After 1.5 year of Hacking, I might finally make it happen - with an app that took me 1 week of work
I left my job one and half year ago to try my own things.
I spent the whole first year on a project that was meant to take only two months, was a complete failure and got me quite down.
My second idea is also having trouble getting traction, but doing slightly better than the 1st one.
But that's not why I am here!
A few weeks ago, I had this idea in the back of my head.
I love to play Pen & Paper RPGs but had trouble finding time to gather my friends. So over a weekend, I made a visual mockup of an app I would love to have.
I posted it on imgur and it went viral: https://imgur.com/gallery/QqLBT :)
I worked my ass off for a week and released this the following Saturday: https://imgur.com/gallery/skPoQ
The app, www.rolegate.com, has been out for only a week and already gathered 1000 users!
Several of them started to plead for a way to finance the app, so I started a Patreon. Today, after one year and a half, I am finally making my own $ :D
After more than one year of work, it's the app that took me less than 2 weeks to put together that is finally giving me something back :)
like paula scher says when she talks about designing the citi bank logo:
"and it's done in the moment, it's all done in a few minutes, it's done in five minutes and 25 years. it's done in five minutes and every emotion, sketch, failure, everything that's passed through my head and got me to this point"
Massive congrats. Wishing you all the best. This is your Da Vinci. Your starry night. You couldn't have got here without all the 1.5 years of lessons / failures.
Love this metaphor Harry, thanks for sharing!
My personal favorite is about a guy that got seeds to plan bamboo from a rich guy in Japan (that got rich selling bamboo). He didn't see any results from watering it for 5 years but suddenly it grew 30 feet in two weeks. "The questions is did it grow 30 feet in two weeks or 30 feet in 5 years?" 🤔
I just think it puts things into perspective really well :)
thanks pedro. that's a cool expression. will store it up haha
Hey Ryan!
Congrats with a genuine idea - saw your posts on Reddit. The MVP is good, hope it will grow and grow :D
Are there any plans to monetize the app other than crowdsourcing?
Yes, I definitely want to switch from Patreon to an actual in-app account system, with various privileges based on your account level :)
Massive congrats! Great story to read on a Monday so thank you for the good vibes :)
Nice work! Don't forget to continue to prioritize getting the word out -- my science fiction magazine (compellingsciencefiction.com) had 6000 uniques the first day because I hit the top slot on HN, but I was never able to capture the same virality ever again, and growth has been very slow for the last year and a half. Getting new users is always hard, so make sure you have enough margin for user acquisition. Good luck!
You are so right. Everytime I stop spreading the word about the app, the daily amount of new users falls dramatically. It's so hard however to talk about your app without sounding spammy...
It's really difficult. Are you targeting forums where role players hang out?
I bet getting some reviews from high profile game reviewers would be a huge return on time investment (if a little bit of a crap shoot). People like the Penny Arcade guys could really expand your reach. Cold emails do work sometimes, I've used them very effectively to get magazine support.
I posted something on hackernews and it went to the second page in less than a hour. How did you even manage to get visibility there?
It was a combination of luck and an interesting story -- when you post to HN it goes to the "new" page, and if it gets enough votes within the first 15-30 min it can reach the front page. After that amount of time it gets pushed off the "new" page by other posts, and if you're not on the front page by then visibility goes nearly to zero. It's very similar to imgur in some ways, but the visibility algorithms are a little different.
Congrats Ryan for finally seeing some results! I found with time I got used to this idea where you don't get any results for a long time and then get great results with little work.
1000 users is great already good luck on monetizing this! :)
That's super cool! I like the idea of playing a game async, similar to what words with friends did to scrabble, but on a much bigger scale.
Funny enough my own project is in the tabletop space. I am solving a similar issue, but rather than offering a substitute for face to face gaming, my project will help you find other players to game with!
Glad to see other projects built around gaming succeed, good luck my friend!
Really like it.
Would be great if people could share Character sheet templates (taking the work away from you)
It's planned :) It's the list in the "Vote for features" screen
The UI is SO clumsy but I LOVE it!
Congratulations and good luck!
Hi! I've got a blog called Code The Web, and have got lots of positive feedback! I also have 1.5K - 6K users per month. Similarly, I also am donations-based. However, I've only received $56 in 3 months. And that's one-time donations, with about 50% being from people I know.
Your Patreon is currently > $100 monthly! So, I was wondering - What do you do to get users to donate? How do you make them begging to donate? Thanks :D
Hi! I think the reason why people started to "beg" me for a way to donate is that they know my story.
Through the subreddit and the discord server, I am in direct contact with my users and I am generally very genuine.
I think seeing that it's just a man behind a project that they love makes them realize how much their support matters.
I am also very open with the direction in which the project is going (list of planned features on the home screen), so they probably feel like they are not just donating as a thank you but also to help build the app towards something they want even more.
Awesome! The mockup looks very good. Did you use anything in particular? Or just Photoshop/GIMP/something?
It's just some vector drawing: squares, rounded circles and circles :D. Nothing made specially for interfaces
That's cool man!! Thanks for my morning dose of inspiration!!! I'm with the camp that says this took all year+ to create. For your, the universe came together in that one moment but it had been conspiring for a lot longer. Good luck
Congratulations!
Nice job!
I'm signing up! Looks awesome.
First impression: You should enable momentum scrolling on IOS.
Nice work!