| Source | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU3JHq5nqyQ |
|---|---|
| Readwise URL | https://read.readwise.io/read/01ktgv7wp9384b216j3e893mh2 |
| Readwise ID | 01ktgv7wp9384b216j3e893mh2 |
| Date | 2025-09-26 |
| Author | notJust․dev |
| Category | video |
| Cover image | https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kU3JHq5nqyQ/sddefault.jpg |
Hey NJ developers. Today I have aspecial guest here on our channel. Anindie mobile developer that has built asuccessful app portfolio of more than 14applications with the power of upsuroptimization. I invited him here to pickhis brain and to know more about hisprocess of building and launching thesemobile applications and to learn acouple of things from him as well.
Welcome on our channel Wilmer.>> Hello. Hello everybody. It’s a pleasureto be here. Thank you very much for forjoining and I’d like to start with aquestion about how did you startbuilding mobile applications because Iknow you have an interesting background.So if we can start with that that wouldbe amazing.>> Yeah, of course. Yeah. How can I start?Um I started officially 3 years agobuilding this portfolio and I startedlearning the basics. I wanted tounderstand how the Apple ecosystem Ibuilt apps for Apple only for the moment.
And I wanted to understand how the Appleecosystem works, all the things together,like how the apps work or what is theprocess of building an app with usingnative technologies. I started learningabout how Swift and SwiftUI work, allthese things, but I wanted to understandhow the technology works before, uh,building an app. So I started normallydoing courses, uh, watching alot of YouTube channels andunderstanding the process ofbuilding a professional app. Then Istarted to see, uh, some folks on Twitterwho are building their apps, and Ithis caught my attention, and I started tobuild my own apps. So that was threeyears ago.
Perfect. And I know that you, you haveyou’re still working as a softwareengineer, and you’re building and workingon your portfolio on the side. How doyou manage all of this?>> Yeah, it’s, it’s not easy because I alsohave a family. I don’t have kids yet,But I have a little dog. But yeah, it’squite time-consuming. I need to timeblock my time very well to be able tofocus on everything, on having everythingdone in a good way.
Yeah, it’s a lot of timemanagement.>> Mhm. Yeah.>> How long does it usually take youto build an application fromidea to market? I usually start withdoing all the research, but two weeksit takes me to build a whole applicationfrom beginning to production to beingpublished in the app store. So, two weeks,far.
That’s amazing. That’s impressive. Uh,especially considering that you are notdoing this full-time, and you have amain job. So, it’s really encouraging toknow that it’s possible even with amain job to accomplish this kind ofresults. Can you walk me through theprocess that you go through from an ideauntil the application is on the market?
In the hands of the users?>> Yeah, sure.>> Let’s start with a high picture and thenwe can dive into every single step and Ican ask more questions.>> Okay. Okay. Perfect. It changed a lotthrough the years because I stilllearning and I learn every day. But Istart always researching. Some peopleget the idea, get an idea, a random ideain their head. They see an app that iscool, and they want to build themselves.I don’t start like this because it’s notworking for me in the past. So I starteddoing research. How I start doing theresearch is that I go directly to theapp store and I start looking for appsin the niche that I like the most,which is uh, utility and productivityapps. This is the one, this is the nichethat I use the most as a consumer. So Iunderstand how these types of apps work.So I start from there, from the app store,and I start searching apps, seeing howwith the trends, seeing what apps are.
Popping what, uh, topics are like the most popular, and I strongly from that.Then I take like three or fourcompetitors or apps that I, I, I like themost in the, in the niche, and I startdoing a review of them. How they getdownloads, how they get users, how theymonetize their app. I download all theseapps and start testing them to understandthe process and how the appswork. So after that, after I gatheraround this big research, thisresearch, and I start to know, okay, thisis worth it to build it or not. But I, Iwill start from a research that is notcommon, because as developers, we starttyping code and code and code, and thenwe see, okay, that’s going to work. But I, Iwill start from the research part. Yeah,more recently, I also started, uh,approaching it this way, not forcing me
to come up with unique ideas because, ina lot of times, like, we’re not thatunique, and if we are going to be unique,we’re going to build something thatNobody wants. And now my mindset shiftedinto looking at markets that alreadywork and trying to build something totake a small piece of an existingmarket. Looking at already what’sworking, but I’m not doing the processyou’re doing, and this is somethinginteresting for me because, in my case,I’m doing most of the stuff with Astro,like looking at keywords, and I’mfollowing the same thing, like I’m, I’mlooking at an application, looking atwhat keywords it ranks for, and then likethis creates a rabbit hole of ideas.
So I never run out of ideas; it’salways there. But your process ofactually working with App Store directlyis pretty interesting. Whatexactly are you looking for when lookingat an application? Like, what’s yourbrain processing? What metrics? Whatstuff are you looking at?
Yeah, good question. After that, I foundthe apps that I, that I would like tobuild or would like to get inspired of.
Them. I put all of them into theapplication that you say in Astro, and Istart to see the keywords. But what I’mlooking for is that I’m looking for aniche that is possible for me as an indiedeveloper with limited resources.
Mhm.>> To build there and take, like, apercentage of the market of this niche.I’m not looking for broad ideasor ideas that need, for example,if an app idea needs to be promoted by ads.This is something that I will not liketo build because I don’t have themoney to spend a lot on ads later.
If I later explore moreabout this, I will. But if the main adchannel of an app is through ads, like Facebook, Meta ads, orGoogle ads or Tik Toks, things like that,this is something that I wouldn’t go for,because they have a big budget to spendon ads to influence or get a lot ofdownloads. That’s something that I willnot go and build in a space like that.
Other thing is that I analyze if thekeyword or the niche is based on abranded keyword like let’s say if one ofthe main competitor of this niche of thebig competitor, the top one, is based on abranded keyword like YouTube, Google, things like that.You don’t want to compete withbig guys like YouTube, let’s say, umDuolingo,>> Duolingo, things like that, because they arevery established. So it will be superhard for you in my approach, which isusing the app store to get as anchannel. It will be super hard for youto be in the top 10 apps free becauseyou have big guys with big budgetscompeting against you. So I’m lookingfor, for, like, green fields, like nichesthat are not grown by big competitors.This is something hard to find, butonce you find it, it’s great tobuild an app on that space and continue growing yourportfolio with apps like this.
Okay, that sounds solid. What’s yournext step? Now you have an idea. Yousaid like, okay, this niche isinteresting. These keywords arepromising. What do you do next? Yeah,what I do next is that I put all thekeywords that I all the apps that Ifound in Astro or other apps searchoptimization tool like app figures orthings like that and I put it all themand extract the keywords and I tryto see what keywords are more popularityfor them, like popularity. If someonedoesn’t is not in the mobile marketing, itshows how many people are searching for thesesearch terms.
Yeah. And I also see about thedifficulty, which is how big are thecompetitors that are ranking for thisterm. I try to see if this is thenumber that these keywords aregiving me are safe to me, whichnumber I commonly consider my safeplace for popularity. It needs to behigher than 30.
Higher than 30.>> Yeah. And for difficulty, need to belower than 60.>> Okay. Yeah.>> So those are the numbers.>> Yeah. That’s something that I will alsostrive to do internally. Sometimes it’shard to find, but it’s aboutlike getting this research muscle builtin, and then it gets easier andeasier.
Exactly. And once I have all thekeywords that I like, I start, um, seeingdesigns how I work. I always start fromthe icon, because I think the icon hasa very unique power in the appstore, because this is one of the first things that users seewhen they are searching for apps. Theysee the icon.
Do you use any AI tools to generatevikings? Um, sometimes yes, I get inspiredthrough ChatGPT to design aconcept. I have a few concepts that were AIgenerated, but lately I would like, ILike to design my own things on Figmabecause I, I have more control in theasset flow, and it has more qualitybecause the AI gives you, like, so, soquality in terms of, yeah. So that’s whyI, I, I like to use Figma and to designthe icons and the assets for the app.
Okay, perfect. And what about the UIdesign? Like, how deep are you gettinginto designing the UI beforeimplementing it? Are you just doing, like,some mocks, or are you designingeverything?>> People will get mad about what I say,but I, I don’t, I don’t do UI designing. Igo straight. I, I design the flow in mymind, and I have a notebook that I writeall the, the processes. This is thenotebook, and I grade all—let me see if Igrab all the, the, the ideas that theyhave, all the flows, and then I startcoding.
Okay.>> So I think I have, I don’t have a greateye for design. I, I, you know, to beHumble because, and some people like, havea better eye for design than me.
So what I do is that I get inspired from alot of designers, like in places likemobing behinds, things like that.I gather, like, these kinds of ideas fromthat, and then I start coding what Iwould like to see the app.But after that, I have the icon finished.I start writing code to see how it will looklike in the form.
Okay, perfect.Sounds good. Uh, nothing to beashamed of, because, as an indie developer,our goal is to move fast.Like, it’s the process. If it helps usmove faster, we’re going to do that.I also don’t design stuff.
Now, more recently, I started, uh, playing aroundwith some UX/UI designing tools like AI,even though, like, they’re notgenerating me things that I can justcode, like pixel perfect. They just giveme an idea of the vibe of the, ofthe application, the color scheme of thethings. How can I arrange?
Something that I’m exploring, but anyway,so you said, like, you have an icon, youprobably have a plan, uh, of what you’regoing to build. What’s the next?Well, the next step is to start, like,coding the main, um, flow of the app, likewhat is the core feature.
Yeah,>> Some people, uh, they want to have a lotof features. For my apps, there is one corefeature, and that’s it. I don’t like appsthat have more than three features.Three or more features, because thedevelopment phase will be longer. Sothat’s why I focus on, because I want totest if the app is going to work.
If the app is going to get accepted in themarket. So, I try to focus on one feature,and I start coding this wholefeature very well, like, I focus a loton quality,>> and to get this feature very well andvery well implemented in a way that iseasier for the user to use it and digest it,and test and get value from that.
Most of my apps, it’s around one feature,and then I have like little featuresthat complement the main, the mainfeature. But I start calling the main feature,and then I start addingthings like the paywall, the onboarding, the settings, and things likethat, that, that. I mostly, because I have abig portfolio of apps, I mostly copy andpaste from the other for other apps, andthen you know, start adapting to this, tothis app. Yeah, I couldn’t agree more.
With the idea of, uh, having, like, focusingon one feature and implementing itreally well, rather than having, like, tensof features that are so-so. And this issomething that, as developers, like,it’s really hard to get to this point,where you understand this fully, and youuse it. And in all those cases, like, wefall back into, like, oh, let me addanother feature, just one more feature,bro. Like,>> Do you still have this kind of, um,thoughts? How do you deal withThem?
Yeah, sometimes it’s hard for me to have a clear scope of what I’mbuilding because I start coding the app and building the app and say, “Oh, okay. this will be, this will be awesome.” And then I start, um, writing a little spec about what I want to build. And then Ihit the wall that I need to use a third-party API to do this, and I need togo to a very dark side of the mobile application process, and I need touse some weird resources. Then, the scope of the project starts growing andgrowing and growing, and then I don’trelease this app because the scope of theapp gets super big.
Mhm. I’m super perfectionist about whatI send to production. If Ipublish an app, it’s because I feel thatthis app, in my opinion, it’s greatand it’s working fine. I try to focus onone feature because I know me,and I know that if I start adding features, IWill say no, this is not working becausethe buttons are not aligned or theflow is not working. All is not alwaysworking. So I let it die, the project.
So yeah, I think it’s, uh, it’sabout prioritizing and doing the best tolaunch the application as fast aspossible, and having this idea that I canalways improve, that I can always comeback. Like, there is no big moment thatyou’re going to launch, like, it’s veryrare that you’re going to launch and getlike millions of users from day one, andall of a sudden, everyone will see yourterrible project. That’s not how ithappens. Like, you usually launch to acouple of like 10 or 15 users, and they’regoing to be okay with what you have,and you can always come back and improvean ad and then grow from there. Sothe priority should be just launchingand getting the application in the handsof the users.
Exactly. That’s, that’s my, my mantra.It’s better to have it done, not toJust have it like in your, in yourcomputer in your local host.
Definitely. When it comes to buildingand coding, the obvious question in2025, are you using AI tools? What toolsare you using?>> Yes, I am. I believe that I was one ofthe first guys to use in my country.Yeah. To use GitHub copilot to getaccess to GitHub copilot and everyone’sgot like crazy, like this AI can codefrom you, and you don’t just need totype things in English, and it createsapps for you and things like that.Everyone in my country gets super crazy.For context, I’m from an island inthe Dominican Republic, and we startedcreating WhatsApp groups about these AItechnologies and things like that. Istarted with GitHub copilot. It took me oneyear to pass to Cursor.>> Yeah.>> And I found Cursor, and I went crazylike Cursor is the best tool ever. Ilove Cursor, and I built a lot of apps.
Using cursor, like most of my apps I, Iused cursor to build it. But then cloudcode comes and it changed like my, uh, theway that I used to build apps with AI,and now I’m just using cloud code forit. And then maybe in the future, there’scomes this new super intelligent model,that is better than cloud code, and Iwill change because, I, I’m looking forwhat is the best tool. Not I, I’veromanticized about what tool I’m using.
I use what is best for it, and I use whatI feel comfortable using, and Ijust change to what is the best tool inmy opinion because I always try to testit to have this opinion.
Okay. And how, um, how is yourrelationship with the AI-generated code?Like, when do you use it, and when do youfall back on writing the code yourself?Because, for me, it’s always a battlebetween, like, I need to prompt more, butthen, like, I fall back to my developmentskills and I write stuff, and I thenthink about, like, okay, I’m not very.
Efficient this way. So how, how are youworking with that? Yeah, when I startedbuilding apps, the AI tools for mobiledevelopment and for desktop development,with the native technologies likeSwift and also with React Native, theywere the worst experience in my life. Italways was creating random classes,random things that don’t exist.And it was okay, I would want to buildthis with my own hands and start coding.
But lately, it’s getting better. It’sgetting better.>> Now. You are not developing, uh, as nativeapplications, right? You’re using Reactnative and Expo.>> Yeah, I’m using React Native and Expo, andit’s getting much better at it, and it’sunderstanding the project better, and now, with MCPS and things like that, youcan connect tools to the AI to give morecontext. So I use a lot of MCPS.
What are your best free MCPS that youyou cannot live without? I started usingbecause, you know, that Apple changed.
Their documentation a lot.>> Yes.>> And Expo changed their documentation alot too. So since these are my mainframeworks like the Apple frameworks andthe Expo. So I use an MCP to have allalways the documentation updated, whichis Context 7. Context 7 is an MCP thatdownloads the documentation and bringsthe documentation to the LLM,and it has access to the latestdocumentation. So it’s not hallucinatingabout things that I say, things that Iask for regarding building because it has thelatest documentation. So, in mobiledevelopment, I think it’s great to havesome MCP like that because thetechnology has changed a lot. You know,Apple now with the new iOS 26, theylaunch a lot of things that are new, andif you don’t train your AI model tounderstand what is new, it will starthallucinating and creating randomthings. Yeah, that’s very true.All right, so back to the building phase.
Of application. After you have completedlike the main flow, the the feature orthe things that the application is goingto be known for, what are the othermust-have things that you areimplementing here? I’m talking aboutlike the things that they have to bethere but they are not the mainfeatures.
Okay, the most important thing in myopinion is the paywall and the onboarding. Okay,if my app takes 2 weeks to build, Ispend one week building the paywalland onboarding. Like I go super crazyon that. Like the details, theflows, the how it will look like, whatthings I want to say, what are the bestwords for saying that, how I can incentivizethe users to try the app. So I focus alot on that. I use some frameworks tohelp me with that for crafting thethe paywall. One of them is RevenueCut, which is used by a lot ofdevelopers. I spent a lot of time likeIn my pay walls, and it’s even crazy thatI developed my own paywall becausenone of the pay walls that the revenuecut has fulfilled my needs. So I neededto build from scratch my own paywall,using the revenue cut back end. So Ibuilt my own paywall system that I useacross all my apps.
Is this a secret, or is there a chancethat you can share with us some of theonboarding screens, like just to have anidea of the onboarding flow that you’re using in one of yourapplications. Let me see, because it’s, Iwould like to pull out the app, theapp, and I don’t have an app running, butlet me see if I can find one of thevideos that I sent to the app review guys,because they always request me to send avideo.>> For onboarding and paywall, right?>> For onboarding and paywall, so I willtry to see. Okay, this is one of the apps that I’ve been published, andthey requested me to send like a demo.
Of the paywall working, so this is thepaywall. It’s inspired from otherdevelopers. This is a structure that Ithink works best for me.
Mhm.>> Because, as you can see, it’s a structurefrom top to bottom, and the focus is onthe bottom. So, I always incentivize theuser who downloads the app to start the three three-day trial. So,that’s why it goes from topto bottom. So, once they see theydownload the app, if for this app I don’thave an onboarding, theuser downloads the app, and it isstraight to the paywall.
Is this something that you do, thinkingabout that? I mean, that’s the plan, oryou didn’t, um, you didn’t have time foronboarding.
No, it was on purpose. It was onpurpose.>> Okay. It was on purpose because most ofthe competitors of this nichewith paraphrasing go straight toThe paywall, and I had the idea forother apps that are in the niche of AIidentifiers.
Mhm.>> That they, once you download the app,they go straight to the paywall, andthe paywall explains a little bit aboutthe app since users commonly understandwhat these types of apps do. They havethis little phrase that says what theyapp is. So once this little timer ends,they can, like, they need to, they need todo an action, what they want to do, likestarting the free trial or whereinto this, uh, timer ends. So once this,finish, they can close the paywall. It’snot a, it’s not a hard paywall at all.
They can close it, and then they candecide if they want to try to use theapp. But yeah, for this idea, I don’tuse it in onboarding because you needto understand what is working in yourniche. Since my niche is utility andproductivity apps, it’s not needed tohave a lengthy onboarding.
Onboarding like health and fitness appsbecause they want to understand like thepain of what the user is feeling andthey want to increase this pain untilthey get into the pay wall. I don’twant to do it because I want to showcase or straightly show my user okaythis is my app; test it, see if you seevalue, but for testing, you need tocommit to the user to use the app through apay wall, probably. Yeah, it’s a verystraightforward idea, and people knowalready, like, why do they need it, andthey don’t need extra, going back to what Iwas asking, what other things you’re, uhyou’re focusing on, or you’re building inthe application? Before launching, yousaid you have paywall onboarding. Isthere anything else?
">> Settings. Yeah, the settings screen issuper important. You need to have somesettings screen that users can like seewhere they can find the support, wherethey can like toggle some settings thatthey don’t like, or where they canLike things like that. But it need tohave a settings screen. So these are the>> What about the prompt for the app storereview? That’s a whole thingthat we could spend like an hour talkingabout becausethis is one of the most, yeah, it’s superimportant. Reviews and ratings are oneof the most important things in theapp store search optimization, and it’ssomething that, for me and for the uh, formy consultation clients, this issomething that I go super harder onthem. You need to set up your, your, yourreview system. You need to set up theway that users are going to review your app.
You need to go hard on this because thisis how your app grows. So I don’t decidemy review prompt. Usually, I don’t do it.I just use the native one. Yeah. I justpull, like, after home, how my process homefor my apps. How, how it goes. You areusing my app. Some apps, like, they liketo write or go directly to review theapp afterward. I don’t like to doThis is because people get mad about it, andthey didn’t try your app and you’reasking for review. What is this? So whatI do is, after you use my app and you dosome core features that I designed forthe app, let’s say you navigate to ascreen, you do an action like youpress a button or open a modal oryou spend some time in my appfiguring out things because I like toencourage users to discover things by themselves.
Mhm.>> And then after that, I show the prompt.So, hey, are you liking this app? Youwould like to help us grow, pleasegive a review. And then, ifavailable, I show the native reviewprompt, and if not, I pre-select them forthe app store prompt to review the app.
That’s my process. Okay. Okay.Are you conditionally displaying thenative prompt only when they say they likethe application, or are you not doingthis kind of trick? You know what IMean? Like, first to ask, like, are youenjoying the app? If they answer yes,you show the prompt. If not, you’ll showa feedback for this. Are you doing this?
I, I, I like every month I share a tweetabout this because this is one of mymost converting things in my apps, thegetting ratings because I do this likelike flow, like, I prompt them like, heyyou are enjoying the app. If they pressyes, I show them the native prompt toreview the app. If they say no, I askthem for feedback. So, how can I prove orI give them something for free, like, okay,you are testing, you are trying, you’retrying the app, so because you don’t likeit, I will offer you, like, uh, somediscount in the, in the, the main, in thepremium offer, or I will give you, like,five more tries to try the app better.That’s the thing that I do toincentivize the user.
But, how, how, how is Apple reviewingthat? Because, for some applications, I’mdoing this. For some, we rejected it. So, IIf I fell back into not having this firstprompt of checking, like if we enjoy ornot. But I know that there are sometricks as well. How are you doing?
Yeah, it’s because it’s againstthe Apple rules to forcethe users to review your app. So, thecopy is super important for that. Youneed to use copy that isn’t likeforcing the users to review the app.It’s just encouraging them if they wantto do it or not. You need to have liketo give options to the user.
But it’s still conditional, like thisprompt. If you show the nativeprompt only when they press yes, it’skind of against the rules. So, theyrejected some of my apps because ofthat.
Yeah. But the copy is important forthat. And if you change the ‘yes’ tosomething else or if you show like astars and things like that, you couldhelp the reviewer. And if youshowcase or send a video to theReviewer sending saying, "Hey, this iswe are not forcing the users to reviewthe app. We are just letting them say thatthey can review it if they want to,this is an option, but it’s not forcingthem to do it. Something that I do is Isort of just show the native promptwithout asking questions. I just, afteractions, after some number of actions,let’s say that you execute my corefeature five times, I show the nativeprompt.
Okay.>> And that could pass a review. Butyeah, that’s true.>> Yeah, that’s my idea as well.Like it’s either disabling this, likeover the air, or adding some logic behind it.>> Yeah, because you can control that, and something that I dothat Apple won’t ban me is that Icontrol where I show it and how I showit. For the review phase, I try to, like,if it’s the first review, I try to play.
Super safe. This is the first review. Itry to commit of all the rules thatthey have, and I try to be 100% uhsure that I’m following the guidelines that they have. But once it’saccepted, I try to start adding thesekinds of things that are in a gray areaof them. And I try to, you know, toplay with this in a safe way without,you know, breaking the rules becausewhen you break the rules, they candelete your app. They can, you know, banyou. But I try to play safe always. And,you know, some people say that, hey,this is a black hat trick. You areforcing your users with badpsychological things. Uh, I always givethe user the option to don’t do it.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, um, yeah, Iknow that on this uh review stuff, wecan talk a lot. Maybe we can do anotheruh episode just dedicated to this. Butnow let’s go back to your process. Soafter you’re finishing with all thefeatures, you tested everything. TheNext pro step is most probably gettingthe application on the store. How areyou approaching this? What are theimportant steps here to consider?
There are two things. Your title, yoursubtitle, and your screenshots. Theseare the three things that I, after that, Idesigned the pay wall. These are thethree things that I spend a lot of timeon after the release. So I startcrafting the title with high intent,keywords, with keywords that I selectedwith a high popularity and lowerdifficulty. I put my main keywordsalways at the beginning of the name ofthe app name, and then I put my main keywords,obviously, the app name if the appname is like Same Timer or somethinglike that, or Super Helper X, somethinglike that. But it’s at the end because mymain channel is the app, so I want toput my main keywords at the beginningbecause it will help the algorithm toshowcase my app more when they aretrying to search for these kinds ofKeywords. After that, I try to design myscreenshots in a way that showcase thevalue of my app, not the features. Okay.
I always focus on the value of what myapp is offering, not the features of myapp. For my apps, I try to putkeywords in the screenshots like thekeywords that I found doing theresearch. I try to put it in the title.Let’s say, like, my app is a landidentifier. I try to put these keywordsin during the screenshots. The mostimportant screenshots are the threefirst screenshots, and in these three, Itry to use images or pictures thatevoke something to the user topress the listing to go to the listing.
So, when they see it, I need to evokesomething like, okay, if the user issearching for a plant identifier, I want toshowcase how my plant identifier is thebest plant identifier. I try to, you know,to showcase in a way that the user feelslike, okay, this is me. I want toThe screenshots that is likely to me andthen I want to try the app. So this isone of the things that I usually use fordesigning, this is one of theconcepts that I use for designing thescreenshots.
Perfect. That’s super valuable. And yousubmit everything, uh, to the app storeunless you are from another planet, likeyou are going through some rounds ofrevisions, because Apple will reject yourapplication. But finally, uh, it getspublished out there. What’s the nextsteps? Are you doing more for thisapplication? Are you just monitoring andmoving to the next one? Like, how are youapproaching that?
Well, it depends on how the first, uh,week, how the first week goes. Ifthe first week goes well, like, I getsome sales and get some, like, things likethat. I think I say, “Okay, let’scontinue improving their app or let’s dosome advertising for it insome forums.” So, I usually do this. IUsually run a campaign for apps.com free,and usually in this month of the newapp, I usually give the whole monthfor free, and I advertise it in placesthat have these spaces, like forapps come free. I have a couple of, uh,forums that allow you to publish yourapp if it’s gone free, and I usethis market of people that are trying totest new apps to get some downloads from it, and it’s helped me alot. Okay, that’s, uh, that’s useful.
That’s something that I haven’t thoughtabout, but probably it’s an easy way todo for the marketing of the next stepsin the marketing direction. Okay, whatnext? Are you building the next version?Are you building new features, or are youmoving to the next project?>> I usually don’t build more features. IfI feel that an app concept is completed,it’s fulfilled, I say, okay,>> this app is established, and I usuallydon’t build more features for it. I tryto improve it, to don’t have bugs, to doTo don’t have like crashes, like the appis crashing. If the app has a back end,I try to improve the back end, and I tryto, I try to lead the first uh version ofit like this, and I try to improve all
the surrounding things, the paywall, andthings like that. But the core featureof the app, I let it like this because Istarted to try apps or to understandapps, like artists do with their musictracks. When an artist publishes a musictrack, they usually try to publish thebest music, or the best song thatthey want for this. And then, if they wantto grow it, they start doing marketingof this music, but they don’t record themusic again or add more things tothe song. They lead itlike it is, and if they want toimprove it, they do a featuring, andthings like that. Well, that’s what I try tosee apps as, my apps—like song tracks.
Instead of, okay, this is an app thatisn’t an ongoing process. Yeah, I havesome apps that I started adding,Features and things like that. But formost of my apps, I try them as a songslike this is the song. I will try toimprove all the surroundings around thesong to help you find my song or to helpyou find my app. But my this is myapp. This is what it is, and I try tothe surroundings to help you to findit. That’s a very interesting approachat looking at these things. I see it asa very helpful way for not creating aburden on yourself with everynew application that you’re building,because that’s what I feel sometimes.
I’m always thinking like, instead ofcreating a new application, maybe Ishould go back and add new featuresor improve the old ones. And I believethat now my portfolio is like I don’tknow six, seven applications, but as it’sgoing to grow, it’s going to beharder and harder. But this way, it’s very interesting. At the sametime, I’m thinking, like, if I’m going tohave this mindset, is it going to force?
Me to be way more perfectionist in thebuilding phase of application. Mostprobably I’m just going to nail down thescope but implement it like super good.In a way that, okay, there are just somemarginal improvements that could be done,but nothing crazy that could be changed.The whole game is to take the learningsout of this.>> And I move forward. If it flops, it’sokay, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, okay.
Because all the, all the, all the don’t gowell, and then I focus on the next thing.Or I focus on, okay, what else I need todo to help this app grow further?
What things I could change to motivateusers to use my app? Because, since myapproach is to help users find my appin the App Store, Ineed to find a way on how users can findmy app easily.
Mhm. So that’s what I spend thetime improving. I don’t spend the timeimproving the features because I knowthat the features are sort of usable orSort of great. The problem is not if youhave a good app or not. The problem isif you have a good distribution ornot, because you can have a good app, butif you have a bad distribution, if youhave a bad marketing.
Mhm.>> Who will know that your app is good?Nobody, because nobody can find it.So I try to work in the invisible things like>> Okay.>> How I package my app so you can find it?And then I try to focus on the things thatare inside the package and are usableor are great for you.
Perfect. That’s really uh changing likeyour perspective. It’s definitelyhelpful for me, and hopefully foreveryone watching here as well. Ilearned a lot from your process.There are things that I do the same, theright things that I took notes on, and Iwill change the process that we areusing internally. Then is there anythingthat you want to share withAspiring indie mobile developers out there that want to get into mobiledevelopment, want to launch their ownapplications.
Um, I would say thatexperiment a lot and find a niche thatyou feel comfortable building on.Try to understand before building.As a developer, you know that we get want toget into the code as much as possible.We want to starttyping and typing and typing, and then weforget how we could market this app.So start from how you will market this appand then after that start coding. That’swhat I say. I would say that your firstapps will flop. It’s 100%, or you couldhave bad luck like me, that one of my firstapps worked, but yeah, you need to keepexperimenting and keep building thingsto know what is working and what is not.There is no shortcuts for that.And if you know some profitable or very good app founders,they will say the same that it’s not an easy way tounderstand what will work.
Way to understand it if you ship moreand you build more things and send it toproduction. This is what it matters. Whatyou send to the app store, what youfinish is what matters. It’s not what youhave in your localhost running becauseyou feel that it’s not finished. Try tofinish the thing and then you figure outhow you can improve it. That’s my, uh, mylet’s say, my motivational speech.
Thank you very much, Wilmer. That’sactually exactly why, uh, we aredoing an incubator at, not just devwhere I see from our students so manypeople with ideas that are sabotagingthemselves, like not launching. They are tooperfectionist. The scope of their ideasare too huge. And with the incubator, ourgoal is going to be to help them getfrom idea to market. Help them ideate,visualize, cut down on the fat and onlyfocus on the most important things,and just get out there and get into thisprocess of building and launchingapplications because with that, like, with
Iterations, you’re going to becomebetter and better. So for everyone, ifyou’re interested, the wait list isopen. I will leave a link in thedescription below for the incubator. Butin the end, Wilmer, where can peoplefollow you? I have here, uh, on the sideyour Twitter. Yeah, they can find me onTwitter, Will Tero, and if they want toget feedback about how their appsoptimization is, they can use my tool,which is ASO.report,which is a free tool for everyone to try.
It, and they can just paste their URL ortype their app name, and they will findit. And I hope, um, it provides somefeedback about what you need to improvefor your app because this is, I wouldlike to have this, uh, this tool beforebecause I took a lot of bad decisionsabout how I optimize, uh, the app storelisting. So I believe this tool willhelp you find a way to what you need tofocus on. Yeah, I already usedit, and it gave me actually a lot ofInsightful uh things. I don’t have alink right now, but it’s amazing, right?
Thank you very much, Wilmer, for all theknowledge you shared here. It was apleasure talking with you. Good luckwith all your journey. We’re goingto keep an eye on your Twitter. Uh we’regoing to see all your new projects thatyou’re building and the knowledge thatyou’re sharing there. I hope you guysenjoy this one. Make sure to subscribeto our channel not to miss our futurevideos, and let us know what other indiedevelopers you’d like me to invite andto have a conversation with. Thank youvery much.