I Built a Japanese Fortune Web App That Generated 4.9 Million Draws
I Built a Japanese Fortune Web App That Generated 4.9 Million Draws
In 2023, I launched a small web product based on a familiar part of Japanese culture: 恋みくじ, or “love fortune.”
The idea was simple. A visitor thinks about their current romantic situation, draws one fortune, and receives a short message for the day.
There is no account to create, no email address to submit, and no personal information to enter. The product is free and can be used directly in a browser.
At the time of writing, its two versions have generated more than 4.9 million draws.
The product is called Ichizendo Koi Mikuji.
It is not a technically complicated SaaS product, and it does not solve a traditional business problem. However, building it has taught me a great deal about cultural products, search intent, repeat usage, emotional design, and why a narrow idea can sometimes grow more effectively than a broad one.
What is Koi Mikuji?
In Japan, an omikuji is a paper fortune traditionally drawn at a shrine or temple. People often draw one at the beginning of the year, while traveling, or when they want guidance about an important part of life.
恋みくじ focuses specifically on love and relationships.
A typical 恋みくじ may contain a short message about meeting someone, expressing feelings, waiting patiently, reconsidering a relationship, or having the courage to move forward.
I wanted to bring a small part of that experience online without making it feel like a complicated personality test.
The current product has two main versions.
The first is a daily version. It gives users a simple message about their love life and is designed to be drawn once a day.
The second is situation-based. It lets users choose a concern such as unrequited love, reconciliation, waiting for a reply, or a long-distance relationship before drawing a more relevant message.
The result is not presented as a guaranteed prediction. It is intended to be a small prompt for reflection—a way to pause, recognize what someone is feeling, and think about what they may want to do next.
Why the idea works in Japan
One important lesson from this project is that a product does not always need to teach users a completely new behavior.
Japanese users already understand the basic idea of omikuji. The concept carries cultural meaning, and many people know what to expect before opening the page.
That familiarity reduces the amount of explanation the product needs.
The user does not have to learn a new system, complete a long onboarding process, or understand a technical feature. They only need to think about their current situation and draw a fortune.
At the same time, moving 恋みくじ online changes the context in useful ways.
A physical omikuji is usually connected to a visit to a shrine or temple. An online love fortune is available when someone is alone at night, waiting for a message, thinking about a person, or feeling unsure about a relationship.
That moment matters.
People rarely search for relationship guidance when everything feels clear. They search when they are uncertain. A product that can respond immediately to that emotional moment has a natural reason to exist.
This taught me that cultural familiarity and digital convenience can be a strong combination. The underlying idea may be old, but the context in which people use it can be completely new.
Why I built a web app instead of a native app
I chose the web because I wanted the first interaction to be almost effortless.
Installing an app is a significant commitment for something a person may initially use out of curiosity. A web experience removes that barrier.
A visitor can open the page, draw a 恋みくじ, save the result, and leave without creating an account.
The web also makes sharing easier. Someone can send the URL to a friend or share a saved result through social media without asking the other person to install anything.
This approach has limitations. Native apps can provide notifications, stronger retention mechanics, and a more controlled interface. But for this product, accessibility was more important than building an aggressive retention system.
The product should feel like a place people choose to visit, not something constantly asking them to return.
Another advantage of the web is search discovery. Each supporting article can explain a different part of the experience: what 恋みくじ means, how online omikuji differs from shrine omikuji, how to interpret a result, and why certain messages feel emotionally relevant.
The main product offers a short experience, while the surrounding content gives search engines and new visitors enough context to understand it.
Search intent mattered more than technical complexity
The core product is technically straightforward. Its growth did not come from using the most advanced technology.
It came from understanding a specific intent.
People searching for 恋みくじ are usually not looking for a long academic explanation. They want to draw a fortune.
This means the product page needs to answer the user’s main intention quickly. The action should be visible, the page should work well on mobile devices, and unnecessary steps should be removed.
However, a page that contains only a button and a random result provides very little context. It may be convenient for existing users, but it is harder for new visitors—and search engines—to understand.
Over time, I added clearer explanations around the experience:
What a love fortune is
How to draw one
Why the service recommends one draw per day
How users can interpret a message
The difference between the daily and situation-based versions
Privacy information
Answers to common questions
Related articles about the history and meaning of omikuji
The goal was not to fill the page with keywords. The goal was to answer the questions a first-time visitor might naturally have.
This balance is important. The action should remain simple, but the page should also provide enough trust and context to stand on its own.
Why I recommend only one draw per day
Many digital products try to maximize the number of actions a user performs.
For a fortune product, it would be easy to let people draw repeatedly until they receive the answer they want. That might increase short-term engagement, but it would weaken the meaning of each result.
Ichizendo recommends drawing one official 恋みくじ per day.
This is not a technical restriction designed to create artificial scarcity. It is a product principle.
If users can immediately replace an uncomfortable message, the result becomes disposable. When they are encouraged to keep one message for the day, they are more likely to think about why it affected them.
Sometimes a message feels encouraging. Sometimes it feels uncomfortably accurate. Sometimes it does not seem relevant until later.
The small amount of friction gives the experience weight.
This decision also helped me think differently about engagement. More clicks are not always the same as more value. In some products, the right limit can make an interaction more meaningful.
What I learned from 4.9 million draws
The largest lesson is that emotional relevance often matters more than feature quantity.
Users do not return because the product has dozens of settings. They return because they are still thinking about a person or a relationship.
The same user may interpret the same sentence differently depending on what happened that day. The value is created partly by the words and partly by the user’s current emotional context.
I also learned that short content is difficult to create well.
A long article has room for explanation and nuance. A short fortune may have only one or two sentences. Every word affects the tone.
If the message is too vague, it feels meaningless. If it is too specific, it may not apply to enough people. If it is too positive, it feels dishonest. If it is unnecessarily harsh, it can make someone feel worse without offering any useful perspective.
The most effective messages usually do three things:
Recognize a feeling or situation.
Offer a different perspective.
Suggest a small, realistic next step.
Another lesson was the importance of privacy.
Relationship concerns can be deeply personal. Requiring a name, email address, birthday, or detailed personal story would create unnecessary hesitation.
The product therefore works without registration or identity information. A visitor can use it privately and leave.
That simplicity is not an absence of features. It is part of the product’s value.
Sharing became part of the experience
Some users want to keep a result because a particular sentence feels meaningful. Others want to send it to a friend or post it on social media.
For that reason, results can be saved as images and shared.
This creates a natural distribution loop, but it is different from a conventional referral program. Users are not sharing because they receive credits or unlock a feature. They share because the message expresses something they were already feeling.
That distinction matters.
The best sharing mechanism is often not a “Share this product” button. It is an output that people genuinely want to show someone else.
For Ichizendo, the result itself became that output.
How the product makes money
The service is currently free and primarily supported by advertising.
This model keeps the main experience accessible, but it requires care. Advertising can easily interrupt an emotionally focused product, especially on a mobile screen.
The challenge is not simply adding more ad placements. It is finding a balance between sustainability and trust.
If advertisements make the page feel crowded or prevent users from reaching the main action quickly, short-term revenue can damage long-term usage.
I am also considering additional paid experiences in the future, but I do not want to place the basic daily 恋みくじ behind a paywall.
The free experience is the foundation of the product. Any paid feature should add genuine depth or convenience rather than remove something users already have.
What I plan to build next
The current experience was designed primarily for Japanese users. One of the biggest questions now is whether the concept can work for people who did not grow up with omikuji culture.
A direct translation may not be enough.
Japanese users already understand the emotional and cultural context of drawing a fortune. English-speaking users may need a clearer explanation of what Koi Mikuji is, how it should be interpreted, and why drawing only once per day matters.
This makes localization a product-design challenge, not just a language task.
I am also exploring ways to improve the situation-based version, make saved results more personal, and allow users to contribute their own carefully reviewed messages.
At the same time, I want to preserve the simplicity that helped the original product grow.
Every new feature creates a risk: the product can become more capable but less understandable.
The biggest lesson
Before building this product, it would have been easy to dismiss the idea as too small, too local, or not technical enough.
But narrow products have an important advantage: they can be specific.
Ichizendo Koi Mikuji does not try to solve every relationship problem. It offers one simple experience for one recognizable emotional moment.
That clarity helped people understand it, search for it, use it without instructions, and share it with others.
More than 4.9 million draws later, I am still learning how far a culturally specific product can travel without losing what made it meaningful in the first place.
I would be interested to hear from other Indie Hackers:
Have you built a product around a local cultural behavior?
How did you explain it to users in other countries?
Would you translate a product like this directly, or redesign the experience for a global audience?
