Spent months building LazyEats AI. Spent 1 day realizing I have no idea how to get users.
I'm a solo developer. I built an AI meal suggestion app called LazyEats AI from scratch. More than 20 days of coding, debugging, rebuilding, more debugging, and somehow getting it live on Google Play.
10 installs. Mostly my friends. One of them probably just did it to be nice.
The build was honestly the fun part. I know a little programming so I leaned heavily on AI to fill the gaps. It worked surprisingly well. I felt like a genius shipping features I had no business building alone.
Then I submitted to the Play Store, got approved, and just sat there. Waiting for something to happen.
Nothing happened.
Turns out building the thing is only half the battle and nobody really prepares you for the other half. I've been trying short form videos, Quora, forums, the whole thing. Some of it got flagged as spam. Some of it got zero traction. All of it is teaching me that marketing without a budget is its own kind of coding. You just keep debugging until something works.
Still figuring it out. But I'm not stopping.
If you're curious what I built, LazyEats AI is on Google Play here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lazyeatsai.app
Would genuinely love brutal feedback from this community. What would make you download something like this? What would make you delete it after 5 minutes?
For those who've been here before, what actually moved the needle for your first 100 users?
I'm also in the same zone..... worked for 4 months and developed an app, yet to get traction.... need to look for some strategies to pick up the user base
The painful part is that “AI meal suggestion app” is too broad for a first channel.
I’d pick one tiny wedge for 2 weeks. Gym people trying to turn leftovers into macro-friendly meals, parents packing repeat lunches, students with $40 and no patience — something that tells you where to hang out and what words to use.
Then measure conversations, not installs.
Category is brutal — Yummly, Mealime, SuperCook live here, plus ChatGPT/Claude that answer "what can I cook with rice, egg, tomato" in 10 seconds free. Your core feature is replaceable by a ChatGPT query.
"180+ countries, culturally adapted" fights you. Food preferences are hyper-local — Nigerian food varies by region and tribe. 180 countries = nothing well.
Buried wedge: you're in Lagos. Nigeria has 200M+ people, active WhatsApp culture, strong Twitter/TikTok food communities (#NaijaFood), plus diaspora in UK/US/Canada wanting Nigerian recipes. "Best meal app for Nigerians (home + diaspora)" beats "global app for 180 countries." Your context is the differentiation.
"AI" isn't a wedge — it's table stakes. Use case is the wedge: "What to cook tonight with ₦2000 in Lagos" wins.
What might work if you pick the Nigerian niche: TikTok showing app on Lagos budget problems, Nigerian food Twitter as genuine member, direct DMs to Nigerian food bloggers/TikTokers, WhatsApp seeding via Nigerian university networks.
First 100 users come from ONE specific community, weeks of genuine presence before pitch. Pick Nigerian home cooks. Lead with that, not "global."
The line about "marketing without a budget is its own kind of coding" really resonated with me. A lot of founders discover that building and distribution require completely different skill sets. Out of all the channels you've tried so far, has any single one generated even a few installs or meaningful conversations?
I think your app could potentially target the fitness community, as most people in this demographic need to replenish significant nutrients on training days—yet often lack the knowledge of what to eat to do so without exceeding the caloric intake that corresponds to the energy they expended during their workout.
That's a really interesting angle I hadn't thought about. Fitness people tracking macros and trying to eat right around training days is a very specific pain point and LazyEats actually handles that well since it factors in nutritional info. Might be worth speaking directly to that audience. Thanks for this.
trust me, i believe this has a lot of potential. in the world we are today, people get frustrated easily and are constantly seeking help through apps as they are scared to ask for it physically.
I wouldn't focus on getting more traffic yet. I'd first figure out exactly who the app is for and what specific problem it solves. "Helping people decide what to eat" is broad, but "helping busy professionals find a healthy dinner in 30 seconds" is much easier to market.
I'd also look at how quickly users experience value and whether the messaging emphasizes the outcome rather than the technology behind it.
If you can explain the user journey. There may be a few positioning and conversion opportunities that could help turn more visitors into active users that i can help with
"Helping people decide what to eat" vs "helping busy professionals find a healthy dinner in 30 seconds" is such a clear way to see the difference. The broad messaging is probably exactly why it's not converting. Going to rethink how I position this completely. Really useful perspective.
This is probably one of the most common founder experiences.
Building feels productive because it's within our control. Distribution is much harder because it requires talking to real users.
I'm going through a similar process with my own MVP right now. Launching taught me that getting attention is often harder than building the product itself.
Good luck with the next step.
This is exactly it. Building felt like progress because I could see results every day. Marketing is different, you put in effort and sometimes nothing moves and you just have to keep going anyway. Good luck with your MVP too, feels less lonely knowing others are in the same spot.
For the first 100 users I’d make the ask much narrower than ‘try my app’: pick one meal-planning pain and go straight at that. E.g. ‘I’m tired and have chicken/rice/eggs, what can I cook in 10 minutes?’ is a much easier hook than a general AI meal app pitch.
I’m doing the same kind of hand-to-hand work with Kinetic Override, my Android utility app, and the useful signal has come from exact-problem threads rather than broad launch posts. Your best early feedback probably comes from people already complaining about dinner decision fatigue, not from people browsing app launches.
Also: the Play Store screenshots should answer the delete-after-5-min question before install — what input do I give, what useful result do I get, and how fast?
That narrow ask angle makes so much sense. I've been pitching the whole app when I should be solving one moment at a time. The Play Store screenshots point is noted too, going to rework those to show exactly what happens when you type in your ingredients. Thanks for this
The spam flagging is the trap most of us hit. Quora and forums punish anything that reads like a drop. What worked better for me on a similar solo Android app was finding threads where people already complain about the exact problem you solve, and answering the real question first. Mention the app only when it's the genuine answer, and only after you've actually helped.
For a meal app I'd go where the frustration lives: people posting about decision fatigue, hating meal planning, eating the same thing every night. Reddit cooking and budget subs, replies to those exact posts. One good reply on a thread someone is reading right now beats ten cold posts.
And 10 installs after launch is normal, not failure. First 100 is hand to hand. You're not behind.
The spam trap is exactly what happened on Quora lol. Got 11 answers deleted in one day. The idea of finding threads where the frustration already exists and just being genuinely helpful first is a completely different approach and honestly makes more sense. And thanks for the reassurance on the 10 installs, needed to hear that.
the fast signal is not how much you built, it is how quickly people can use it without explanation. if users need a tour, the loop is probably too long.
That's a fair point. Going to look at the onboarding flow again with fresh eyes and see where people are probably dropping off.
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For first 100 users, I would stop treating this like an app launch and treat it like a repeated dinner-rescue service.
My 7 day test would be:
The thing that would make me delete it after 5 minutes: generic recipes I could get from ChatGPT. The thing that would make me keep it: it remembers my constraints, gives a realistic grocery list, and saves me from thinking at 6pm.
The app idea is useful, but I think “AI meal suggestion app” is too broad for getting the first 100 users.
Most people do not wake up wanting another meal app. They hit a specific dinner problem:
“I have random ingredients and no idea what to cook.”
“I’m tired and don’t want to think.”
“I need cheap meals this week.”
“I keep ordering takeout because planning dinner is annoying.”
For LazyEats, I’d probably pick one of those pains and make the whole first-user push around that, instead of promoting the app generally.
The easiest wedge might be: “Tell me what’s in your fridge and I’ll give you dinner ideas.”
That is much more comment-friendly on Reddit, Quora, Facebook groups, and short-form content than “download my AI meal app.”
If useful, I can put the tighter version in writing. The useful part would be the first 100-user plan: who to target first, what hook to use, where to post without getting flagged as spam, and what 7-day test I’d run.