I spent 5 weeks building a beauty product tracker. I own zero beauty products.
I want to be upfront about something before you read any further: I am not the target user for the app I built.
I don't own moisturizer, foundation, or lip gloss. I couldn't tell you what a PAO symbol is without having looked it up for this project. I am a developer who identified a problem that genuinely affects millions of people — expired and forgotten beauty products silently draining money and cluttering shelves — and decided to solve it, despite having no personal entry point into the world I was building for.
That decision has taught me more about humility than five years of shipping software ever did.
ShelfCheck is a Flutter app that helps people track their beauty collection — what they own, when it expires, and what they're spending. The core loop is simple: scan a product's barcode, let the app fill in the details, set an expiry date, and get notified before it goes bad. I built it in five weeks using Flutter and Firebase, with Claude Code handling most of the heavy lifting on implementation. Total cost to get here: around $355 — two months of AI tooling, developer account fees, a domain, and a Google Workspace email so I looked slightly less like I was operating out of my basement.
The feature set is real. Barcode scanning with product lookup. AI-generated expiry estimates for products that don't have a clear date. Dual-view browsing across inventory and insights. Sharing options. Cloud sync. Notifications. Search and sort across your collection. For a solo developer with no prior mobile shipping experience, I am genuinely proud of what ended up in the build.
Here is where the pride ends and the honesty begins.
The app is currently sitting in Google Play's closed testing track. To advance to open testing — the step before public launch — I need 12 people to opt in to the testing program over 14 consecutive days. I have 5. I have been staring at that number for two weeks. I know, rationally, that 5 is not a large number. I know that 12 is not a large number either. And yet here we are, because the gap between 5 and 12 has started to represent something larger to me than a closed testing requirement. It represents the gap between building something and bringing something to market.
I understand code. I understand product decisions. I understand trade-offs between features and timelines. What I did not fully understand, until I was standing on the other side of a finished product with almost no one looking at it, is that distribution is its own entirely separate discipline — one I have no natural aptitude for and no authentic community standing in.
I have published 36 posts across TikTok, YouTube, X, and Pinterest in five weeks. My following across all four platforms combined is, generously, near zero. I have two waitlist signups. I know why: the people who need this app are not following a developer account on TikTok. They are in beauty subreddits and skincare Facebook groups and comment sections of influencers I have no relationship with. They speak a language I have spent five weeks learning secondhand. I am an outsider trying to open a door from the wrong side.
There is a version of this post where I frame five weeks of hard work and a stalled launch as a fun learning experience. I am going to resist that version because I do not think it would be honest and I do not think it would be useful. The honest version is that I am somewhere between confident and lost. I believe in the product. I believe the problem is real — the beauty industry has a waste problem, the average person has no idea what is expired on their shelf, and no existing app solves this cleanly. I did the research. The market exists. What I cannot figure out is how to reach it.
I am not the face of this product. I cannot post an authentic skincare routine or show off my collection because I don't have one. Every marketing playbook I find assumes some version of founder-as-user that simply doesn't apply to me. The community I need to reach has every reason to wonder why a developer with no beauty background built this, and I have to earn their trust from scratch.
And I am going to keep going anyway, because the only way I know how to respond to a problem I can't solve yet is to stay in the room until I can.
I'm not posting this to promote the app. Anyone curious will find it. What I actually want to know — from people who have been here, who have built something real for an audience they weren't part of — is this: how do you market to a community you have no authentic entry point into? Not theoretically. Not the generic "find where they hang out" advice. I know where they hang out. What I don't know is how to show up there as someone who built a tool for them without it immediately coming across as an outsider trying to sell something.
That's the question I'm sitting with this week. If you've solved a version of it, I'd genuinely like to hear how.
Interesting approach building a product for a problem you personally don’t have.
How did you research what beauty users actually struggle with? Did you talk to people or analyze communities first?
the idea came from watching women around me — friends and people close to me who were heavily into beauty and skincare. products would get forgotten at the back of shelves, things would expire that they definitely would have used if theyd remembered they had them, duplicates bought without realizing they already owned the same thing.
it happened consistently enough that i started asking questions and realized there was no good way to track any of it.
that led me to the communities to validate whether it was a wider problem — and r/SkincareAddiction, r/MakeupRehab, r/PanPorn all confirmed the same frustrations at scale. the pattern was consistent enough that i felt confident the problem was real before building anything.
not being a beauty consumer myself probably helped with the research — i was reading those communities looking for signal rather than confirmation of something i already believed.
The "I'm not the target user" problem is actually less dangerous than the opposite — when you ARE your own user, you end up building for an audience of one and assuming your preferences generalize.
The fact that you got 20 beta testers early is exactly right. The question now is less "do they want this?" and more "which 3 specific things do they keep coming back for?" A beauty tracker can mean inventory management, routine tracking, ingredient analysis, or product discovery. The people who pay will be the ones where you nail exactly one of those.
On the "I don't know the community" problem: the beauty community on TikTok and YouTube is enormous and genuinely engaged. If you can get one mid-size creator to feature even a screenshot in a "my skincare routine" video, the organic traffic tends to be very targeted.
What's the one feature your beta testers ask about most that you haven't built yet?
the "building for an audience of one" risk is real and probably underappreciated - the outsider constraint forces a kind of epistemic humility that's easy to skip when you assume you already know the problem.
the one feature question is a good one. expiry tracking and inventory are the core, but the thing that comes up most is knowing what to use first - not just what's expiring, but some sense of priority or rotation. that's not built yet and it keeps surfacing.
this is exactly where paid channels become an equalizer though. you don't need to be a beauty influencer to run a small meta ad targeting people who follow skincare brands - the algorithm does the community access for you. even $5/day with a simple ugc-style video showing expired products cluttering a shelf could get you in front of the right people way faster than trying to earn credibility in beauty subreddits from scratch. have you tested any paid acquisition yet or has it been purely organic?
purely organic so far - the reasoning being that paid before launch just burns budget without a conversion endpoint worth sending people to. once the app is live and the store listing is optimized, that changes.
the meta targeting angle is interesting though. the "people who follow skincare brands" audience is probably pretty clean for this use case. ugc-style expired products content is also exactly what's already performing organically on TikTok so the creative isn't a stretch.
what kind of CPIs were you seeing on meta for a consumer app in a similar niche?
The authentic outsider problem is real but the answer isn't to become an insider — it's to find one insider who genuinely loves the product and help THEM tell the story.
You don't need to be credible in the beauty community. You need one person who is, who had the specific problem you solved, and will say so publicly. One authentic user voice in r/SkincareAddiction or a beauty Facebook group does more than 36 developer posts on TikTok ever could — because they're already trusted.
The practical version: go through your 5 testers. Find the one who's most engaged. DM them, ask if they'd be willing to post in their own community about it. Offer nothing in return — just ask. A single genuine post from an insider gets you more visibility than any amount of your own content.
This is the 'find your first evangelist' move. It's less about distribution and more about transferring credibility. You can't earn their trust directly, but you can find someone who already has it and give them something worth sharing.
(Ran into the same problem building tryrecoverkit.com for SaaS founders — not an insider. The first real traction came from one founder who had the specific pain talking about it publicly, not from us.)
the evangelist framing reframes the whole problem in a useful way - i've been thinking about distribution as something i have to do myself, but credibility transfer is a different move entirely.
the practical constraint right now is that my 5 testers are people i know personally, so the organic "they found it and love it" story isn't really there yet. but the principle holds for the first wave of real users post-launch - the question to ask isn't "how do i reach the beauty community" but "who in the beauty community already has standing and had this exact problem."
recoverkit is an interesting case because saas founders on IH are unusually willing to talk publicly about their tools. did you find the evangelist intentionally or did they just show up?
Fellow Flutter dev here. That 12-tester Google Play requirement is such a weird bottleneck. It's designed to prevent spam but it punishes solo devs who don't have a built-in audience. I've gone through it a few times now and what worked for me was posting in Flutter/dev communities asking for testers rather than trying to find actual target users for closed testing. The goal at that stage is just clearing the gate, not validating the product.
The $355 total cost is impressive for what you described. Building something outside your own domain is bold and honestly sometimes gives you a clearer perspective because you're forced to actually research instead of assuming you know what users want. The risk is that without that personal pain point, you might optimize for features that look good on paper but don't match real workflows.
One thing I'd suggest: find 3-4 people who actually have cluttered beauty shelves and watch them use it. Not ask them what they think, watch them. The gap between what people say they'd use and what they actually open twice is enormous.
the "clearing the gate vs. validating" distinction is the right way to think about it - i've been conflating the two. dev communities for testers makes sense at this stage, the goal is just the number.
the watch-don't-ask point is something i've been thinking about a lot. i've done some of that informally with people around me but not in any structured way. the gap between "yes i'd use that" and actually opening it on day 3 is where most apps die and i know it. something to fix before i over-index on feature requests from early users.
The "not the target user" build is genuinely underrated as a forcing function — you can't rely on intuition, so you over-index on structure and user feedback. That discipline usually produces better product thinking than building for yourself.
Building in a similar "outside looking in" position with flompt — a visual AI prompt builder. Zero personal need for it initially, turned into a real tool people use. The gap between "I don't use this" and "I understand this deeply" closes faster than you'd think.
Would love to compare notes on the no-target-user journey. Also, a ⭐ on github.com/Nyrok/flompt would mean a lot — solo open-source founder here 🙏
the discipline point is real - not being able to rely on intuition forces a kind of rigor that probably makes the product better in the long run.
will check out flompt - the visual prompt builder space is interesting. there's a massive gap between how people who've been deep in AI tools think about prompting and how most people actually use these models - basically as a slightly smarter search engine. anything that makes the structure visible probably does more to bridge that gap than any amount of "here's how to write better prompts" content.
This is going to be my reality in a few weeks. I'm building a wardrobe app — adjacent enough to beauty that the user overlap is real — and I'm the user, which honestly doesn't make the "how do I find the first 12" problem any easier.
The closed testing wall is brutal because it's such an arbitrary small number that somehow feels enormous. Would love to follow along as you figure it out — are you planning to post updates on what actually moves the needle?
following for sure - the wardrobe and beauty overlap is real, i've seen the same accounts show up in both spaces.
yes, planning to post updates as things move. the closed testing wall is genuinely weird because the effort to go from 0 to 5 felt proportional, but 5 to 12 has this outsized psychological weight. will report back on what actually works when i find it.
what communities are you planning to focus on for the wardrobe side?
For wardrobe I'm looking at r/femalefashionadvice and r/capsulewardrobe. r/declutter would probably work for you too, people there talk about expired and forgotten products constantly.
Most of those subs have strict rules about links and promoting your own stuff, which kind of kills the organic play anyway. What I've been thinking about instead: find posts where someone explicitly says they need exactly what the app solves, then DM them directly. Not cold outreach, more like responding to a signal they already sent publicly.
Have you tried the DM approach at all? Curious if it actually converts or just gets ignored.
r/declutter is a good call i hadn't considered - the overlap with forgotten/expired products is real even if it's not a beauty sub.
haven't tried the DM approach yet. the "responding to a signal they already sent publicly" framing makes it feel less like cold outreach though - that's a meaningful distinction. curious to try it post-launch when there's actually something to send them to. did you test it yet or still in the thinking stage?
still thinking stage, but planning it pre-launch not post — partly because it might be how i solve the same 12-tester wall you're hitting.
i've been lurking in r/capsulewardrobe and there are threads where people literally describe the problem wearli is built for. the plan is to DM them directly when we open testing — not a pitch, just "you said you need this, we're about to find out if we built it, want to be one of the first to tell us?" responding to a signal they already sent publicly.
can't post in those threads because of self-promo rules so DM is the only real option anyway.
I really respect the honesty in this post. The “distribution is a separate discipline” realization hits a lot of builders after launch.
I ran into something similar recently after launching my first app. Building the product felt like the hard part for months, but once it was live I realized that getting it in front of the right people is almost an entirely different skill set.
One thing that stood out in your situation is that you already know exactly where the audience is (beauty communities). That’s actually a huge advantage. From what I’ve seen, tools built by outsiders can still work if they show up in those communities with curiosity rather than promotion, sharing the problem you’re trying to solve and asking for feedback instead of pushing the product immediately.
Also worth remembering that 5 testers isn’t nothing. It means at least a few people were interested enough to opt in before the product is even public.
Getting from 5 → 12 probably isn’t a marketing problem yet, it’s just a small discovery problem. Sometimes one engaged community post can close that gap quickly.
the "distribution is a separate discipline" thing really does only click once you're standing on the other side of it - no amount of reading about it beforehand actually prepares you for the feeling.
the curiosity over promotion framing is exactly what i've been trying to hold onto in the communities i'm engaging with. it's a slower play but you can tell the difference between an account that's been genuinely present and one that showed up to drop a link.
what kind of app did you launch if you don't mind me asking - and did the community approach end up being what moved the needle for you?
Yeah this hit pretty close to home for me.
I just launched my first app after about 9 months of building it nights and weekends while doing a PhD and working full time. The product part felt hard… but the distribution part has been a completely different challenge.
The app is called Scrollified – it’s basically a short-form video app without infinite scroll or recommendation algorithms. You browse by category (finance, tech, self-improvement, etc.), there’s a video counter, and optional “time’s up” and focus modes so you can actually stop instead of falling into the rabbit hole.
What surprised me the most after launching is exactly what you mentioned: communities can instantly tell the difference between someone who’s been present vs someone who just shows up to drop a link.
The few downloads and users I’ve gotten so far have almost entirely come from conversations, not posts. Reddit comments, replying to people, answering questions about the build, etc.
It’s definitely slower than just blasting links everywhere, but it feels more sustainable long term.
9 months nights and weekends alongside a PhD is a serious commitment - the "conversations not posts" download source is also a useful data point that validates the approach.
the Scrollified concept is interesting because it's fighting the product design of every competitor at once - did you find the people who actually want that are easy to find or do they not know they want it until they try it?
The thing about the distribution angle for Scrollified is that most of the user base who could potentially love it, live on Reddit / X and Reddit is historically known for not liking self promotion. So that's what makes it tough, I see posts in r/Productivity all the time about users who struggle with scrolling addiction but I can't post there.
Once I saw a comment on a YouTube video that said "I wish YouTube would give us what we want instead of just random videos." - and it got around 30k likes with loads of comments. I was quite shocked.
So far my conversion has been decent, 15% of 500 users who look a my product page choose to download, but the retention is still low around 2%.
I intend to add way more features to increase not only the value proposition but also more genuine benefits to the user, but so far most traction has been through social media (I don't have a big following) and word of mouth. I'd be open to exploring any ideas? Appreciate the discussion by the way, always great meeting fellow builders!
15% conversion on the landing page is actually solid - that retention gap is the real puzzle to solve first though, because more features won't stick if the core habit loop isn't forming yet. have you been able to talk to any of the 2% who do retain to understand what's different about how they're using it?
the small following thing resonates - i'm in the same spot right now, trying to figure out how to build an audience before launch without a existing base to pull from. feels like the distribution problem has a prerequisite distribution problem.
The thing is because my app is heavy on zero party privacy I don't actually know who my users are, as I only see aggregated app store stats. I may lean into feedback forms within the app though! If you'd like to check out the app give me a shout, can hook you up with a 1 month free promo code. Would love your feedback or even a roast lol
Same boat but different industry. I build tools for bookkeepers and accountants - also not exactly a glamorous niche to market in. The thing that actually worked for distribution wasn't content or ads, it was showing up in the communities where they already complain about the problem and just... being useful. No pitch. For weeks. Eventually someone asks "so what do you actually do?" and that question is worth more than any landing page.
Your $355 build cost is genuinely impressive though. Most people spend that on a logo.
the "so what do you actually do" moment is the whole game - i've been doing exactly this in a few beauty subreddits for the past few weeks and you can feel when the account has enough history to say something without it landing weird. not there yet but getting close.
bookkeeping tools is a great example of this working in a low-glamour niche. did you find the communities were welcoming once you had standing, or did it take a while for them to trust that you weren't just there to sell something?
This is one of the most self-aware posts I've read on here. The gap between 5 and 12 testers being emotionally bigger than the number suggests is something every solo dev has felt but few articulate this well.
On your actual question about marketing to a community you're not part of — I think the answer is hiding in your post. You wrote something genuinely compelling about a problem you don't personally have, and people are engaging with it. That's the skill. The beauty subreddits aren't going to care that you don't own moisturizer if you show up saying "I noticed my girlfriend throws away $200 of expired stuff every year and built something about it." That's more relatable than another influencer doing a sponsored haul.
One tactical thing: the Google Play 12-tester requirement is a distribution problem disguised as a compliance step. Have you tried posting in r/PanPorn or r/MakeupRehab specifically asking for Android beta testers? Those communities are obsessed with tracking product usage and expiry. Frame it as "I built a free tool to track this stuff, need 7 more testers to get it on the Play Store" and I bet you clear that bar in a day or two.
the observation about the gap between 5 and 12 feeling bigger than it is - that's exactly it. the number is small but it's the last thing standing between you and the clock starting, so it carries disproportionate weight.
the reframe on marketing to a community you're not part of is genuinely useful. i've been thinking about it as a disadvantage but you're right that the outsider perspective is part of what makes the IH post land. "i noticed this problem and built something about it" is a more honest story than pretending to be the target user.
on the reddit tester suggestion - i've been holding off on any ShelfCheck mentions in those subs until launch because i'm still building karma and don't want to poison the well before i have standing there. but the framing you're describing is exactly how i'd do it when the time comes - that "free tool, need 7 more testers" angle is low friction enough that it would probably work.
This really resonates. I'm building a desktop tool for designers — a component library that works across Figma, Webflow, and HTML. I use Figma and Webflow myself, but I'm a developer, not a designer. So I face a lighter version of your outsider problem: I understand the tools technically, but I don't think like a designer when it comes to workflow pain points.
What's helped me: lurking in design communities for weeks before saying anything. Reading how people actually describe their frustrations in their own words, not in the way I'd frame the problem as a builder. The gap between "I need a component library" (how I'd say it) and "I keep rebuilding the same navbar for every client" (how they say it) taught me more about positioning than any marketing guide.
The $355 total cost is impressive. And the honesty in this post is the kind of thing that builds trust way faster than a polished launch campaign. Rooting for you.
the gap between how you'd describe the problem and how they actually describe it is such a precise way to put it — that's exactly what weeks of reading communities before posting anything taught me too. "i have so many expired products" is not how anyone talks about it. "i found a moisturizer from 2021 hiding behind everything" is.
the cross-tool component library sounds like it solves something real — that client navbar problem is one i've heard designers complain about constantly. good luck with it.
Thanks — that's encouraging to hear from someone who's actually in the design tool world. The navbar problem is exactly the kind of thing I keep hearing about.
Your point about language is spot on too. I've been describing Pastable as a "cross-tool component library" but nobody uses those words when they're frustrated. They say "I just rebuilt that same header for the third time this month." I need to get better at that.
Good luck with ShelfCheck — the barcode scanning angle is clever. That's the kind of friction reduction that makes people actually use a tool instead of just bookmarking it.
"I just rebuilt that same header for the third time this month" is already your positioning - that's the landing page headline right there, not "cross-tool component library."
the barcode thing is exactly what you said about friction - the moment the effort to add a product drops to zero is the moment people actually build the habit. good luck with Pastable!
if you send me the link, im open to testing it for you.
additionally, while i don't have an answer to your question, wondering if you can add more value to the app (the existing value is good) - how to use the product, before/after, how did the user like the product after using it - in turn building an intelligence for the user for future purchases...
appreciate it! the beta is invite-only so just email me the Google account you want added to [email protected] and ill get you set up-
the feature direction you're describing is something i've been thinking about too — right at the core is expiry tracking and inventory, but the layer on top of that, how did this product actually work for you, would you buy it again, is where it gets interesting. turning a personal collection into something that actually informs future purchases rather than just cataloguing what you own. that's the longer term vision and hearing it come up organically is a good signal that it's worth building toward.
I've also created a fate engine, but I have absolutely no knowledge of the field and have never used it. In fact, I've found that an objective perspective can be helpful. Of course, there are pros and cons, but overcoming them is our mission!
This is one of the most honest posts I've read on IH. And your core question — "how do you market to a community you have no authentic entry point into?" — is the right question.
I'm in the opposite situation and it's taught me something relevant to yours. I'm a solo founder building an AI tool that helps founders think through hard decisions. I AM my target user. I use it every week on my own business. And yet — I still have zero paying users.
Being the target user gives you authenticity, but it doesn't automatically give you distribution. You and I have the same gap, just from different angles.
One thing your post made me realize: you said "I cannot post an authentic skincare routine because I don't have one." But you DO have an authentic story — this one. A developer who cared enough about a real problem to spend 5 weeks and $355 building something for people he'll never be. That's not a weakness to hide. That's the hook.
The beauty community doesn't need another influencer. They might actually trust a developer who says "I built this because the problem is real, not because I'm selling a lifestyle."
Rooting for you.
the "same gap from different angles" framing is genuinely clarifying — i had been treating the outsider problem as unique to my situation but you're right that authenticity and distribution are separate problems that each require their own solution.
the reframe on what counts as an authentic story is the one i'll be sitting with. i kept thinking i needed to earn entry into the beauty community through product knowledge. but the actual story — a developer who saw a real problem and cared enough to build for it — is already something. it just requires saying it directly instead of trying to camouflage the outsider angle.
curious about your AI decision tool — what's your current approach to finding the first paying user when you're too close to the problem to see the distribution gap clearly?
Glad that reframe landed. Your story IS the hook — own it.
To answer your question honestly: I'm figuring it out in real time.
Here's what I'm trying this week:
Posted my actual usage story on Indie Hackers today — not "here's my features" but "I asked my own tool how to get users and here's what the philosophers said": https://www.indiehackers.com/post/i-built-an-ai-where-philosophers-debate-my-startup-decisions-heres-what-they-said-about-getting-my-first-10-users-7051d85208
Commenting on posts like yours where founders share real struggles — because the people who need my tool are the same people writing these posts
Waiting for someone to try it and tell me what surprised them (or didn't)
The uncomfortable truth: I've been building for months and I'm still at zero paying users. But the last few days on IH taught me something — the conversations ARE the distribution. Not ads, not directories, not growth hacks.
If you want to try it with a real decision you're wrestling with:
https://arcanon-ai.vercel.app/
And honestly — I think you should post your ShelfCheck story exactly the way you wrote it here. That post IS your marketing. The beauty subreddits might respond to a developer who says "I don't own a single beauty product but I built this because the waste problem is real" better than you think.
the philosophers debating your startup decisions is a genuinely great framing — that post title alone made me click. going to try it with a real decision this week.
and you're right about the conversations being the distribution. this thread has taught me more about positioning in an hour than i'd worked out in five weeks of building. the subreddit angle with the honest outsider story is something i'm going to test sooner than i'd planned.
That means a lot. Looking forward to hearing what surprises you.
And go post that outsider story — seriously. Rooting for ShelfCheck.
Interesting idea. Curious what made you pick beauty products if you don’t personally use them? Was it based on market demand or just something you wanted to experiment with?
honestly my first reaction was that it was kind of funny — the idea that someone with a full collection of products couldn't tell you when half of them were opened or whether they were still good. it seemed like a bit of chaos.
but the more i watched it happen with the women around me — friends, people close to me who were genuinely into beauty and skincare — the more i realized it wasnt funny, it was just invisible. modern life moves fast and nobody has a system for this stuff. the problem was real, it just didnt look like a problem from the outside until you looked closer.
the market research confirmed it at scale. but the original signal was just paying attention.
Building for a market you don’t belong to is bold, could lead to really fresh thinking.
exactly — waiting for the unprompted ask is such a cleaner signal than counting any engagement metric. 3 weeks of holding the line is impressive, most give up around week 2. the moment someone asks unprompted = the product is pulling on its own.
The 5-to-12 tester gap is painfully real. I build mobile apps solo too and that Google Play closed testing requirement is one of those things that sounds trivial until you're actually staring at the number not moving.
A few things that worked for me: beauty/skincare subreddits are full of people who'd genuinely find this useful. r/SkincareAddiction, r/MakeupAddiction, r/PanPorn (people who track using up products). Don't pitch it as "test my app," pitch it as "I built a thing that solves the expired product problem, looking for early feedback." Those communities love tools that help them organize their collections.
Also, the fact that you're not your own target user isn't necessarily a weakness. It means you're less likely to build for yourself and ignore what actual users want. Just make sure you're talking to those users constantly now that it exists.
The $355 total cost is impressive for what you shipped. That's a real product.
the subreddit angle is already in motion — been building presence in exactly those communities for a few weeks now, which is part of why the post framing felt important to get right. the "I built a thing that solves X" pitch is much cleaner than "please test my app" and thats a useful distinction to have spelled out.
the outsider-as-advantage point keeps coming up in this thread and i think its genuinely true — the risk is assuming you understand the problem well enough without staying close to actual users, which is something im actively trying to avoid.
the $355 number surprised a lot of people. flutter and firebase do a lot of heavy lifting when you let them.
The honest version of this post is more useful than most — thank you for writing it.
I'm in a related situation with RecoverKit. I built a Stripe payment recovery tool for subscription SaaS founders. I'm not a subscription SaaS founder with a large failed payment problem. I built it from research: industry benchmarks, IH posts where people mentioned bleeding money on failed payments, Pieter Levels' tweet about his own 20% recovery rate.
What I've found works when you can't lead with personal story: lead with the problem data instead.
Instead of 'I use this / it changed my life,' it's 'here are the numbers that tell you this problem exists for you.' For beauty products: the average person owns X products, Y% expire unused, average household waste is /year. I'd bet some of those numbers are genuinely surprising and shareable.
For your specific distribution problem — beauty subreddits and skincare groups — I'd suggest starting by answering existing questions, not promoting the app. Find threads asking 'how do you track expiry dates?' and answer the question honestly. Your app might come up naturally or it might not. But you become a trusted voice in the community first, and that trust compounds.
The outsider angle can actually become an asset: 'I built this because I watched my partner throw away 00 of expired products and realized there was no app that solved this cleanly' is a more honest pitch than most founders make.
Honestly, around 10 comments in — and I was strict with myself: zero self-promotion, just adding something genuinely useful to the thread. The green light wasn't a timer, it was when someone replied and specifically asked 'so what are you building?' That felt like earned curiosity rather than me forcing it. Before that point, mentioning RecoverKit would've felt like collecting a debt I hadn't earned yet.
"earned curiosity rather than collecting a debt" is a really clean way to put it — that reframe changes how the whole thing feels.
10 comments is a useful benchmark. im about 3 weeks into the beauty communities and have been holding the same line. the moment someone asks unprompted is the signal i'll be watching for now.
the data-first framing is something i genuinely needed to hear spelled out that clearly — i had been circling around it without naming it. going to rethink how i present the problem in the app store listing and early marketing copy with that lens.
the outsider angle as an asset is a reframe i hadnt considered. i had been treating it as a disclaimer to get past rather than a story worth leaning into. that one is going to stick.
curious what your experience has been with the community-first approach timing wise — how long before you felt like you had enough presence to mention RecoverKit without it feeling forced?