Indie Devs Ship Fast Then Stall Before Anyone Sees It
Indie developers are struggling with the transition from building to launching and growing their apps. They're caught in a cycle of over-polishing, fearing user rejection, and finding distribution far more challenging than creation. This leads to delays, wasted effort, and a sense of being stuck.
SOURCES (60)
“Building from scratch only pays off when the custom mechanism creates a clear user advantage. Otherwise the team inherits years of audits upgrades and edge cases for no visible gain”
“> “Use what you make: use what you build every day. ‘If you aren't depending on it, why should anybody else?’”Having difficulty imagining this constraint.For example, I use my iPhone’s Note app daily for personal notes. I don’t currently host a site, but if I did I might have content/write on no more than monthly cadence, or per-project.Does this rule suggest that I should ‘publish’ more (ie. elevate private note content to public more frequently) or build something for my private notes to be ho”
“Hey there, I had an interview with PicUpTheMic about being a game dev and being motivated as in your solo dev project. You can read it here ! How do you stay motivated??? I really wanna know!!! Cheers. submitted by /u/YorelGames [link] [comments]”
“Friends who haven't heard from me in months are getting warm, timely replies. My inbox is near zero.Peoplee think I've got it together... I do not have it together.built a thing that drafts replies in my own voice and I'm just editing a word and hitting send. The unsettling part is nobody can tell. It's trained on how I actually write,so my"sorry for the slow reply, tell me everything"reads exactly like the me who used to take three weeks to say it. I've become reli”
“Your feelings are 100% valid, and I feel a very similar way. I'm a designer before a developer, and as much as this insane increase in productivity excites me... it also depresses the fuck out of me I spent weeks teaching myself C4D + xparticles just so I could create a specific particle simulation.. and now I can just type a prompt and have it generated. Suddenly everyone is an artist too, and my motivation to continue learning these tools has plummeted”
“We always have this tension in our studio about adding "useless" features, and I’m curious where you all draw the line. On one hand, taking a mechanic to the absolute max and adding those tiny, unnecessary details can take a game the extra mile. We know players love it when they realize how much thought went into the physics. On the other hand, it’s always a trade-off. Every hour spent on a neat little trick means less time for general polish, fewer core features, or cutting other game”
Hi Reddit! Something really important happened in my life and I want to share it with you. I built my own app from scratch and got it published on the App Store.…
“building dexi, an assistant that lives in imessage. no app, no dashboard, users text it like a person and it handles their life admin, reminders, chasing emails, bookings expected tradeoff when i killed the ui: worse onboarding, more confused users, more support. actual result: support volume is near zero. there's no interface to get lost in, so the only "bug reports" are the assistant misunderstanding something, which is a model problem not a ticket queue the other unexpected effe”
“Yep, you've read that right I'm building another focus app in an overcrowded market. Stick with me though, there's a reason this one isn't quite what it sounds like. This idea has been in my head for quite some time now. Before I dive in the details of my app let me just say a few words about myself. I'm currently a full stack dev (I've got no experience developing mobile apps) and I'm also a father to a tiny little human. I'm also a huge RPG fan, though due to so”
“I have been doing the build in public thing for about six months. Posted updates on reddit, twitter, the whole routine. The hardest part is not the product work. It is writing the actual update post. I sit down at the end of the month and try to remember what I actually did. I know I had meetings. I know I talked to people. But the specifics are gone. I have vague memories of a coffee chat where someone said something useful about onboarding, but I cannot remember who or what exactly they said.”
“Thank you so much really appreciate the detailed breakdown, this is exactly the feedback that helps Agreed on the tap-to-see-details, a visible button is way more intuitive, adding it. Dividers/fonts on the detail view and color-coding reviews by star rating are both great calls, working those in too. On "golden matches" is not really that personalized right now, but you're right it should be clearer, and letting users set preferences upfront is a great idea. Adding that asap!”
“Like tinder but for hotels! I really like the idea and looks good at first glance. It can be improved a lot. The tap in the middle of the picture to see details is way too unintuitive, I would just add a button on the bottom or top that says see details. Home or swipe page however you call it is really good, detailed view of the place can be improved a lot by adding clear dividers and fixing up the fonts so it would be more readable. Would also suggest coloring the reviews by the stars given let”
“Six weeks ago Felt Weather was an empty Xcode project. First commit June 8, on the App Store about ten days later, 48 builds since. Just the two of us, a married couple, building the weather app we wanted: one that answers "what do I do with my day" instead of handing you numbers. The honest journey so far: App Review took more than one try. Fair. We got better. Our first launch post went up at 1:30am in a subreddit nobody reads. Zero comments. Somewhere along the way, 47 of you found”
Ok, so I've made a cool app, runs well, surprisingly well for what it does, every single person I've shown it to has thought it was amazing! If you have more than…
“counterintuitive thing i learned building dexi (imessage assistant, you text it and it handles email chasing, reminders, bookings): every screenshot of an interface i ever showed prospects made conversion worse. dashboards invite evaluation. "you just text it" invites trying the whole surface area is a contact in your messages. no onboarding flow because there's nothing to onboard onto. the pitch fits in four words which means the marketing writes itself, and the support burden is”
“It took me 6 months from Idea to live production of my first ever app. Next part is distribution and marketing, so I appreciate any help and advice. Also if you want to try it this is the app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wird.blocker submitted by /u/hapy23 [link] [comments]”
“When I started building my workout tracking app, I thought the hard part would be the code. I was wrong. Over the past few months I've: Learned React Native from scratch. Built the app. Tracked down bugs that took days to solve. Got it onto the App Store. I enjoyed nearly every minute of that. Then came marketing. I made social media accounts. I designed posts. I tried Reddit. I made a landing page. I watched videos on marketing. I researched competitors. I searched for viral content ideas.”
“Hey everyone, I’m an indie mobile app developer making apps for the Play Store. I’ve got the validation part figured out—once I have a specific keyword or idea in mind, I know exactly how to check its search volume, competition, and traffic data. However, my biggest struggle right now is the initial idea generation. I find it incredibly hard to come up with that first raw keyword or app concept out of thin air. I want to know how you guys find new niches. Where do you go to find fresh, raw app i”
“When you're prioritizing feature requests, do you go with a framework like RICE or Kano, or do you create your own framework that's tailor-made for your product? And if so, what does your prioritization framework look like? submitted by /u/anotherhappylurker [link] [comments]”
“are you building this solo or do you have anyone else using it yet? because the fastest way to stop overthinking is putting it in front of one real person. they'll tell you what feels weird way faster than your own eyes will”
“The cost of building a product is falling. The cost of choosing the wrong product is not. Imagine a founder builds 5 apps in 60 days: one gets 300 signups; one has 40 people returning each week; one gets enthusiastic comments; two get almost no attention. None has paying customers yet. A few years ago, the bottleneck may have been technical execution. Now the harder decision is knowing which project deserves another month - and which signals are only flattering noise. Signups can come from curio”
“I think you should continue building it and growing your own MRR because I think most people are intrigued in buying a SAAS app with consistent revenue rather than just buying an IP and working on it.”
“I’m part of a tiny indie team exploring project boards that feel more like collectible cards — easy to organise and customise without drowning in features. What do others use or wish existed to keep sprints fun and clear? Interested in easing task overload without losing track of progress. submitted by /u/ParalysisPRIME [link] [comments]”
“As I was so dishard with my first Achievement ( My Pdf App). Because I came to know it's most competitive market on play store. My friends and reddit community have supported me so much and I received a lot of positive comments from my last post which is quite a motivation for me. I think it's time to make a step ahead. I have thought of adding something unique in my app and rise again.... If you don't know about my Saas journey. You can follow me and read my reddits. I would like if”
“that 150 budget gets eaten by the apple developer fee on day one. launch a web build first to test the loop.”
“Cursor now defaults to agentic mode with no code editor at all, which got me wondering: who is writing or who is building production-grade apps with actual real user traction without ever seeing the code? I can't imagine doing that. At least right now, in the current technology, it's too risky.Are there real examples of people building and shipping real products without ever needing the code editor? Just to clarify, 99% of our code is written by AI, but it's helpful to have the code editor so we”
“I've hit a pretty rough creative block lately. I spend a lot of time thinking about game development, but for the past few weeks I've been struggling to come up with any new game ideas that actually excite me. Every idea either feels too generic, too ambitious, or just not interesting enough to commit months or years of development to. I've tried playing games, watching videos, and brainstorming, but nothing is really clicking. For those of you who have gone through something similar”
“A while back, I decided I wanted to build a grocery store list app for my wife and I to share. Building a native app felt too difficult. I would have to deal with App Store review, TestFlight, and I’d still need to run a server to store data. Seemed like too much hassle for a grocery list app. Plus, I wanted to build a bunch more apps later, like a credit card perk tracker and a tracker for the family’s Pictionary games. All of this turned into a full OSS platform. All apps in Homestead start ou”
“So it has to be easy. But how would you try an app, without trying it? How do you prefer it?”
“Throughout most of my app, the UI and UX is same for Android and iOS users, but in some places where iOS needs some other user behaviour than on Android, I usually add a logic to check the platform, if it's gonna be android then go with this UX else if it's iOS then go with this one (Flutter makes the work easy) Anyways thank you for showing interest”
“I’m kind of stuck and could use some advice from people who’ve already been through this. My original plan was to hire freelancers and manage the project myself, but I’m realizing I don’t really know enough to tell if I’m making the right technical decisions. So now I’m talking to agencies instead. I’ve had a few discovery calls this week, but they all sound great on paper. Nice portfolio, good reviews, similar timelines, it’s honestly hard to tell who’s actually good and who’s just good at pitc”
“Hey everyone, I submitted my very first TestFlight beta build (external list) for my native iOS app (a minimalist, privacy-first meditation timer) almost 7 days ago. According to Apple's documentation, "90% of builds are reviewed within 24 hours." Yet, here I am, entering day 7 with my build still stubbornly sitting in "Waiting for Beta Review." I’m trying to figure out if this is a systemic issue or if I've somehow triggered a manual review bottleneck. I have two the”
“Also applied to Hamradio, advanced computing, maybe even computers that have expensive software or retro software for niche stuff, the list goes on”
“The face-down mechanic is the good part because it maps to a habit people already have, phone flipped down means "I'm not available." That's a real anchor, not a gimmick. My worry is the honesty problem: since it doesn't block anything, the only thing stopping someone is a gentle reminder they can ignore, so the people who most need it will just pick up the phone and eat the nudge. That's fine if you're targeting people who already have discipline and want a calmer”
“Indicates potential for improvement of their operation yes, but 1) they operate with time pressure and 2) official numbers from them can be a liability, as post-release tuning with community takes place, producer hopes for better, and admittedly more realistic performance evaluation based on community feedback.”
“I agree with the general sentiment that unless you really need native functionality, you're probably better off with a web app. However, while I like the concept of PWA's from a developers perspective, I don't think you can reasonably expect your average casual iOS user to be able to handle the install the tough to navigate menus and bright red warnings that make it seem like you're installing malicious content. It's easier on Android, but Apple is openly hostile to the conce”
“‘People like me’ is the best answer for target audience when you’re developing. That’s been the same MO behind my own latest side project—making the app I knew should exist but competitors wouldn’t make. Stick to that and you’ll end up with something you’re happy with. Whether it takes off or not may be another story, but you have to develop to your own taste and needs.”
“I can’t understand how we got to this place with “app culture”! Because when Apple tried to tell people that the best way to build apps for the iPhone was with HTML5, people threw a shitfit and demanded native apps. The App Store wasn't part of the original plan and Apple had to scramble to put together a native SDK and a way to install native apps. And ever since then, for the next two decades, users have consistently preferred to use apps. I'm sorry, I know it's difficult to accept”
“I feel like I'm taking crazy pills reading these comments. Apps are clearly better for end users.HTML and css is SUPER slow. It doesn't feel native, it doesn't feel good to use.You also get so many weird glitches with state refreshing, sessions being cleared, log in not persisting.Has anyone here actually used a PWA? You can feel that it's slow and clunky. Apps feel SO much better with the native UI, pre-downloaded, much faster etc.”
“Hello fellow devs, I wanted to ask for your advice, I've been working on many prototypes and finally found one that I think is worth diving into production for. My goal is not to become rich but to slowly transition to full time game dev. Here is the catch: doing some concept art for the visual part (I've already battle tested the mechanic part to validate the fantasy and fun of the loop) I noticed that instead of pixel art my game would benefit from a HD 2D drawings similar to Slay the”
“Yeah, it can be overwhelming but you have to draw a boundary somewhere, or you will dorwn”
“Over the past year I’ve been designing a family of 15 minimal apps in my spare time. Hi people all around the world, hope y'all are good. I’m a designer, and I'm excited to introduce you to my little side project called VERB it . Each applications came out of something I genuinely needed in my own life. I wanted to break the chain of my current life a bit, so instead of building a bigger something, I focused on small tools that live on our phones, do one real thing in our lives well, and”
“bloated features are like a bad alternator draining the battery. stripped my app down to one simple webhook because folks were fixin to leave over dashboard clutter.”
“Totally fair. If you don't record or present on a screen, it genuinely has no purpose for you, and that's kind of the whole point of a narrow tool. Useless to most people, load-bearing for a small slice.”
“Really appreciate you taking the time to write this. This is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for. I actually agree with a lot of what you said. Getting people to adopt a new app is probably a much bigger challenge than building the technology itself. One thing I’ve realized while building this is that I may have been describing it the wrong way. I don’t really want to build another news app that competes with CNN, Flipboard, or Apple News. What I’m trying to build is more of a discover”
“Most people buy a specific software for the specific functionality it serves and the problem it solves. When you put multiple features in it, they'll just choose a cheaper alternative to get their work done.”
“I would always compare software by how many features it offered and assumed more features meant it was the better product Now I have changed the way I look at it. Most of those extra tools end up sitting there unused while the things I care about are how easy it is to get started whether the pricing stays the same and how quickly I can get help if something comes up That mindset has carried over to payroll. I would rather have something simple that works every time than something packed with fea”
“About to launch in about a week and looking for any tips and tricks you wish you knew sooner. submitted by /u/Mountain_City_5724 [link] [comments]”
“I got my first paying user this week. It’s a small milestone, but it feels pretty big to me. I’ve been building a Mac app around a pretty simple problem I have myself: for different types of work, I usually open the same few apps together, but switching between them and arranging windows again and again gets annoying. So I built a way to keep a few related apps together, set the layout once, and bring that workspace back with a shortcut. Before charging for it, I shared some free codes with earl”
“the cost optimization work you've doing is real and shows you're thinking like a business operator, not just a builder. that said, the harder constraint isn't technical readiness, it's finding actual users who'll use it regularly enough to tell you what breaks. testflight folks are usually too kind or too checked out. you need people who depend on it, even if it's just 20 of them paying something small. once you know they come back, you know you're ready.”
“Hello everyone, I'm a 24-year-old iOS developer. I'll graduate in 10 days with a Master’s degree in Computer Science and, as the title says, I’m literally feeling burned out already before even getting a job in tech. I already posted here like three months ago about how bad the job market is for juniors, but today I'm here to talk about the broader problem and how I feel about it. Just a bit of background on myself: I spent the last 6 years learning the craft and making a lot of thin”
“Hi everyone. I’m a teacher who is desperately trying to transition out of the classroom by building side projects. I started with a lot of hope, but I keep hitting the marketing wall. I’m not the kind of guy who posts every sandwich and coffee on social media (I don't even have a photo on my own accounts). Honestly, I’m starting to believe that developers have to become full-time TikTokers just to make a living now. The Pivot & The Idea After a massive failure with my first app, I was wa”
“I've been building a SaaS solo, and one thing I've realised is that writing the actual product is probably only 30% of the work. Maybe even less. As a developer, I originally thought: Build the backend. Build the frontend. Deploy it. Get users. Simple. The reality is completely different. The moment you try to turn a side project into an actual SaaS that other companies can depend on, you suddenly become 10 different people. You're the backend engineer. Frontend engineer. DevOps engi”