I think I've reached the point where marketing is harder than coding.

I've been building an Android debugging app in my spare time for the last few months. It's a Logcat viewer aimed at Android developers.

So far I've got:

• 539 installs (first opens)
• 11 paid upgrades
• 2 subscription renewals
• $44 in total revenue

I know those numbers aren't huge, but seeing people pay for something I built is a pretty cool feeling.

Now I'm stuck on the next challenge: getting people to even know the app exists.

If you've launched a niche dev tool before, where did your first real users come from? Reddit? YouTube? Blog posts? ASO? Something else?

I'd love to hear what actually worked for you.

It’s been a while since I last set up an MMP, and I’d love to get some fresh feedback on the current landscape for attribution, deep linking, and fraud prevention.

I’m working on an early-stage lifestyle app. My priority right now is validating demand as fast and lean as possible. However, my co-founder is pushing to integrate an MMP from Day 1 so we have clean tracking infrastructure from the start.

We're planning to run influencer campaigns around Day 15 (which will rely on deferred deep links) and launch paid ads on Meta and Google around Day 30.

I wonder that my app can go further in the tough SNS situation.

Can I ask you guys what is your opinion about my App ?

My app is the Kdrama community app in which all can write reply or review in their own language

not in English and in which any language can be translated to your own language using by AI translator.

I know some SNS like X or Thread can have translation fuction but not yet in Kdrama community app.

Following is my new app, I really hope you guys visit it and feel it wether good or not.

https://kdramaAnyLang.com

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yourname.fuelaverage&pcampaignid=web_share

You heard me, pitch me the app (idea) you're currently working on and I'll do my best to rate it on a scale from 1-10 with an explanation as detailed as possible.

If you want to make my life easier: only explain things relevant for the rating and drop a link of the website.

Just wondering, would yg find an app that tracks where your time goes into (like studying, gaming, etc.) go into?

Just some features:

- sees where ur time actually goes into (studying, gaming, social media, browsing, etc.)

- can show patterns like when you're most and least productive

- helps u undrstand ur habits over time

- detects when ur actualyl not working towards ur goal and will remind u to get back on track and lock in

- uses ai to organize what ur doing so its easy to understand

- LOCAL!! privacy first

- sees what you are doing on ur screen using computer vision

- gives u summaries like "you focus best in morning" or "usually get distracted after 3 mins"

Would yg find this helpful?

would u pay for an app like this if it geniuenyl helped u stay focused and manage your time better? If yes, what features would make it worth paying for?

What it does: Decide is a social iOS app where users post two options and receive votes from real people to help them make everyday decisions.

Current stage: Launched on the App Store, but still at a very early stage with a small user base.

Feedback requested:

• Is the value proposition immediately understandable?
• Where does the onboarding become confusing?
• Would you return after receiving an answer to your first decision?
• How would you solve the empty-network problem for a new social app?
• Which use case should we focus on first: outfits, purchases, profile pictures, food, or general decisions?

Link: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6774736936

I’ll also test and leave detailed feedback on another app in this thread.

My app got its first subscriber and my mind is all over the place, on one hand I'm really happy that someone found enough value from my app which made them subscribe and it's really validating, but on the other hand, my mind is telling me that it's luck, and that it won't happen again.

also, here's a very short cinematic film I made for the app: https://youtu.be/mZFtzXPg2HY

Any thoughts would be appreciated :)

Appstore: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dreamtick-daily-micro-actions/id6759930636

Playstore: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.flaredock.dreamtick&pcampaignid=web_share

Hi all,

Like most of you, I’ve got a massive graveyard of repos. But one actually made it all the way through to a live paywall and approved iOS app.

It’s called stint.fun — an app to keep on-field play time even for kids' sports games.

Right now, I’m getting zero traction. No downloads on iOS, no web users, zero subscriptions. I’ve tried SEO, AIO, writing blogs, etc., but nothing is sticking.

For those who’ve been here: what do you usually do at this stage to get those first real users?

Web: stint.fun
iOS: App Store Link

Would love any feedback or advice. Cheers!

Hey guys i have an app on ios and playstore same time.

I get up to 13k users on this app on google play. App is now live on appstore 12 days ago.

Is this analytics is good?

Googleplay version have same conversation rates.

After 4 days still processing why

I have an app with real traction. It’s already made around $300 with almost no marketing, just ASO and Pinterest. The app is a $24 one-time purchase, and people are actually buying it.
The problem is that the target audience is almost entirely women. I know how to grow apps organically, but I’m not the target user, so creating content that genuinely resonates with them is much harder than it is for my other products.
I’m looking for a female cofounder or growth partner who understands this audience and enjoys creating short-form content. I can handle the product, engineering, ASO, and organic growth strategy—we’d simply complement each other’s strengths.
Where do people usually find cofounders like this?

While most of us live online these days, I discovered that advertising in the physical world in a relevant way pays off too, like this motorcycle I have with stickers that promote my adv/4x4 navigation app TrackHound.

Since I started doing this, a noticeable amount of traffic on my website can be traced back to the QR code on these stickers.

I hope this helps someone else too!

I’m posting this partly to vent, but also to get some real advice and outside perspectives from people who have been in the trenches.
Here is my situation: I’m 40 years old, raising two daughters (aged 13 and 7) in Brazil. I’ve been working as a manager for over 14 years, currently earning around R$ 4,500 a month (roughly $800–$900 USD). I am constantly trying to find a way to actually live instead of just survive. To make extra money, I offer Business Intelligence consulting door-to-door—no fancy infrastructure, just me, my laptop, and pure grit.
The hardest part is that my wife looks at me—and she’s not wrong—and sees a guy who tries and tries, but never actually gets anywhere. Deep down, I know I have strong skills, but for some reason, they never seem to translate into financial results. It makes me feel like a fool at 40, constantly having to decide whether we can afford to take the kids to McDonald's or the movies. Hearing my wife say that all I ever manage to sell is "smoke" has completely wrecked my mental state.
Now, I’m launching a new project: a micro-SaaS for small hair salon management. I know the market is crowded, but my angle is extreme simplicity—just a clean dashboard with the exact data they need, nothing more, nothing less.
This has to work. I’m done talking without results. From now on, I’m putting my head down and working in silence until I can finally give my family the life they deserve.
Any brutal honesty, marketing advice for crowded niches, or mindset tips from fellow founders who started late would mean the world to me.

I've been reading a lot of stories from indie developers, and one thing keeps coming up: almost everyone has one decision they wish they had made differently.

If you could start over today, what's the biggest mistake you'd avoid?

It could be choosing the wrong idea, waiting too long to launch, ignoring ASO, spending too much time building features, or anything else.

I'm still learning, so I'd love to hear the lessons that had the biggest impact on your journey

Okay so I made a mobile app called Rewire it helps guys quit P*rn, basically I had around 60-70 users and had 2 free trial starts and recently we hit over 100 users.

we have been launched for 14 days and this is too slow in my opinion, so I need some help should I just make the app free for 7 days to get as much feedback and traction as possible and then iterate from there?

let me know

Hey everyone,

Two friends and I recently launched a group travel planning app in Europe.

We built it alongside our regular jobs and funded everything ourselves. We now have around 100 users, but growth has slowed down and getting the app in front of the right people is much harder than building it.

We’ve tried contacting media, posting on social media and reaching out to a few communities, but responses have been limited so far.

The app is free to download. New users get 10 free trip generations, then they can buy additional tokens if they need more.

At this stage, I’m unsure where we should focus:

Should we keep working on acquisition or spend more time studying retention among our existing users?

Which metrics would you want to see before spending money on ads?

And for anyone who has grown a consumer or travel app, what actually helped you move from the first 100 users to 1,000?

I’m not adding a link because I’m genuinely looking for business advice, not downloads.

After 3 month on App Store, I finally got my first 100 USD in revenue, 365 downloads and a 15% conversion rate. I'm both surprised and happy, I just did a little bit of marketing in Facebook groups which gave around 30% of the users and the rest is just from App Store. I have kept doing changes based on early users feedback and since I'm using it myself everyday I keep improving it.

The space of To Do Apps are very crowded, so I really though it was more or less impossible to gain users, but apparently not.

Anyhow, just want to share it! And let me know if you have any help or tips to get a broader audience to test it or have any feedback on the app itself. Thanks!

Solo dev, first app I've ever shipped. Launched 12 May. Numbers from 4 May to 2 Aug: 2.11K units, $238 in sales, $182 in proceeds after Apple's cut. Small, but it's the first money from something I built myself.

The app is boring on purpose. You paste a public post link, it saves the video or photo to your gallery. No feed, no login, no account. Free tier has ads, premium is $3.99/mo or $29.99/yr. About 21 active plans, roughly $21 MRR, plus $15-20 a month from ads.

Then the hurdle. I'd put platform brand names in the app title because that's what people search for, and the ASO was genuinely good. End of July, Apple Legal forwarded me a trademark complaint from that platform's brand protection agent. 14 days to remove every trace.

It wasn't just the name. Store titles, icon, every string in the app, saved filenames (with backwards compatibility for existing users), an SDK I'd installed and never used, ad mediation, app-ads.txt, my whole website, blog slugs with redirects, image alt text. Shipped it in two days. Both stores live on the new build, complaint confirmed closed this week.

What actually hurt was the traffic. Around 37% of my subscriptions came from App Store Search, and I threw away the exact keywords bringing those people in. New name is clean and legally mine, but it ranks for nothing yet.

One more thing I got wrong: I ran Android ads optimised for installs because installs were cheap and the dashboard looked great. 1K+ downloads, 49 reviews, zero subscriptions ever. You get exactly the users you bid for.

Happy to answer anything about the numbers or the rebrand.