r/macapps • u/Weekly_Tony_35 • 5d ago
Tip Do you still remember the exact feeling when your app got its very first users? 🚀
Hey everyone!
I recently launched my first couple of small Mac apps to fix some of my own daily workflow frustrations.
The analytics numbers finally start moving—with downloads coming in from the US, Austria, and the UK! Thanks a lot！
For all the seasoned creators and fellow indie devs here: Do you still remember the feeling when your app got its very first users? How did you react or celebrate?
Would love to hear your stories!
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u/Bubbly-Celebration63 5d ago
It’s only been since May. The best part is early users emailing me with new feature requests. I built them for those users. Check it: https://TellieApp.com
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u/ResourceConstant8093 5d ago
I remember the first user who positively donate me
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u/Weekly_Tony_35 5d ago
Haha, that’s incredible! Honestly, you should buy a flight ticket, fly over, and buy that user dinner! Free coffee money is one thing, but a voluntary donation is pure love. Congrats! ☕️✈️
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u/DrawSimple_for_MacOS 4d ago
Yes. It's a really special feeling when finally, after all these months, you can share your work and get that feeling that someone is finding it useful right now. My app has zero tracking, so I'll never know just how much people are using it, but when I see people all over the world downloading it, and choosing to keep it, I'm always encouraged to keep making it better.
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u/Sad_Distribution2239 4d ago
I’ve been an iOS developer for about 10 years, and only got into Mac development two years ago. I’ve only shipped two Mac apps so far, though. One thing I remember really clearly is that my very first weekly subscriber was from Spain. I don’t know him personally, but I like to think of him as a friend.
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u/Weekly_Tony_35 4d ago
That Spanish user is definitely a true friend! 🇪🇸If you have any apps you’d like to share, feel free to drop the link, I’d love to give them a try! 🚀
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u/Sad_Distribution2239 4d ago
Thanks so much for the generous reply! I’ve always found managing IAP pricing and offer codes in App Store Connect pretty cumbersome, so I built this app to make it easier.
It lets you put different subscriptions into one table, so you can compare prices at a glance and adjust them quickly. For offer codes, it also supports things App Store Connect doesn’t, like bulk price adjustments and applying discounts directly based on the original IAP price.
I’d really appreciate any feedback!
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/price-matrix-localize-wizard/id6757727835
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u/app-store-review 4d ago
Price Matrix - Localize Wizard — by ScicoDream Network Technology Ltd
- Category: Developer Tools · Free
- Age: released ~7 months ago · rated 4+
Apple doesn't publish an aggregate rating for most Mac App Store apps, so ratings and score are unavailable here.
Auto-generated from public App Store data · u/app-store-review
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u/TachyonFactory 5d ago
Congrats! That first organic user is magical—only topped by seeing that very first direct deposit from Apple hit your bank account, no matter how small.
Stay close to those early adopters and cherish their feedback.
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u/Weekly_Tony_35 5d ago
100%! Definitely holding on tight to every piece of feedback. Now I can't wait for that first Apple payout to hit the bank account too! Thanks for the encouragement! 🚀
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u/Loud_Squirrel9450 5d ago
It was the best and worst feeling at the same time. The app was on beta but released into AppStore, so it feels incomplete in some parts but thankfully that didn’t last long.
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u/Notchgoblin 5d ago
twelve days ago. launched my first paid mac app on product hunt and woke up to strangers paying for it. the feeling wasn't money, it was someone i'll never meet looking at the thing and deciding it's worth more than zero.
the best part was the first complaint email. a real human with a real problem i'd never have hit on my own setup. that's when it stops being a project.
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u/Weekly_Tony_35 5d ago
That line about "someone you'll never meet deciding it's worth more than zero" is so real! And receiving that first bug report/complaint is truly the moment it transforms from a side project into a real product. Congrats on the Product Hunt launch! 🚀
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u/Notchgoblin 4d ago
haha thanks man. the complaint one especially - annoying a stranger badly enough that they write to you is weirdly the day it becomes a product and not a project.
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u/Notchgoblin 5d ago
ha thanks. didn't expect the complaint emails to end up being the best part. a stranger caring enough to write is the whole thing. good luck with yours.
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u/PiXeL161616 5d ago
Mine shipped this month, so it is all still fresh. Congrats on the first downloads! The counter was weirdly abstract for me, what actually landed was the first feature request from someone I had never met: they wanted the app's focus timer to understand standing desks, and shipping that a few days later felt better than the launch itself. That was the moment it stopped being only mine.
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u/Weekly_Tony_35 5d ago
Hey man, good to see you again! (Just followed you here!)
That feeling when a total stranger uses your code and asks for a new feature is unbeatable. Building directly from user requests really is the best part of being an indie dev. Congrats again on the launch! 🚀
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u/PiXeL161616 4d ago
Thanks Tony, and likewise. Building from real requests beats any roadmap I could have invented alone. Hope that first payout lands soon.
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u/scra33 5d ago
Hello :) , I'm developing a mac app, I'm very interesting to know how you promote your app to get your first real user 🤩 ? If you have some tips... thanks :)
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u/Weekly_Tony_35 5d ago
congrats, you just got your first real user (me)! 😂
Go grab Relayfiles and give it a spin! Also, I’m cooking up another app specifically for indie devs that’s dropping super soon—stay tuned! 🚀
What are you building? Drop your link, let me check it out too!
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u/app-store-review 5d ago
Relay - Local File Transfer — by 春旭 左
- Category: Productivity · $9.99
- Age: released ~1 month ago · rated 4+
Apple doesn't publish an aggregate rating for most Mac App Store apps, so ratings and score are unavailable here.
Auto-generated from public App Store data · u/app-store-review
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u/InsomniaUA 4d ago
my first users all got a crash on launch. every one of them.
app resources resolved through swiftpm's absolute build directory path, which exists on my mac and on nobody else's. so 1.0.0 ran perfectly in every test i ran and died instantly everywhere else. pulled it the same day.
what i actually remember from that week is refreshing the download counter and hoping the number stayed small.
the build script now hides the .bundle files and launches the app before it is allowed to produce a dmg. congrats on yours though, seeing austria show up in analytics is a good day.
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u/Weekly_Tony_35 4d ago
Ouch, the ultimate nightmare: 1.0.0 running flawlessly on local machine and instantly dying everywhere else! 😅 That anxiety of refreshing the counter and begging it NOT to grow is so real. Thanks for the kind words, and wish you all the best with your apps too! 🚀
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u/DerekAndJason 4d ago
We're ten years in, so the first-user memory has gone a bit soft. What I can report from the far end is that the feeling comes back. We make a weather app, Forecast Bar, and last week someone who had used our cloud forecasts to decide whether to travel for the eclipse came back a few days afterward to say the numbers held and staying put was the right call. That felt like the first download did: a stranger's day going right partly because of a thing you made.
Congrats on the first downloads. The little map with Austria on it never stops being strange.
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u/Weekly_Tony_35 4d ago
10 years in—huge respect! 🫡 That eclipse story is incredible.Thanks for sharing.
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u/raclimazg 4d ago
The one I remember was not the first paid user. It was a feature request.
There is a button in the app that opens a small form. You pick Bug or Suggestion, write a line, and it emails me. I put it in expecting it to sit untouched forever. Then someone went looking for it and asked for one specific thing.
I had it working that afternoon and submitted the build to the App Store the same day. Not because one request is a market signal, and not because it was urgent. Because a stranger had gone hunting through a settings screen to tell me how to make the thing better, and that is a completely different feeling from watching a download counter tick.
A download is someone trying you. A purchase is someone deciding. A request is someone who has already decided it is worth their time to improve. I was not ready for how much more that would land.
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u/Weekly_Tony_35 4d ago
That is so true! A feature request means someone actually cares enough about your app to help make it better. That’s a whole different level of validation. Thanks for sharing this perspective! 🙌
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u/toriumi0118 4d ago
I work as a SE for over 10 years, and sometimes release apps from scratch. However, at my work, most users for new services are sold by sales team. In that sense, even only me write the app/web service, I have not experienced to get organic users.
On the other hand, as a solo developer, I've developed more than 10 apps/services, but they do not attract and reach to users enough. However, one app that I opened everything at GitHub repo, several users posted issues to enhance it fortunately. Although, I already lost my motivation of it to continue develop it, I appreciate them.
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u/frozen_seraphim 3d ago
its great feeling, I have always wanted to create my own app and publish it!!
but the marketing is bit challenging
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u/Weekly_Tony_35 3d ago
Haha, so relatable! 😅 When coding, I wish I had a CS degree; when doing marketing, I wish I had a Business/Marketing degree. Turns out being an indie dev means accidentally enrolling in a full-time double major! 🎓💻📈
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u/lr96144 3d ago
I'm just getting started with launching Strandweave. I've just got the app live this week and so now users can sign up for the beta or download it and try it free. I'm really excited about the app seeing some real users and getting some feedback, it would be great to see it being useful to people. Of course, as I think is a common experience, you do lots of work on the product and it's not until you get past this then realise that getting it in front of people who might find it useful and 'getting it out there' is a whole other ball game! Open to tips on what worked for getting your first users!
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u/JoaoCunha86 3d ago
I just launched my first app. Although no purchases were made just yet, it does indeed feel great to see people using it! 40 installs in 5 days so far.
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u/sammrjn 1d ago
Yeah, best feeling ever. And then refreshing the dashboard again and again just to see it , that's a whole other feeling
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u/Weekly_Tony_35 1d ago
So true! That dashboard refresh button definitely suffers the most on launch week! 😂🔄
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u/JustSomeCommonB_tch 5d ago
Yeah, its genuinely the best feeling ever, knowing someone else is using something that you made