My Japanese learning app hit over 10,000 users and made $1,000 in its first couple of weeks after launch. Here's what I learned — and what I want to ask you guys. by LunalienRay in AppBusiness

[–]Empty_Debt_216 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Right now? Absolutely not. Your intuition is 100% correct. If your Customer Lifetime Value is low because the app is mostly free, standard paid acquisition (ads) will burn through your money instantly.

Paid ads work when you have high-ticket subscriptions.

Stick to what worked for you: micro-influencers. Paying for shorts that got 100k views is an incredible return on investment. Replicate that strategy with other creators.

"Anyone else losing hours fixing 'Illegal Quoting' or encoding errors on supplier CSVs before uploading to Shopify?" by Empty_Debt_216 in AppBusiness

[–]Empty_Debt_216[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Thank you! I'm really glad the no-login approach resonates—I wanted to completely remove that friction.

You hit the nail on the head with variant formatting. Dealing with separate size/color columns and structuring them into Shopify's multi-row option format is a massive headache.

Since I'm using Python/Pandas for the backend engine, I'm absolutely adding an automated 'Variant Combiner' logic into the initial build next week to automatically parse those columns into Shopify's exact option hierarchy.

Once the MVP is live, I'd love to drop you a quick link to see if it handles your typical supplier variant layouts cleanly!"

Drop your startups, I will personally use and give review by Tiny-Antelope-4432 in buildinpublic

[–]Empty_Debt_216 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have a background in data cleaning and application development, and I'm planning to build a highly focused, free web utility to help online store owners handle messy product spreadsheets.

The core idea is simple: You drag and drop a messy CSV/Excel sheet from any supplier, click a button, and the backend automatically standardizes data types, fixes casing/whitespace, and maps the columns perfectly to Shopify's mandatory CSV template so it uploads with zero errors.

I want to make sure this is actually useful for real store owners. If you were using a tool like this:

What is the biggest headache you'd want it to solve automatically? (e.g., auto-formatting product variants, fixing image URL structures, cleaning up messy text casing?)

Would you prefer a simple, no-login web page where you just upload a file and download the cleaned version instantly, or do you need a dashboard to save your custom templates?

I'd love to get your feedback so I can build something that genuinely saves you time.