Low-key marketing of a DIY app

Musikalia already counts as a success for me: it is used almost daily by my kid, and it is the only iPad app that he is allowed to use almost any time, without limitations. I set out to build an app that would foster his interest in music, while not being addictive in the same way as almost every other mobile app for kids. Publishing it to a wider audience was always a secondary goal and not something I wanted to spend too much time on.

During development I shared a TestFlight beta with a couple of friends. After a few months, some of them were still using it regularly. That led me to thinking that other people might be interested as well. I bought the domain musikalia.app, made it redirect to the iOS App Store, released the app, did a Product Hunt-launch and shared it on Hacker News. The result? I sold one unit. Not too encouraging.

The other day I read a Twitter thread[1] on how you should find a good keyword, build a landing page, get backlinks, and wait. I was curious, and spent a good ten minutes trying out different keywords. I found a good keyword matching the criteria laid out in the thread and spent half an hour building a barebones landing page for musikalia.app.

Now I will wait, and see what happens. I am not in a hurry.

[1] https://twitter.com/dannypostmaa/status/1646368426246680579