After reading the original blog it seems to me that he indeed built it himself (except of paying $1000 to a designer). The "issue" is, that he decided that 40 d

After reading the original blog it seems to me that he indeed built it himself (except of paying $1000 to a designer). The "issue" is, that he decided that 40 days of him coding the application is equivalent to spending US $10,850...but that aren't real expenses, IMHO. So overall, I think that his app is doing quite well with relatively modest upfront expenses.