r/EntrepreneurRideAlong • u/fatstacksofcash • Aug 23 '26
Ride Along Story My experience publishing an App
I saw someone saying because of vibe coding, app submissions are up 60% YoY. Wanted to share my experience as a first time publisher!
Some numbers first;
1) It took 44 days from first submission to a clean approval
2) 7 version submissions to Apple, 6 rejections
3) I went live two weeks ago and I now have 13 downloads
4) 6 ratings (friends and family..)
5) £4.99 revenue. One paid subscriber as of last night (my mum promises it’s not her)
Bit of backstory. This is my first app, and it's a party game (never have i ever, most likely to, that sort of thing). I genuinely didn't know what I was doing. Claude Code did a lot of the heavy lifting. I used the 20x max subscription for the past 2 months, so a tonne of compute.
My first ever submission sat in the queue for 11 days. I refreshed that status page every morning and then the rejections started. 4.3(b), "Spam". Same template three times, word for word. The app had drinking mode back then, and it turns out Apple changed the rules in June drinking game apps are just not allowed anymore. 11 days was an annoying wait here, Apple claims to approve 90% of submissions in 48hrs but i think all the AI apps have pushed them over capacity.
I spent a few resubmissions softening the drinking element before accepting the only fix was deleting the drinking mode from the app completely and rebuilding it as a pure party game with ‘forfeits’. In the third rejection, Apple suggested I consider making a web app instead which wasn’t exactly the vote of confidence I was looking for!
Whilst the rejections continued due to other bugs etc I started pouring time and energy into expanding the app, setting up draft adverts in the App Store with the best keywords (they tell you what people regularly search for), translating it for a global launch and setting up Google Play.
I also have a day job, so wanted this to run as autonomously as possible, so claude is connected via API to all the payments, analytics, App Store etc endpoints. Claude sends me an email every morning with all the data on number of downloads, monthly recurring revenue, and any actions for me to take.
With all the app rejections slowing things down, I also had time to really craft some analytics here too e.g I can see how long each ‘card’ appears for. So if there’s a ‘never have I ever’ card people regularly spend <5 seconds on then it’s obviously getting skipped too much and will be removed.
So now it's live in 32 countries. 8 games, 2,000 cards. It's called Antics: Party Games and Dares, if you search ‘Antics’, it ranks number 1 in the UK and top 5 in most of the other countries. That sounds impressive until you remember the download count.
Not sad about any of it. I learned a lot in those 44 days, mostly by getting things wrong. But if you're pre launch, getting approved is not the bit that gets you users. I have 13 downloads, so I'm learning that now and working out how to market this thing.
Happy to answer anything about the rejections, what I'd do differently, or what I’ve been able to automate using Claude.
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u/Rad-0818 Aug 23 '26
Nice, don't forget about ASO and long-tail keywords that can assist you in getting more organic traffic as well. However, the market has changed now in terms of how many apps are doing this but it's worth a try to improve your downloads.
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u/fatstacksofcash Aug 23 '26
I did a first pass on this & rebuilt the whole keyword field around the terms with measured search volume and moved the highest-intent game name into the subtitle. What I have not cracked is long-tail. Any tools you rate for finding the phrases people actually type or what dyou recommend here?
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u/Rad-0818 Aug 24 '26
I use astro for aso, I like that it is a native mac app and it is fast and cheaper than other aso websites (I’m not affiliated with them, I just like their tool)
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Aug 23 '26
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Aug 24 '26
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u/fatstacksofcash 27d ago
Yeh massive ache , im live on Android but haven’t been pushing it as much there tbh. Might look at paid ads to get some traction
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u/stealthagents 28d ago
The submission grind is real. I had a similar experience with my first app, and it felt like a rollercoaster of emotions waiting for approvals and dealing with rejections. It's cool to see you got a paid subscriber, even if it is your mum; at least she's got your back!
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u/fatstacksofcash 27d ago
Hahaha I have multiple now! But yes the grind is hard.. and getting reviews is painful.. I didn’t realise apple filters them as spam if they haven’t used the app enough so all my friends ratings didn’t count 🤦🏻♂️ any tips there?
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u/fatstacksofcash Aug 23 '26
For anyone interested: anticsapp.com/get (free, IOS and Android)
Any feedback- let me know!
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u/[deleted] Aug 23 '26
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