Introducing Groovy Music to the world
Hey Indie Hackers 👋
I’m Mehedi, a solo Android developer.
Since March 2024, I’ve been building Groovy Music Player — a modern local music player for Android. No team, no funding, just me shipping updates consistently.
Today it makes around $1,000/month, and the interesting part is:
👉 It’s 100% ad-free.
👉 Revenue comes only from one-time in-app purchases.
No subscriptions. No banners. No “watch to unlock.” Just optional premium features.
Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bitmavrick.groovy&hl=en
🎯 Why I Built It
Most music players I tried had one of these problems:
bloated UI
outdated design
too many ads
or missing small quality-of-life features
So I built the player I personally wanted:
clean UI, smooth performance, and zero ad annoyance.
💰 Monetization Approach
This is something I’m experimenting with and still questioning.
Model:
Free core experience
One-time purchases unlock premium features permanently
No subscriptions because:
I personally dislike subscription fatigue
I wanted users to feel they own the upgrade
I sometimes wonder:
Would subscriptions earn more? Probably.
Would users be happier long-term without them? I think so.
Still figuring out if this tradeoff scales.
📈 What Helped It Reach $1K/mo
Some things that seem to matter:
1. Constant updates
I ship improvements regularly. Users notice. Reviews mention it.
2. Listening to feedback
A lot of features came directly from user emails and reviews.
3. Polish over feature bloat
Instead of adding everything, I try to refine interactions, animations, and small UX details.
4. Being ad-free
Surprisingly, many users mention this specifically in reviews.
🤔 Where I’m Unsure
This is where I’d love advice:
How do you grow a utility app further once core features are solid?
Is it smarter to deepen existing features or expand sideways?
Any retention tactics that worked well for non-social, utility apps?
I feel like I’m past the “it works” stage and now in the “how do I scale without ruining it?” stage.
🛠 Stack
Native Android (Kotlin & Jetpack compose)
Modern Material 3 expressive design
Play Billing (one-time IAP)
Happy to share numbers, lessons, or mistakes if it helps others.
Would love your thoughts — especially from other solo mobile devs.
— Mehedi
