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u/LunalienRay

r/AppsWebappsFullstack r/japaneseresources r/SoloDevelopment r/LearnJapaneseNovice r/AppBusiness
▲ 240 r/AppsWebappsFullstack+1 crossposts

My Japanese learning app hit over 10,000 users and made $1,000 in its first couple of weeks after launch. Here's what I learned — and what I want to ask you guys.

My app is a Japanese learning app that I spent about a couple of years creating. I make almost everything free (which is why revenue per customer is really low), but I sell skins and cosmetics instead of gatekeeping the learning content. Here's what I've learned (note that this is my first app and I'm still learning):

  1. Reddit is sad for marketing. If you post your own app, people see a cash-grabber and dismiss it as AI slop in half a second, and the downvotes/nitpicking will wreck your head as a solo dev for no real upside.
  2. Small content creators are your friends. I paid less than $100 for a couple of short videos, and it worked. The spike on the graph is when he posted his shorts, which got over 100,000 views each on almost every platform. (That's all I've paid for marketing so far.)
  3. First impressions are very important. You need an easy-to-understand onboarding to make a good one. (My app is called Shima Bird – Japanese Learning; you can check out the onboarding I polished really, really carefully.)
  4. Finding your niche is still king. Yes, "learning Japanese" isn't a small niche, but my primary target is a Japanese learning app built for people in my country — something no other app really nails. (My app is also available in English, but I have no idea how to market that version. Someone please help me!)

What I'm still unsure about — please educate me:

  1. I seriously have no idea whether I should double down on marketing in my own country or go after foreign markets. What would you do? So far I've only spent on one ad, so I think there's still a lot of room to grow?
  2. How can I increase revenue per customer while keeping the core learning free and with minimal to no ads?
  3. Is paying for platform ads (Facebook, Reddit, YouTube, etc.) worth it? Personally I don't think so, because my revenue per user is really low. From my calculations, getting a user to download my app is far more expensive if I use those platforms.
  4. How do you split your time? I have a full-time job on top of all this — so between bug fixes, adding content, making social media posts, reaching out to influencers, and trying to keep a personal life and exercise, there are never enough hours. Right now I just do whatever feels most urgent that day, which isn't really a system. For those of you building on the side of a day job: how do you actually structure your week?

If you have any suggestions, please share — I still have a lot to learn!

u/LunalienRay — 1 month ago
▲ 119 r/japaneseresources

Making a Kanji reading game to punish Anki people who don’t know how to spell correctly.

Inspired by Kanji de GO but I focus on learner with vocab from N5-N1 instead of rare Kanji like the original.

u/LunalienRay — 1 month ago
▲ 8 r/LearnJapaneseNovice

I developed Shima Bird app when I was an N5 learner. It has free content from N5 to N1 including grammar, SRS and hand-written Kanji mnemonic.

I spent more than two years on this project and would like you to give it a try.

Here is the link to App Store and Google Play!

App Store : https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shima-bird-japanese-learning/id6758270284

Google Play : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.renreistudio.jpvocab

If anyone has any questions please feel free ask!

u/LunalienRay — 1 month ago
▲ 51 r/japaneseresources

Spent 2 years building Shima Bird — a Japanese learning app with free content from N5-N1 — Just launched.

u/LunalienRay — 2 months ago