FAST - Calorie Counter

In June I almost managed to reach my next goal of 600€ per month. Together with income from advertising (361€ = 428$) and in-app purchases (238€ = 282$) I achieved total revenue of 599€ ( = 710$)...damn I'm missing only 1 € 😅

But it was still my best month so far and I'm on a good way to reach my goal of 1000€ MRR by the end of the year. The fact that Google has reduced its sales commission from 30% to 15% as of July alone will give me a boost.

Downloads: 16.106

Still far too little revenue for the number of downloads. I continue to work on increasing my customer retention rate. Version 5.0 of the app continues to make progress but it is taking a little longer than expected. I think I can release version 5.0 in August.

The next update will greatly improve the retention rate and hopefully the revenue :)

Hello dear IndieHackers,

a sign of life from me 👋

Yes my product is alive and it is being developed further. However, this year has been an up and down in terms of product development. At the beginning of the year I developed many new things for the app. However, after that I didn't do anything for 3 months because I completed further training in Microsoft Azure for my main job. This took longer and required more energy than expected. It is something I am struggling with a lot. On the one hand, I want to invest a lot of time in my app because I see potential in it, but I also don't want to put all my eggs in one basket and develop myself further in my main job. A battle on several fronts...how do you deal with it?

Here is a short summary about the current status

🥳 Since January, I have always earned at least $500 per month from my app. Even if the app still has many construction sites and many important functions are missing, it shows me that there is a market and the concept works. It's exciting to imagine where this could go if I focuse on just this one thing. 🤯

🏭In order to make greater progress now, I have adjusted my development strategy. In the past, I mostly implemented smaller things and released them quickly via an app update. But I have to take care of the big issues in order to grow further. Once these issues are closed, I can return to a more agile development model with faster updates. I am currently working on a major update with over 50 new features and improvements, which will hopefully be released in early August.

Product development continues to be where 95% of my time goes. Since my download numbers are already quite good from the current point of view, marketing activities are not necessary. However, my customer retention rate is quite poor, which I can improve with a better product.

It would be a lot of fun for me to get more involved in marketing and sometimes I even tempt myself to do so, but then I have to hold back, because first the app as such has to get better.

I would like to give you a short insight into my business at the end of the year and an outlook on 2021.

I learned a lot this year about how to turn my app from a hobby into a business. In terms of sales numbers, progress this year has been relatively slow but I've learned enough to make big strides in 2021.

My goal in 2021: 1000€ (= 1200$) MRR

The main focus in 2021 will be on user retention. According to Firebase, 15% of users currently continue to use the app after it has been installed for 1 day. This is still a very poor figure, but compared to 6-8% at the beginning of the year, it is progress. I am now familiar enough with analysis tools and A/B testing to further increase this value.

1-day user retention goal for 2021: 40%

Less focus will be on general marketing activities in the new year to increase the download numbers. At the beginning of the year I had about 1300 downloads per month and now at the end of the year 7500 downloads per month. This is a big progress. I will try to increase the download numbers with a better presentation of the app in the Play Store (better screenshots, new icon etc.). I do not plan any further marketing activities such as advertising in 2021. My biggest weakness is currently user retention and this is where I will invest most of my time.

Finally, the sales figures from 2020:

Total revenue: 1.187€ (= 1460$)

In January I earned 20€ and in the last 3 months I earned 100-150€ per month.

I wish all IndieHackers - members a successful and healthy new year 2021! 🎉

Today I launched the first discount promotion in the history of my app. I think this is an ideal time. My app is a calorie counter app and many people set a goal to lose weight in the new year. The discount promotion will last the whole month of January.

All premium versions are 25% off! I use Firebase InAppMessaging to alert users about the discount promotion.

I'm curious how many users will take advantage of this opportunity and whether especially users will buy a premium version who would not otherwise do so.

Do you have any discount promotions planned for the new year? I would be interested to know if you offer discount promotions and how much discount you give.

In the last months i faced a problem. 50% of the downloads of my apps come from less developed countries like Russia, Brazil, and generally regions like South America and Eastern Europe. However, 99% of InApp purchases come from Germany and the USA.

I thought about why this is so and came to the conclusion that the prices for these regions are too high. I come from Germany and have calculated the prices so that they are fair in Germany. But someone in Russia or Brazil has a much lower income.

I have taken my previous prices and reduced them by 40-50% for less developed regions. I use Firebase RemoteConfig to offer different prices in the respective regions.

Example:

12 month subscription in Germany: 6,99 Dollar (599 Ruble)

12 month subscription in Rusia: 3,99 Dollar (349 Ruble)

And guess what?

I had my first InApp purchase from Russia today! No one from Russia had ever bought the App before! :)

What do you think about this strategy? Do you have different prices for different regions?

October and September were shitty months. My Play Store - Rating dropped from 4,5 Stars to 3,8 Stars because of spammers. Even worse as mentioned in my post here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/my-play-store-rating-dropped-from-4-5-to-4-0-stars-how-to-handle-irrational-app-reviews-ef240621e9

The Play Store rating is so important for apps that it can mean the end for a successful app. It annoyed me a lot because there was no reason for the sudden number of bad ratings. Probably competitors wanted to annoy me.

But fortunately the spam wave has stopped and I was able to increase my rating to 4.1 stars again 🥳

This also motivated me to continue working on my idea. I also learned that you should not give up your big vision by minor setbacks.

I am currently tackling these things:

• I test new screenshots in an A/B test to increase the number of my downloads

• I run several A/B tests within the app to increase the retention rate. I try to increase the usability of the app. I've noticed that users quickly uninstall the app because they don't find or understand its features.

• I am testing new prices for the Premium Version in Tier 2 and Tier 3 countries like Russia and Brazil. In these countries I have a lot of downloads but nobody buys the premium version. This is probably because the previous prices are too expensive because they are calculated on the basis of Germany.

• Improvement of the food database with more choice, better search and the possibility to create more portion sizes.

• Many bug fixes

I am a bit late, because October is already coming to an end. But here are my figures for September :)

Ads revenue: 125€
In-App purchases: 52,61€

Total Revenue: 177,61€ (+25% compared to the August) = 210,69$

So basically I broke the $200 MRR barrier for the first time 🥳 My long-term goal until the end of 2021 is 1000€ MRR.

App Downloads: 8292 (+8% compared to August).

As you can see i have a lot of downloads but a low revenue for that number of downloads. LTV and Retention Rate are still my biggest struggles. I achieved slight improvements here in September but it is not yet reflected in the revenue numbers.

Today i want to share something to show that there are not always the good moments. This are my big 2 current fights with my side-business:

I will share my stats and revenue for september next sunday.

1. Bad reviews

I think users love my app. I get many positive reviews and even e-mails. Some people sent me an e-mail an say "Hey, i love your app it is so unique. I searched weeks for such an app". Even though my app is actually only a calorie counter, it follows a different concept and thus stands out from the crowd.

But this people are very lazy when it comes to leave a positive review in the Play Store. Dissatisfied users are more likely to leave a review.

I respond to every review even if its bad. I say "Hey, write me an e-mail so we can improve the app". But i think only 1% of this people actually write an e-mail.

Because of that my Play Store rating dropped from 4,5 Stars to 4,2 Stars. Because I only have about 400 ratings, every negative rating has a big influence on the overall rating.

Even more frustrating are users who leave a 4 star rating and write something like "I love this app". Then I ask myself why not 5 stars? Again, I answer every rating but get hardly any suggestions for improvement. These 4 - star ratings frustrate me even more than the 1 - star ratings.

What can i do better here? I am happy about suggestions

2.Bugs

Mobile development is a mess. Currently I hardly find time to work on new features because I have to fix bugs all the time.

I test each release on over 30 Android devices using Firebase Test Lab, but there are always some devices with bugs that do not occur on other devices. Especially for advanced features like camera, memory management, complex database and file logic there are many differences between device manufacturers and Android versions.

I currently have 98.5% users without crash but I would like to increase this to 99.5%.

Is 98,5% crash free users really so bad? Am I too perfectionist?

Many thanks to all that gave me their honest feedback about my app icon. The results are clear, I need in new icon! Thanks to @kalamera @pras2018 @imuz @anilkilic @divdev_ @mangooly @quinnzeda @BraydenTW @daronspence @girishw @Primer @zerotousers

I reached out to an designer on Fiverr with the first idea that comes in my head.

And here is the result:

https://ibb.co/fQbNq0W

The idea behind the icon:

• I wanted to maintain the green color because the UI of my App is green and it should match
• It should be flat / Material Design und very clear and simple
• I wanted to show that you can lose weight with my app. I was inspired by images like this one and thought it would be a good symbol to convey the purpose of my app: https://c8.alamy.com/compde/e7ad3b/erstaunt-junge-frau-in-alten-jeans-hose-nach-gewicht-zu-verlieren-e7ad3b.jpg
• The person on the icon hold an apple because i think an apple is a good symbol for health, fitness and weight loss

Why two icons with a male and a woman?

If we look at my users, we can see that 75% are female. My assumption is that the respective genders are more likely to feel addressed when their own gender is shown on the icon. Is my assumption correct? I will test it!

https://ibb.co/Q7WXPXf

Whats next?

I will do an A/B test and see if this icon performs better. I will share my results with you! I will also create other designs and have a graphic designer create them to find the best icon for my app.

What do you think? Is this new icon an improvement?

August was finally the first month that my app generated a 3-digit revenue. It doesn't seem like much but I'm still a bit proud and think that further increases are possible.

You have to know that my App FAST - Calorie Counter is already over 5 years old and most of the time has not generated any real and stable revenue at all. I developed the app mainly for myself first. It wasn't until April of this year that I decided to monetize the app. During this time I learned a lot about ASO (App Store Optimization) and marketing.

My long-term goal is a revenue of 1000€ (~1200$) per month. And with this milestone I think that this is also possible.

August revenue:

In-App Purchases = 54€
Ads = 88€

= 142€ = ~ 169$

Whats next?

In the coming months I will focus on customer retention rates and increase the LTV (Lifetime Value). I think that I can achieve the most here, because increasing the number of downloads is expensive and time-consuming.

I will also work on a landing page for my app and maybe become active in social media (Twitter, Facebook...)