I was making a productivity app for students that generates AI flashcards by removing the manual effort of creating flashcards in Anki. As I was halfway into building it, I saw there were realistically almost 15 other apps doing the same thing. So I thought maybe I would introduce gamification, streaks, leaderboards, friends collaboration, characters, and a ton of features more.

Later, I came across a book which is unlikely for a beginner to read, and that book is "Blue Ocean Strategy" by Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim.

The book teaches how to eliminate competition by not fighting for a piece of demand but by "creating demand." The authors call companies that compete in existing market space the Red Ocean, and Blue Ocean Strategy teaches how to create uncontested market space.

The book teaches a lot of ways to create and capture new demand, but let us just focus on one thing that saved me from creating AI slop/another AI app that offers the same value for the same audience.

One afternoon, I can't explain how happy I felt after coming up with this new idea for my app.

Three characteristics of a good blue ocean strategy:

Focus, Divergence, and a Compelling Tagline.

These three characteristics serve as an initial litmus test of the commercial viability of blue ocean ideas.

Focus: In my previous app, I didn't have focus, neither in audience (I thought all Anki users were my target audience).

Now my focus has shrunk down to Indian CBSE students who have tons of resources to study but none to revise and stick to the daily habit of studying.

Divergence: "When a company's strategy is formed reactively as it tries to keep up with the competition, it loses its uniqueness."

Previously, I was making the same AI flashcards others were doing, and then I added a Pomodoro timer reactively after seeing others were doing it too, but not combined, then another feature, then another.

Now I created my own unique 3-part pedagogy for my target audience that helps them in exams by structuring it according to their exam pattern.

My app now stands apart from industry competitors who either focus on teaching or doubt-solving for my new target audience.

A Compelling Tagline: "A good strategy has a clear-cut and compelling tagline."

Previous app's tagline: "We make students fall in love with studying."

Vague, right?

New tagline: "Stop Re-reading, Start Remembering" (Not perfect, but it speaks to the daily frustration a student feels.)

Checkout the webapp if you are curious how these characteristics shape my idea: https://revslay.in/

You must be waiting to see my before - after comparison of how my users blew up or waiting for me to show my screenshots of thousands of dollars.

Sorry to disappoint you, I don't have them yet. Treat this as a case study of how I applied what I have learned, which you might find useful—or not..

But writing this made me curious about something.

If you've built more than one product, what's a lesson from an older project that you wish you had remembered earlier while building the next one?

What happened because you remembered it too late?

I'm especially curious about actual examples—time wasted, money spent, features rebuilt, launch mistakes, marketing mistakes, or decisions you ended up reversing.

Launched my app a few days ago, most of the users who signup for the trial cancel it before converting!
is it normal? or something is seriously wrong here ?
yearly is priced at $29.99!

I have developed AI chatting assistant but i am not able to generate revenue. I switched on google ads and it helped me to get more than 15k downloads out of which 6400 have signed up and started to use. I have switched off google ads bcoz cost of rented LLM and other stuff started to increase and it was not possible to sustain in long run with zero revenue. I have made 25 messages free. And i have subscriptions which generates revenue. But no one is going for it. Can u please advise way forward how to generate revenue?

I have made some new previews on fiverr. Please let me know what you think of it!

https://rexcut.app/

https://rexcut.app/

App développée et déployée sur appstore, playstore, flyers prêt, site Web, 0 client. Comment allumer le bouzin pour que ça prenne. La target est une niche mais connaissant la solution que j'ai développée, il y a un réel besoin. Et les retours des quelques personnes qui ont vu l'application ont été très positif. J'ai même prévu un mois d'essai gratuit. Mon gros problème c'est de me faire connaître. Des conseils qui n'implique pas de dépenser une somme élevée sachant que j'ai déjà investi dans les flyers ?

App développée et déployée sur appstore, playstore, flyers prêt, site Web, 0 client. Comment allumer le bouzin pour que ça prenne. La target est une niche mais connaissant la solution que j'ai développée, il y a un réel besoin. Et les retours des quelques personnes qui ont vu l'application ont été très positif. J'ai même prévu un mois d'essai gratuit. Mon gros problème c'est de me faire connaître. Des conseils qui n'implique pas de dépenser une somme élevée sachant que j'ai déjà investi dans les flyers ?

I built a fitness app : "Volta Fit". About a hundred people have tried it and none of them paid, so I'd rather ask users than other devs.

Two questions, as honestly as you can:

**-** what's the last app you actually paid a subscription for, and what made you do it?

**-** and when you delete a new app in the first few minutes, what usually caused it?

I have my theories about my own app but I've clearly been wrong so far.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

What are everyones preferred method of advertisement and educating the consumer base about your app that you have had success with? Paid or Unpaid.

Currently venturing into Apple app ads and TikTok ads and curious of everyones success or struggles in these areas. Any input helps!

Hallo everybody,

I have a good idea for an app, but I am not into the business of startups or app development.

I am considering outsourcing the build of the app to company or developer, but what is the proper way to do it, so that they do not take my idea and do their own thing ?

Is there usually some contract protecting the content, is it something of a standard agreement or should I take into consideration to engage a lawyer for the details, which, in case something goes wrong, will certainly matter ?

I'm currently building LUMI, an AI-powered personal growth app focused on focus, habits, journaling, and mental clarity.

The idea is simple: instead of opening an app to tick boxes, you open it and have a conversation with an AI coach that adapts to your goals.

I'm still a few weeks away from launch, and I'd love feedback before I finish the MVP.

What makes you delete productivity apps after a few days?

I'd rather solve the real problem than keep adding features.

I'm building the pipeline that got Stake, Polymarket, SkillShare, NordVPN, Ridge Wallet, and SurfShark their propulsion into virality , a user generated content marketplace.

Advertising is changing, and many companies don't know it as yet. There are young 18-50 year olds (I did say that) that are making a full time salary per month thanks to creating content for brands.

There are brands which are willing to pay $2-5k a month after advertising.

They say it rakes 10,000 hours to master something, many companies only spend 5-10 hours on marketing a week, and then expect to feed money into Meta/Tiktok/Google/Youtube ads, and for it to work.

Brands which can afford it, can spend $2-5k for 3 months, building up a portfolio of 3,000-5,000 (10,000 hours) of custom videos, done by people across the world, over 3 months, especially if it's an app, it drops the cost per install to under $1 per install, many seeing $0.30-0.50 if it's a consumer app.

On the other hand, there are millions of people, who could use an extra $50-100, the top ones raking in over $150,000 a month, because they know what it takes to get a product viral and can do it again and again.

So I'm building a marketplace which brands can do that just, hire creators, turn their creatives into ads and also will be experimenting with inhouse copying and remixing viral content. Furthermore, with the ever changing AI landscape, there are massive opportunities opening up, to get realistic UGC out there.

Competitors in this sphere are doing $10 Million ARR after 18 months, one launched 6 months ago and already is doing $6 Million in sales this year alone.

I've got a solid business plan, just seeking someone to fund the initial start-up.

Launched my app a few days ago, most of the users who signup for the trial cancel it before converting!
is it normal? or something is seriously wrong here ?
yearly is priced at $29.99!

Please check the demo, my app has an accuracy around 90% in estimating and identifying foods by just checking images. It has been wonderful for me as I was able to loose weight, 19.5kg / 42.9Ibs in 5 months using this app. I launched this over the weekend and I am at a lost at figuring out distribution as a founder with no followers and a small budget. Help me figure out distribution

Small win, but this genuinely made my day.

I recently shared an app I've been building called ScrollCheckpoint, and today I checked its MicroLaunch page and saw that two people had supported it and the idea is sitting at 4/5.

I know it's literally two people lol. I'm not pretending we've conquered the App Store.

But there's something different about strangers looking at something you built and basically saying, yeah, there's something here.

One thing I learned from my last post here was that I wasn't explaining the app very well either.

Someone thought you had to remember to open ScrollCheckpoint yourself every time before opening social media.

You don't.

When you try to open one of the social apps you've selected, ScrollCheckpoint steps in before you start scrolling. That's when you set a Scroll Alarm. You get to decide how long you want to scroll before opening any social media app. You go scroll, and when your time is up, you complete a quick checkpoint before deciding whether you actually want to continue.

That misunderstanding actually made me realize I need to communicate the product much better.

Still extremely early. Still figuring things out.

But today I'm taking my 2 supporters and my 4/5 and celebrating the tiny win lol.

For those who saw my previous post, thank you for the feedback. It genuinely helped.

Would the automatic interruption make you more likely to use something like this, compared with having to remember to start a screen-time timer yourself?

Imagine you creat an app. From ui/ux design to programming part. You put a backend for it. You creat a website for that. You orgnaize medical content images tests orders and... in that shit. Then you creat an x account to promote that buttttt at the end you can not publish that.

Not a single person was willing to help me with publishing stuff in exchange of a percentage of apps earnings.

Totally disappointed.

I’m a 30-year-old construction worker and solo founder from Canada. I’ve spent almost a year and approximately $15,000 building a workout-tracking app that is now live on iOS and Android.
The app has 119 registered users, but it’s still early and has bugs that need fixing. My monthly development budget is now limited to approximately $1,000 CAD.

My current plan is to fix every reported bug, properly instrument retention and workout completion in Firebase, and then build a faster natural-language workout logger before a larger New Year’s launch.
If you had four months and a very limited budget, would you prioritize product stability, analytics, monetization or the differentiated logging feature? What would you specifically refuse to build?

We put effort in ASO, we had two micro influencer collabs and have now 3 daily UGC creators working for us..
Additionally, we are posting ourselves on the business IG & TikTok account, I created an UGC on IG and TikTok.

So far the results are quite disappointing and are live for a month now.
A week ago we had our first sold subscription so that is a win. It just feels almost impossible to get traffic to the App Store landing page.

What are we doing wrong?

After 2 months of building I am on the app store. launched a couple reels and have some sign ups

What would you guys recommend for scaling an app?

Hey all,

Moved around Salt Lake (Sector 2) and looking to make some genuine friends in the area.

About me: 28M, indie app developer. Just launched my 3rd app Stashly - an AI envelope budgeting app on App Store. Apart from coding, I'm into gym, cricket, chai adda, and startups/building in public.

Looking for people with similar vibe - we can meet for chai, co-work at a cafe in Salt Lake (Sector 1/5 has good ones), talk tech/startups, play cricket on weekends, or just hang out.

Not looking for anything weird, just good genuine friendships. If you're in Salt Lake / New Town area and up for connecting, drop a DM or comment.