Ask HN: After 8 Years of Failed Apps, Should I Give Up?
I stopped for one year because I had built a great app. It was a local app, only for my country, and it was getting 3K users every week. I was just a student, so I had no money to pay for ads. All the growth came from organic traffic and social media marketing.
I started feeling that I was very close to success. Then, suddenly, at least three apps that were almost copies of mine started appearing. They had huge marketing campaigns, better versions, and even famous people promoting their apps.
My users started dropping from 3K to 2K, then 1K, 300, 100, 30, and finally only one or two. I became really depressed because I had been so close. I have always financed my apps with my own money, and it hurts even more when months of work and spending are gone.
Now I have built this new app. I launched it, and then the trauma came back, LOL. Once again, there is the financing issue because the app has API costs.
I tried to think outside the box and made songs, hoping that if they became famous, my app would also get attention. Somehow, the songs became popular and started earning me some money, but the app got no attention, LOL.
I started getting other ideas again, but I have to break this bad habit. I promised myself that I would fight for this app and finance it through an investment program.
I trust this app more than the others because I would not be the only one earning from it. The users could also earn a lot. Creative people who currently struggle and share their prompts for free could make significant earnings from every prompt remix.
However, I have never taken the investment route before, and a part of me still keeps asking whether this is just the same story repeating itself again, like it has for the past eight years and with all the apps I have built.
So I need your honest feedback. Please, no hate, because I am already struggling with my ideas. I would also appreciate suggestions for an investor or a program that is aligned with my project. After my previous experience, I am still afraid of going online without a large marketing budget.
Thank you.
28 comments
[ 0.37 ms ] story [ 28.8 ms ] threadTake the outside capital and ride the dragon. Doesn’t always work but if it does you’ll be doing fine.
Took me 18 years to get to success. Sometimes these things take a while.
The other problem is that with only one person (you), there's only so many features you can add to an app, and a team (or AI) will now be able to duplicate those features. You need to come up with something fairly unique and hard to duplicate.
I am running a bootstrapped SAAS for 11+ years. Since you asked for honest feedback, I will lay it on you straight. The fact is that most people who try what you have tried give up after few weeks or months on one project and then move on to another. That is not critical mass or time to build anything real. Most influencers/indie hackers peddling multiple products at same time or micro-saas or whatever are either inflating their numbers or outright lying.
Let me be very clear. It is very difficult to do multiple things at once. It is almost impossible to make money from multiple things at once especially if they are not already established and you are starting from scratch.
So the 1st question you have to ask yourself is: How bad do I want to do my own things and what is my goal exactly ? The only way possible to focus on 1 thing at least for 12-18 months minimum (ideally 2+ years) before you see anything real to even move the needle a little bit.
So again, ask tyourself: what can you work on for next 12-18 months without worrying about short term or overnight success ? If you cannot answer that, you don't have anything to try yet.
I remember waking up every morning excited to check the balances for everything. At most, maybe $10.00. That slowly brought me to depression. I was working 12+ hours per day on every thing, but had nothing to show for it. I did this for ~3 years (although I've been building things for 10+ years). I worked as a freelancer to earn real money as well.
Eventually, I just had enough. Got a job. Started letting domains fade away (I owned perhaps 50+). What a tiring lifestyle!
Nowadays, I will not build in the hopes of becoming rich. I'll build things I want to exist - things that I will use personally. Sure, I'll slap a price on it (as you can see on leetchess), but by no means am I trying to retire from the income.
So, maybe don't give up in the sense that you no longer build. But perhaps it's worth evaluating why you build.
So I built an app that solves both problems. When you create a good prompt, every time someone remixes your image or video, you earn money instantly. They do not need to search for the prompt, copy it, paste it, or figure out how to recreate the result.
I created a complete social network for AI content creators, but with instant earnings. I tested the app with a small group of creators, and they loved it. Some of them even added their Marcelix profile link to their social media bio so they could send users directly to their profile and let them remix any prompt with one click.
The main problem is that handling large traffic requires a huge API budget. My biggest issue now is finding an investor, and that makes me afraid of ending up in the same situation as with my previous projects over the past eight years.
That was a coincidence. Or rather, I was naive and started the project without a business model. But what I realized later was that, without even knowing it, I had connected two things: a technological trend (social networks) and a target audience with a specific need.
When starting your own projects, it makes sense to focus heavily on your target audience.I often check out global trends or the opinions of futurists and try to develop ideas from them. But I always try to avoid creating a one-size-fits-all solution. I’d rather have a small but loyal target audience than a large but disloyal one.
Right now, I'm working on https://github.com/janrakete/healthcore-bulp.io. For now, it's aimed at a small target audience (tech enthusiasts who have to care for people, such as their parents). But I have no idea if it will be a success.
My advice: Keep at it, keep trying. Eventually, you’ll have enough code and experience under your belt that you’ll be able to whip up a solution in no time when the next trend comes along.
The problem is that the real world massively compounds on small advantages. Your competitor is 1% better per day at growth, that compounds to a 37x difference in a year. You could do everything perfect except one small issue, or operate in a space where your success is easily replaceable, and none of the effort will translate to real world results.
I would do the following
1. Seriously audit what you can do/insights you have that nobody else has
2. Translate that into a moat that cannot be replicated by anyone else
3. Translate that moat into growth/retention in a niche domain that you know is more important in a way others don't
I also have a few side apps that I built completely for free because I originally made them for myself and later decided to put them online. Around 100 people now use them with me, and that honestly feels good, so I completely understand what you mean. Thank you for sharing your perspective.
As a founder what did you do differently this time with your new app that increases your odds of making it a success? Did you validate your idea before building or it was just your assumption that people would buy it? How painful or valuable the problem is that you are solving with your app? Is there a demand for your app or are you trying to create a demand too? Are you solving around just a convinience or a painful problem for people to care enough?
About app distribution, are you just hoping and leaving it to luck or you have a plan (even on a budget) to get some eye balls on the app? Many questions to pause and reflect about.
Marketing is always the hardest part. I came across this medium article https://zach-saw.medium.com/the-internet-is-dead-96a3f3ed866... while researching why it is so hard. It talks about the difficulty of getting some eyes on your app / project. In particular, it said Linus needed to be a content creator first before creating Linux in this day and age which hit me pretty hard.