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Tell HN: I made $1000 with my app and now making $500/mo
578 points by strongpigeon on May 25, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 181 comments
Edit: Wow #1 on HN. Y'all are making my day.

Hey HN,

I'm mostly a lurker on HN who's always super inspired by other people's small project that end-up making money. (Huge fan of Ben Stoke's Tiny Project [0])

After being burnt-out in big tech, I decided to write my own weightlifting app and set myself a humble goal of reaching $1000 in total proceeds. See [1] for my initial launch post.

I've now surpassed that goal and am now making about 500$/mo by selling premium features in the app. Android version is coming soon too. Doing the whole thing end-to-end (code, launch, marketing, support) was super gratifying and taught me a whole lot. I have to admit that I got almost teary eyed the first time someone bought one of my IAPs.

I'm not making a killing out of the app, and that was never the goal. But the personal satisfaction I got out of it was worth everything. I can't pretend to have derived any life lesson that applies to everybody from this, but this whole mini-journey was worth it for me, and I hope it will be for you too, should you embark in a similar one.

[0] https://tinyprojects.dev/

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27507452




>I can't pretend to have derived any life lesson that applies to everybody from this

Part of what attracted me to software engineering in the first place was an interest in "how things work", and being able to move between levels of abstraction (e.g. I know how IP, DNS, TCP, HTTP and JSON works, but most of the time I can just treat it as "sending objects"). So it was a bit of a eureka moment for me to realize that running a company is really just expanding the levels of abstraction that you operate with. It doesn't matter how well you code if people can't understand the user interface, so I got an interest in UX and usability. But it doesn't matter how user friendly it is, if it doesn't solve the right problem for people, so I got an interest in product development and customer research. It doesn't matter how good a product is if people never hear about it, so I got an interest in marketing and sales. And it doesn't matter how well I do all of that if I can't pay the bills, so I got an interest in pricing and monetization strategies.

Juggling all those needs, and trying to shape the company and all its aspects into a cohesive whole is just as demanding and interesting as doing the same for a software project - it's just expanding the scope of which requirements and concerns you bring into the equation. For me at least, it's also been very rewarding to do the whole thing end-to-end, and it's felt like more of a natural extension of my ever-broadening interests than I would have expected. Bookkeeping can be as annoying as debugging, but in the end I'm really grateful that I understand how each detail works.


Good analogy, and cool story. IME real-world events rarely follow such a linear narrative but I found your company from your profile, and like that its blog -- https://www.hrvey.com/blog -- shares insights from an "entrepreneurial journey" perspective. Congrats!


Thanks, this was a nice read.

And closing with...

> Bookkeeping can be as annoying as debugging, but in the end I'm really grateful that I understand how each detail works.

... hits home for me, haha. Never thought I was going to understand - let alone like - bookkeeping. What maybe helped, was me making my own bookkeeping app, it also forced me to understand the rules.


> It doesn't matter how well you code if people can't understand the user interface

The variation on it I like to emphasize is: it also doesn't matter how "readable" your code is if the user/customer finds it broken, so stop trying to optimize for readability as the primary criterion.

{correctness, usability} to the customer > code maintainability > code readability


I agree with your point. However, I think I look at it from a slightly different perspective.

When it comes to any code I produce (with the exception of some learning projects), I try to keep it: effective, efficient and simple. In that order.

Effective is essentially what you were saying about correctness and usability from the user perspective. Peter Drucker would say to be effective is to "do the right thing." This is always an outward focused item. Does it impact the user in the right way? Does it solve the right problem? Etc. This is hands down the most important thing. Nothing else matters if you're doing the wrong thing.

In contrast, efficiency is to "do the thing right." Once you're doing the right thing, minimizing your costs, increasing your quality, making it so your code doesn't "consume the whole world" all fall under this category. Poor efficiency can negatively impact the effectiveness of your code. "It does this really cool thing, but it takes far too long to load so I can't use it."

Then lastly, keep it simple. That is not to say ignore the natural complexity of the problem, but rather to keep the solution to the essential complexity of the problem. Keeping things only as complex as they need to be covers a whole lot of dimensions in software. It makes things more explicit and understandable, it helps with code readability, and code re-usability. It decreases the surface area of what needs to be maintained. All good things for the health of the dev and the project.

It's all in that order for specific reasons. They move outside in. As the dev, I'm not the most import person with respect to the code I'm writing. The user is, and so the code needs to be purposeful to them (efficacy). Efficiency is more about the product, making sure it works properly. Keeping things simple, although it impacts efficacy and efficiency, is largely a positive for me and helps me maintain sanity.

I think it's important to note that it's all of these things, not just one of them. We'll approach tradeoffs in a prioritize way, but we're striving for the three of them. Obviously a very difficult task. But I find that approaching engineering this way has helped me grow a lot as an engineer.

Anyway, first time post here. Your comment made me think of this. Thanks for coming to my tedtalk.


You put it quite elegantly. Especially here:

> Keep the solution to the essential complexity of the problem.

Thanks!


I disagree. All else being equal, readability is the most important criteria. And readability is the greatest contributor to maintainability. Next to that, being "well-organized" is what makes something maintainable.

If your code is correct but unreadable or disorganized, it will be hard to extend.

If your code is incorrect, but organized and readable, it will be easy to fix.

If your code is incorrect and organized, but unreadable, it will be hard to fix and extend, but easy to make it more readable, thus more extensible and fixable.

If your code is incorrect and disorganized but readable, it will be hard to fix and extend, but easy to refactor, thus more extensible and fixable.

And code is always incorrect.


> If your code is incorrect and disorganized but readable, it will be hard to fix and extend, but easy to refactor, thus more extensible and fixable.

The state you want to reach is "fixed", not merely "fixable". I've seen too many people applying your reasoning staying perpetually stuck in the broken-but-"fixable" state because they prioritize "readability" higher, and I'm saying your users don't care about that. They want a fixed (read: correct) state.

> And code is always incorrect.

This makes a strawman of my argument.


> The state you want to reach is "fixed", not merely "fixable".

And my argument is that readable code is the most direct route to that state.

> > And code is always incorrect.

> This makes a strawman of my argument.

It would if it was actually part of my argument, and not a cheeky parting shot.

Here's the straightforward version. In my experience, the most productive way to approach code is to assume that at some point a bug will be found, or you will have to extend it. You may disagree, of course, but my views all flow from this assumption.


> And my argument is that readable code is the most direct route to that state.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with my point.

Nobody is arguing whether you should keep your codebase readable. The question is whether that should be prioritized over correctness.

The situation is: your codebase is already as readable as possible, but you've now discovered a problem for which you're failing to come up with a readable solutions. [1] I'm saying, when that happens, you need to be willing to just bite the darn bullet and go with the ugly-but-correct solution so that your customers actually get their problems addressed. Don't just leave it as a dangling "known issue" or leave some silly hack in there just to "keep the code readable". Your customers/users won't applaud you for keeping your buggy codebase readable. Of course you can feel free to make a ticket or leave a TODO in case you're hitting a blind spot or someone better comes along in the future. But for now, solve the dang problem first, because your customer isn't paying you for source code, but for the end product. (Well, unless your customer is paying you to ship source code to them, in which case you should ignore me.)

[1] To be crystal clear (and hopefully avoid more strawmen...), I'm saying you (and your team/company/etc. as applicable) need to actually do your best to implement a readable solution first, and THEN fall back to an unreadable one if you fail to do that despite your bona-fide attempts. For some reason (maybe it makes it easier to argue over the internet? maybe it's just more convenient?) people love to strawman "you should prioritize correctness over readability" as "you should go with the first solution you like whether or not it's ugly; feel free to leave a TODO for some poor soul to polish it later". Which has emphatically never been what I've been saying, but that's what people appear to respond to.


It feels like your argument is a bit of a strawman itself. I'm hard-pressed to come up with a situation where the code is broken but readable, and the quickest way to fix it is to make it less so.

Sure, there are times when I don't know or don't have the time to come up with the best structured solution, but have to put something out there that just works. I would argue that's where you should strive to make it even more readable, because the uncertainty means the odds of having to revisit it later are even greater.


Your code might need to be: usable, fast to market, readable, maintainable etc. You have to optimize for whatever conditions you need.


Good job! I know exactly the feeling. I'll once again shamelessly plug my project, since it's vaguely relevant.

I'm making about 200 USD/month by selling watermark removals on https://gifmemes.io. What I've learnt is that I'm very bad at marketing & design and will much rather spend hours programming useless features. For example I've spent like 10 hours getting an wasm ffmpeg converter of gifs to mp4s and webms, which was not used AT ALL, while most of my traffic still comes from cold-writing (is it even a term) for 1 hour random people to put links on their websites or subreddits.

The scene in the Sillicon Valley series, where Richards enhances the algorithm by 1 % is quite accurate.

On the other hand, being the solo developer and product owner is quite powerful. My implementation of billing into the app took around 2 hours, which is probably less than a meeting about it would take in a company.

Finally, I can run silly experiments. There is a button in the "Buy watermark removal" page that says "It's too expensive", which leads to 50 % discount. Around 70 % people still buy the full price.


I love the "too expensive" button. I'm the sort of person who'd probably want to test a dozen variations of that, half of them being jokes, and try to figure out exactly why it works. Do you know how many of the full price buyers ever click the button and find out it has a discount?


Nope. I have some more ideas to try, but with my sale frequency once in 1-2 days, it's quite difficult to make any statistical conclusions. However, since it's a meme website, I don't think there are any limits on creativity of psychological experiments. :D


> Finally, I can run silly experiments. There is a button in the "Buy watermark removal" page that says "It's too expensive", which leads to 50 % discount. Around 70 % people still buy the full price.

I don't find that silly at all. At most it's a fun example of price discrimination. A fairly big online-only florist in the UK (Bloom & Wild) for example does something similar, if you enter a valid voucher code but it's only for new customers, it pops up telling you that 'but click here to apply 10% off instead' (where the voucher might've been for 25 or whatever). Clever I think - stops you thinking 'oh sod it' and shopping around.


I love the "But internet stuff should be free!" button, got a chuckle out of me :P


For what it's worth, I'm the kind of person that would pay full price if I saw and clicked the "It's too expensive" button :)


Well done! $500/mo, though not crazy money, is significant.

How did you market your app and how long did it take you to build out the app?

I've built an app as well while I was doing my regular day job and recently quit the day job, mostly due to being burned out working in big tech as well.

During my break from work, I decided to try to get my app sales up, but it's challenging. (During my best month, I think I got up to $200/mo but it's more like $100/mo right now.) As many others before me have found, marketing is the key, and I'm still learning that game. So, $500/mo is really good stuff.

That said, building the app and making my users happy is something that is incredibly gratifying, and something that was missing in my previous 9-5.


Thank you! I feel you 100% when you say that keeping user happy is incredibly gratifying.

The app took me about 300-400 hours to build. Regarding marketing, I've said it elsewhere in the thread but here it is again:

- Created an instagram account for the app and started following some tags. I liked post on the tags and started following some users to get them to look at my profile. Got about 150 downloads from that.

- Made a 5/3/1 Calculator website. The goal was to make something useful to boost the SEO of my domain. What really ended up happening is the calculator ranks usually number 2 on Google and then users see the link to the app in there and click on it. Got about 200 downloads from that.

- Apple Search Ads gives you $100 credit. Got a bunch of downloads with this

- I used Bing Ads credits but wasn't too impressed with what I was getting from there though


One thing you should know is this. Never advertise through Instagram and their ad platform. Instead, use the Facebook ad platform which will more effectively advertise on Instagram as well (if you even want to advertise).


That’s really good to know. To you mind expanding on why?


Yep, all money is money and can make a difference to anyone.

I live in the bay area, and though my rent is a lot more than $500/mo, if I put $500/mo more toward rent I really could have a much nicer apartment, for example. Or it could be the monthly payment for an EV.

$500/mo can be a nice quality of life boost even in the most expensive parts of the world even if it's not enough to live on just that.

Back when I was doing my PhD, on a $2300/mo research assistantship salary in Boston, I also built a webapp that got me ~$200-300/mo for several years and close to $900/mo for one of those years. That alone allowed me to do lots of things I wanted to do at the time (e.g. ~2 overseas vacations a year and several self-supported long distance bike trips). Savings wasn't a huge concern at the time because I knew I could get a decent-paying job post-graduation.


$500/mth is $6,000/yr

At a 4% safe withdrawal rate what you've built is the equivilent of saving $150,000.

You should be EXTREMELY proud of yourself, and never underestimate the power and value of the asset you've built


Without taking anything away from OP's achievement, I'd caution against this kind of exuberant comparison without some qualification around it. The risks to that app's continuing to yield $500/month in perpetuity are quite different (and, I dare say, worse) than the risks faced by the kind of balanced portfolio that "safe withdrawal rate" implies (to me). I acknowledge that you didn't directly compare with such a portfolio, but you did say the app is "the equivalent of saving $150,000" - again, if this is true it's in a very limited sense only: the app and the cash face a very different set of risks.


This is fair, but as a milestone in long-term self-sufficiency, creating a $500/mo app is significant achievement.

Saving $150,000 is, too.

Which is more likely to lead to true self-sufficiency? Barring other possibilities, the savings. But given human response to positive feedback loops, a successful dev often becomes a more successful dev overtime. Hence, I favor the "first app I wrote that made $500/mo" is more significant.


Didn’t really want to go down this route but since you guys wanted to I would also point out the OP likely hasn’t been making $500/mo for a full year yet so to make that kind of projection is premature. I think at best he will make that for a few months then it will taper off within the year as the app gets less popular.

You can’t just say your app makes $500/mo without giving the time period for how long it has been making that. Generally if it’s not revealed it’s because it hasn’t been very long.


The app made $300 last month and $500 this month. It indeed hasn't been very long, and I agree that $500/mo is a bit of a generous take. However I do plan on adding extra paid features which I think will push that even further.


I don't even know what 5/3/1 is but I was planning on joining a gym this month, so your getting my signup.

For the SEO could you go after Gym Noobs like me who know nothing about different programs, teach them what 5/3/1 is and then lead them to your app? Or is that too crowded and difficult?


That’s a good idea. Basically having a blog saying what 5/3/1 is. It’s a narrow line to walk on as I didn’t write the book and want to respect the author, but I think that I could probably do something like that.


Have you reached out to the author? Since you have the best app maybe he would want to make you the "official app" for a revenue share. And his promotion of your app could grow the pie big enough that you make more even with a split.


The market is massive, play your cards right and this could be just the beginning. Do you speak to users in person much and have an idea of what people want?


I speak to a couple of users directly through email. An Apple Watch companion seems to be what people want the most so that’s what I’ll be working on next


So basically you have no idea.


Mandatory XKCD on the dangers of extrapolating : https://xkcd.com/605/


I think a better comparison is what similar apps would sell for. 2-4x annual revenue seems to be common. So $12-$24k which is not bad!


Since $500 are almost 100% profit, I guess OP can sell it for about $30,000 which is not bad at all.

I made the valuation at 5x yearly profits.


This is a business, it's not passive income. It requires maintenance, support, etc. If he were to just let it ride, income might increase for a while but ultimately wither out and die.


Will this app pay 6000 a year for 25 years?

It's an impressive creation but this is not a good way to value it.


I think the comment more so referred to the returns that $150,000 would yield at a 4% SWR, not necessarily that it'll generate that much eventually, just the equivalent SWR return amount.


Normally web apps like this would change hands at around 3x annual earnings, so OP has built the equivalent of more like $18,000, which is still impressive!


I've seen many being sold at 5x profit, which is not 5x earnings in general but in this case is close to it.


It's a good point, but I think they're talking about lifetime value rather than current value.


I think its a great achievement in itself but your post does push people in the thinking of 'i can just make a no work sustainable something as a service app and become rich'.

I don't think it works.

I think the best bet by far is either to optimize your job salary (switching after 2-3 years, being proactive, trying leetcode, persuing FAANG) or following FIRE.

$500 would be 5h per month freelancing.

And to be really fair, he would first calculate all hours invested and he needs to calculate/estimate further time involvment.

For creating your own small company/business, thats probably a doable thing but still much more high risk than anything else.


This is just an example of what a person has accomplished in a limited amount of time by himself. Noting stops you from pushing your hamster wheel at a FAANG or thinking about FIRE. You can even do this and a small app at the same time because it doesn't need a huge amount of time.

You don't even have to do a small app. You can do the next Uber or Airbnb. Or you can do something that yields the same monthly amount you get from your FAANG but have the advantages of having no boss and working for yourself. And if you decide you want to do something else, you can sell it for a nice amount, while quitting your job doesn't yield you any money.


I 100% agree with you from a purely financial perspective.

But after having failed at a startup, I realized that there is an inner sense of validation that can come from being able to successfully create a small business.

And I won't ever be able to remove that goal from my bucket list no matter how financially successful I am.


Yeah leaving you job at Google to do this is not recommended in 99% of the cases. Especially in a recession.


Despite the valid criticisms against the specifics of your comment, I found this perspective interesting.

You could model the specifics differently, of course: maybe we assume the $500/month is a peak and it tapers off exponentially somehow. What sort of capital returns does this correspond to?

I haven't done the maths, so I don't know, but the fact that I can even ask the question means I've learned something from your comment that I didn't know before!


Asset valuation is a rich pre-existing field that doesn't need to be reinvented. The real cash-equivalent value of this app is, of course, the market value you could get trying to sell it, but that just offloads the value estimate to the potential buyer(s). The computation is extremely straightforward for a perpetuity, which is where the estimate here is coming from. At a 4% annual discount rate, a perpetuity that pays $500 a month forever has a net present value of $150,000.

However, as others have hinted at, assuming this app will continue to generate $500 a month forever at roughly the same risk premium as a perpetuity from any remotely reputable seller is dubious at best. Major banks and insurers that have existed for several centuries have histories of selling instruments like these that actually have paid out their promised coupon value for many decades and even centuries in some cases. In contrast, the Apple App Store has existed for almost 14 years. The 5/3/1 strength program has existed for 13 years.

What are the chances this app can generate the same revenue for the next 30 years? You can't rely on just keeping the existing users due to the way lifters tend to program-hop eventually. Anyone doing 5/3/1 today is unlikely to be doing it in 30 years. Then you have to factor in the possibility of competition. I'm kind of surprised the author of the 5/3/1 books has never bothered to commission an app and apparently only distributes official spreadsheets for generating a program template and workout log. If he ever does, any unofficial app seems unlikely to survive.

Not to take away from the work. I think this is the right idea. The developer wanted something that didn't exist and made it. Whether or not you ever acquire a single customer other than yourself, I think that is worth doing. But if anyone in this comment thread truly thinks it is worth $150,000, offer him $150,000 and I'm sure he'll be glad to sell.


Why it's 4% a safe withdrawal rate? Is it safe in the current economic context? Isn't affected by inflation?


Taking out 4% is usually considered the safe bet on keeping the original money at the same value year after year with the remaining excess returns accounting for inflation.

Even if that amount is too much for 2022 and 2023 due to higher inflation, during other years, it will be too conservative. So it evens out. Plus there’s recessions too. So the 4% is an average.


Can you breakdown this calculation? I'm familiar with FIRE and SWR but how do you get to the $150,000 number?

[EDIT] Thanks got it!


6000/0.04 = 150 000

Essentially, those 6K a year is the equivalent of a 150K portfolio


I want to push back against this a little. He gets $500/month now, there is no guarantee he will keep receiving that number when he stops maintaining and improving his app. I would assume the number will go up if he keeps improving it, but if he stops it will eventually become 0$/month.


Doesn't time value of money decrease this effect? Assuming a fixed revenue over time, future revenue is much less relevant, so is its loss.


That's what the 4% is. A perpetuity that pays out $6000 a year is valued at $150,000 assuming a 4% discount rate. Without a discount rate, the value of any perpetuity would be infinity.


There's no guarantee $150k invested will have 4% returns either.


No, but if I had to bet on one over the other, I'm going with 4% returns.


To be fair: It will probably be easier for him to go from $500/mo to $1000/mo much easier than it will be to go from 4% APY to 8% APY.


No it’s not it’s the equivalent of a $6,000 a year part time job.

$150k in 20 years is still exactly $150k and produces returns.

A 20 year old mobile application has no value whatsoever.

Difference is apples and hand grenades.


$6,000 / 0.04 = $150,000. in other words, if OP had saved $150,000 and was withdrawing 4% per year, they would have the same $6,000 as what the app is generating.

the analogy is imperfect, because presumably the OP is spending some time to generate that app income; it's not totally passive.


4% of $150k is $6k, which is $500 * 12.


You wouldn’t get $150k on flippa though. Maybe $15k?


Thank you!


Congrats on the success! I just started a newsletter - Indie Watch (http://indie.watch/) - that features cool apps built by indie iOS developers.

Would you mind if I featured your app in our first release?

Since it's our first release, I can't guarantee any results or conversions, but the mailing list has a few hundred people on it, so it couldn't hurt...


Thank you! For sure! My email is in my profile


Congratulations! That's incredibly impressive, and is so inspiring, especially for all us fellow indie hackers out there. What were your main ways of acquiring new users? Do you have any marketing advice that helped you out?

Well done again, and wishing you continued success with your app!


Thank you!

Initially I would use Instagram and follow some hashtags and like people's posts and follow them to get them to look at my profile (I got about 150 downloads that way).

One day I decided I wanted to try out ReactJs and so I made a web calculator version [0]. The goal was to make something better than the current incumbent (Black Iron Beast). This turned out to be super helpful. It usually ranks number 2 on most Google queries for 5/3/1 calculators and lead to about 200 downloads for the app.

I also started using Apple App Store Search Ad with their $100 credit and honestly the result are great. Having your app show up first for some keywords is a huge boost.

[0] https://fivethreeone.app/calculator


Another indie hacker here, to add to OP’s reply, I’ve been using Syften[0] to monitor relevant keywords across various sites to find people my product can be of value to, or I provide answers to their related questions (which can lead them to checking out my profile and then product).

I’m building Conjure[1] a habits, behavior and goals platform, so I track everything from ‘habits’/‘productivity’/‘quantified-self’ type keywords, to people looking for alternatives to XYZ product name, to specific questions I’ve answered before (eg organization, time tracking, building exercise habit, achievement, etc).

[0] https://syften.com

[1] https://conjure.so


> Doing the whole thing end-to-end (code, launch, marketing, support) was super gratifying and taught me a whole lot

Yep. Just putting out one single app by doing everything teaches you a LOT about tech and makes you start giving due respect to every single specialization that exists in tech - from development to support to marketing.


Thank you for sharing! I wish more people were transparent about money (to know what's possible).

In my example, I created Video Hub App that sells for $5 (and $3.50 goes to a cost-effective charity). I'm averaging about $500 for over a year now (with almost $15,000 donated to charity).

https://videohubapp.com/ & https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App (MIT open source)


Wow this is cool. How long did it take to build it?


About 4 months for the version 1.0.0 - all outside of a full time job (I was really excited and spent maybe 20-30 hours per week on it maybe). Since then it's been about 3 years of intermittent work - adding features, fixing bugs.

The announcement post on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17587992


Bravo to you!!! Most of us have half started, unfinished projects and once more you show to all of us that we should make some time from our daily routines and finally just ship it ;-) I know that for US and other high paying countries 500$/mo is not much but for most countries it’s a very respectable amount. I’m a huge fan of Ben’s tinyprojects and reading his posts, stories like yours and other similar HN posts/comments give us courage and some of the missing determination.


> I’m a huge fan of Ben’s tinyprojects and reading his posts, stories like yours and other similar HN posts/comments give us courage and some of the missing determination.

Personally, I felt that very briefly; then like crap for my years old WIPs or worse!

It's nice to read there can be decent outcomes for 'little' things; it's not so nice to see how quickly some people can turn them around (compared to oneself)!

'analysis paralysis' is my problem I think, I'm sure there are years old ideas floating around back there (that I was/am really excited about) that I still haven't quite figure out how to store the (non-existent!) user data for. It's also a curse of it being your own side project, not something with a deadline/external expectations, I suppose.


Grats. That's awesome! How did you market it? Seems like weightlifting apps has to be a pretty saturated market. Also assuming its a native iOS app since there isn't an android equivalent. Were you an iOS developer in big tech? Building UIs feels so much nicer with the native frameworks, but I'm always hesitant to do so because writing the same app twice seems so grueling.


I wrote my first full-blown mobile apps (fairly simple and spartan) with React Native, I target both iOS and Android, and it was a breeze using Expo. It's seriously good, I have no affiliation, just a happy customer (I tested the paid tier out but currently use the free one).


I agree that "weightlifting app" as a whole is pretty saturated and some of the apps are pretty good too. I figured I'd have more chance to stand out in a niche, namely 5/3/1 specific apps.

I was previously a full stack SWE on Google Ads before. The app is built using Flutter, so porting it to Android isn't too hard. I built it using the iOS looking widget first that's what I use. The Android version should be out pretty soon.


A question, from someone who used to start lots of projects, but now finds himself busy from all of those (some now quite successful) projects:

How much daily "mental load" does something like this take? Are you able to work on it when you want, and otherwise ignore? Any tips for starting a small project that doesn't require ongoing mental effort?


The fact that I'm not running a service does make it a lot better. But being somewhat of a perfectionist, I do stress out a lot when a user email me with a bug.

Being a user of the app myself reassure me that it's working and that even if there might be bugs, it's probably working well for the vast majority of folks.


Congrats! It's about the same I make with Android with my app (a graphing calculator) [1]. Everyone says on Android you can earn less, I'm curious what's your experience will be.

[1] https://androidcalculator.com/


That’s one SEO friendly domain name. Nice work on the app!


Very impressive and bravo on your success! I love seeing indie hackers launching their projects and get positive feedback in the form of revenue. Also appreciate the weightlifting focus, will check out the app for sure.


Thank you!


I checked out your app because I've been wanting something like it but hadn't bothered looking at what was out there yet. Looks great!

One thing I noticed though is that both barbell weight customization and plate customization is coupled together in one purchase. I feel like you may want to separate barbell weight into a free customization option because barbells made specifically for women tend to be lighter (~33lbs). By charging for barbell weight customization, you're inadvertently creating a difference in experience between men and women (for the base app, no purchases).


Alternatively (I know nothing about the domain) perhaps allow the choice for free? (Needn't be 'tell me your gender here's data sharing agreement blah blah blah', could just be a choice between '~33lb' and ..whatever the current is that's apparently more appropriate for men.)


Yeah that's what I meant, sorry if I wasn't clear!


Ah sorry - I read it as 'offer the full free-form weight [that it is/I assumed it is with payment] for free'.


Nice to hear

Side note I think 'Tell HN:' is for problems, vs. 'Show HN:'


I perceive it more as `interesting story` vs `interesting project`. OP's project-story is right on the edge between the two for me.

At least for Show HN there is an official guideline [0] which mentions:

> Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. HN users can try it out, give you feedback, and ask questions in the thread.

Does anyone know whether there is an official `Tell HN` guideline? The HN guidelines and FAQ pages don't specify anything as far as I could tell.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html


From what I've seen on here usually 'Tell HN:' is used for things like "this company banned my account for no reason" or "this service is down" etc...

Anyway I only mention it because I looked at this post and I was like "what happened/what went wrong".


'tell' to me is more like a warning that it's not an external link (and 'ask'/'show' don't fit).

'show' is when the point of the post is to show off the project; whereas here (partly by the fact that it is 'tell'!) the point is sort of tangential to the actual project, it's just an example of the topic rather than the topic itself.


Can anyone share what is their thought process regarding on deciding what app to build? Say you have a Word document with 15 different ideas, how do you decide which one is worth investing?


I built this app because I wanted to use it. Being user 0 is really helpful and is quite fun I can say.


In my case, the one that has a larger community where it can be promoted at low cost.


> I can't pretend to have derived any life lesson that applies to everybody from this

Kudos for being honest about this, it's rare these days. Congratulations and I wish you the best.


I love that there is so much opportunity in the indie space, and hope it doesn't go away.

There are a ton of great apps to be made, with better UIs and functionality than existing entrants that aren't made by big companies because they don't offer enterprise-sized war chests and moats. Can't make enough to pay for a bunch of MBAs, managers, and SEO, Creative, and Engineering teams, so they don't get made. But it's certainly enough for a few driven people.


Very good. Congrats.

I made an app 2 years ago and make around 10,000$/month currently with it. Keep going!


Go on, tell us more …


Congrats! This is really no small achievement, being able to make a profit while making mobile apps is no little thing. I saw your comment that you made the app in Flutter, how come that you didn't release it then for Android?

Also a separate question, I do wonder what was your thought process for coming up with the idea for the app? Do you keep somewhere a list of app ideas, or was this one you have been dreaming about some time?

Keep going and I wish you much more success!


I'm using the Cupertino widget to have an iOS look and feel. I care a lot about the experience and I didn't want to release an Android app that feels like an iOS one.

That being said I'm almost done making the app look great on Android. I'm just waiting for some Material 3 widgets to be done by the Flutter team.

My thought process was simple : I don't like any of the apps on the App Store for 5/3/1, so I'm going to make my own!


I personally would argue that shipping (and being available) > than purely looking like it's 100% platform specific. But it's your app, and congrats on the success so far.


> I can't pretend to have derived any life lesson that applies to everybody from this, but this whole mini-journey was worth it for me, and I hope it will be for you too, should you embark in a similar one.

You have a new fan. Hearty congratulations and wish you a continued success!! You are an inspiration :-)


That's amazing and inspiring.

I had thought about making a 5/3/1 app when I got into powerlifting but thought to myself "nah, no one would pay for it and there're so many apps out there already". The inspiration here is that I need to validate my assumptions or really be skeptical about them.

Congrats!


This is awesome, I love workout tracking and am currently doing a 5/3/1 program- wish that I had a iOS device to try your app out. Love the way you have structured the IAPs and the look of the app from the screenshots.

Currently using Strong (more than 400 workouts logged).

Curious, how did you go about marketing this?


Congrats on the launch! Its always inspiring to see small indie tech projects solving real life problems for real people, and getting paid for it! That's the magic of technology! I too loved Ben's tiny projects and appreciate the love that's goes into making these!


Cool app. Very impressive that it makes that much :)

I thought about an fitness app myself. I'm curious when it will be available: With ML you could really analyse what someone is doing and counting and basically playing fitness coache for you including proper counting of your things.


Congrats on the success! Any chance of an Android version of that app? I'm glad you made a 5/3/1-specific app; I've always had to shoehorn 5/3/1 into some other "Build your own routine" apps and it's always been clunky at best.


I'm actively working on the Android version. I'm waiting on some Material 3 component for Flutter to be done [0], but it's almost ready to test!

[0] https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/91605


Curious why you chose Dart/Flutter over Kotlin/Jetpack (not necessarily Compose though). Could you share?

I hope you’ll share in the future what your usage/downloads look like as well as where you make money, between the two phone types.


Mostly because I wanted to give Flutter a shot. The instant hot reload really got me hooked. As I also said elsewhere, I was already super familiar with Dart given that I worked on Google Ads (where the front-end is built using Dart).

I'll try to share some data on the Android version compared to iOS. My gut feeling is that the rate of purchase for IAP is going to be much lower, but I think it could help with getting the app known (thus leading to more iOS downloads as well).


Great to hear


Personally I use FitNotes to track my workouts (5/3/1 or not) and keep (the totally not responsive) http://lift.eha-ab.ca/ open in my mobile browser.


Don't know if you have, but you should check out my online calculator then. https://fivethreeone.app/calculator

Let me know if there's anything you'd like to see in there.


Neat, I'll try it!

Personal opinion:

A toggle to have the program at the top would be handy. Also I don't really need the plate details for each set.

The program is not totally responsive.

As someone who does a very basic 5/3/1 I was a bit lost with all the variations, it's very complete!


We’ll done! Keep going.

Be aware that you may find premium feature take up/download ratio lower on Android.


Thank you!

That's what I'm expecting. I'm mostly doing the Android version for my friends and for the "brand awareness" of the app. I'm curious to see how that'll turn out.


I'm on Android, and would possibly use this. Would your app work for tracking the Starting Strength program (3x5 sets 3x/week, not 5/3/1) or is it very exclusive to 5/3/1 tracking?


Right now it’s only 5/3/1. But the 5’s progression template from Beyond 5/3/1 is similar enough. Feel free to look at the online calculator to get a sense of the template. https://fivethreeone.app/calculator


This is really cool. I've worked on a lot of side projects in my free time, and my most successful one (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1607228378) pulls in just $11 in MRR. Even though it's so little, I get really excited when I get a new subscription or a subscription renews.

I've had a lot of trouble trying to market the app. I've experimented with Instagram ads, but the conversion rates were really bad. I'll try the Instagram accounts strategy you mentioned and hopefully that helps.


> It's easy to go on Instagram and forget how long you've been resting for. Don't worry, we'll notify you once your rest is over.

Will this notify through a connected Apple Watch? So that I can just get up and take a breather and get a vibration on my wrist when it's time for my next set? That'd be awesome.

A thought- the notification in the screenshot tells you your next weight, but it seems that it's telling you after your rest- not after your last set. A notification to set your next weight before you rest would be helpful, so that you're ready to go when rest is over.


Congratulations, if you were me then your app would be covering your rent!


… where I am it's $2,700/mo.

… my brother just moved to Podunksville, TN, and the rent on a 1 bd is $900/mo…


man, I left Seattle when my shitty 2br in the U got up to like $1200/mo after climbing $100/mo like clockwork every year. You are a couple orders of magnitude richer than I am if you can afford that. Which is not surprising given that I'm a lazy freelance artist who mostly draws furry porn and your last few comments indicate you're a Senior Software Engineer at a FAANG.

Now my husband and I are splitting $950 for a 3br in New Orleans. It's pretty nice once you get inured to the fact that everything you own and love in this world, including you, could be washed away in a hurricane. And the "holy shit I am a trans living in the one queer-friendly hotspot in what is otherwise a very red state" thing. The place is full of artists who could stop worrying about where most of their rent is coming from if they got $500/month coming in from somewhere.


>Which is not surprising given that I'm a lazy freelance artist who mostly draws furry porn

I've heard that that's very lucrative. So much so that I've read accounts by more than one who finds creating such art (and the customers) disgusting, but can't stop because of the huge market demand.


It can be a pretty good market! Personally I've spent my entire career as a furry artist drawing stuff I enjoy bringing into the world, and the vast majority of my clients have been pretty chill. Lots of slightly-socially-awkwards IT types with active imaginations who are happy to pay me a pretty good rate to put their dreams into concrete imagery.


Wow, that's frankly way less than I would have guessed for an apartment within an urban area, particularly given what my brother in TN is paying.

(And yeah, SWE, but no longer at a FAANG. I've found my fit is more in smaller companies, though I've worked at some larger corps since too. And while a SWE pay is — relatively speaking — nice, rent is such that it often makes me wonder how anyone who isn't is even supposed to manage it. The housing market needs a lot more supply, IMO, if the price is ever to be sensible. But, it is good that you've found a cheap place, and more importantly, hopefully a friendly place.)


Great job. Lots of lifting tracking apps out there, but kind of wonder legality around naming apps around popular systems. Not sure if Wendler has trade mark on 531 or even official app. I think there was some drama over Sheiko app when it was released, but he's Russian so maybe too much jurisdictional PIA to resolve. That said, it does feel kind of not right there's so many 531/SS/StrongLifts apps out there brazenly using the routine name for their app.


Congrats! At 4% yield, that's like you've made (and invested) $150k, after tax. Before tax that'd be a yearly salary of well over $200k. If you can do 2 of those every year, you're on par with mid-level FAANG comp, once you include RSUs. There's probably a benefits and self-employment tax angle I'm leaving out though. And surely it's more volatile. But if you can keep it up it seems pretty solid.


While I like the thinking, it's not quite the same as an index returning some yield is far more likely to give returns indefinitely, whereas an app can become obsolete.


Hey nice work. I have been getting into weight lifting once I hit 40 and really enjoy it. I suggest looking at stronglifts app if you want to see how to grow this. That app is great and after a week I had gone to the premium subscription.

I feel you are missing customers with the site saying that the app assumes you know how to do 5/3/1.

You should have a how to page on your site. Anyway great work congrats.


Very cool, I only made it to $50/mo before hitting a dead end on one of my apps. I hope the next one I can reach $100/mo.

Despite all the (warranted) criticism of the AppStore I still find it pretty easy to get a consumer app into people's hands and getting them paying for it as a solo dev. The web is a lot harder in that respect but does make up for it in the B2B SaaS area.


> Squat – 5/3/1 sets/reps, 5x5 @ First Set Last ( or FSL)

Can someone decode this for me? [1] I can't see an explanation despite this claiming to be for beginners.

[1] https://www.jimwendler.com/blogs/jimwendler-com/101065094-5-...


> First Set Last (FSL) is a rep scheme for supplemental work within the 5/3/1 programming framework. It programs the percentage of a lifter’s training max used for their first 5/3/1 working set for 5 sets of 5 reps (5×5).

https://liftvault.com/resources/first-set-last-fsl/


What about 5/3/1? I assume it's 5 reps, then 3 reps then 1 rep, but at what weight?


Can I ask about your experience implementing Stripe Connect Express, especially how did you choose that over Stripe Connect Standard? My understanding is you have to do more heavy lifting integration work, pay monthly fee per account, KYC, and are responsible for refunds for Express. Whereas a lot of that are taken care of in Standard.


Great app. I’m using it tonight. Well done on the cash flow, well deserved. A good workout app can be life-changing.


Thank you and hope you enjoy it! My email is in my profile if you have any feedback!


Does anyone have an opinion on web apps/websites vs mobile apps for small projects generating small incomes? Which is easier to pull off?

I do have the feeling that competition is tougher on Play Store / App Store and you need some kind of luck for your app to become visible and potential users getting to use it.


Congrats! Downloaded.

Relevant to today's discussion, did you use SwiftUI or the ol reliable UIKit?

Here's the url for those who are looking:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/five-three-one/id1560266240


The app is built using Flutter, but I'm using SwiftUI for the home screen widget.


why did you use Flutter?


I wanted to give it a shot. The instant hot-reload got me hooked. I was already super familiar with Dart too (I worked on Google Ads before, front-end is in Dart).


Super cool project man, congrats. I was unable to figure it out in the app, but is it possible to build your own routine instead of 5/3/1? I have been looking for this kinda of app and am willing to pay for it.


Custom Templates is a feature I go back and forth on, mainly because it'd complicate the data model a lot, but also some parts of the product. I might get around to it, but I'm going to work on other things (Android version, Apple Watch companion) first.


Does the data model have to be changed? Can't it just be a simple "fill exercise and how many reps/kg you want" type of thing?

And understandable with your limited time!


Congrats! What does your tech stack look like? How long did it take you?


The app is written in Flutter. There is no backend except that I use Firebase Crashlytics to catch bugs that make it to releases. The web calculator is built using ReactJS and uses Firebase hosting (still low enough traffic to be under the free tier)


If there is no backend, and also if you are not collecting any personal data, maybe you can add a “privacy friendly, your personal data is not collected” marketing section as well. Although I am not sure if your users would care about that.


That's a good point. My app store Privacy Section is pretty clean, but I might put it on the front page of my marketing site.


Yay Flutter!

Any reason you had to use ReactJS embedded in Flutter, I imagine you could of done that with Dart


Sorry if I wasn't too clear. I haven't embedded ReactJS in Flutter. I just made an online calculator [0] in ReactJS for people who prefer not using apps. Could I have use Flutter for that? Probably, but I wanted to try React so I did.

[0] https://fivethreeone.app/calculator


Ohh neat, I have a project with Flutter Web, so I imagine you could of built your existing app for web.

But it tends to not look all that great


5/3/1 is a powerlifting/strength training/weight training/weight lifting program.

Weightlifting refers to Olympic weightlifting. Weightlifters are those who snatch and clean & jerk.


Great job! This is inspiring to all us indie hackers out there.


Excellent, congrats!

Can you elaborate on IAPs (or other insights)? The app is free, yes? Then what can users buy while using the app?


Found this on the iOS App store page: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/five-three-one/id1560266240

Features include:

- Planning and scheduling your whole 5/3/1 cycle

- Charting your progress

- Rest timer with notifications

- Automatic plating calculation

- Calculating your next cycle based on your performance

- Notes associated with each sets

- Home screen widget showing your your current and upcoming workouts

- Lbs/kg support

Optional paid features:

- Customize which plates you're using and change your barbell's weight

- Customize templates assistance work and define your own exercises

- Beyond 5/3/1 templates and options, from Joker Sets to FSL, Pyramid and much more!


My thinking was that unless you have a killer video / app store page, people won't pay for a brand new app. I'm not really good at this part, so I figured I'd just make the base app for free (you can do most workout templates from the first book), and charge for features. If people like the app, they'll feel invested and will want to invest more by buying features.

Right now there are 3 Premium Features : - Custom Plating [0]: Which allows users to define which weight plates they have for the calculator - Custom Assistance [1]: Which allows users to customize the assistance sets they have - Beyond 5/3/1 Pack [2]: Which contains stuff from the Beyond 5/3/1 book.

The thinking was that most of the stuff from the base app, you can easily do with the tools already out there (e.g. the black iron beast calculator), but that people would pay for new capabilities.

[0] https://fivethreeone.app/custom-plating [1] https://fivethreeone.app/custom-assistance [2] https://fivethreeone.app/beyond-pack


https://fivethreeone.app/

Custom Plating

Custom Assistance

Beyond 5/3/1 Pack: Joker Sets, First Set Last, Boring But Big Challenges...


Congrats. 500 a month is nothing to laugh at. Relocate this a few times and you’re living the indie dev’s dream!


Awesome. Congrats!

Did you do anything to promote the app? (other than posting it here and organic searches on the app store)


Thank you!

See my other comment for what I did to promote the app [0].

Short version: Instagram account to follow people and have them look at my profile. Useful website with a link to my app as "content marketing" and Apple Search Ads.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31508328


I do 5-3-1 workouts using a spreadsheet and that has been a mess. I really appreciate your solution.


Awesome and congrats, I might use this if I start training again (company pays the gym now!)


Congrats! I saw your initial ads in the gym I go to, highly likely we go to the same gym :)


now sell that to businesses and turn it into $500/day instead!


side note, I love the strong pigeon website! What a team!


Great work! This is inspiring .. great to hear.

What are you thinking next?


I'm almost done with the Android version and will start working on an Apple Watch companion app right after that (which I think I could charge $15-20 for). I was semi-hoping they'd announce Flutter for wearables at Google I/O alongside the Pixel watch, but looks like I'll have to learn a bit more iOS stuff.


Congrats! I hope to follow your lead one of these days


Congrats! 5-3-1 is a great name and a great program.


Hello, many, many congratulations! This is a big W.


Well executed app


Congrats! That is a significant milestone.


Thank you!


That's fantastic - congrats!


Congrats and great work!


Congrats! I am always super excited/impressed by people who can take something all the way like this, just because I know how monumentally hard finishing any project is.

I'm at least decently familiar with the first half of "end-to-end" but don't have a lot of experience in the back half.

Was there something cool/unintuitive you learned while having to figure out how to market and support your weightlifting app that you'd be willing to share?


Everybody says it, but the marketing part of it matters a lot. As a shape rotator, I struggle with putting myself out there and really have to force myself to "just do it".

The app store is a big, noisy marketplace, so having other channels to get people to try your app and give you ratings is crucial. That really help me get through the initial wall and now my app is showing up pretty high in the search result.


> ...get people to ... give you ratings is crucial.

How were you able to promote this? Thanks.


iOS has this control to prompt users to rate your app. I made it so that the prompt appears after the user has completed a workout, at which point they are probably happy with the app (and aren't getting jarringly interrupted).




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