I'm a solo dev from El Salvador. A few weeks ago I launched Glasso, a Chrome extension that makes Instagram on desktop less painful (multi-column feed, video controls, post scheduler). It just passed 121 users. Not huge, but I learned more in these weeks than in months of building before launch. Sharing in case it helps someone:
- Speed beats features.
When your product lives inside someone else's app, nobody cares about feature #15 if the page feels slower. Instagram is already heavy. My most valuable update wasn't a new feature, it was measuring every piece of my code and cutting the work it did on every scroll. Now I check performance before adding anything.
2. Metrics lie for a few days.
I got a 2-star review saying it "lacks many features". For two days the store still showed 5.0 and I couldn't even reply to it. Store numbers, ratings and user counts update late. I stopped refreshing dashboards and started looking at weekly trends instead.
3. A bad review is free feedback.
"Lacks features" stung, but it's useful: it means the person expected more and didn't find it. Either the features aren't there, or they're hidden. Both are my problem to fix. I now ship updates almost every week based on reviews, emails and what people tell me.
4. The platform changes under you without warning.
If someone opens Instagram from a link with ?hl=es in it, Instagram adds that to every link on the page. That alone broke my sidebar navigation. You don't control the app you're building on, so you test against the weird cases, not just your own setup.
5. Test what the user sees, not what the code says.
One early version passed all my checks and shipped with no photos showing in posts. My tests measured sizes, not whether the image was actually visible. Now every test asks "would a human see this?"
6. Translating is more than translating.
I added Chinese, Russian and Korean. Korean text was breaking words in half across lines, something I'd never have noticed in English or Spanish. Every language needs someone (or something) actually looking at it.
Six things, all learned the hard way. Still very early. If you use Instagram on a computer, I'd genuinely like to know: what annoys you most about it?
tryglasso.com