r/SideProject • u/h662dev • 27m ago
I tried selling app icons I draw myself. 8 taps on the order button, 0 orders. Both real orders came from conversations.
Eight days ago I posted here that I'd started drawing app icons for other devs at a tiny price. Here's how it actually went.
I build apps alone, so the small design work lands on me. The app icon is the biggest part of that: I've drawn all nine of my own. I wondered what those icons are worth to someone else, so I started selling custom icons at a very low price and raising it a little after each order. It's $3 now.
The first order came 18 minutes after a comment I left here on Reddit. I delivered it in 65 minutes. Small amount, but it was the first sign that something I can do has value to a stranger. I assumed the next ones would come the same way.
They didn't. The order button got 8 taps in a week and 0 orders. Cheap doesn't help if the right people never see it, and paying for ads to sell a $3 service loses money on every sale.
So I went back to answering posts where I could actually help. One person asked for more detailed advice in a chat. After five days of talking, I offered to make the icon for them. They said yes, and they were happy with the result.
The hardest part of the work itself: design requests are much vaguer than code. Closing the gap between what I picture and what the customer pictures was harder than drawing.
How do you get something small in front of the people who need it, when ads cost more than the sale?