8 Users, 0 Revenue, 0 Promotions: My Pet Health App Has Been Invisible for Months
I built a pet health tracker, shipped it, and then did almost nothing to tell anyone it existed.
That's not a strategy. That's just what happened.
Users: 8 | Revenue: $0 | Pageviews per week: 22 | Months since launch: several | Promotions run: 0
The app works. I use it myself for my three dogs. The shareable vet report is genuinely useful. The medication tracking has reminders. The multi-pet dashboard holds up. I built the thing I needed and then put it on the internet and waited for something to happen. Nothing happened.
What I Actually Built
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The fact that you have 8 users with zero promotions is actually a useful signal. Those 8 found you somehow — figure out how, because that's your first distribution channel.
The honest thing about pet niche products is that the users aren't hanging out where most indie hackers look for distribution (HN, Product Hunt, Twitter). They're in Facebook groups with names like "Golden Retriever Owners of [City]", subreddits like r/dogs and r/puppy101, and the waiting room at their vet's office.
A few things I'd try before writing off the product:
DM your 8 users and ask how they found the app and what made them sign up. Even if only 3 reply, that data is worth more than guessing.
The shareable vet report feature is your wedge. If a user shares their report with their vet, and the vet finds it useful, you've got a distribution loop that's impossible to fake with paid ads. Ask your users if they've shared one, and what the vet's reaction was.
Pick ONE pet community (even a single Facebook group) and become a genuinely helpful member for 2 weeks before ever mentioning the app. Pet owners are incredibly generous with recommendations to people they trust, and incredibly hostile to cold promotion.
The product sounds real and useful. The problem is distribution, not product — which is actually the better problem to have.