NoFilter app
Discover the best photo spots around the world
It's already near 6 years since I started this project, and the pain is now infinite.
Few users got the subscription (which I implemented 1 year ago), and the project is giving me less than 60 USD per months. It covers all the costs of servers, translations, and more, but still it would be awesome to get more money in order to push the growth.
I'm focusing on trying to get more subscriptions (thing that I didn't do until 1 month ago). I'm (sadly) closing some features to only allow paid users to use it.
After many years of working on this project, I finally quit my job to dedicate myself 100% to it.
A huge backlog is growing... Bring the magic, my friends!
I'm planning to add subscriptions as a freemium plan, in order to get a small amount of money that could be useful for re-invest it on Ads
It was about January 10, and we finally sent the first version of NoFilter to Android and iOS stores.
As usual, what happened? Nothing important. Just a couple of friends downloading the app.
We started receiving our first bugs (reported by Sentry.io).
We already had curated ~300 spots around the world. It becomes real!
It was about April 1st when Daniela Manzotti (Product Designer) and Me (full stack dev) started working trying to define an idea.
What do the people need? What do we want to build? What do we think it may escalate in the future?
We started defining some "must" features, and we created the first couple of prototypes.
At the same time, I started working on the backend, landing page, and mobile app (Android and iOS, with React Native)
I was at home, few days after a trip on Europe.
I saw a really awesome picture on Instagram, and I said: "Wow, I want to be there!". After researching a bit, that photo was taken on Rome. 3 months ago I was in Rome and I never saw that place, considering that I walked in that street ~2 times.
There I realized that there was no app to "discover the best photo spots nearby". So, it started.
4 Comments
Did you think about sourcing photo locations from some other websites? I downloaded an app to check it, but it seemed that there weren't many places around me (Kraków, poland).
Did you consider also having an option to add score to different places and somehow rank them?
The idea for the app seems pretty interesting, being an amateur photographer myself. However, it was not very clear to me what is the business model.
Are you getting freemium users and the problem is monetizing these users, or are you struggling to grow the number of users?
Marketing, marketing and marketing!
have you tried the 50/50 rule? 50dev, 50 mkg?
I feel your pain, i've been in the same position. what is important to discover early on which may save you years of developer time is to find out : is your app a vitamin or a painkiller? i.e. is it a must have to solve an current problem or is it just a nice to have?
Sadly 'nice to have' apps are usually not going to work out in the long run, as you have found out.
make your app a painkiller, and you'll see the money coming in.