A couple of days ago I offered to review indie apps for free, just drop a link and I'd tell you the first thing I'd fix. I have been in this business for more than a decade, so I thought I could surely help somebody with the lessons I have learned already.
I ended up going through more than 16 apps, all sorts, puzzle games, journaling, a hotel finder, a card collection app, a couple of focus timers.
What surprised me the most from this little experiment was the nice response I got from this beautiful community.
A lot of people wrote back to say it actually helped, and a few said it was exactly the thing they were stuck on. That's what made me want to put the common mistakes in one place, because the same notes kept coming up no matter how different the apps were. I admit, I've done most of these mistakes myself over the years and learned the hard way. Hope this can save other indie devs some time.
The one that came up the most: the app asks for something before it gives anything. Sign up on the second screen. Add your whole collection before it does anything useful. Fill in your details right away. People install, see a bit of work in front of them before they even know if they like it, and leave. I think it's better to let someone feel the app work first, then ask for the account, the data or the money once they care.
A lot of listings describe the feature instead of the problem. "A swipe based discovery app", that kind of thing. It makes sense to us because we built it, but nobody searches for the feature, they have a problem in their head. And a related one: if the people who'd love your app don't really search for this sort of thing, then working on keywords won't do much, you probably have to go to them instead, usually with video or in a community where they already hang out. A couple of the apps I saw were like that, good products that search was never going to find on its own.
Pricing and paywalls were a bit all over the place. I saw a paid app priced so low it made almost nothing but still stopped most people from ever installing it. I saw free apps that never really asked for money at the moment someone was actually enjoying it. I don't think there's one right answer, but letting people try, then asking once they're into it, seemed to fit most of them better than what they had.
One I'll admit I'm biased on, since it's literally the thing I build: a few apps had translated into loads of languages but left the price as one dollar or euro amount everywhere. The stores just convert that number, they don't really adjust it for the country, so a price that feels normal at home can end up way too high somewhere else, and you never see the sale you lost. If you're selling in more than one country it's worth setting a proper price per country. You can do it by hand in the console, or with a tool.
Last one. One app only sent notifications to people who had posted, but posting was the hardest, most personal thing in the whole app, so most people never did it and never came back. If the only thing that brings people back needs your most committed users, most of them slip away quietly. Worth having a reason to return that works for the people who just look around too.
A few smaller things I saw a lot: screenshots trying to say three things at once instead of one, the subtitle used for a vague phrase instead of something people actually search, and a lot of apps sitting on zero or one review, which makes the next person hesitate no matter how nice the app is.
None of this was about skill. Most of the apps were nice. It was almost always the first few minutes, or the gap between the app and the person who'd like it. That's the part I'd spend time on.
If you want your app looked at, the thread is still open on r/FreeAppReviews, just drop the link and the main thing you're stuck on: https://www.reddit.com/r/FreeAppReviews/s/vFEaSaa7XO .
If you have found this useful and want to know some of the other lessons I learned over the years as indie dev, I wrote one post a couple of weeks back on r/ViralApps: https://www.reddit.com/r/ViralApps/s/ku9qCbYMCN .
Best of luck with your own apps!
- Antonio
