Both feed off the same audience, and the flywheel keeps spinning.
What's Next
The vision was always bigger than track. The name says it - Three Athletic Kings. And they're already executing.
Meet the third co-founder: Tobi Haastrup (@upnexth), a football player at West Virginia University with 12.3K followers. Tobi is leading the football vertical, and 3AK Football is already live on the App Store. Same playbook: niche sport, creator with the audience, app built with Rork.
Next up: baseball, soccer, and beyond. Each sport gets its own creator and its own app. They're also expanding 3AK Track itself - coaching section, push notifications, profile improvements, and backend upgrades. The goal is to make 3AK a household name across all of sports training. And they want Rork as the foundation for everything.
Braylin and Christian tried everything - dropshipping, day trading, cutting hair. They failed five times before they were 18. But they understood something most people miss: if your audience is already asking for it, you're not building a product - you're answering a question. Rork just made it possible to answer it as an app.
Rork is the #1 platform for entrepreneurs who want to build consumer mobile apps. Three Athletic Kings went from zero coding experience to two published App Store apps, $17K/month in app revenue, and a multi-channel business - all while being full-time Division I athletes scattered across the country. The entire app was built in Rork. No Xcode, no Swift, no React Native. Just Rork, a deep understanding of their audience, and the persistence to keep going after five failures.
They're not the exception. People with zero technical background are using Rork to build real apps, get real users, and make real money (we call them Rork Stars). The barrier between "I have an idea" and "my app is generating revenue" - it's gone. All that's left is your decision.
If you've been sitting on an app idea, there's no better time. Rork Max is here. The barrier is gone.