From Smarter Mac to Dumber Phone - July 2024
An action-packed month about shipping my latest app Dumb Phone, Focused Work launching on Setapp Mac, and more!
Hey hey! Hope you’ve been having a great day. 🙂
It’s Michael here with the roundup of a big July!
Sorry that I’m running a couple weeks late, I hadn’t been able to properly take some time to reflect.
Pour yourself a cuppa and let’s get stuck in. ☕️
Shipping a second product in < 90 days
I didn’t think I’d ship another product so soon after focusedOS, but here we are, and it stole the show for the month.
Meet Dumb Phone, an app that turns your iPhone into a dumb phone.
It replaces a colourful home screen with a boring interface and simple text buttons for launching apps, reducing dopamine triggers when using your phone.
Why did I make another so soon?
It definitely wasn’t planned.
The iOS counterpart of focusedOS always bugged me with how basic it felt, since you can’t adjust the experience of your iPhone from another app outside of integrating with Screen Time - unlike on macOS and (to an extent) Android.
I felt there must be some way it could still have a stronger impact on reducing distractions that’s not simply reliant on Shortcuts to do its bidding.
Inspiration strikes
In recent years I created Shelf specifically for the Dynamic Island when the iPhone 14 Pro was released.
It lets you place links to things in easily accessible locations on your phone, and I figured maybe I could leverage its app launching capability to replace app icons with simple bland text buttons.
I proceeded to created a basic prototype but was then faced with a predicament… how could I possible market this feature within an app that’s heavily Mac-focused? 🤔
Strangely later that night the following video appeared on my YouTube feed by Reysu and I realised this kind of utility is something that people actually do find useful.
Even though it’s not bulletproof like alternatives on Android where you can completely adjust the Home Screen experience how you see fit (see Minimalist Phone and Olauncher), people still would like to try and reduce cognitive distractions when they pick up their phone.
So I decided this new feature must stand on its own in a separate app so I could market it concisely, and after spending nine days coding it up, I submitted Dumb Phone to the App Store for review. 🚀
Focused Work launched on Setapp Mac
The next day, Focused Work was formally revealed as the latest app added to Setapp for Mac.
This was something I had been hoping to achieve for many years and it was cool to see it in the banner upon launching the Setapp app.
It was fascinating to see the total Mac users eclipse the total iOS users in a single day for the first time, with a huge traffic spike up to 400 new people in one day.
It didn’t take long to hit my $100, $200, and then $400 revenue milestones, resulting in me already being eligible for my first payout at the end of the month.
As I’ve previously said, I am so grateful to the Setapp team for featuring my work on their platform.
Deciding my next move
Shortly after Dumb Phone had been submitted for review would constantly be rejected for silly reasons.
As a solo maker, it’s the worst thing about building apps for the Apple ecosystem.
The dread of potential random rejections with every update that you submit is anxiety inducing, and the rules seem to change depending on the reviewer.
So unfortunately, and very annoyingly, it looked like I had a fight on my hands.
While this situation took place I decided it’d be an opportunity to refocus and decide my next play, in case Dumb Phone doesn’t make it through.
One thing that I find quite annoying when starting new projects is copying the exact same boilerplate code, over and over, for things that handle In App Purchases, Analytics, Databases, and more, then ensure they work correctly with the new project.
It can sometimes take over a full day to “get right” depending on the size of the app, and is an inefficient use of my time.
I realised if I’m going to make myself a boilerplate project for my apps, I may as well try to sell it too.
Marc Lou absolutely smashed it in this niche recently, with ShipFast for web apps, so why not make something for iOS?
I’d also earn more revenue outside of the App Store just like with Setapp.
But after consulting friends about this idea, they suggested I’m spreading myself too thin and I should double down on what’s already working well.
I drew the following table on my iPad and as I was filling out each section it immediately became clear that selling boilerplate code might not be the best move.
Although I was so excited to dive right in, especially after talking to other makers like Juanjo Valiño who had already done the same with WrapFast (he was super kind to share insights when I reached out), focusedOS did great on launch and people are paying for it so I should continue with it.
Ready For Release
But as soon as I was ready to embark on the above, Dumb Phone was finally approved for release! 🥳
Only after a mere 18 days of challenging inconsistent App Store guidelines.
I silently launched Dumb Phone on a Wednesday to fix early bugs/crashes, and publicly announced it that coming Monday.
X / Twitter: x.com/michael_tigas/status/1817779704126214505
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7223545562241937409
Making sure I included lots of popular apps that people likely use was pivotal, for when somebody experiences Dumb Phone the first time. Otherwise they will bounce.
So, ahead of time I reached out to about forty indie developers that I’ve great rapport with from over the years and they helped me collate an even bigger list, so people could launch their app from Dumb Phone.
I then realised, perhaps they might also be interested in helping out with a like and/or retweet when I eventually launch it!
I’m confident the early success of the above announcement posts was attributed to this move.
It gave them a strong early boost to create that first virality wave.
During the course of Launch Day I was constantly hit with comments, retweets, DM’s, messages, and emails.
Later that night I noticed Fernando Silva, an awesome indie tech influencer that I first chatted with years ago (and who has joined 9to5Mac since), DM’d me saying that he was keen to do a piece on Dumb Phone.
The early launch buzz caught me so off guard that I noticed I hadn’t even reached out to any tech journalists yet to tell them about the app, but thankfully he saw it somehow!
The following day Fernando’s piece was published, and I won’t forget the experience that followed.
I remember it was 3am and I was super tired from responding to the barrage of social updates, before I saw a DM in my inbox with a link as I was getting off the computer.
I went to brush my teeth and told myself I’m going to push through sleepy eyes and have a quick read. I couldn’t hold back from chuckling at the amusing comments below it afterwards.
I sent Fernando a BIG thank you, and just like most makers do before they go to bed (I think?), I quickly checked RevenueCat to see how my sales went for the day.
My eyes then darted to the Recent Transactions table - which these days the average oldest transaction is normally around 6 hours ago.
The oldest was 16 minutes ago. 🤯
I proceeded to refresh the page every 5 minutes and it didn’t push beyond “20 minutes ago”, until I decided to call it quits at 4:50am, and go to bed before I actually passed out on my keyboard.
The morning (afternoon) after
When I woke up early afternoon the next day I had to drop past a mates office to pick up my coffee cup that I left there the day before.
I then remember what happened the night before, so I refrained from touching my phone until I returned home.
That whole first hour of my day felt like pure bliss. 😌
When I got home I jumped on the computer and saw the wave was still going strong.
People were downloading Dumb Phone like hot cakes, and I couldn’t believe it!
I decided to launch on Product Hunt that afternoon to take full advantage of the momentum, and with just 10 minutes to spare before the next group of daily new products were revealed, Dumb Phone’s page was ready.
Dumb Phone ultimately reached 7th Product of the Day from 330 votes, which I think was still quite strong for a last minute submission!
It hard to clearly tell how many downloads Dumb Phone received from the Product Hunt event given the wave I was riding, but I’m confident I could’ve cracked Top 5 if I didn’t leave it until the last moment.
Unsurprisingly a lot of comments by people on its post seemed to be ChatGPT generated too. /lame
But Dumb Phone did however reach $200 MRR later that day, which was super cool. 🚀
And, I also hit a new maker milestone too, reaching $10k in revenue across all of my apps for the running month! 🚀 🚀 🚀
What’s next?
Since it was my best ever product launch by a long shot, I definitely will continue focusing on growing Dumb Phone across August.
I’ve broken past my previous ceiling, finally reached some elusive milestones, and feel that I’ve opened myself to a much bigger world after this experience.
I guess it shows that you don’t need to spend countless months trying to make something that sticks.
Just make something so good people can’t ignore it? 🤷♂️
We’ll see if that statement holds up… haha.
I hope you enjoyed the read as much as I had fun recalling and writing about it. And if for some reason you still haven’t tried Dumb Phone yet, download it from here!
If you have, thank you for supporting it. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Catch you next month! 🚀
Cheers, Michael
Lovely read, subscribed!