Sandro PennisiSometimes i wish the iOS community would take note of the less famous indie devs and designers too. The ones who are struggling. I feel like it’s always the same getting the attention. Most of them deserve it and made great products. But there’s so much more and the famous ones don’t need the support as much as the underdogs. We almost have to fight for every single download.
Ian NebbioloAnd am i jealous? Fuck yes of course! I worked hard for months on my app and since i don’t have a big following and no contacts at apple my app got almost unnoticed. It’s not very motivating and sometimes i think my app is maybe bad. But! I’m really proud of Kolibri. Come on it’s really cool. Draw, import svg, edit paths etc, animate and then get the #SwiftUI code automatically. And all this on iPhone, iPad and mac. Everything made by me incl icon. It’s far from a perfect app but I’m proud
And yes i wrote apple but so far they didn’t feature it. And since I’m not rich i can’t afford to buy some nice ad spots on the big sites. So who can afford those ad spots? Of course the ones who are already „famous“. So yes it can be a bit demotivating. Especially when you think that this time you have a really cool and unique product but then app store reality hits you in the face 😅 but ok, end of rant and back to SVG import implementation.
Oh and currently it averages at about 5-10 downloads per day. Google tells me a typical conversion rate for a subscription app is about 2%. So yeah. 🙈 i give myself time until max. end of this year and until then the numbers have to be way better or it makes no sense to invest more time into this app. Which would be really sad cause it’s probably the coolest thing i built so far.
Aaron@sandropennisi The company I work at was founded by 3 people as a side project in 2007. They did not really start making much from the app until 2010 and didn’t quit their day jobs til 2011. By 2018 they were the dominating market leader and sold the company to Boeing. I realize everyones situation is different and can’t necessarily do what they did, but it really put things in perspective for me about how persistence through tough, slow ramp ups can work.
@afarnham true, you’re absolutely right. Sometimes it’s just that you get dragged down and lose the motivation a bit. But then i have to remind of this. To keep going and believing in myself.
Naman@sandropennisi Don’t lose hope, but also don’t sink all your time into it once it’s good enough. Let your market grow. This app might make you one of the famous devs!
Once your app starts to gain traction, you’ll have the motivation to spend time polishing it.
@nmn thanks for those words Naman. Yes it’s always a difficult balance between saying „it’s currently good enough“ and wanting to polish it more and more!
@sandropennisi One common trap we can fall into as developers is to think that the product is everything. At some point you have to focus on marketing instead. A slick website. Demo videos. Explainer articles. All of this will help people discover your app!
@sandropennisi Also, as an app for SwiftUI developers, your app may be priced a bit too low! My assumption would be that the target audience is relatively small, but willing to pay more.
Give it some time and adjust your pricing in the future.
Slothdude@sandropennisi Unfortunately, I think a part of your problem might be the subscription approach. The app certainly looks cool, and at four Euros, it would have been an insta-buy for me for support alone. In fact, I might have paid triple the amount. But I don’t have enough need for this kind of tool to justify a monthly subscription.
isaiah@sandropennisi @phranck there was this preciously short timespan when Steve seemed to realize that indie software was a key differentiator and suddenly Apple was doing tons of stuff to make it easier to be a developer (free Xcode, cheaper conferences, etc.) and highlighting lots of the fun smaller apps.
the odd thing is that i don’t think the situation is much different, i just think Apple has forgotten how useful indies are to their platforms.
@sandropennisi @phranck yes — but i think at the dawn of UIKit, when Apple suddenly had a new primary source of revenue, was sort of when it started to dwindle.
though indies were still an asset, we just weren’t the essential asset we had been in the early 2000’s.
though indies were still an asset, we just weren’t the essential asset we had been in the early 2000’s.
Jan@sandropennisi @isaiah @phranck yep and these days you get this very unknown app twice in a row. Other days it's just AAA games.
When they first introduced this feed you were able to find new indie apps.
kafran 
@sandropennisi The app is amazing. I know it might not be fair for me to say this, because you may have other plans, but this is the kind of project I wish were open source. I bet there’s a lot we could learn from you.
@kafran thanks so much! I have no experience with open sourcing yet. Maybe it could be cool to at least open source some useful parts. I have to think about it.
aardvark@sandropennisi not for nuthin, but you got boosted by #8
Konrad Kołakowski@sandropennisi I understand as well how demotivating it could be. Stay on track though!
I think you have few paths to improve things:
- reconsider subscription, dev tools might still sell with a one-time price (and a proper one, not $1.99)
- focus on macOS, I get it's exciting and maybe we should push platforms forward, but such apps makes most sense where real development is performed - at least for now
@kkolakowski good points thanks Konrad. Maybe an option for a one-time purchase would make sense. Need to think about it. Thanks again!
Andres Jalinton@sandropennisi
That is so cool!
I would definitely love to have a tool like that!
Sadly I can't afford an iPhone.
That is so cool!
I would definitely love to have a tool like that!
Sadly I can't afford an iPhone.
Karl Oscar Weber@sandropennisi this is amazing!
Michael Steeber@sandropennisi wow, great icon!
@michaelsteeber thanks a lot Michael. I like it too. I actually drew it in Sketch. Would have been cooler if i drew it in my own app though 😅
Pro-Anti-Everything@sandropennisi found it, downloaded it, and about to try it out.
Thanks for making this, and to Pipilo dev for sharing this, or I wouldn’t have known!