From 0 Installs to 1000+ Users and Still Feeling Like a Beginner
Why building 25+ Flutter projects hasn’t made me immune to failure
The First Launch: Pure Silence
My first app was supposed to “change everything.” I obsessed over the design, tweaked animations, polished every button. I hit publish expecting a flood of installs.
I got twelve.
Most of them were friends.
Half of those friends uninstalled in a week.
That silence hit harder than any bug. It wasn’t a code problem it was a people problem. Nobody cared.
The Small Win: Habitide’s First Thousand
Fast forward a few years. I launched Habitide, my habit tracker. Watching it cross a thousand users was surreal. After so many false starts, it finally felt like a win.
But wins in indie dev come with fine print. I checked retention and saw half of those users never opened the app again. A thousand installs meant nothing if people didn’t stick. The victory turned into a new problem.
Why Experience Doesn’t Erase Failure
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: 5.5 years and 25+ projects later, I still feel like a beginner.
I still release features nobody cares about.
I still get stuck on bugs that should take 10 minutes.
I still chase vanity metrics instead of digging into user pain.
The difference now? I recognise the patterns sooner. I waste less time on the wrong things. And maybe that’s all experience really is failing faster and bouncing back quicker.
Why I Haven’t Quit
Because the tiny wins add up.
The email from someone across the world who said Habitide helped them stick to a routine.
The moment you see real humans using something you built in your bedroom.
The thrill of pressing publish even when you’re not sure anyone will care.
Those things keep you building, even when the numbers look bad
Closing Thought
I used to think success was about “arriving.” Now I think success is surviving long enough to mess up in new ways.
So tell me do you ever feel like you’ve figured it out, or are we all just beginners pretending we know what we’re doing?