u/yelkamel

built a gamified todo app over 3 months. quests, xp, streaks, levels. released it, made a landing page, sat back. nothing happened for like 2 weeks.

so i stopped building and started talking. commented on posts where people complained about productivity apps, answered questions, shared what i was learning. no links, no pitch. just being around. thats when the installs started trickling in.

funny thing is the app barely changed. i thought i needed more features. turns out i needed to show up where the frustration was. i used todoist for years before building this so i keep comparing everything to it in my head lol.

the app is beedone, a gamified task thing. the distribution lesson hit harder than any feature lesson though.

for other solo devs here: how much time did you spend on distribution vs building in the first month?

idk if this is just me but the habits that actually lasted in my life are never the ones i sat down and planned. i tried for years to make reading a daily thing. set the reminders, made the lists, tracked the days. never made it past two weeks.

but i stretch for like 5 minutes every morning without ever deciding to. and i drink water first thing before coffee. i dont even remember when those started. they just kind of became the default.

the weird part is the unplanned ones are the ones i never miss. the planned ones feel like a chore from day one so my brain treats them like work and rebels.

maybe the trick is to stop planning so hard and let something small happen daily until it stops being a decision. idk. anyone else notice their longest habits are the accidental ones?

when i was building my app everyone around me assumed it would have a leaderboard. friends, beta testers, even my dad. you gamify something, you need a scoreboard, right?

i said no and kept it out of the roadmap. my reasoning was flimsy at first, i just felt weird about it. but the more i thought the more i believed it. leaderboards reward the top 1% and make everyone else feel behind. for a habit app thats the opposite of what you want.

so the app has zero social. no friends, no comparing, no streaks shown to anyone but you. the only competition is against your own yesterday.

a few power users asked for it. i offered them a spreadsheet export instead and they got over it fast. honestly i think they just wanted to feel important, not compete.

i run the whole thing solo and keep notes in a plain markdown file. used to keep a notion board and it became a second job. the app is beedone, a gamified todo thing.

anyone else deliberately left out a 'standard' feature and never regretted it?

i spent 3 months stripping down my app onboarding. 3 taps, one screen, done. thought i was a genius.

turns out i was just confusing people faster.

my retention numbers actually dropped. people who got through the funnel stayed but fewer were getting through. i kept looking at the wrong metric.

the problem was obvious in hindsight — i removed the context. users had no idea why they were setting a streak or what a quest was supposed to do. it was like handing someone a controller with no instructions and saying "good luck."

i added back a short intro — 3 cards, one sentence each. just explains the loop. quests, xp, streaks. nothing clever.

numbers went back up.

its called BeeDone btw. gamified todo thing.

i also tried superhuman's onboarding for reference — theirs is clean but way too pushy for a productivity tool. different vibe.

anyone else made their app too simple and watched it backfire?

been looking at my notion board for the past hour. its beautiful. color coded. has links to tutorials, pdfs, video playlists. i spent more time setting this up than actually watching any of those videos.

the weird thing is i know im doing it. i catch myself reaching for "one more resource" before starting. like if i just find the perfect youtube explainer, THEN ill understand everything instantly. but realistically i already have 4 tabs of "perfect" resources open from last week that i never watched.

honestly i think its just fear of the hard part. organizing is safe. not knowing something is uncomfortable. so i keep building the perfect study setup instead of actually studying.

anyone relate or just me

for the first version i put dashboards everywhere. completion rates, weekly trends, time spent per task, the full thing. thought data would make people feel in control.

turns out staring at a bar chart of your own unfinished tasks isnt motivating for most people. it feels like a report card you dont want to open. i switched everything to a simpler view that just shows whats next and what you finished today. no percentages, no comparisons.

in beedone this was the single biggest retention jump and i didnt even build anything new. i just hid things. felt weird as a founder since every tool i use feels like it wants to show me more numbers not less. notion, todoist, ticktick — they all push analytics now.

anyone else find that removing data made something better not worse

i do this dumb thing where ill suddenly get very serious about fixing my sleep or workouts or whatever, then spend 25 minutes renaming reminders and deciding the perfect order for everything. by the time im done i feel weirdly accomplished even tho i havent done teh actual thing once.

maybe planning is just the cleaner version of avoidance idk. if i start embarrassingly small i usually do better, but my brain still wants the whole reset ceremony first. anybody else do this or is that just my fake productivity brain

I’m trying to understand how to break into the UAE startup scene with the right positioning.

I’m based in Paris, and my core background is mobile/product engineering — mostly Flutter, app delivery, architecture, APIs, payments, automation and AI-assisted execution.

But I don’t think my value is just “I build apps.”

Over the last few years, I’ve become much more of an operator profile that can combine:
- product execution
- mobile development
- automation / AI agents
- content and asset production
- outreach support systems

So my question is less “can I code?” and more:

How should someone like me position himself to UAE startups so the market immediately understands the value?

I recently got rejected from a Dubai opportunity with feedback that I wasn’t “strong enough.”
That made me step back and ask a more useful question: maybe the issue is not only skill, but also positioning, proof, and market fit.

If you’re a founder, operator, or someone active in UAE startups, I’d love your take:

1. Would you position this profile as:
   - senior mobile engineer
   - product builder
   - AI-enabled operator
   - fractional product/tech partner
   - something else?

2. What kind of proof would make this profile compelling fast?

3. In UAE startups, what gets attention first: referrals, local network, direct outreach, niche expertise, or visible case studies?

4. Are startups more open to freelance / contract setups at first, or mostly full-time/local hires?

5. If you wanted to enter this ecosystem fast, what would you do in the next 30 days?

i do this stupid thing where i'll review notes for an hour, clean my desk, even redo the easy questions, but i keep dodging the actual practice test.

once the score is there its like okay cool, now the situation is real. and i guess part of me would rather stay in maybe-im-prepared land a little longer.

kinda works against me becuase the test is the only part that tells me what i dont get lol. anyone else do this or am i just scared of getting humbled by a pdf

i keep doing this dumb thing where i get halfway through a problem, the page starts looking messy, and suddenly my brain decides the whole attempt is ruined.

i'll erase it, start over, then erase that too... like im trying to produce a clean version instead of actualy figuring it out. tbh i waste so much time wanting the work to look smart before it even is.

when i force myself to keep the ugly attempt on the page, i usually finaly get it. anyone else do this or is my brain just weird about seeing mistakes in real time

i did this again last night lol. opened my notes, decided i needed a cleaner plan, made a nicer plan, then suddenly it was late and i had barely touched teh actual chapter.

it's weird because planning feels productive in the moment. like my brain goes nice, now we're serious. but half the time it's just a prettier form of avoiding the hard part.

i've started giving myself 10 minutes before i'm allowed to reorganize anything. just open the thing and do the ugliest first bit. idk it helps more than i expected.

anyone else get trapped in fake study prep like this

tbh my library is like a museum at this point. love the idea of the game. art style looks great. so i buy it. then i open steam and just... stare at the list. idk why but the more i have the harder it is to actually pick one. keep waiting for the perfect mood to start a 10 hour adventure but usually just end up playing the same 3 games i've played for years. feels like hoarding but for digital art lol. happens to anyone else or am i just broken?

honestly i spent two hours today just cleaning my desk and organizing my notebooks because i told myself i couldnt start until everything was perfect. by the time i actually opened the book i was too tired to even read the first page. idk why my brain does this but it feels like productive work even though its just procrastination. feels like im fighting a losing battle with my own focus. anyone else get stuck in this loop or do you actually have a way to just... start?

did this last night and it felt productive right up until it didnt

made a whole neat checklist, split chapters by time, even planned the breaks like i was suddenly a very serious person

by the time i was done setting it all up i had maybe 20 min of actual brain left and just stared at page 1 lol

idk why my brain keeps treating planning like studying. in the moment it scratches the same itch or something

anyone else get this or am i just doing fake work again

tbh not a huge chef here, but I love making food still. sometimes after a long day or w/e I just want something quick but not takeout. for me it's always pasta w pesto + some frozen shrimp added in at the last minute. hits the spot every time. what about yall? any secret easy meals that still feel kinda homemade?

i've been playing a lot of smaller indie titles lately and there's just something about them. It's not just the art style or the unique mechanics, but that feeling of genuine discovery. like, you stumble into a hidden area, or find a weird character, maybe even figure out a puzzle that really makes my brain work. It feels different from big, polished AAA games, where everything sometimes feels a bit pre-chewed, you know?

idk maybe it's just me but they hit different.

honestly, building this app has been a ride, you know? i had this one thing, thought it was a total waste of space. a streak-forgiveness thing. like, who needs that? seemed like over-engineering, extra code for something only a few would even notice. figured i'd just cut it, simplify everything. but then like, a few users, not tons, but some really passionate ones, they were like, "no, this is what keeps me going." lets 'em miss a day without feeling like they failed entirely. i kept it. crazy right? thought i knew best. what about you guys? any features you kept even if they clashed with your 'vision' because users just loved it? (ps. my app's called beedone, it's for building good habits.)

felt so productive last night. notes were clean, i was focused, actually understanding the material for once

checked the syllabus this morning and the exam is chapters 5-7. not 8 and 9. two hours of genuinely good work on stuff i dont even need yet

and the worst part is i wasnt skimming or being lazy. full effort, wrong target lol. probably my most focused session in weeks and it was completely useless

at least ill be ready for the next exam i guess

anyone else done this?

i just looked back at my notes from last week and half the page is yellow. like genuinely more yellow than white at this point. the worst part is when i go back to review i cant tell what was actually important vs what i highlighted because i was getting tired and scared of missing something

my friend saw my notes once and said "so basically everything is important then" and honestly he had a point. at some point i stopped being selective and just started highlighting everything that wasnt a preposition

i know the advice is to only mark key terms or whatever but in the moment everything feels crucial. especially when the exam is getting close. so the highlighter just keeps going and going

switched to writing margin notes recently and its defintiely better. forces me to actually think about what im reading instead of just painting the page yellow. but every now and then i relapse and end up with a neon textbook again

anyone else have this problem or am i just uniquely bad at studying

i'll do a decent 45-60 min session, feel focused, then close the notebook and my brain goes totally blank lol

not even panic, just this weird "wait what did i just do" feeling. tbh the only thing that helps me is writing 3 ugly lines right before i stop, like super short recap in dumb words

if i dont do that, next session starts from zero and its kinda brutal

anyone else deal with this? what actually sticks for you after studying?