I just launched my first iOS app as a solo developer — Here's What I Learned.

Hey Indie Hackers!

My name is Aaron and I recently launched Capsule: AI Expense Tracker to the App Store. This is my first launched product and I want to share the story while it's still fresh.

The Problem I Was Solving:

I'm a solo developer and I kept running into the same frustrating cycle — receipts stuffed in pockets, miles never logged, and that annual tax-time panic trying to reconstruct months of expenses from memory. Every existing solution felt bloated, expensive, or built for teams of 500, not someone like me. I travel for work quite often, so you can imagine how fast I could stack up receipts and expenses.

So I built what I actually wanted.

What Capsule Does:
Snap a photo of any receipt and Claude AI reads it instantly; merchant, date, total, category, and every line item; all organized automatically. No manual entry. No spreadsheets. Just open, snap, done.

On top of receipt scanning:

• Google Maps mileage tracking with auto-calculated (or editable) deductions
• Export to PDF, CSV, or XML with AI-written summaries
• Group expenses by client, project, or trip
• Encrypted cloud storage and RLS
• Built-in community feedback system so users drive the roadmap

The Tech Stack:
React Native + Expo, Claude API, Supabase, RevenueCat, Google Maps SDK.

The Business Model

• Free tier — 15 captures/month, 3 exports, 14-day history.
• Pro at $2.99/month or $19.99/year for unlimited everything.

I priced it deliberately low because the goal was to actually solve the problem for as many people as possible, not build a paywall. I wanted users to actually experience something better than the enterprise-level expensing workflow that they already dislike, and frankly, dread.

Now, for the most important part...

What I learned building this:

Claude AI is genuinely remarkable for receipt parsing. Watching it read a crumpled, faded receipt in 2 seconds and extract every field correctly never gets old. Building the app was the easiest part for me; I have a technical background and grew up with the internet, so that wasn't the hard part. The hard part came after the app was built and working. The difficult part was trying to figure out how I was going to notify the world that this even existed. What was I going to do, walk down the streets with a sign, go to every website blog I can think of and start writing blurbs? Am I going to pay for $100's, even $1000's of dollars in ads on multiple platforms? It all seemed improbable and honestly it was a little bit anxiety inducing...

So, a little about me, I have an engineering background... What do I know about marketing? (I had to laugh a little bit, because the answer is absolutely nothing). So, as I was nearing completion of my app, I spent more time reading literature about marketing, watching lectures about driving organic growth, and consulting with anyone I had ever known about "What do you think I should do?"

One booked that actually helped me that I will namedrop here is called "Launch" by Jeff Walker. His read was very insightful, but other than that, I didn't ever find THE answer. And I think that is because there is not necessarily a right or wrong way to do this, there is only the way you choose and how you execute on it.

I spent days, weeks, multiple months thinking of my plan and I didn't only decide until the day of the launch... And that was to try a mixture of everything until I find that one outperforms the others and slowly knock those off the list. Not ideal, I know, but in my position, it makes the most sense to me analytically until I really resonate with a particular method.

If anyone has recommendations, I am absolutely all ears. I have found a couple amazing nuggets on Indie Hackers in the growth groups. But I will tell you something, all in all, I have enjoyed the experience in all of this. I set a goal, challenged myself, and I learned more than I thought I could have along the way, and ultimately, the knowledge is the reward.

As we stand today, I am on Day 2 of my launch, and I have achieved my first organic customer. (My first customer ever was my Mom, Haha thanks Mom!)

Revenue: $20 — Day 2. Let's see where this goes!

I'd love honest feedback from this community specific to marketing tactics; And if you're a freelancer or small business owner, what's your current expense tracking solution? What is the biggest criticism for any of the technology you already have in your workflow?

App Store link here for anyone that wants to check it out - Maybe we can collaborate or work on something together one day!

Thanks, Indie Hackers!