Six months ago, I launched my first indie app Type, a macOS app to take notes without interrupting your flow. The launch on Product Hunt went very well, I also got featured on big news medias such as TechCrunch.

Below I’ll share all my learnings from the past 6 months. If you’re interested, I also wrote an article about the launch.

Let’s dive in!

Sales

The app launched on November 29, 2023.

I sold 653 units in total since then, generating $2.68K in sales.

One important thing to notice is the app is paid upfront at the cost of $3.99 USD. I didn’t want to use subscriptions because the app is not a service, and because it felt more premium, which is something I was interested in.

The first spike is the launch. I launched on Product Hunt and got featured in their newsletter. I also got featured in a TechCrunch article and in the paid MacStories newsletter. I made around $1000 USD in 3 days.

The second spike is when Type got featured in a Lifehacker article. I made $550 USD in 5 days.

The rest of the time, I usually have between 0 and 2 sales per day.

Traffic

The traffic during the launch was huge. It increased a bit in April when I got featured in Lifehacker, but otherwise, I usually get around 20-30 visits per day.

I’m glad I have a product website. When I look at the source of sales in App Store Connect, 60% of the traffic comes from the web, and 40% from App Store search and browse.

On App Store Connect, no surprises, the spikes are the launch and the press feature in Lifehacker. Sometimes the app ranking goes up in a category in some countries when I release an update, but nothing crazy.

Despite all my efforts related to ASO, the number of impressions I get hasn't really grown so far. I need to experiment more.

Press features

I was fortunate enough to be featured a few times in the press. As you can see in the charts, it's the best way to boost your sales!

For the launch, journalists from TechCrunch and MacStories wrote an article about Type. I was also mentionned in the Product Hunt newsletter the day after the launch (one of the biggest newsletters in tech).

In April, a journalist from Lifehacker reached out to me to get more information about Type because he wanted to write an article about it. He found out about Type on Reddit.

I also did a follow-up with the journalist of MacStories when I released the first big update, which was fixing a few issues he raised. He was happy about it and mentioned it in their newsletter the same week.

Proof that it’s very important to stay in touched with journalists, even if they already have written about your product.

App Store Optimization

I started learning about how ASO works around the same time as when I launched the app.

When you think of ASO, you consider improving the title, subtitle, keywords, and screenshots. I did it without any real impact. I still have a lot to explore, but so far, I'm convinced that as long as you have low daily volume, there's nothing you can do to drastically improve impressions.

I’m using the ASO tool Astro to analyze keywords.

Another part of ASO is getting as many reviews as possible to help the app rank up.

I implemented the native request review modal in March. It has dramatically improved the number of 5-star ratings! I should have done it sooner.

Customer support

As a small indie developer, customer support is one of the few areas where I can easily make a difference. People usually love to support small indie developers.

I reply to every message, usually within a day, whether they have a question, a bug, or a feature improvement. I add their requests to a Notion where I can keep track of every bug and feature request. This also helps me plan the roadmap. Often what I had in mind versus what I end up releasing is totally different.

When I release a new update, I also reply to the people who mentioned a bug or a feature request that is included in the update.

I also always ask people who send feedback to leave a review on the App Store once I solve their problem. This has proven very helpful to get great reviews, and I can use them as testimonials on the website as well.

The problem with paid upfront apps

While I’m overall pretty happy with my journey, I feel like having a paid app upfront is slowing down the sales.

Why? Because I think it’s harder to rank up with a paid upfront app, unless you get a lot of exposure.

When I chose this business model, I had big players in mind like Things or Halide (and their new app Kino). But they are big players, they already have a reputation and a huge audience, so it’s easier for them. I’m not in that position.

I was also scared of getting too many 1-star reviews from users who don’t like to pay for apps. I later learned that this represents a very small percentage of the ratings, and you can now report these reviews, and Apple will remove them.

I also have to admit that nowadays, everyone wants to try an app before buying it.

Without exposure, to increase sales:

• You need people to find you.
• For people to find you, you need to rank up.
• To rank up, you need to get reviews.
• To get reviews, you need to get sales.

This is the snake that eats its own tail.

So even though only 3 people requested a free trial, I want to experiment with it. I’m convinced this is the right thing to do right now.

Of course, there’s more competition for free apps, but the traffic is also much bigger.

My experience so far is that unless you get featured by the press or by Apple, it is very hard to increase the number of daily sales for a paid upfront app.

What's next

I have a lot of experiments coming in the next few months:

• Submit a request to be featured in the App Store. I know it sounds crazy, but I didn’t dare yet to ask Apple to feature Type. I felt like my app was not good enough. The classic imposter syndrome.
• Introduce a free trial. It will be a big challenge as I will have to learn how to create a paywall that converts.
• Increase pricing. Something every indie hacker is dealing with. I want to try to reach $9.99; that would be awesome.
• New updates. I released only 2 big updates since the launch. That’s not enough; I have so much I want to build, and ironically, I’m spending much more time on marketing than on development these days.
• Setapp submission. I didn’t do it sooner also because of the imposter syndrome. But it’s time to do it.
• Keep improving the website to enhance conversion rate and SEO with well-known marketing techniques (pricing section, bio section, feature section, dedicated pages, etc.).

Let’s hope for the best!

PS: If you enjoy this article and want to support an indie developer, you can download Type on the App Store.

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