I built an app to stop infinite scrolling… then launched it on Product Hunt (#38). Here’s what actually happened.

For the last 9 months I’ve been building a side project during nights and weekends while working full-time as a data engineer and doing a PhD.

The idea came from a problem I couldn’t solve for myself.
I’d open YouTube Shorts or TikTok “for 5 minutes”…
and suddenly it was 2 hours later.

App blockers never worked for me.
Deleting the apps never worked either.

So I started wondering:

What if short-form video simply wasn’t infinite?

That’s how Scrollified started.

I built a small app called Scrollified:
https://scrollified.com

Instead of an endless algorithmic feed, it gives you:

• Curated videos by category
• A finite number of videos
• When you reach the end… that’s it for the day
• Times up mode for setting a limit on how many videos to watch per day
• Focus mode for locking into a specific category
• A built in watch counter which counts how many videos you’ve watched after 1-2s of playback

No infinite scroll.
No algorithm.
No engagement tracking.
Videos refresh every 24 hours UTC.

Just watch a few videos and move on with your day.

I launched it last week on the iOS App Store and this week on Product Hunt.

Some early numbers from the first few days:

• Product Hunt launch: #38 on a busy Wednesday with 300+ launches
• App Store conversion rate: ~15%
• Users so far from UK, US, Germany, Hong Kong and Canada
• 3 App Store reviews (all 5⭐ so far)
• 2 paying subscribers ($1.99/month)

Nothing crazy yet but honestly seeing strangers download something I built in my spare time has been pretty surreal.

One thing that surprised me during the launch was how much distribution matters.

You can build something useful… but getting people to even see it is a completely different skill.

What makes it even trickier is that the people who would probably benefit most from something like this tend to live in communities like Reddit, places where people actively talk about doomscrolling, productivity, and digital wellbeing.

But most of those forums are understandably very anti-promotion.

Which honestly makes sense, nobody likes spam.

So there’s this weird tension where I want to respect those communities, but they’re also exactly where the people struggling with this problem are.

Right now I’m still figuring out how to navigate that.

So I’m curious:

How are other indie founders thinking about distribution in 2026?

Reddit?
TikTok?
Product Hunt?
Something else entirely?

Would genuinely love to hear what has actually worked for people here.

Also happy to answer any questions about building this as a solo dev.

And if anyone wants to roast the app, go for it! I’m here to learn!

Also if any fellow indie hackers here want to try the premium version, I do have a few one-month codes I’m happy to share with builders who want to test it and give honest feedback.

Just remember to cancel before the month ends so you don’t get charged 🙂

Thanks for reading.