u/Active-Cricket6682

I built and shipped an app on iOS. I'm doing this entirely as an individual, no registered company, no VAT number, etc.

Now I'm trying to actually get users and I'm hitting a wall at every step:

• Meta Ads wants business verification I can't provide
• TikTok Ads is the same story

Every growth channel that costs money seems to assume there's a legal entity behind it. I understand why, but it's a rough spot when you're one person testing whether an idea works before committing to registering anything.

A few things I'm trying to figure out:

1. Did anyone here run paid acquisition as a sole trader or equivalent? Was registering as a sole proprietor enough for the ad platforms, or did they want a full company?
2. Is it worth registering before I know whether the app has traction, or is that backwards?
3. What did you use instead in the meantime — ASO, Reddit, TikTok organic, niche communities?
4. Anyone dealt with this specifically in the EU? Did the country you registered in matter for the platforms?

Just trying to figure out the sequence that actually works: register first and then market, or find channels that don't demand an entity while I validate.

Any experience appreciated.

I built and shipped an app on iOS. I'm doing this entirely as an individual, no registered company, no VAT number, etc.

Now I'm trying to actually get users and I'm hitting a wall at every step:

• Meta Ads wants business verification I can't provide
• TikTok Ads is the same story

Every growth channel that costs money seems to assume there's a legal entity behind it. I understand why, but it's a rough spot when you're one person testing whether an idea works before committing to registering anything.

A few things I'm trying to figure out:

1. Did anyone here run paid acquisition as a sole trader or equivalent? Was registering as a sole proprietor enough for the ad platforms, or did they want a full company?
2. Is it worth registering before I know whether the app has traction, or is that backwards?
3. What did you use instead in the meantime — ASO, Reddit, TikTok organic, niche communities?
4. Anyone dealt with this specifically in the EU? Did the country you registered in matter for the platforms?

Just trying to figure out the sequence that actually works: register first and then market, or find channels that don't demand an entity while I validate.

Any experience appreciated.

Was watching some random YouTube video late at night, creator casually mentions this app that lets you localize your App Store prices based on Purchasing Power Parity. Never heard of it. Figured it can't hurt to try.

Turns out it kind of can help a lot actually. Not overnight, but within a few weeks Brazil and Southeast Asia started converting way better. Same app, zero new features, didn't touch the code once. Just prices that finally made sense for what people in those countries can actually afford to spend. Revenue up 43% that month. From a Saturday afternoon of clicking around a pricing tool.

BUT BUT BUT BUT: The catch was the app felt like it was built in 2019 and nobody told it. $9.99/month on top of that, which is a tough sell when you're an indie dev and your app is just starting to get traction.

So I ended up just rebuilding it for myself with the stuff I was actually missing — PPP indexes I wanted, cleaner price templates, faster App Store Connect sync, a few other things that kept annoying me. Showed it to a small circle of dev friends, feedback was good, cleaned it up properly and decided to make it free for indie devs just starting out. Mostly because when I was in that position I would have appreciated that. Premium's there when you start scaling.

If anyone wants to try it drop a comment and I'll send it over.

Also genuinely curious — how many of you are just leaving App Store prices on Apple's default conversion and not thinking about it?

I’ve been working on my app, ClearHead, and recently started seeing some decent organic traction on TikTok. I decided to try out paid ads to scale things up, but I’ve run into a massive headache with their verification system.

Since I’m based in Europe, TikTok wouldn’t even let me target the US or Canada, which was already a bummer. Still went forward with it and after I set everything up and added funds, they straight-up suspended my account because I wasn’t "verified"—basically, they want official company registration documents that I don't have yet.

Has anyone else dealt with this? Is there a way to get around the business verification requirement as an indie dev, or is a registered company the only way?

I’m thinking about pivoting to Meta Ads instead, but I’m worried I’ll run into the same "proof of business" wall there. Does Meta allow you to run ads to the US from Europe as an individual, or are they just as strict?

Would love to hear how other solo founders are handling this.