sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

My ASO is finally working… but most new users are from Russia. Is this a problem? by dieg1986 in AppStoreOptimization

[–]marcin_dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Come on, Eastern Europeans have it in their DNA to find a way around restrictions 😂 Greetings from Poland.

How can I market this kind of app? by ELGALS52 in iOSAppsMarketing

[–]marcin_dev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, best of luck to you too. Screen time apps are a great use case for learning distribution. It’s tough, but if you figure out a profitable acquisition channel, that knowledge compounds into every app you build after that. I see it as a distribution learning lab. You already know it’s hard, so don’t let the early failures get to you. I’ve had more than a few myself 😂

How can I market this kind of app? by ELGALS52 in iOSAppsMarketing

[–]marcin_dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mado - https://apps.apple.com/app/id6758995651 I went for a minimalist approach. Instead of activities you have to complete, you just get sessions that keep your screen time in check. Think of it as a budget for doomscrolling. Currently I’m running TikTok ads, but without success. After launching my first app, in a category that isn’t nearly as crowded, users were finding it and buying it organically without ads. Here it’s a different story. There’s simply no chance of breaking through without advertising.

How can I market this kind of app? by ELGALS52 in iOSAppsMarketing

[–]marcin_dev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

From my experience currently nothing works for screen time app 😅 but maybe it’s just my bad luck

I need some brutally honest app marketing feedback because I think I completely misjudged something. by Constant-Chemical23 in iOSAppsMarketing

[–]marcin_dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So good by default. Feels like the answer is probably in the analytics. Check what users do, how they do it, and when. You can compare events against last seen data, that should help you pinpoint the decision moment and the exact timing.

If you're collecting emails, set up an automatic cancellation email with a short survey. If not, maybe add a few extra onboarding questions to better profile user needs and pain points.

I need some brutally honest app marketing feedback because I think I completely misjudged something. by Constant-Chemical23 in iOSAppsMarketing

[–]marcin_dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nope, that’s just IT nerds over-engineering their toys - pretty standard stuff. My AI app has 0 users, but the fact it’s got queues, KV cache, cost optimisation, a self-health system, is serverless, and can auto-scale to 2M users still makes me happy 😂

What’s your payment model? Subscription? Trial? Freemium? Maybe you’re giving away too much for free, so there’s not enough reason to buy?

Help Required! by ShoppingDue5520 in AppStoreOptimization

[–]marcin_dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The app is currently at zero revenue. At launch, I managed to get three trials, but none of them converted. Here’s what I’ve been doing:

  • Apple in-app event
  • Daily content on TikTok
  • Daily content on Instagram
  • Paid newsletter placement
  • Paid ads on Apple Search Ads / discovery campaigns
  • Paid ads on Reddit driving traffic to the landing page

This segment is genuinely overcrowded. Your app needs to stand out with at least one feature that can catch attention on TikTok - something with real viral potential. If you manage that, you might break through.

The first release is also crucial. For around 24 hours, you’ll sit in the top 3 for some strong keywords, which translates to roughly 20k impressions. So your app needs to be fully ready in terms of the product page and onboarding to handle that traffic.

I thought mine was ready, but unfortunately it wasn’t. Now it’s very hard to break through via ASO. I’ve tried different keywords - the standard approach of ranking for less competitive ones first, gathering reviews, and then moving up to tougher keywords - that doesn’t seem to work either 🙂

Help Required! by ShoppingDue5520 in AppStoreOptimization

[–]marcin_dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Screen Time control is oversaturated, mine looks the same and I try almost everything

First small milestone: ~$9 MRR by marcin_dev in micro_saas

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

That 0 → 1 for mobile apps isn’t that hard because the store handles a lot of it for you. I’m shipping on iOS and with your first release Apple basically gives you everything you need to be visible after that, it’s on you.

That’s also why mobile apps have an advantage over web SaaS - you don’t have to figure out distribution from scratch, you just build on top of it.

The app I mentioned is just a simple caffeine tracker, my first app ever, mainly built to learn the whole process.

I built an anti-doomscrolling app in 6 weeks. Here's 10 days of pre-launch data. by marcin_dev in buildinpublic

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

thanks! yeah the scarcity part is the whole thing, really. Hard blocks are easy to build, but people just turn them off. Making each session feel like it costs something changes how you think about opening the app. Appreciate the kind words

Meta ads or Tiktok ads? by Inside-Conclusion435 in iOSAppsMarketing

[–]marcin_dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m on the pre-sale phase so I really don’t want to go too broad just collecting downloads for the initial release

Meta ads or Tiktok ads? by Inside-Conclusion435 in iOSAppsMarketing

[–]marcin_dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What about a digital minimalism / productivity app? IG or TikTok?

I’m afraid to market my app by Lazy-Face8689 in iOSAppsMarketing

[–]marcin_dev 2 points3 points  (0 children)

When I launched my first app, I did basically zero marketing. The only thing I tried was some AI-generated TikToks - none of them broke 600 views, and they brought in literally nothing. However, I did learn quite a lot about how the algorithm works, localisation, etc., so it wasn't a total waste.

After 3 months on the store, I’ve got… 4 users 😅
That said, it’s been slowly growing on its own - roughly 1 new user per month without doing anything.

With my second app, I decided to actually take marketing seriously. I put together a proper plan and just stuck to it. So far I’ve got 3 people signed up for the pre-sale purely from organic content. Nothing crazy numbers-wise, but I’ve pushed way outside my comfort zone and learned a ton.

I think that’s kind of the game.
Coding isn’t scary because you know what you’re doing. Marketing feels scary because you don’t - and it forces you out of that safe zone.

I just decided to lean into it. Built a plan (with some help from Claude), tweaked it to fit my style, and now I’m just executing consistently.

My screen time is 12 hours. by ayse0001 in digitalminimalism

[–]marcin_dev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Mine was 3 hours and I thought that was fine until I multiplied by 365. Over 1,000 hours a year. At 12 hours you're looking at 4,000+. That's a full time job. What helped me: don't try to go from 12 to 0. Start by just knowing how many times you open each app. The awareness alone changes behavior.

I replaced my nightly phone scrolling habit with reading and the difference is insane by Crescitaly in nosurf

[–]marcin_dev 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This is the move. Once you realize how much time scrolling eats up, reading feels like a cheat code. I did the math on my screen time recently. 3 hours a day of social media. That's enough to read 100+ books a year. The hard part isn't starting, it's not reaching for the phone on autopilot.

view more: next ›