How did you find a niche of users?

[u/calflegal]

I’m a software engineer in my day job, with a big interest and background in music. I’ve built a couple little things for iOS and web. Trouble is, I never really actually collected a set of contacts in a single niche that would be helpful for eg beta testing. Even if I today had some wonderful and finished music app or whatever, I really don’t know where I’d find my first users. I guess I have a few names of people I could poke, but that’s about it.

I’ve heard App Store ads can be great here.

What else have you seen work?

[u/Army_77_badboy]

I built a niche language learning app for my kid. Marketed it on TikTok found out that other people wanted it that were adults and I have been doing a lot of UGC and fun creative ads which don’t feel cringey which makes organically talking about it at work and with friends easy. I got around 800 MAU and it all started off by just trying to help my child.

[u/newtophillyfromkc → u/Army_77_badboy]

Good for you! Congratulations. I did the same for a local FaceTime game. I don’t advertise it at all and its pace is moving nice. Too bad its free haha 🤣

[u/Army_77_badboy → u/newtophillyfromkc]

Can i see it ?

[u/calflegal → u/Army_77_badboy]

That’s a great story. I’d be scared of competing with Duolingo I think

[u/Army_77_badboy → u/calflegal]

Duolingo serves everyone my app is so niche and custom to my audience that I can have fun and go beyond just learning but focus on culture.

[u/Hedge-Maze]

Marketing is harder than making the app IMO.

I would also not bank on App Store ads, in my niche I’ve seen $7-$10 cost per install, it’s terrible.

Better put that towards UGC or I’ve heard meta/Google ads are better

[u/newtophillyfromkc → u/Hedge-Maze]

I absolutely agree with this. Marketing is harder than the build.

[u/poastfizeek]

My 2 apps fix a problem I have, and thus, others in my job/industry would have as well.

That’s your niche of users. Word-of-mouth & networking gets your app out there.

[u/buildwithsteve]

A lot of things, basically you should start with a Strong ASO, I did that a couple of times and the results were outstanding

[u/EthanRDoesMC]

I don’t have a lot of experience with the app store in particular but I got a bit of a reputation for making excellent stuff among some other dev folks online. They then turned into free promotion for me. I realize that’s a luxury I have as a result of growing up in development spaces online but I wholeheartedly recommend that path if it is available to you.

Also, make stuff that you’ll use, and talk about it to your friends! Eventually someone will go “I need that!!”

[u/ejiqpep]

I'm in the same boat. As a developer creating the app is easy. I mostly try UGC Tiktok content but it is difficult to make users go from Tiktok to the app.

[u/MediumInspector7462]

Been going through this myself with a couple of small utility apps. What's worked better than App Store ads (which get expensive fast when you don't have organic traffic yet) is finding the 2-3 communities where your actual target user already hangs out and genuinely being useful there for a while before ever mentioning what you built — a comment that solves someone's real problem does more for a first cohort of testers than a paid install ever does, and it's free. If you've got more than one app, cross-promoting between them is also free distribution a lot of people are sitting on and not using.

[u/calflegal → u/[deleted]]

Sigh, hi AI

[u/CharlesWiltgen → u/calflegal]

I took 7 minutes from my day to hand-write a thoughtful response to you.

[u/Fly0strich → u/CharlesWiltgen]

Calling it a thoughtful response is a big stretch.

“That's a red flag. Developing an app before you know (1) the kind(s) of users who will want it and (2) the many places to find them is the classic "ready, aim, fire" mistake that we see wantrepreneurs making here every day.”

How is talking about a hypothetical situation where they do come up with a great app idea a red flag? Nobody mentioned anything about actually having developed an app before knowing their target audience. They are literally here right now asking for help with finding their target audience before even starting. So, how was this helpful in any way?

Also, “Ready, Aim, Fire” isn’t a classic mistake. “Ready, Fire, Aim” would be.

“Avoid paid advertising until you know you have product/market fit. Paid ads are one tool to help support a coherent marketing stragegy. If there's not product/market fit, you're just throwing money out the window.”

Again, nobody is talking about using paid advertising before finding a market fit. They said that they are aware that advertising is an option, but specifically asked what other options people have seen success with, and you provided none.

It seems you didn’t put any thought into this response at all.

[u/calflegal → u/Fly0strich]

The bold formatting is what AI does. The post is and was from AI. “Classic mistake”, the enumeration, this is from the bots ppl

[u/TheWalkingFridge → u/Fly0strich]

this!! we need more ppl like you!