Day 182 Getting more paying users is more simple than you think 🫡 Influencer marketing, ads, organic content, buying space on someone famous’ body; all of these seem to work for everyone. I was convinced I had to do all of these in order to grow, but you only really need to be good at one to win.

If I had a vote in @Shipaton, this app is it. Cool concept, beautiful UI, and built in public in a way that’s been interesting to follow.

Day 181 Another Apple Pay day $ 👇🏻 It’s nice having cash come in every month pretty much on autopilot, but it’s less cash than last month. I’m working on building a bigger subscriber base after a couple of cancellations.

Day 180 This is how I get unstuck when trying to make good UI for my apps 👇🏻 I start over. Not the whole project, but today I took out a whole view and thought about what was most important to users. The net result was a much cleaner look and an app that’s actually nice to use.

Day 179 User feedback is like gold. I had one of my premium users reach out and request a feature on Sheepnote. I’ve learned that adding things in that users request is the quickest way to improve.

Day 178 Updated my Mac and my whole setup broke. Hours of fixing instead of shipping. Still moved forward. The streak isn’t built on good days. It’s built on the ones that try to knock you off it.

Day 177 Your users don’t think like you. As a developer, I’m always looking for the latest tips and tricks to win over users. I realized that, as a user, I don’t think about half the stuff I worry about. Maybe we’re really overthinking this.

Day 176 Building features that promote user engagement 🤙🏻 I want people to remember to use my app every day so that they build habits. Might not be what initially converts a customer, but it’s what will keep them around.

Day 175 My apps make money, but I don’t spend it. Over the last months, I’ve just been saving up what I’ve earned and reinvesting it directly into the apps. It feels good to make your first dollar online, but reinvesting is building for the future instead of living in the present.

Day 174** Building in public is ugly. If you post everything, you’re going to have to show the less-than-sexy portions as well. - The cancellations - The no progress days - The waisted ad spend All of these I’ve had the last 4 months.

Day 173 If you neglect customer feedback your app will tank. I’ve been trying to keep up with feature requests and bug reports on my apps because I know it’s something that can easily slip. Especially ones that don’t break the app entirely, small holes can become big problems later.

Day 172 Learning how to juggle. The trap of building new things is letting the old ones starve. Every app needs dev, marketing, updates, and revision. The art is juggling that while making new things.

Day 171 Testing hard paywall + trial on yearly. I thought this was bad practice until seeing some award winning apps try the same thing.

Day 170 I let last week be slow. That stops today. I'm a big fan of daily consistent progress and getting 1% better everyday. So I'm preparing to make more progress this week.

Day 169 The only way to get to 10k a month is to not stop. I was beginning to worry that indie tools were dying given how fast AI is changing. Then I realized the only way to keep up is to keep making stuff. Stop iterating means to stop earning.

Every tool I used to Google for, I now just build myself. Even with tiny projects, you never know when a quick few prompts could generate a winning product just by solving a simple problem.

Day 168 I made $$ today. One of my apps had all of the current subscribers renew for the fourth month in a row today. Even though the volume of paying users isn’t crazy, there are people coming back each month 🔥

Day 167 You don't need an account on every platform to market your apps 📱 I thought I needed one on all of them, but that's not the case. You only need one solid channel to make something work.

Took me months to realize building in public has two dimensions. Want users? Build an app for your audience. Want a following? Share what your followers want to see.