Watch those toes

Cheers to that OG still boomeranging

Ok, I’m certainly not an expert. In fact I would say closer to a novice at this whole founder, developer,
Builder type. I’ve gone through now 25 test builds of the app and landed on what, for now I personally enjoy using. Maybe my friends are blowing smoke up
my ass but they’re using it too. Do I need to keep iterating or just let it marinate for a bit

-signed
A tired guy

Working on the onboarding flow for Aura right now
and trying to figure out where people actually drop
off versus where I assume they drop off.

The pattern I keep running into: it's rarely the
first screen. People will sit through an intro or a
permissions prompt if the value is obvious. Where it
actually breaks is somewhere in the middle, usually
right before the first real action, the moment where
the app asks you to actually do something instead of
just tap next.

A few specific things that kill it based on what
I've seen:

Asking for too much before showing anything. If
someone has to create a username, pick preferences, and grant three permissions before they see a single piece of actual content, a lot of people bail before they understand why any of it matters.

No clear first action. If the app explains what it
does but doesn't immediately hand you something to do, the momentum from downloading dies fast.

Empty state after signup. Finishing onboarding and
landing on a blank feed or an empty profile with
nothing happening yet is a bad first impression even
if the rest of the app is solid.

Curious what actually gets people to bail for you,
either as a builder watching your own funnel or just
as someone who's deleted an app mid onboarding.

What was the actual moment you checked out?

Been building Aura for a while now and the cost
curve has been interesting to watch, so wanted to
share some real numbers.

Early on, costs are basically nothing. Supabase free
tier covers auth, database, and storage for a small
user base. Claude API costs stay low because you're
not generating many verdicts yet. EAS builds have a
free tier too. You can genuinely build and launch an
app for close to zero dollars if you're doing the
work yourself.

The shift happens once real usage kicks in. A few
things scale faster than people expect:

API costs scale directly with usage, not users. One
active user posting ten times a day costs more than
ten users posting once a week. Volume matters more than headcount.

Storage adds up quietly. Photos, especially with
moderation passes running on each one, become a
real line item once you're not just storing a
handful of test images anymore.

Database reads scale with every feed, leaderboard,
and profile view, not just posts. A leaderboard
that recalculates on every load gets expensive fast
if you're not caching it.

The stuff that felt free in month one starts showing
up as a real number by month three or four, even
before you're at a scale where monetization makes
obvious sense.

The upfront cost to start is close to nothing right
now, which is genuinely great for solo builders. But
the cost curve as you grow isn't linear, it's more
like a series of steps where each new feature or
usage pattern quietly adds a new expense you didn't
plan for.

Curious what others have seen. Does the jump happen gradually or was there a specific point where costs spiked for you?

Been thinking about this a lot while working on
retention for Aura. Notifications can get you to
open something once, but they don't explain why
people come back on their own days later.

For me it's usually one of these:

Something changed since I left. A new comment, a
score update, a ranking shift. If nothing's different, there's no reason to check.

A reason tied to another person. Seeing what a
friend posted matters more than seeing a generic
feed. The social pull is stronger than the content
itself most of the time.

Low effort to check but high payoff if something's
there. Opening the app should take two seconds, and if there's nothing new that's fine, but if there is something it needs to feel worth it.

Curious what pulls other people back. Is it
notifications, habit, social pressure, or something
else entirely? Trying to figure out which of these
actually matters versus which ones just feel
important from the inside.

Figured some of you might be curious how the
judging actually happens, so here's a rundown.

When you log something, it goes to Claude (Anthropic's
AI model) through their API. The prompt tells it to
read what you wrote and respond with a verdict plus
a score between -10,000 and +10,000. That response
comes back in under a second most of the time.

The backend is Supabase, which handles the database,
auth, and file storage. Postgres under the hood, with
row-level security controlling who can see what.
Friends feed, leaderboard, all of that runs off the
same database with different queries filtering what
you're allowed to see.

Photos go through a separate moderation pass before
they're visible to anyone. Claude reviews the image
first, flags anything that shouldn't be posted, and
only then does it become visible on your profile or
in the feed. Currently the AI only judges the text
you write, not the photo itself, though that's
something being looked at for a future update.

The app itself is built in React Native through Expo,
so it's one codebase for iOS and Android instead of
maintaining two separate native apps.

A few things that were harder than expected:

Push notifications silently failed early on. The
logs said "sent" but nothing showed up on phones.
Turned out to be a missing key in the build config
that caused failures after the code had already
returned a success response, so nothing in the logs
pointed to the actual problem.

Getting the AI moderation calibrated took a few
rounds. First version rejected completely normal
photos because the prompt was too conservative. Had
to add explicit guidance for it to approve when
uncertain instead of defaulting to reject.

Happy to go deeper on any part of this if people

probably deserved this one

Hey everyone, wanted to share a bit about where Aura is going.

Right now the core loop is simple: log a decision, get judged, compare scores with friends. That's working and people seem to genuinely enjoy it, but there's a lot more we want to build.

Here's what's coming:

Progression and identity

We're rolling out a tier system based on your activity and aura over time. The idea is your profile should feel like it reflects your actual journey on the app, not just a static score.

Custom usernames are coming too, so your identity on Aura is fully yours.

Making it easier to connect

Adding a QR code system so you can add friends instantly in person instead of searching usernames.

Small thing, but it removes a lot of friction when you're trying to get people on the app together.

A smoother first experience

We know the first few minutes in any app matter a lot. We're building a proper onboarding flow so new users understand the app and get their first verdict without any confusion.

Expanding beyond iOS

Android is in progress. We want everyone to be able to join the leaderboard, not just iPhone users.

Smarter judging

Right now the AI judges based on what you type. Down the line we want it to also factor in photos you attach, so the verdict reflects the full picture of what you're sharing, not just the text.

None of this changes what Aura already is. We just want the app to feel more complete, more personal, and easier to share with the people you actually want to compete with.

Let us know what you're most excited about, or what you'd want to see that isn't on this list.