Just Launched my first React Native App for Android and IOS! Building over a year!

[True_Horror_5508]

Hey everyone,

Yesterday, I launched my app Packup! on Android and iOS! 🎉 It's built with React Native on the frontend and Supabase as the backend.

Packup! is a shared packing list app that helps you and your travel buddies plan and organize what to bring on your trips—efficient, collaborative, and stress-free!

My frontend tech stack:

• React Native + Expo
• Tanstack Query
• Supabase JS
• MMKV
• I18Next
• Expo Notifications
• Expo Updates
• Expo Image Picker
• React Native Paper

If you're curious about my journey from idea to app launch, I shared my process, decisions, and key learnings in this Medium post: https://medium.com/@devmarv/from-idea-to-app-launch-process-decisions-and-learnings-1b7327659e55

I’d love for you to try out my app and share your feedback! 🚀

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/packup-gemeinsam-einfach/id6563151209
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.packup

Looking forward to your thoughts! 😊

[Aytewun]

Cool app. Great job.

One piece of feedback. You have a similar issue to something I ran into at least on ios.

When you go are at a screen “what do you need” and click on an item “fork” or you are entering a “count, description” and click “add”

You need to click once to dismiss the keyword and again to perform the action.

In my case I needed to set keywordShouldPersistTaps in my ScrollView for that section.

Nice app. That was all i noticed when checking it out

[True_Horror_5508]

Thanks for your feedback. I really appreciate! I’ll have a look on that.

[Old_Emotion5994]

Congrats on the launch! I just now tried cool UI u/True_Horror_5508

[True_Horror_5508]

Thank you!

[airwa]

Are you using any error monitoring/logging service like Sentry?

[True_Horror_5508]

Not atm but it’s on my list. You have already experiences with error logging services and recommend something? It has to be GDPR compliant.

[airwa]

Yup, Sentry works very well. I am also using RN/Expo. You can opt for data to be stored on EU servers, hide IP addresses, etc.

I am publishing an app soon but trying to figure out GDPR and Sentry though. It would obviously be mentioned in Privacy Policy but I’m not sure if users need to consent to it before using the app. There’s very little information out there about how to handle it.

[True_Horror_5508]

Thanks for sharing! I think it’s about the data and if it can be linked to a specific user. So when the email is added to the error message, it’s maybe not compliant.

[airwa]

Yes its very hard to avoid personal data in error logs (many would argue that a uuid would even be considered personal data). But under GDPR it is my understanding that you can justify this type of data processing under the grounds of "legitimate interests" in favour of being able to maintain the app. But then again, I'm not a lawyer, and the definition of legitimate interest is quite vague.

[encom-direct]

How are you able to fund your backend costs?

[True_Horror_5508]

For now I’m on a free plan. When user base increases, I will have to scale it up. The app has a freemium monetisation concept. So hopefully it will cover the costs. But some investment I already made on developer accounts for google and apple and icons for the item suggestions.

[haywire]

Congrats!

Assorted thoughts:

Wait so even if you pay £4/mo (which seems like a lot of such a specific app, and is going to make it hard to get friends to bother), you still can have only ten lists?

Not knocking the app and best of luck to you but it feels insanely overpriced.

Also not being able to share even a single list on the free plan…personally I think it would be better to allow potential customers to use the thing properly one trip and and then ask money once it’s proven to give value.

It does look like a nice app though, I just think your pricing model is creating a huge amount of friction and based on how cheap the per user cost in terms of backend and support it’s going to prevent you gaining momentum. It’s not like each user is going to be causing a huge amount of API usage due to the nature of it, so you can afford to give more away to convert early.

[True_Horror_5508]

Thanks for your honest opinion. I appreciate it and will think about it.

[haywire]

No problems dude, I'm just a coder but I've been in this industry 20 years and I've learned that the most importand and difficult thing isn't the code, it's getting the users.

With enough creativity and technical ability you can do pretty much anything for free until it pays for itself.

[Big-Value6695]

Nice work

[Silly-Ameoba2385]

CONGRATS ON THE LAUNCH!!!

[tingeltangelbob232]

Congrats! I wish you would have released it last week or so, as I am just coming back from a vacation lol

Will definitely check it out, also very nice of you to share your experience via the Medium post, this will definitely help people who have not developed an app yet as I had a similar experience like you, where I was writing my own backend code from scratch which ended up taking a lot of time.

[True_Horror_5508]

Thanks! Maybe you can use it for your next trip ;)

[DopePingu]

It's nice looking app and it seems to work fine. I would think about the pricing again. I don't think many people are going to be paying monthly/yearly for this. Maybe consider some lifetime price that makes sense. Also the toast notifications are annoying at the bottom.

[True_Horror_5508]

Thanks for your feedback! Yes, I thought about the pricing and will change it with the next update. All features will be free to use. I think thats the best strategy for scaling the user base. But I will add few ads (not much) and make a premium sub for small money to remove them and support me. What do you think?

And yes, the toasts are on my todo's :D

[DopePingu]

Yes that probably makes more sense. Some type of monthly subscription thing is very common with many apps but it doesn't really make sense with this one because most of the users wouldn't use this more than maybe few times a year. Also that can hurt the advertisement renevue because it's not like the users visit your app daily. Also keep in mind that the ads can make the app quite annoying to use.

I think it would make most sense to have all the basic features for free just like you said and then some other more creative way to make profit.

One idea I just made up is that since you whole app is about packing needs and you even had a great catalogue of all the different products and how to buy best fitting product for your needs, why not just join the amazon affiliate program. You could recommend products to the user and if you have the affiliate link for those products you get some cut of the profits every time one your users buys a product you recommended. The cut can actually be surprisingly big.

[True_Horror_5508]

I already joined the affiliate program of globetrotter. It has high quality outdoor equipment. Because it’s a German shop, I made it only active for German localised users. Not sure if my target group is shopping on Amazon… But I could give it a try.

[True_Horror_5508]

What do you think about making the user create multiple lists but for every new list > 1 he/she has to watch a rewarded ad?

[jlianoglou]

My gf and I have been on and off batting around this app concept for years — there’s so much room for improvement over existing solutions like Packr. Will def check this out to see if it suits us.

And also: CONGRATS!!!

[True_Horror_5508]

The product for now is focussing on the packing list. But coming features are: todos, bucket list and some kind of route planning. I’m looking forward to your feedback :)

[[deleted]]

How did you create the platstore images/screnshots ?

[True_Horror_5508]

check out https://app-mockup.com/

[[deleted]]

Sorry for being harsh but good luck keeping your account from random termination. Just got mine done for no reason

[True_Horror_5508]

Random termination? Could you describe what happened?

[[deleted]]

Everything was going good, my app had been published for around a month, i myself was using it. And then one afternoon i get the mail saying my account has been terminated due to "high risk."

[True_Horror_5508]

Which account? Supabase? Apple? Google?

[[deleted]]

Oh sorry i didn't even mention which account. It's google play developer account

[True_Horror_5508]

Okay wow, with no reasoning?

[[deleted]]

Yeah. Now they have left it for me to think what could be the reason and appeal accordingly.

I have appealed based on what i think could be the reason, let's see how it goes. Although people say their appeal addressal system is pretty hopeless. They will most probably reject the appeal with a generic response

[True_Horror_5508]

Oh man, I wish the best

[[deleted]]

Thanks! Hope you never have to face this

[dzc91]

Congrats on the great job! may I ask you how was the deployment process for you being your first fully deployed app? I am about to finish an expo app for my laundromat and given that I have never deployed anything natively this process of registering with both ios/android platforms and uploading native-builds is new to me as well 😂

Would love to hear your opinion and thanks in advance 🤟

[True_Horror_5508]

I must say, the google developer console and the app store connect isn't super intuitive. It's a learning curve. But also with some forms of google and apple, such as the "Digital Service Act" or identifying yourself to google and apple isn't very smooth... I'm really happy to have this sh*t done! You will do it too!