Launched my app. Here's what I learnt from IH that made my 2nd better than my 1st.

I recently launched my 2nd app to the App Store: #trackit - Track Health & Pain.
I made it because I was unhappy with other pain trackers out there, and because sometimes I wanted to track things besides mood/pain, such as my energy levels.

Reading IH is great for picking up tips and tricks for growth. So I wanted to share quickly what I've tried that was based on IH posts, and how it's gone.

Don't build in silence

My 1st app was built in silence, and on launch I just waited around for people to find it on the App Store, and had no audience to support it.

With #trackit I posted videos of what I was building to subreddits such as r/AppleWatch and r/Chronicpain, and got really good feedback and interest!

Here's one of my posts on reddit

This not only helped me learn my audience, but was really inspiring too to see that others wanted something like this, which motivated me to keep building

Gather emails

Never had I done this before, and it seems so simple. When I was in beta I implemented an email signup form on my (very basic) website so that people could subscribe to updates about the app, which was actually what some of them asked for!

#trackit website

I took this further and added optional email signup to the onboarding on the app, and I get new signups every day.

This was something I learned and saw from all the posts on IH about email marketing, targeting the right audience, and the devout first supporters.

Whilst I have just under 100 contacts on Mailchimp, it's great to know I'm growing a collection of supporters that I can contact regularly.

Validate early

Not much to say on this, and I can agree that some ideas need work before being shown to people.

I worked hard to get an MVP out the door and on the App Store, however I haven't yet shared it on Facebook nor marketed it a whole lot. I plan on doing this a bit later when I have a few more key features.

However I've been super open now about discussing the idea with others, and trying to get feedback early. I always keep in mind that balance between perfectionism and taking too long.

Just give it a go

It's inspiring to listen to the podcast and see others putting themselves out there and sharing/monetising their creations that solve real world problems.

Definitely the theme I pick up from the IH podcast and How I Built This podcast, is to just give it a go.

Be smart, work hard, but have fun and take your time!