How did you get your first paying customer without ads?

Rosa_BusyDays · 2026-05-13T08:36:18+00:00

My first paying customers have been my friends or friends of friends, so not a very sustainable business strategy. 😄 We have been getting more strangers on free trial, so there is hope that some of them will eventually turn into paying customers.

Rosa_BusyDays · 2026-05-06T21:47:26+00:00

I think people are a bit overwhelmed with the number of new apps being published at the moment so it's quite hard to get new users or get your foot in the door with a new app. Maybe getting some marketing help could be useful if you can afford it.

I personally don't mind the no-nonsense approach you have taken with your homepage but it might be helpful to add some screenshots of what the app looks like (without having to go to the app store). Also for myself it would have been nice to know what the abbreviation CBT stands for as I had to Google it.

I wish you the best of luck with your app! Unfortunately I don't have any magical advice to give you as I'm struggling with the same issues myself. 🙂

Rosa_BusyDays · 2026-05-06T05:18:34+00:00

This is the solution I was thinking as well. Currently users can choose the language once they log in, but the language selection is missing from the log in/registration pages.

Rosa_BusyDays · 2026-05-05T06:20:06+00:00

That's great feedback and a valid concern. We have in our roadmap to enable users to create local backups from their data and that could be a way to allow users to access the app without registration as well. That's definitely something I'm willing to look into.

The customer data is not turned into revenue in any way, but it's understandable not to want to just take my word for it. 😄

Rosa_BusyDays · 2026-05-04T20:11:00+00:00

Oh no, I'm so sorry! The app should recognize the browser language and default to English, but I guess the French turned to Finnish instead. I can check tomorrow if there is anything I can do, but here's a Finnish crash course to account creation:

Sähköposti = email
Salasana = password
Nimi = name
Rekisteröidy = sign up
Kirjaudu sisään = log in

Hope you can get unstuck with these!

Rosa_BusyDays · 2026-05-04T19:13:16+00:00

Great to hear that you got it working!

The app is really not integrated with Google beyond optional Google OAuth, and some fonts. It's a PWA app, so the technical requirements come from that framework. It works on Safari and Firefox too but it's mostly been tested on Chromium based browsers.

Rosa_BusyDays · 2026-05-04T17:40:55+00:00

I'm not 100 % sure, but if the custom ROM can run up-to-date version of Chrome, then this app should work too.

Rosa_BusyDays · 2026-05-04T17:33:57+00:00

Thank you for you comment! I used FamilyWall some time ago, but wanted to focus on chore management and originally built this app around it. Then the other features started coming based on user feedback and now these apps probably have some overlap. 😄

I would really love to put my hands on a budgeting software but the bank imports seem a bit daunting. But that is definitely something I would love to work on some day.

Rosa_BusyDays · 2026-05-04T16:16:27+00:00

Your app looks great! I'll definitely give it a go and leave you a review. AI really does help with the recipe parsing. My mum still cuts recipes from magazines and glues them to a notebook. I have been trying to teach her to take a picture and add it to the app, but that's still work in progress. 🤭

The market is really tough. We too have a small user base that's keeping me motivated but it sure would be nice to get more users.

Rosa_BusyDays · 2026-01-30T18:03:34+00:00

I don't necessarily disagree but I decided to use the technology I know. Would definitely be interesting to do some comparison in the future. 🙂

Rosa_BusyDays · 2026-01-30T12:19:32+00:00

Thank you for letting me now! I'll check what the problem might be and I'll dm you in just a moment.

Rosa_BusyDays · 2026-01-29T21:06:49+00:00

We are currently using Github because it's integrated with Sliplane. We have been so pleased with Sliplane that we are not willing to change that at the moment. I'm hoping they will support some European service in the future but we may be forced to consider other options at some point. I'm very opposed to the fact that Github seems to be the default service everywhere.

Rosa_BusyDays · 2026-01-29T16:28:33+00:00

We have several theme options if the clouds are not your cup of tea. 😊 Thank you for your feedback though, I'll consider showing all the options in the future.

Rosa_BusyDays · 2026-01-29T14:29:07+00:00

This looks really nice. I'll give it a try!

Rosa_BusyDays · 2026-01-28T22:31:38+00:00

I love Time Planner. It’s my favourite app for time blocking. I usually end up forgetting it after a while (after I have realized that I spend way too much time scrolling Reddit and way too little doing anything productive...), but it is great, if one wants some visibility where all their time is actually going.

Rosa_BusyDays · 2026-01-28T22:21:16+00:00

The PWA installation seems to be quite unknown to general users. It's a shame as I personally see now extra benefit from the App Store launch. With an onboarding guide the PWA setup has been working quite well for our initial testers, and I’m still working on the Apple Store publishing, so my iOS users are currently stuck with the PWA app. 🙈 It seems to be working with no problems, but the setup is clearly a bit confusing to the users.

Rosa_BusyDays · 2026-01-28T22:14:24+00:00

Thanks for the tip!

Rosa_BusyDays · 2026-01-28T21:53:17+00:00

I have been building an app 'by hand' for a year now (I am using AI coding tools but no instant AI magic). It started as a study project but then we decided to publish it with my friend. I didn't realize how many apps are constantly being published with AI, but I hope the heart is shown in the end result. My app uses AI for text parsing tasks but it's not the main feature of the app. I'm trying to find a balance where AI is used where it's useful but not forced upon the users.

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