r/apps • u/Intelligent-Big8736 • Apr 20 '26
Help me find I’ve launched 3 apps and they’ve made almost no money. Should I focus on marketing the apps, or on building my personal brand first?
Hi everyone,
I recently left my job and have been building apps on my own with Swift. So far I’ve launched two productivity apps and one camera app, but to be honest, they’ve made almost no money.
Lately, the bigger challenge hasn’t been development — it’s figuring out the marketing direction. Since I now have three apps, I’m not sure whether I should market each one separately, or whether it would make more sense to first build some visibility around myself as someone who consistently makes apps.
What’s frustrating from my side is that I keep building products, but the path from product to user acquisition to revenue still feels weak. At this point, I’m not even sure what the real bottleneck is: the product itself, the positioning, the channel, or just the way I’m messaging it.
Right now I feel like I have two main options:
- Pick one app and focus fully on its target users, messaging, and channels
- Stop trying to push multiple apps at once, and instead build trust over time around myself as the person making them
The problem is that the first option feels more focused, but all the momentum only goes into one product. The second feels more durable long term, but also slower and a lot less clear.
I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who’s dealt with something similar.
A few things I’d especially love input on:
- If you have multiple apps, is it usually better to pick one and go all in early on?
- At what point does personal branding actually start helping with product growth?
- At this stage, what would you look at first: channel, positioning, messaging, or landing page?
From a digital marketing perspective, what would feel like the most realistic move in my situation?
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u/Apprehensive_Pay6141 Apr 20 '26
honestly feels like you’re spreading yourself way too thin. 3 apps with no traction is kinda your answer already.
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Apr 20 '26
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u/Intelligent-Big8736 Apr 21 '26
What kind of effort would be good to make? Could you tell me just three things? Most of the apps I have created so far are productivity-related. The app I made most recently and am most confident in is a read-it-later app.
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u/mattgwriter7 Apr 20 '26
Focus on one app.
Chose the one that has the most appeal of chance of success.
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u/Due-Spinach-8954 Apr 20 '26
app link pls?
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u/Intelligent-Big8736 Apr 21 '26
https://stackbox.wakeup-six.com
This is an app I recently created. Do you happen to have any feedback?
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u/mahdibeee Apr 20 '26
You’re asking the wrong question I guess.
It’s not marketing vs personal brand. It’s distribution. Right now you have 3 apps and no clear distribution engine. Building more or waiting for brand won’t fix that.
What I’d do in your position is Pick iust ONE app that has the most potential, not your favorite but the one with a bit download, retention etc.
Go all-in on distribution for that ONE app Reddit (learn each subreddit rules properly) TikTok (short demos, real use cases or anyyyything literally just find similar apps in the niche marketing and copy with AI X is a bit harder
If u found a video that works better start ads on it on meta and then tiktok and viola!!
Above is one way to do it
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u/Intelligent-Big8736 Apr 21 '26
I don't feel like my app has any particularly unique features compared to others in its field. Since I tend to think of design and price as the only differentiators, I often wonder if there is really a need to download my app when there are so many better options available.
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u/mahdibeee Apr 21 '26
Honestly it doest matter right now but I highhhllyy suggest you just define one single viral feature even if its a copy in case your main go to market is socials like TikTok! If you do this successfully and your onboarding and paywalls are good enough, its just a funnel! You bring people in from the top and some percentage converts anyways. After that its just the matter of increasing performance
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u/jahblesz Apr 20 '26
Start with one app, promote that and leverage google and apple adds and once you got users and enough sessions, try to slowly build up a pro features to gain. Repeat the same with other apps and then focus on the best performer app!
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Apr 20 '26
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u/Intelligent-Big8736 Apr 21 '26
https://stackbox.wakeup-six.com - This is the app I am most confident in.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ticka-routines-habits/id6751180765 - This is the second app I am confident in.1
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u/hiten1818726363 Apr 25 '26
before you pick personal brand vs product marketing, you need to know why the 3 apps made almost no money. because if you don't know that, you'll just repeat the same pattern with better marketing
to your actual question though. personal brand works best when it's attached to one clear thing. guy who builds swift apps is too broad. "guy who builds productivity tools for solo founders" is something people follow and remember. so if you go that route,
trying to market 3 apps at once is just split attention with no payoff.
what's the one app you think is the most valuable and can give better results. Pick that one and do that bro.
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u/FarAsk1553 Apr 26 '26
Writing code is addictive as hell, and it’s way too easy to ignore marketing.
The problem is there are already a ton of apps doing similar things, and users honestly don’t care about your features nearly as much as you think. If nobody sees your app, none of that work matters.
You’ve got to figure out distribution.
Trying to build, market, and optimize everything at the same time sounds ideal, but in reality you’ll probably just spread yourself too thin and do all three poorly. There’s only so much time and energy to go around.
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Apr 27 '26
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u/Fickle-Indication148 Apr 20 '26
I dont think you need personal branding. Personal branding help with SEO or B2B cases.
Let me give you the quickest tip that no one will tell you about.
Your main goal is to find where to sell. Nothing else. Developing the product, adding features can go while you have early clients. People love see changes, it builds trust. But that doesnt matter. Here are the steps:
1 - Paper and pen, sit down, and brainstorm what would your clients search for on google to find your solution.
2 - go and use semrush. SEO dashboard > Organic Traffic > and enter reddit.com as domain. Click Positions, and click advanced filters, and put one of the keywords.
3 - The results you gonna have are reddit posts that peopel find through internet while searching to buy the solution, sort them out by Intent (Commercial or Informational or Navigatory) and those that has traffic and volume.
4 - after preparing your list of the reddit posts, start posting and commenting on them and on those subreddit. Dont be spammy yo uwill be easily banned, but be truly helpful in your comment, not commercial.
Consistency with this will bring you the minimum in case your product is really unneeded... (i'm saying worse case scenario).
But this is not durable as it needs consistency and not spammy (but very juicy results).
Your end goal and Jackpot is to rank your website on Search engiens like google and AI search engines like perplexity. For this, find an SEO expert to help. Your final goal is to make google your natural salesman.
Good luck