It all started when my wife sent me this photo in January of 2022
She asked if i can turn this into an app for her. I said yeah sure thing babe! I’ll be done in a week. 😅
Well… 10 months later, and i kept procrastinating until December of 2022 when i eventually started design and development of the app.
It was my first build in public product. You can follow the journey on X . When i started i didn’t expect anything really it was a FREE app. But People following my journey loved the app and the idea behind it. So i kept posting and updating my audience.
A couple months after i launched, people started asking for premium features like cross platform support, sync / backup, rich text formatting, image attachment etc.
I quickly added those and added a paywall as well. I had to go down this path, since these features would require a server for them to work.
Fast forward 11 months later someone made this post about the app on X and it went viral. Generating 400k+ views, 400+ quotes in one day.
24hrs after the app went viral:
23 Purchases
$222 Revenue
1,061 Installs
This blew my mind. I didn’t imagine the app to go viral or generate this much revenue in a single day.
I guess what they say is true. Just build something useful and people would come.
!The app is called Obim - Which means my heart in my native language.!<
!Available for download on iOS and Android!<
Just downloaded and will be trying this out. Thank you.
400k+ views -> 23 purchases seems like there’s potential to improve conversion
It’d be cool to keep that original graph paper/color pencil look in the UI.
Trash monetization. Only option is subscription.
Yup time to leave 0 star ratings. Sorry, Not sorry OP.
??? I didn’t subscribe and am using it. Only thing i care about that i can’t do is post pictures to journals it seems. Might upgrade if i find myself using it in a week
Subscriptions to things like this are predatory. Either charge a one time fee of $9.99 or go the free route. There’s no reason a subscription here is necessary except hoping people forget to cancel. It’s trash.
I’m not sure what this person’s problem is. Everything works without paying for anything. The premium features are mostly server backed and requires money to keep it running.
Things like auto backup and cross platform syncing won’t work without a server.
BTW Thank you for checking out the app.
Screw him.
Cool, good luck with it!
So now I’m curious, what is your native language? (you said Obim means my heart in your native language)
I believe it’s igbo
Ikwerre language from Rivers state, Nigeria.
Thanks! Now I spent about an hour of my morning on youtube listening to Ikwerre music and conversations. Beautiful language and interesting history!
Such an amazing idea good work
Congrats, this is a the kind of project that suits here imo. The design is very beautiful.
Thank you for the kind words
Love this - congrats to you both!
Thank you.
This seems to be extremely similar to Daylio which is already really popular (10M+ downloads)
I hate people suggesting more popular alternatives in this sub. So what? There’s two pizza restaurants in the same street in every larger city of the world too. Competition is always good.
I’m not saying competition is bad. I’m simply saying this is going to be very difficult without having some competitive advantage of some sort. Competitor analysis is the first thing you should be doing.
Who cares tho? I make apps for my own enjoyment lol. Not to be over competitive and crush my enemies. It’s just a mood tracker brah.
Looks great, but the continue button on Android (where it displays the pro version during onboarding) appears to be broken. The loading spinner appears and disappears quickly and I’m returned to the same screen.
I’ve pushed a new update to Playstore it should be up in a couple hours.
What is the app you are using to track purchases/conversions?
I’m using RC Kit. It’s a revenue cat client
Thanks! I’ll have to give it a shot!
Fantastic work. I can’t get twatter to open properly on my phone. Did you design all the components or use a component library?
Oops sorry about that. I designed and built everything from scratch.
Well this makes me even more envious. Again, great work
Looks awesome, it’s such a great feeling when you create an app and people start to use it and support it.
Best of luck :)
I’m using RC Kit. It’s a revenue cat client
Yeah it truly is. I’m so grateful for the experience.
Hiya what tech stack did you use?
Ionic / CapacitorJS & React
Cool story and I have to say I love the UI! What are your future plans with the app?