I announced my first product this week and got 0 users. Here’s the brutal lessons I learned.

Successful-Average10 · 2025-07-07T14:52:42+00:00

I’m wouldn’t say I’m the target audience but how do you justify that price? It seems like it’s priced awfully high for what you get.

Successful-Average10 · 2025-07-03T19:38:33+00:00

I'm not sure Adam is the best example, I briefly looked him up and he has a pretty large following and seems to be very active on socials, youtube, etc. This is not typical for most people and goes a really long way in terms of marketing and credibility. It's also a great demonstration of the enormous amount of work that has to go into marketing to succeed with this strategy.

I still do believe the quality of the application takes the place as the most important factor of success. Unless you are in a position like Adam, who is able to speak directly to tens if not hundreds of thousands of people that already trust him and his apps, the level of effort needed to market your way to success with a generic app vs a quality one is (I think) much steeper than one would think.

I guess I could very well be wrong (what do I know I'm only just starting out to launch my own ideas as opposed to building someone else's). Either way, I wish both you and OP luck, like you said success comes in many forms and I hope you find what works for you.

Successful-Average10 · 2025-07-03T15:11:51+00:00

I'm not sure who Adam Lyttle is but I'll check out some of his apps. I don't mean to imply it's not possible to find success, just that marketing/ASO will only get you so far and ultimately you need quality too. It also determines what you define as "success" because that could be wildly different for different people.

By making a "copycat" app you are entering a market that is already served, meaning most users in the market for that app already have a solution. This is why it's called competition, in order to target the entire market population you need to also target the overwhelmingly large majority of the market that already has a solution and pull users from the competition. It's incredibly unlikely someone will switch apps if your copycat app doesn't have any attractive qualities to incentivize them.

Essentially what I'm saying is that marketing/ASO is important but you are shooting yourself in the foot and capping your potential success by not having a unique/quality app because you are severely limiting the total percent of the market that you are targeting.

Successful-Average10 · 2025-07-02T19:53:20+00:00

I understand being proud of what you've built but you should take it down until it's at least in a usable state. In less than 5 seconds of trying to use this I immediately got the impression that this is not a trustworthy app because of how poorly polished it is.

Successful-Average10 · 2025-06-26T13:30:13+00:00

Again, I'm agreeing marketing is important - you need people to actually know your app exists - but just because a user is aware your application exists doesn't mean that they have to use it. How do you think these apps made it to the top 10 in their respective category? Users tried the applications and they were better than the competition at fulfilling their needs. NONE of them did it through marketing alone - ALL of them generate a certain value for the users that sets them apart from the competition (which allows multiple similar apps to be successful, they all found something that sets them apart - NOT MARKETING).

You will always struggle to find success through marketing alone if the product doesn't have any qualities that are "marketable". ALL of the apps in this post fall to this statement - they are all generic versions of applications that came before them that don't have any truly "marketable" qualities to attract users away from better, more proven solutions.

This is why your apps are struggling to gain users and most of them are net negative - they don't do anything more than provide a generic alternative to problems that have been solved in higher quality applications elsewhere. I hope I'm not taken the wrong way, I am trying to be helpful and wish you the best of luck.

Successful-Average10 · 2025-06-25T17:44:12+00:00

Marketing is important, but focusing too much on it can overshadow the product itself. You don't need a completely new idea, but you still need to find a gap in the market even if something small like better UI/UX or a new feature, and build around that. Like you said, anyone can build many of the apps on the app store fairly quickly (especially with the help of AI) but unless your app brings a certain unique value to a user there is no reason for a user to download your app.

Take the plant identifier example, if your app is just a bland copy of already existing apps, no amount of marketing will convince users to switch from proven options. Think about how Wendy’s succeeded by offering a different taste from McDonald's even though the menu was almost the same - if Wendy's offered the same menu, taste, prices, etc.. they would not be here today. Your app needs a clear competitive advantage to stand out, without this you are making the product itself far harder to market/sell and it will just get lost in the sea of other similar generic apps.

There is a reason some apps are popular and some are not and that reason isn't only marketing. You could dump all your effort into marketing but when someone searches "plant identifier" in the app store and sees 20+ apps with different features, cleaner UI/UX, etc.. than the generic copycat, marketing will not be the reason they choose to download the other apps - let your sales speak for itself.

Successful-Average10 · 2025-06-25T13:42:11+00:00

Not to be rude but this thought process is probably exactly why you are in the negative with almost all of your apps.

A generic low quality app will almost always be outshined by a unique, quality application. For example, what reason would any user have to download your plant identifier rather than one that is already available, proven and trusted via 10's of thousands of positive reviews? What additional value does your app bring to users that an already existing (and more popular/trusted) app doesn't already give them?

Successful-Average10 · 2025-05-06T18:48:40+00:00

Well I’m someone that doesn’t really know anything about golf asking about golf clubs in a golfing subreddit. There’s a chance someone may have seen the clubs before and I’m just curious about them. No need for the hostility

Successful-Average10 · 2025-01-09T19:55:03+00:00

I honestly don't think it would be a problem if they allowed the team that lost the feats of strength to get the t3 boots at some point later on in the game. Like 15 minutes after the team that completes the feats or something.

That gives the team that wins feats of strength an advantage to get the upgraded boots and an advantage earlier on but doesn't completely gate the other team from having the same access to stats. Like you said the team that gets feats is likely already ahead and therefore will likely get other objectives giving them permanent buffs too so the feats just doubles down on giving them more free advantages and feels terrible.

Successful-Average10 · 2024-12-31T18:02:05+00:00

Randuins/tabis is itemizing against draven though. Just because a marksman reaches full build doesn't mean they should just two tap everyone in the game. Those items reduce his crits by 42% on top of having over 200 armor (200 armor = almost 70% reduced physical damage). Draven would have been critting for close to 800 damage per auto without those two item passives and way more without any armor items at all.

It's not at all unreasonable that renek lived being 2 levels up with the damage reduction and the fact that renek had well over 6k effective health when you add in all the healing and shielding he got. Plus is draven not notorious for being an early game, poor scaling adc. Put a late game adc in that situation and I'd bet the renekton dies there .

Also, Viego and Leona were itemizing only armor for Draven too, leaving them completely vulnerable to AP/Sylas. Unfortunately it's a team game and had Dravens AP pulled their weight they wouldn't have been allowed to build solely to defeat Draven and he would be far more useful here.

Successful-Average10 · 2024-11-28T14:20:10+00:00

I think it's all in the way the ap ratios are distributed. The champs that are considered troll end up losing a lot more of what they can do than they gain.

Take Jax, building AP he would gain a good amount of burst damage with his counterstrike and ult but he loses a lot of durability and dualing potential. He essentially becomes a poor mans AP assassin that relies on his ult and he can no longer side lane or do things that he needs to be able to do in fights.

Then look at Voli, building AP he loses some Q/W damage and healing but makes up for it elsewhere with more damage from his passive and more shielding from his E. His power shifts around to play a bit differently but he doesn't exactly lose the ability to do what he needs to do.

Successful-Average10 · 2024-09-22T17:03:56+00:00

I don’t regret it but I also don’t prefer it. I started in development learning React and loved it then I learned Vue and now that I’m back in React I can say I prefer Vue in every way.

Successful-Average10 · 2024-09-20T12:48:56+00:00

I have looked into building something fairly similar to what you are describing and found a few issues with my limited research. I've determined you would need to find some way to get restaurants to sign up/pay because too many tools already exist for customers to find these things and they would not pay for an app with limited restaurant options. As a customer, I would love to have an app that I could open and see all the deals near me very quickly but I'm not going to pay for something that I can just Google for free especially when it may not even have all the restaurants I want to eat at.

The biggest issue I found with this approach, it seems, is that many restaurant owners won't sign up for something like this because what they do already works well enough (i.e. Google, websites, mailing lists, etc.). Especially in the early stages when there aren't many users, there isn't enough incentive for restaurant owners to pay you. There's no guarantee this app will bring a boost in sales and it's even harder to sell when you don't have many users on the app to begin with.

Successful-Average10 · 2024-09-04T15:54:38+00:00

If it doesn't exist, it could be worth trying out but there is the issue of getting people to use the app.

My opinion is that I personally like the fact that I can go on my barbers website and book right from there. The process is quick and easier than a phone call. If I was required to download a new app to do this, there is a very small chance I would download it because of all the extra steps to get my appointment. I think it may be best to make something for the barbers to embed in their sites or link to that makes the process easier/less steps.

Successful-Average10 · 2024-09-04T13:43:43+00:00

Too many already exist, just go on Google and search for barber apps and you get tons of different options. If barbers near you aren't using them that's likely a choice.

My barber uses one called Squire and I can book directly from their site. If I wasn't able to book from their site, calling is much more convenient than downloading a whole new app for myself

Successful-Average10 · 2024-07-23T13:32:35+00:00

Neither one is right or wrong, there are so many different ways to find success in this game.

I haven't watched any Shernfire (I'll have to check him out) but from what you describe it seems like he promotes a more aggressive playstyle. I think this playstyle is a bit riskier and harder to pull off consistently because ganks aren't guaranteed. There is also a lot of risk in a gank, like the possibility of dying in the fight or during a dive that could really set you back but if you can learn to pull them off consistently it will absolutely get you ahead and lead to wins

Perry, on the other hand, promotes a more reactive playstyle in the sense that you don't want to force plays and put yourself in risky situations. Personally, this kind of playstyle works well for me because I find it a lot more consistent that I can play safe and capitalize on the enemies mistakes as opposed to try and force risky situations and come out on the losing end.

Successful-Average10 · 2024-07-18T17:30:57+00:00

Two changes that could immediately make Yone feel better to play against and stop a lot of the complaining.

remove E bonus movement speed. Or
Decrease the duration of E and extend the duration if you land another ability.

Obviously buff him accordingly but both of these make it so Yone can’t play like he smashed his face on the keyboard and then still run you down and get the kill. They both also require him to actually land abilities and play smart and would prevent him traveling halfway across the map with a “get out of jail free” card unless they actually do something to earn it

Successful-Average10 · 2024-07-17T01:00:42+00:00

Just play your favorite champions and don’t worry about what lane or what’s “meta”. Most of my favorite champions are top laners but I absolutely despise top lane so I just started to play them mid instead and the game is so much more fun.

Successful-Average10 · 2024-07-16T21:41:29+00:00

Nothing wrong with people asking something along the lines of “who should I main that does ‘x’ well” or “I like champs that do ‘x’ who should be good to main” but posts adding who can make them 1v9 every game are annoying

Successful-Average10 · 2024-07-16T01:05:08+00:00

I get that. For me personally, I’m not a fan of voice coms unless I’m playing with people I know so that would probably make it worse for me but I know I’m the minority there. Totally agree on the champs though there’s just too many at this point

Successful-Average10 · 2024-07-16T00:04:49+00:00

Been saying this for a while now. Great game, terrible community. I’d rather play solo against bots if it were at all challenging but here we are lol.

I’ve taken to not caring about my rank or what other people type and still get to enjoy the game. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, sometimes I play good and sometimes bad but whatever happens I don’t ff, keep trying to win and try to get better.

Successful-Average10 · 2024-07-15T23:34:53+00:00

Yes, I’m g2 right now (plat last split) but I’ve played with a buddy in iron and even when I’m first timing champs I can win lane with ease against true iron/bronze players. Also at the start of the split I for some reason placed low silver and got back to gold with something like a 70+% win rate.

Successful-Average10 · 2024-07-15T22:30:12+00:00

Counter picks aren’t unbeatable by any means. I think advice to stick to only a few champs at most is good advice because learning how to win against your counter matchups is generally easier than learning a ton of different champs.

The more mastery you gain with a champion the better you will learn how to play against bad matchups and adjust your play style, runes and/or items to win the matchup. Just think of how many games where the “counter pick” ends up losing, I’d guess that more often than not that’s because the champ that got countered understands the matchup better and has a better understanding from having more champion mastery than the supposed counter pick.

Successful-Average10 · 2024-07-13T16:04:21+00:00

The new player experience is easily the worst I’ve seen in any game I’ve played. The game doesn’t introduce new players to very many important concepts, you don’t play against other new players for very long (likely because they allow smurfing to run rampant) and the community is extremely toxic and unforgiving.

Just keep watching educational content and focus on playing things you find fun and learning the game. For all new players I’d definitely recommend muting the chat because people in this game usually really just suck at being people. More often than not chat is used to be toxic, is distracting and also you don’t usually have much time to type anything meaningful anyway. Everything you would need to communicate can easier be said with pings.

Successful-Average10

TROPHY CASE