10m 24s Avg Session, but 0 Downloads. Did I rebrand myself into invisibility?
Hey IH,
I’m a solo dev building a "Sanctuary" for news. I’m at a crossroads and could use some brutal honesty from fellow builders.
The Good: My current users are highly engaged. I’m seeing an average session duration of 10 minutes and 24 seconds. People who find the app seem to genuinely use it as a mental hygiene tool to escape the doomscroll.
The Bad: Four days ago, I rebranded from "The Good News App" to "Good News Uplifting Sanctuary." Since that name change, my downloads have hit zero. Literally 0.
I’ve spent months obsessing over a "Modern-Futuristic" minimalist UI (built in FlutterFlow & Figma) to make the experience feel peaceful and high-integrity. But now I’m worried:
Is the name "Sanctuary" too niche for a tech audience?
Does the "Sanctuary" vibe actually come across, or does it just look like another news app?
I’m launching on Product Hunt tomorrow (April 28th), and I’m honestly a bit nervous about going live with these numbers.
I would love a brutal UI roast or some branding feedback. If you’ve ever survived a "rebranding dip" or managed to scale a wellness app without annoying push notifications, I’d love to hear how you did it.
Helping a fellow dev out? I’ll be in the comments all day.
