u/luis_411

This is just so incredible... another huge milestone reached. I honestly never thought this was possible for me. But I did the thing...

I JUST STARTED!

I put together a working MVP. Just the bare minimum functionality. Bought a domain and put it out there. I posted about it here on Reddit and got in contact with the people who commented and started using it.

Payments have become a bit more frequent but still no viral, exponential growth, which is totally fine. Slow and steady growth is the key.

I followed a simple concept that just came to me naturally:

• put out what you have
• post about it
• listen to feedback in the comments
• implement the feedback and adapt quickly
• start the loop over again

And after some time your product becomes so good that it no longer sounds absurd to charge money for some features.

Anyways... I'm super grateful that this is working out so well and I really think I've built a community that is actually useful to many people.

About the product:

I've built IndieAppCircle, a platform where small app developers can upload their apps and other people can give them feedback in exchange for credits. I grew it by posting about it here on Reddit. It didn't explode or something but I managed to get some slow but steady growth.

For those of you who never heard about IndieAppCircle, it works like this:

• You can earn credits by testing indie apps (fun + you help other makers)
• You can use credits to get your own app tested by real people
• No fake accounts -> all testers are real users
• Test more apps -> earn more credits -> your app will rank higher -> you get more visibility and more testers/users

Since many people suggested it to me in the comments, I have also created a community for IndieAppCircle: r/IndieAppCircle (you can ask questions or just post relevant stuff there).

Currently, there are 4284 users, 4551 tests done and 1209 apps uploaded!

You can check it out here (it's totally free): https://www.indieappcircle.com/

I'm glad for any feedback/suggestions/roasts in the comments.

It's been almost one year since I launched and it has been quite a journey. No exponential growth or huge user spikes but rather slow and steady growth. But in my opinion that is the best for building something actually valuable because you can react to user feedback along the way and constantly keep improving the app.

One thing changed recently:

I basically got all my users from reddit, by posting in relevant communities but in the last two months I did almost no posts and the app still grew further. That's actually the biggest success for me, because SEO is finally starting to pay off. This can develop into actual leverage because growth no longer depends on posting three times a week. I'm really curious where this will go...

Of course I will not stop here and I am already working on the next big update for IndieAppCircle which will benefit all the community. More is coming soon.

For those of you who don't know IndieAppCircle:

I've built IndieAppCircle, a platform where small app developers can upload their apps and other people can give them feedback in exchange for credits. I grew it by posting about it here on Reddit. It didn't explode or something but I managed to get some slow but steady growth.

For those of you who never heard about IndieAppCircle, it works like this:

• You can earn credits by testing indie apps (fun + you help other makers)
• You can use credits to get your own app tested by real people
• No fake accounts -> all testers are real users
• Test more apps -> earn more credits -> your app will rank higher -> you get more visibility and more testers/users

Since many people suggested it to me in the comments, I have also created a community for IndieAppCircle: r/IndieAppCircle (you can ask questions or just post relevant stuff there).

Currently, there are 4221 users, 4414 tests done and 1149 apps uploaded!

You can check it out here (it's totally free): https://www.indieappcircle.com/

I'm glad for any feedback/suggestions/roasts in the comments.

PS: I recently changed the UI a lot... Would also love to hear some feedback about that :)

Hey, I added 2 new games to discover apps to test.

First one is Pitch Battle where you simply say which of the two apps you would rather try out. After many people played it, app owners will see a "first impression" score for their apps depending on how many people chose their app in the game over some other app.

The second one just suggest a random app for you to try out.

What dou you think guys :)

I think this is super nice and I'm so happy so many people are on the platform.

Hey, I've added some great new features and UI improvements:

- you can now tip testers if they did more than expected. You can also tip them on comments they leave after you already accepted their feedback.

- I redesigned the menue for mobile and desktop

- I added an in-app notification system on top of email notifications so you never miss anything

- the leaderboard now pays out more testers. Every tester in the top 10 of this week gets a payout, not only the top 3

- I'm working on some more cool stuff... more on that later...

If you have any more wishes, please let me know here :)

What do you think about the new features? I'm really interested!

It's been almost one year since I've launched now and I just reached 4000 users yesterday! I know this isn't the exponential growth you're used to see on subreddits like this but I honestly think that the slow and continuous growth is what helped me turn this into a success. This way I was able to adapt to feedback and continuously improve the platform along the way.

For those of you who don't know IndieAppCircle:

I've built IndieAppCircle, a platform where small app developers can upload their apps and other people can give them feedback in exchange for credits. I grew it by posting about it here on Reddit. It didn't explode or something but I managed to get some slow but steady growth.

For those of you who never heard about IndieAppCircle, it works like this:

• You can earn credits by testing indie apps (fun + you help other makers)
• You can use credits to get your own app tested by real people
• No fake accounts -> all testers are real users
• Test more apps -> earn more credits -> your app will rank higher -> you get more visibility and more testers/users

Since many people suggested it to me in the comments, I have also created a community for IndieAppCircle: r/IndieAppCircle (you can ask questions or just post relevant stuff there).

Currently, there are 4012 users, 4134 tests done and 1043 apps uploaded!

You can check it out here (it's totally free): https://www.indieappcircle.com/

I'm glad for any feedback/suggestions/roasts in the comments.

PS: I recently changed the UI a lot... Would also love to hear some feedback about that :)

Hey guys,

this might be the biggest feature update yet...

You can now see how many people view your page on IndieAppCircle and how many click on your external app link. Of course there is also detailed information about feedback you've received on IndieAppCircle and more.

Let me know what you think and what can be improved :)

It's been a little over nine months since I launched and it has been quite a journey. No exponential growth or huge user spikes but rather slow and steady growth. But in my opinion that is the best for building something actually valuable because you can react to user feedback along the way and constantly keep improving the app.

One thing changed recently:

I basically got all my users from reddit, by posting in relevant communities but in the last two months I did almost no posts and the app still grew further. That's actually the biggest success for me, because SEO is finally starting to pay off. This can develop into actual leverage because growth no longer depends on posting three times a week. I'm really curious where this will go...

Of course I will not stop here and I am already working on the next big update for IndieAppCircle which will benefit all the community. More is coming soon.

For those of you who don't know IndieAppCircle:

I've built IndieAppCircle, a platform where small app developers can upload their apps and other people can give them feedback in exchange for credits. I grew it by posting about it here on Reddit. It didn't explode or something but I managed to get some slow but steady growth.

For those of you who never heard about IndieAppCircle, it works like this:

• You can earn credits by testing indie apps (fun + you help other makers)
• You can use credits to get your own app tested by real people
• No fake accounts -> all testers are real users
• Test more apps -> earn more credits -> your app will rank higher -> you get more visibility and more testers/users

Since many people suggested it to me in the comments, I have also created a community for IndieAppCircle: r/IndieAppCircle (you can ask questions or just post relevant stuff there).

Currently, there are 3556 users, 3414 tests done and 849 apps uploaded!

You can check it out here (it's totally free): https://www.indieappcircle.com/

I'm glad for any feedback/suggestions/roasts in the comments.

PS: I recently changed the UI a lot... Would also love to hear some feedback about that :)

Hey guys, I just released a big new UI update over the past couple of days. I really think the platform looks way better now and is more enjoyable to use.

Let me know what you think and tell me what to improve next :)

Thank you all for joining IndieAppCircle and have a nice day!

It's been a little over nine months since I launched and it has been quite a journey. No exponential growth or huge user spikes but rather slow and steady growth. But in my opinion that is the best for building something actually valuable because you can react to user feedback along the way and constantly keep improving the app.

One thing changed recently:

I basically got all my users from reddit, by posting in relevant communities but in the last two months I did almost no posts and the app still grew further. That's actually the biggest success for me, because SEO is finally starting to pay off. This can develop into actual leverage because growth no longer depends on posting three times a week. I'm really curious where this will go...

Of course I will not stop here and I am already working on the next big update for IndieAppCircle which will benefit all the community. More is coming soon.

For those of you who don't know IndieAppCircle:

I've built IndieAppCircle, a platform where small app developers can upload their apps and other people can give them feedback in exchange for credits. I grew it by posting about it here on Reddit. It didn't explode or something but I managed to get some slow but steady growth.

For those of you who never heard about IndieAppCircle, it works like this:

• You can earn credits by testing indie apps (fun + you help other makers)
• You can use credits to get your own app tested by real people
• No fake accounts -> all testers are real users
• Test more apps -> earn more credits -> your app will rank higher -> you get more visibility and more testers/users

Since many people suggested it to me in the comments, I have also created a community for IndieAppCircle: r/IndieAppCircle (you can ask questions or just post relevant stuff there).

Currently, there are 3556 users, 3414 tests done and 849 apps uploaded!

You can check it out here (it's totally free): https://www.indieappcircle.com/

I'm glad for any feedback/suggestions/roasts in the comments.

Hey guys,

hope y'all are doing well! Really nice to see so many active users on IndieAppCircle lately!

I just added a big new feature: There are now user profiles. You can check out other people's profiles and see what apps they own and what apps they have tested. Also apps of users who have tested more than 20 other apps are now highlighted.

Really curious about your feedback.

Thanks for using IndieAppCircle and I'm always open for new suggestions!

Hey guys,

I know I haven't added lots of features recently. I've been very busy...
But I just added a new feature that let's you save feedback, so you will find it more easily later when you want to implement it for example.

It's part of "Circle Boost" - a one time payed pro access for IndieAppCircle. You get test swap as well as the new favorite feature. Also you will get all the new premium features coming in the future.

What do y'all think about it? Any suggestions for new features?

Thanks for being part of IndieAppCircle! Love y'all!🤝

Hey guys,

I've scaled my app from 0 to 3,000 users in about 7 months, which is great but the "problem" is that I got literally all of my users from reddit posts. My strategy was simple: Make some changes/updates or whatever to the app, post about it on reddit and listen to user feedback. Then repeat the process. While that works great for me, I'm afraid I will come off as a spammer if I keep posting to the same subreddits again and again so naturally I was looking for some other source of traffic...

SEO:

I started with a blog (like everyone) and used AI to generate some content for it. I made sure it was SEO ready with links to other pages and a solid structure. I always manually request indexing in the Google Search Console so that the blog posts show up as soon as possible.

I also started adding some custom landing pages targeting specific keywords. This is imo way more effective than blog posts.

Results:

As you can see the results are nice but far from great. There is no real trend or momentum and most of the spikes just came from viral reddit posts which probably led people to also search my website on google. So far I'm not too happy with the SEO performance but I figured I should still share it here and maybe some of you have experienced similar things and can help me out :)

For those of you wondering what my website is about:

I've built IndieAppCircle, an app feedback exchange that works like this:

• You can earn credits by testing indie apps (fun + you help other makers)
• You can use credits to get your own app tested by real people
• No fake accounts -> all testers are real users
• Test more apps -> earn more credits -> your app will rank higher -> you get more visibility and more testers/users

Since many people suggested it to me in the comments, I have also created a community for IndieAppCircle: r/IndieAppCircle (you can ask questions or just post relevant stuff there).

Currently, there are 3041 users, 3497 tests done and 829 apps uploaded!

You can check it out here (it's totally free): https://www.indieappcircle.com/

I'm glad for any feedback/suggestions/roasts in the comments.