Building IMDOVA: From an Idea to 1,255 Users

I started IMDOVA because I was tired of checking IMDb, Metacritic, and Rotten Tomatoes one by one before watching anything. What began as a small side project slowly turned into a full product and now, it’s being used by over 1,200 people.

I quit my job in May 2025 to focus fully on IMDOVA. Since then, I’ve been learning marketing the hard way, experimenting with Reddit, App Store optimization, and curated lists to help people discover great movies. It’s been challenging, but incredibly rewarding.

So far, IMDOVA has made $55 in subscriptions, which might not sound like much, but every new user and review feels like a small win. I even trained my own machine learning model to recognize movie posters and tested multiple algorithms to reduce AI costs.. Solo indie life makes you creative fast.

I’m still figuring out how to grow it further, but the goal remains the same: make movie discovery effortless.