u/calflegal

I’m a software engineer in my day job, with a big interest and background in music. I’ve built a couple little things for iOS and web. Trouble is, I never really actually collected a set of contacts in a single niche that would be helpful for eg beta testing. Even if I today had some wonderful and finished music app or whatever, I really don’t know where I’d find my first users. I guess I have a few names of people I could poke, but that’s about it.

I’ve heard App Store ads can be great here.

What else have you seen work?

I think one of these might take my app (migo games) to the next level. I’m eyeing Rive a bit. Have you learned Rive or Lottie? Which do you recommend? Why?

SW Eng here. It seems clear to me that the web platform has mostly won on desktop. It’s a great platform, really. But Apple intentionally kneecaps it on mobile. None of the great web apps work great on mobile.

Is it better to start with a web app targeting desktop for a new idea because you can ship and iterate better, or to start mobile first on eg iOS? Studies show that users are much easier to monetize on iOS. Then again, users have to download and open an app vs just going to a url.

I’d think it’s idea dependent as well

What do you think?

I’ve built my little arcade app in swift mostly because I didn’t want to get “too far” into game dev. I’m
a software engineer as my main job. I sort of figured learning swift and building a back end are more marketable skills than eg Godot.

But yeah, I’m building for iOS and Mac so no Windows, etc.

Wdyt, should I make a Godot client? Or, am I right in thinking that the platform isn’t that big of a deal, that it’s more about is this a good concept, etc?

Let’s hear about strange businesses or apps that you’ve seen become successful. Somebody’s SaaS platform for Swedish massage, a tooth removal blog, you get the idea…

What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you started out? What would’ve been different?

I read an enlightening comment on here about somebody's frustration with the lack of engagement they were getting from their personal social media. The comment said:

"Most of your friends and people you follow have at least one side project. Do you take the time to explore their stuff?"

So, do you? Why or why not? Will this comment haunt you like it has me?

Simply too good

Migo Games is a multiplayer arcade. Technically, the second game, land grab, is only available in the Swift native client (Mac / iOS), but you can play arrow now. Perhaps I should add land grab to the web app.