Indie Interviews
Can you tell us more about yourself and what led you to become an indie maker
I’m Anika, 27 years old and based in Austria.
My story is kinda boring: I was always into tech and still am.
Since playing computer games in primary school I always wanted to become a programmer. With this goal in mind, I went to a technical high school and got my degree in Computer Science at a technical university. This is also where I learnt basic Android and iOS development and started releasing some small apps I made.
How did you come up with the idea? How do you generate ideas for your apps or projects, and how do you identify the problems or needs your app can address?
This is kinda a funny story: in March 2022 I didn’t have much to do with my freelancing job and decided I wanted to make an app of my own to spend my time productively. I was looking for new app ideas, but didn’t find anything that was easy to make and useful for many. I almost decided to give up.
One evening I was re-watching "Inside" from Bo Burnham and the song FaceTime with My Mom (Tonight) was stuck in my head. I was thinking about when I last called my mom and then it hit me: what about making an app which reminds me to call my mom from time to time? I was so eager to try this out the next day. This is when I created the first prototype of Amato.
Generally, I try to come up with ideas that are simple to make and solve a problem I’m currently facing. I keep a list of app ideas since 2016 and it’s interesting to see the progress I’ve made. The first few ideas were way too hard to implement for a single person and would’ve taken minimum a year to implement. Lately, I’ve gotten to a point where I tend to make small app ideas that can be created in a weekend and try to fix one specific problem, but doing it really good.
How does your day-to-day app development workflow look like?
Currently, my indie apps are only a side business, so I have limited time during the week. Nevertheless, I try to check my stats like revenue, downloads, crash rate, keyword ranks and reviews every day so I can react quickly in case something is off.
My weekend starts on Friday, so these days are typically my dedicated indie app days. I like it that I’m completely free with what I do on these days. Sometimes I implement new features; other days I’m designing an image I can post on social media.
How do you launch and market your app?
I launched Amato End of May 2022. I remember filling out the Apple Store „Tell us about your app or game“ form in advance and contacting some press contacts. I also scheduled a ProductHunt release and posted on social media.
Looking at it, I think I did everything possible for a successful launch, but I missed something important: timing. I released Amato one or two weeks before WWDC 2022 and everybody’s mind was already somewhere else…
Reminder: even though the actual release date is not that important (it’s more the days, weeks and months afterwards where you gain traction), keep important holidays or Apple events in mind when launching a new app or important update. You can always postpone your launch to a later date. You can also decide to launch in silence, see how it goes on its own and market the launch later on.
What are the future plans for your app?
I’ll be mainly working off the long list of feature requests I got over time. Some things include: contact groups / tags, iCloud sync, iPad and Mac support and localization.
Do you have any interesting lessons learned or tips for other indie makers?
Don’t over engineer your first version. Try to get the product out quickly to gather as much feedback as possible. And if it’s unmanageable to do easy and fast, try breaking it down into the main feature and only implement that.
Looking back, are there any decisions or actions you regret not taking before or during the development and launch of your apps? Is there anything you would have done differently?
Honestly, implementing some of the new iOS features and releasing an update alongside Apple was the best decision I’ve ever made. I’m kinda mad at myself I didn’t do this earlier. Many press contacts are desperate to write about all the apps implementing the new features and if you reach out to them in time, chances your app gets featured are pretty high.
The press features of Amato for the iOS 17 release got the app a big boost in downloads and revenue, which still holds on until now.
Are there any indie makers or creators whose work you admire and follow closely?
I always get excited (and a little bit of imposter syndrome) when someone I follow and look up to decides to follow me back on social media. But to name a few I’m looking up to since the beginning:
Could you recommend any specific tools or resources that you believe are helpful for other indie makers, especially those just starting out?
I can definitely recommend creating a press kit with ImpressKit. It’s what I use for Amato since the very beginning and it’s gotten so many updates since. The tool makes it so easy to reach out to press, I wouldn’t want to do it any other way.
I was always looking for a good issue and tasks tracking app, but didn’t find anything that really fit my needs until we switched from Jira to Linear in my 9 to 5 job. I decided to also give it a try for my indie apps and I’ve been using and loving it ever since.
Some people may not know this: you can directly contact Apple to increase the chance of your apps getting featured in the App Store. I fill out the form for every medium to major update I publish.
Thanks for reading til the end. Hope you enjoy the interview as much as we did. Below are some useful links mentioned throughout the interview
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