u/ListnCart_Dev

Just wanted to share a small milestone with this community because honestly, you all know how hard it is to get traction as an indie dev.

I've been building a shift and salary management app — helps small businesses track employee shifts, calculate salaries, manage schedules — and after 3 months on the Play Store, I just crossed 500 downloads.

It doesn't sound like much, but coming from 0, with no marketing budget, no viral moment, just organic search and word of mouth... it actually feels huge.

A few things I noticed along the way:

• The first 100 took over a month — that stretch felt endless
• The next 400 came in under 2 months — something just clicked
• A lot of users install and immediately uninstall — the retained number is what actually matters
• Store screenshots made a bigger difference than I expected — I updated them once and saw a clear bump in conversions

Has anyone else hit their first 500? What changed after that milestone for you? Any tips on what to focus on next?