700 downloads and stuck — five months later...

Five months ago I posted here about being stuck. The numbers were: 700 downloads, ~20 paying users, $150 total revenue. The feeling was worse than the numbers — that classic solo loop where you need users to know what to build, features to attract users, and marketing time you don't have because you're building features. About thirty of you answered, and I've reread those comments more times than I'll admit. They've been the co-founder I don't have.

Why I kept building anyway

The most common advice in that thread was blunt: stop building, start selling. You already have something worth marketing.

I half-listened — and I want to explain the half I ignored, because it was a real decision, not procrastination-by-coding.

SelfOS was never meant to be another to-do list. I started it for myself, and the idea from day one was bigger: one calm place for your whole life — what you need to do, what you're trying to become, and how you actually feel while doing it. The line in my Instagram bio says it best: for the days you're thriving, and the days you're just surviving. Tasks and habits were only half of that vision. When my little marketing spikes worked and people arrived, they were landing on half an app.

And there was a pettier reason, which I suspect some of you will recognize. To live my own vision I'd have to subscribe to a calorie counter, a water reminder, a sleep tracker — three more subscriptions on top of the planner I'd already built to avoid other subscriptions. At some point I looked at the price of a popular calorie-counting app and thought: absolutely not. I'll build my own. So I did :)

What shipped: SelfOS 2.0, the health update

It went live on August 5. Water, nutrition (with a barcode scanner), sleep and activity joined tasks, goals, habits and shopping lists — 8 modules total now, and every single one is optional. You turn on what you need; the app is exactly as big as you want it to be. Someone who only tracks water and someone running their entire life in it are both using SelfOS "correctly."

The emotional core stayed the same: the bonsai. It's a little tree that grows with your streak — and after 2.0 it grows from everything: a glass of water and a completed task feed the same living thing. 60 achievements shipped along with it, plus full statistics and data export — you can pull every byte of your data out anytime. Everything lives on your phone: no account, no ads.

The other big move was invisible in the changelog: a new name and a new category. SelfOS: Self-Care Tracker (App Store / Google Play) now lives in Health & Fitness instead of the planner shelf.

Then something new happened: users started writing to me

I didn't expect this part. After 2.0 went live, emails began arriving. People praising the app. People reporting bugs — politely, with screenshots! People suggesting features. My favorite review so far: "Replaced 3 different apps with this one."

If you've never shipped solo: strangers taking time to write to you about your app is rocket fuel of a purity you can't buy. One request kept repeating in different words — "let my phone's calendar feed my day." So 2.0.1 shipped just ten days after 2.0, with calendar import: events from your phone's calendar become daily tasks, and your edits always win over the sync. It's the fastest feature turnaround I've ever done, and it exists purely because someone asked.

The selling half

Through all these months I kept showing up on socials — Threads, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok. Threads is where I actually live: a few advice-style comments a day in the niches where my users already talk. Not "check out my app" — just being a useful person in rooms where planners and self-care apps get discussed. It costs $0 and ten minutes a day, and it has produced every single growth spike this app has ever had. And one of those little daily comments recently set off a wave big enough that it deserves its own post — coming soon.

An honest confession though: reels and video are brutally hard for me. Some people talk to a camera like it's a friend; I talk to it like it's a tax inspector. I've decided to stop fighting that and build around it instead — the app now has bonsai share cards, so my users can post their trees to their stories even if I can't post mine 😄 We'll see if the bet pays off.

Questions for you

1. The big one: how do you actually market a multi-functional app? Users love all-in-one — but only after install. Selling it is another story: every keyword, every screenshot, every comment forces me to pick ONE pain to lead with, and the stores think in single-purpose shelves. Renaming to "Self-Care Tracker" was me picking a door — but the house behind it is much bigger. Do you sell one module as the door and let the rest be the surprise? Rotate doors seasonally? Is all-in-one an indie superpower (retention, LTV, no direct competitor on the full bundle) — or a structural trap where you can never win any single shelf?
2. Instagram people: has anyone actually grown an app through IG — organically or with paid promotion? I'd love to develop my page (Instagram), it feels like the right shopwindow for a visual app like mine, but I have no idea whether IG promotion actually pays back for a consumer app or whether it's all vanity reach. Real numbers welcome, good or bad.
3. And still open from March: if your MRR was flat for months and then finally moved — what moved it?

I'll be back soon with the wave story, and after that with the retention verdict. Thank you for those thirty comments — they steered all of this. 🌱