r/AppBusiness

We submitted our first app to the App Store 7 days ago. Still in review.

Cant touch the app until it's out. No new build, no changes, so all we can currently do is wait.

What we can do though... is get people ready to download it the second it goes live. Right now we have 65 people signed up and 30 in our Discord. We are building in public on Peerlist, X and LinkedIn. I think posting harder on social before the app is even out isn't smart, so we are holding back on that. Not sure if thats the right call haha.

So if anyone has been in our shoes, what did you do while you waited, and what could we be doing?

Free app, no ads on the core loop. Start a focus session, stay off your phone, earn coins. Spend coins on challenges and bids, or enter the monthly draw for vouchers.
• Free tier does everything you need
• Premium is optional
• iOS version has been live for a while, Android is new as of this week

It’s a rewards model rather than a blocker model. If you’ve bounced off apps that just lock you out, this is the opposite approach.

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Hey everyone,

I just finished building and submitting my first app as a solo founder. It's a sports guide app — structured training plans, technique tips, that kind of thing.

Now comes the part I have zero experience with: getting the first users.

I'm not looking for generic advice like "just post on TikTok" or "run ads." I'd rather hear from people who've actually done this:

• Where did your first 20 users come from?
• Did you niche down to one sport, or go broad from day one?
• Is Apple Search Ads worth it for a solo founder on a small budget?
• Any communities (Reddit, Discord, etc.) that actually worked for you?
• What's the biggest mistake you made in the first month?

Appreciate any real stories, good or bad.

Thanks so much!

• What kind of goals did you set after your app was launched? I want to be realistic during this process; I don't want to get lost in a fantasy world and end up regretting it—I prefer to move forward with monthly goals.
• Also, how can I get the $100 Apple Ads credit?

I see a lot of you have such good ideas for apps and really can help a lot of people. But…

1. Storytelling seems to be missing in a lot of apps. You’re offering the tools, but sometimes there’s no emotional connection.

2. Close the loop, guys! “Task is done” may not be enough to bring users back. Think about what could make them return to your app again and again. Notifications can be powerful when used thoughtfully.

3. Good UX copy can solve a surprising number of usability problems.

4. Try not to make users learn completely new patterns just so that you can stand out from your competitors. Familiarity can sometimes make the experience much easier.

5. If your product is in a crowded category — like fitness or productivity — UI and branding can become major differentiators.

6. If your product is relatively uncommon but solves a meaningful problem, good marketing and positioning can make a huge difference.

7. Users can be unpredictable, so consider investing in usability testing alongside research. Sometimes watching people actually use the product reveals things research alone may not.

8. Be careful of feature overload in an attempt to solve every user problem. More features don’t necessarily mean a better experience.

9. Tracking/logging can become tedious for users. If your app relies heavily on it, consider giving users a reason to keep doing it through motivation, rewards, progress, or instant gratification. Gamification can help when it fits the experience.

10. Navigation can get complicated very quickly. A side menu, bottom nav, and multiple sections might be too much for an app that’s just starting out. Simpler navigation may work better initially.

11. Hard paywalls can create friction, especially before users understand the value of the product. A free trial or limited free experience could be worth exploring.

12. Use AI where it genuinely adds value. Identify relevant use cases for your app, understand the ecosystem, and think about what AI could do for both first-time and returning users.

13. Your app will probably never feel completely “finished.” Keep listening to your users, testing assumptions, and refining the experience.

For the design process, tools can help speed things up too. ChatGPT can be useful for research and exploration, Recraft for creating illustrations, icons, and images in a consistent style, and Claude for exploring screen ideas and prototypes.

I do detailed app audits and offer many other design services. DM me if you are genuinely trying to build something and need help :)

I had my iOS/Android app professionally developed in Flutter and I’m getting the full source code from the developers.

I’m a beginner, but I’ve been learning and using Codex/AI to make smaller changes myself.

I now want to add a $59/month subscription/paywall for premium features. The app already has Apple/Google in-app purchases implemented for another paid feature.

I’m considering RevenueCat to handle subscriptions and entitlements.

Would you recommend RevenueCat, or should I build on the existing IAP system?

Is this realistic for a beginner with AI guidance, or is subscription/backend verification something I should hire a Flutter developer to implement?

Also, what would be a reasonable price to pay someone for this?

I'm building a camera app and getting 10-20 downloads a day with maybe 1-2 people buying the in app purchases, want to grow this as it does have potential. Thank you

If an app needs 5 minutes of questions before it shows me what it does, I already know it's about to ask for my money.

I'm building my first app, so lately I've been on both sides of this, and I don't love what I've learned.

As a user, what drives me crazy is the onboarding. Ten questions about my goals and habits, a progress bar "building my personal plan", a 5-star review from "Jessica, 34", and then a paywall. Most of the time none of it changes what the app actually does. It's there so that by the time I see the price, I've already put in five minutes and quitting feels like wasting them. It's a sunk cost trick, and it's so common now that I can spot it from the first question.

Then there's weekly pricing. I downloaded a photo cleaner last week. To be fair it gave me 7 days free, but after that it's $10 a week. I clean up my camera roll maybe once every few months. I've never met a single person who wants to pay for an app every week. Weekly plans exist because people forget to cancel.

Now the other side, because users aren't innocent either. Since I started building, I get why everyone ends up with subscriptions. A lot of apps have AI in them now, and every time someone uses it, the developer pays for it. A one-time $5 doesn't cover that for long. We want everything free, we hate ads, we won't pay upfront, and then we're surprised when the app we liked shuts down.

Spotify is the example I keep coming back to. I used the free version with ads for a long time before I paid. The free version was actually good, and the ads were just annoying enough to make me want to pay. By the time I upgraded I was using it every day, so paying felt obvious. They've raised the price more than once since then and I never thought about leaving. Years of my playlists live there. That's lock-in too, but it's lock-in I built myself, not something they tricked me into on day one.

I think that's the whole difference. People don't mind paying. They mind being charged rent by an app they've known for five minutes.

So I'm curious from both sides.

So I'm curious. If you build apps, what's actually worked for you? Did a free tier or a longer trial help, or did it just kill conversion? And if you run a weekly plan, please defend it, I really want to understand.

And as a user, what's the fastest an app has ever lost you? Mine was the Jessica screen.

I'm building one fitness app in that i want some workout animation or assets showing workout. I tried to find it if there is any open source assets for production use . But didn't find one ! If anyone knows then I need help