u/Honglonlon

https://reddit.com/link/1u1rdbn/video/vhrjh8lkrd6h1/player

A few months ago I spent three months building a product. I shipped it and… almost no one used it. The lesson that stuck: I'd built something I thought was clever, not something I actually wanted myself.

So this time I started from a different question: what do I already use every day? Looking at my own home screen, one plain little countdown widget stood out — I'd been using it to track how long I've been with my girlfriend, and it's been sitting there the whole time. That's when it clicked: what if I built the version of it I'd actually love?

We're both cat people, so I wanted to make a cat-themed countdown app. I used her cat as the model, hand-drew a handful of cats, each with its own little personality, and built the countdown around them. So it isn't just a number on a screen — there's a cat sitting on your home screen, counting down the day with you.

What it does right now:

• Count down to — or up from — any date that matters
• Ready-made templates for common moments — anniversaries, trips, exams, birthdays — so you set one up in seconds, not from scratch
• A hand-drawn cat lives in the widget on your home and lock screen, and sets the mood as the day gets closer
• Built in SwiftUI + WidgetKit, synced over iCloud — happy to talk shop in the comments

If you want to check it out, it's free on the App Store: CatDays: cat countdown

Three things I'd genuinely love feedback on:

1. Be honest — is a cat countdown something you'd keep on your home screen for weeks, or a "cute, opened it once, deleted it" kind of app? If it's the second one, what would make it stick?
2. It started as an anniversary tracker for me and my girlfriend, but I'm trying to figure out who else this is for. What would you actually use a countdown for?
3. What's one feature that would make this a keeper for you? Totally open on what to build next.

Happy to dig into the build too. Thanks for reading 🙏