r/indianstartups by u/krishan-ag 28d ago 6 months building a Splitwise alternative. ₹5k spent. 720 users. Here's what I got wrong. Quick context: I built a free Splitwise alternative for India. Started 6 months ago. Sharing the real numbers because every "how I grew my startup" post I read was either fake or missing the painful parts.
The numbers:
\- 720+ users (Android + iOS combined)
\- Under ₹5k total spend (UAC ads, hosting, domain, tools)
\- 4.9 ★ across 32 reviews
\- ₹0 revenue (free forever, no plans to monetize yet)
\- One Reddit post that hit 104k views — still my single biggest traffic source
The biggest lesson, and the one I wish someone had screamed at me on day one: **discovery beats polish, every single time.**
I spent weeks on:
\- Rewriting the Play Store listing 4 times
\- A/B testing app icons
\- Tweaking onboarding flow
\- Building a landing page with comparison pages for every competitor
None of it moved the needle. Because nobody was finding the app in the first place.
What actually got me users, in order of impact:
1. One Reddit post (144k views)
2. Word of mouth from those early users
3. Direct "Splitwise alternative India" searches (tiny but consistent)
4. UAC ads — and these actively hurt me, more below
The UAC ads disaster:
I ran Google UAC for 6 weeks thinking
i wish painful wish someone Open on Reddit r/FlutterDev by u/Ok_Laugh_3201 1y ago My First App Turns One: Achieved $725 MRR and Lessons Learned I launched my fitness tracking app a year ago, and I'd like to share some key lessons I've learned along the way. Currently, the app has an MRR of $725 with a 50% conversion rate from free trial to paid subscription. Here are the most important insights that might help other Flutter developers:
## 1. Don’t Waste Time on Features Nobody Will Use
[My app](https://riseapp.app.link/TZ6oaUtXPNb) is a workout tracking app, and I spent a lot of time developing a community feature. I implemented follow/unfollow functionalities, integrated Firebase Realtime Database for real-time notifications of new posts, and added features like comments, user blocking, report post, and workout record sharing, among others. I never considered that no one would use these features immediately after launch. Focus on perfecting the core functionalities first and gradually add other features. Even after launch, only a few users will use the core features initially.
## 2. Plan for a Global Release Early
Although I planned to launch globally, I didn’t consider it in the design phase. The UI broke on most screens because English typically has more characters than Korean (since I’m Korean and launched in Korea
Open on Reddit r/androiddev by u/Ok-Store-8524 4mo ago Lessons from launching my first Android app as a solo developer (what I’d do differently) I recently launched my first production Android app as a solo developer and wanted to share a few technical lessons from the process — things I wish I knew before shipping.
**Stack (Android side):**
* React Native (bare workflow)
* Firebase (Auth, Firestore, Storage)
* Google Play Billing
* AsyncStorage + server-side sync
* No in-app ads (yet)
**Things that went right:**
* Investing early in crash stability paid off — very low crash rate post-launch
* Keeping backend logic simple (Firestore + rules) reduced production bugs
* Shipping with fewer features but solid UX > feature-heavy unstable build
**Things I underestimated:**
1. **Play Console reporting delay** Metrics like installs/DAU aren’t real-time — took me a few days to stop overreacting.
2. **Install → first open drop-off** A surprising number of users install but never open. Onboarding friction matters more than I thought.
3. **Billing edge cases** Handling restore purchases, expired unlocks, and sync across devices takes real testing — not just happy paths.
4. **Hook/order bugs during UI refactors** React hook ordering errors slipped in when I iterated fast. Learned to slow down UI refactors before releases.
**What
Open on Reddit r/FlutterDev by u/gianndev_ 1y ago Is Google's shit of the 20 testers needed to approve an Android app still valid? Some time ago I had created an app for Android and I had in some subreddits also found the 20 testers who downloaded my app and left a review, but despite having reached over 20 testers (about thirty) and as many positive reviews, my app was continuously rejected to be approved for final production. So I tried to understand why by asking Google for assistance several times but they told me that they can't know the real reason and that it just needs to follow the "testers' rules," whatever that means...
I then tried (almost as joke) to create 5 more apps on the fly and all of them were repeatedly rejected every 14 days since the start of the tests, and the biggest problem is that they don't tell me what I did wrong to correct it.
Has anyone had similar experiences?
Open on Reddit r/reactnative by u/StatisticianDry1610 3mo ago 4 months ago I posted my app launch here, now it makes $18k+/month with zero paid ads & got featured by Expo blogs. AMA Some of you might remember [my post from 4 months ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/reactnative/comments/1oklb85/just_launched_my_react_native_expo_app_wellspoken/) when I first launched. Got a ton of great feedback that genuinely shaped the app. Wanted to come back with an update now that things have grown a lot.
**What is Wellspoken:**
[Wellspoken](https://www.wellspoken.me/) is an AI-powered communication coach that trains the cognitive side of speaking. Not just how you sound, but how you think out loud. Users practice speaking and the app analyzes their speech in real time across filler words, pace, hedging, confidence, structure, and pronunciation.
It's built for people who know what they want to say but struggle to say it clearly in the moment. Job interviews, work meetings, presentations, everyday conversations where you freeze up or ramble. The app gives you a safe space to practice out loud and get real feedback on how you're actually communicating.
**What's shipped since launch:**
* Real-time AI voice coach. Actual spoken conversations with a coach that knows your practice history, scores, and weak spots
* Meeting recorder & analyzer. Record real work meetings or upload
Open on Reddit r/androiddev by u/Top-Process4790 1y ago How much do y’all make from your Play Store apps? If you’ve launched an app on Google Play, how much are you actually making from it? I know earnings vary a ton, but I’m curious about real numbers from indie devs.
* What’s your main money maker? (Ads, in-app purchases, subscriptions, etc.)
* How many downloads did it take before you saw decent cash?
* If you don’t mind sharing, what’s your monthly revenue like?
Open on Reddit r/Android by u/___PM_Me_Anything___ 10y ago According to you, what's the best way to monetize an android app? Looking forward to reply from both devs and normal users on what they feel is the best and non intrusive way to monetize an app
Open on Reddit r/vibecoding by u/iamstanty 9mo ago My first app is on TestFlight! I've been a long time lurker first time poster on this sub.
Here's a quick back story. I used to be a CMO of a big dating app and in other places. Basically my background is in marketing. However I've always been somewhat technical all my life, building my first website at 9 years old, hacking together my own PCs for gaming, etc.
When I got into the tech world, even though I was in marketing, I furthered my knowledge by understanding the systems that ran the product but was never directly involved.
With AI and vibe coding where it is today I couldn't help myself but finally dive in and start building something myself.
All that said, my first product is, as cliche as it sounds, a to-do list app. Yes there are a million and one of them out there.
What makes mine different? Simple - I built it for me.
I had a few requirements having tried all the apps myself at some point in my life.
1. It had to be fast
2. It had to book tasks in my calendar - if it's not on my calendar it just won't get done.
3. It had to look good (at least for my taste).
Now on to the journey - it's a long one!
The very very very first MVP of this was actually done with n8n. I've been using n8n
Open on Reddit r/vibecoding by u/Human-Investment9177 2mo ago Claude wrote 80% of my React Native app. Then I hit the part AI literally cannot do. I’ve shipped a few web apps with Claude. Figured I’d try the same thing on a React Native side project. Cursor for the editor, Claude Opus doing the writing.
The code worked. Auth, navigation, Supabase queries, subscription logic. I’m not an RN developer and my prompts were sometimes obviously bad. Claude got there anyway.
I lost almost a week to stuff that had nothing to do with code.
Claude is one of the best tools I’ve used for building software. It had zero opinions about provisioning profiles.
The Apple Developer Program sits in “processing” after you pay the $99. Individual enrollment usually clears same-day but can take up to 48 hours. You’ll refresh your email three times thinking you did something wrong.
Provisioning profiles ate half a day. Claude explained them correctly every time I asked. I still ended up with conflicting certificates I couldn’t make sense of. The answer is: nuke your local certs, check “Automatically manage signing” in Xcode, leave it alone. Apple’s certificate UI gives you no indication of what’s broken or why. It is one of the worst pieces of software I use regularly, and I use Jira.
RevenueCat means App Store Connect in-app purchase products,
Open on Reddit r/googleplay by u/DrWho83 2y ago Apps missing rating option?! I recently discovered today that a few apps out of the many I use do not allow (currently) anyone to rate the app. I waited about a week from when I first noticed to try again and it's the same.
To rule out it being just my account and my devices. I tried several other devices that I own but also had a few friends go ahead and install those apps and there was no option to leave a rating for them either.
One of the apps for example is Wave Accounting.. which is actually owned by h&r block and has been transitioning from having a free tier to no free tier. Which I would think would make a lot of people unhappy and leave possibly a negative review. After all, many of us have used it since the beginning when they promised to keep it free forever. Not for life, forever.
There's nothing mentioning it in the last month or so of reviews that I looked at. That's surprising/suspicious.
Rarely anything below 3 stars which is suspicious in itself (imo).
Anyway, I came to reddit to see if I could find a post about it but surprisingly I can't. Google hasn't been much help either. I even asked Chad GPT, I have the paid version and it's either hallucinating or has access to information it pr
Open on Reddit r/Android by u/webcosmonaut 15y ago I'm making a fancy calendar app for Android. How should I monetize it? I've been tinkering away for a few weeks now on an Android calendar app. I've never been satisfied with the native HTC calendar and the replacements I've found in the Marketplace; my frustration with current options comes down to a few complaints:
1. The available options are *really, really ugly*.
2. The available options make it hard to gauge business at a glance (especially from a month view).
3. The available options make it hard to add events quickly.
So what started out as a personal project is developing into an app that I hope to release to the public in the coming weeks/months. I've never done this before, so I figured I'd harness the opinion and collective feedback of this community.
What's the best way to monetize my app? I'm not expecting to strike rich, but wouldn't mind a small flow of spending money for my sweat, blood, and tears. What interests you, a potential user, the most when shopping around for apps that aren't free?
Based on my experience with other apps I've downloaded, I've considered a few options, including:
* A free, ad-supported version *and* a for-pay version that has no ads and more features. I figured I'd price the for-pay version at $1
Open on Reddit r/FlutterDev by u/GlyndwrKog 12mo ago Ads, in-app purchase, and app review I have an interesting dilemma and hoping someone can shed guidance on the process.
I submitted an app to Apple for review but had my test ads in place. AdMob requires a working app link to approve ads so I can’t show my real ad units until after the app review process.
I obviously got rejected because test ads indicate an incomplete build.
So I remove the ads and resubmitted.
I got rejected because I had a button for a “Remove ads” in-app purchase which did t yet exist because it needed app approval.
So I remove the “Remove Ads” button and resubmit.
THEN I get rejected a third time because the submission included a listing for my in-app purchase but the in-app purchase could not be found in my app!!
So finally resubmitted without the in-app purchase listing. Awaiting review at the moment.
My question is, how are we supposed to get ads and get the “remove ads” in-app purchase at the same time? If my app is approved with no ads, I need to quickly get my ad service approved and then ads added and then push an update. THEN do I submit an in-app purchase to remove the ads and ANOTHER update with said button?
The order of events is unclear to me so I’m curious what seasoned deve
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