Chris Birch

I'm a senior dev with a full-time job and a young kid, trying to build my way out - in public, with the real numbers. The life I'm aiming for is the full-time indie one. The reality right now: ~10 hrs/week after kid's asleep. Documenting the climb from here. 🧵

@victor_bigfield Just described how I'm feeling, couldn't reflect it any better.

my feed is full of MRR screenshots. people hitting 10K, 50K, 100K like it's easy. i open stripe and it looks nothing like that. so i close it and keep building. because i tried quitting once. felt worse. maybe tomorrow the screenshot is mine. either way i'll be here.

@Kingsholz big hello

Even if you have 0 followers? Just say "hi" 👋 🤗 Gain 9900 followers now 🏃🏽‍➡️🏃🏽‍➡️🏃🏽‍➡️🔔

My biggest problem building solo - I drift from goals within hours. Loose the idea on what to do next or redo a decision I'd already made in past. So I created my "brain" repo - worklog, decisions, idea inbox, principles, separate from code, improved gradually. Every Sunday I reflect and plan next week, since with ~10hr/week to work, time is a luxury as of now. Using notion for planning. Anyone else solved this a different way?

@SebasEstra I find it that setting hard goals, like 10k MMR in x time, can be psychologically punishing, setting smaller goals that move you towards this goal is rewarding. Anyhow, big congratz!

this morning I reached $4k MRR. Still can’t believe the progress over the past month still have imposter syndrome tho and feel like it can go away all of a sudden. will do my best to make sure it lasts but now only have 25 days left to reach $10k MRR. Can I do it?

@LinoLeighton Admirable results in saturated niche, good job!

First $1K day in the books… I’m still very new to the app space. It’s only been 2.5 months so far, and I’m still learning every single day. But one thing I’ve learned along the way: Don’t give a fuck what people say about your ideas. I probably heard at least 15 people tell me AbMaxx was the worst idea they’d ever heard and that it was ngmi. If you believe in it, keep building. And Thank You GOD 🙏

My feed's full of indie devs sharing how they hit their next MMR goals in no time. Probably half are marketing their own tools. Nevertheless, it's also a distraction generator - constant doubt about whether I'm using the right tools or using the most cost/time-effective approach.

The goal: get Gardned to its first 10 paying customers and documenting every unglamorous step. The wins, the rejections, the real numbers. Follow if that's your thing. 🌱

I'm a senior dev with a full-time job and a young kid, trying to build my way out - in public, with the real numbers. The life I'm aiming for is the full-time indie one. The reality right now: ~10 hrs/week after kid's asleep. Documenting the climb from here. 🧵

Scoreboard so far: • Apsidis (astrology app): live on Android, rejected by Apple (4.3.0 (b) guidelines) • Gardned (garden planner): live on iOS, Android pending • Paying customers: 0 • Followers: also basically 0 😅

@weswinder Is it worth keeping Android app when I cannot launch to iOS due to guidelines? Or just kill it and move to next one?

stop building web apps start building mobile apps trust me

Lessons learned: - Do some app submission guidelines research - Do not invest in anything with direct value at Stage 1 (like email routing via gcp etc.) - Finding right tools for best turnover (claude design etc.)

Failed miserably, tried to reposition my first app to include daily reflection with natal chart representation as additional add-on, won't get past iOS guideline restrictions, moving to next one.

Spent all this time building an iOS app just to get "Guideline 4.3(b) - Design - Spam" rejection. Any experience with this regarding appealing?

Update: giving myself one more week to get this right. Launching April 5th. More build updates incoming.

I've been quietly building an astrology app for some time. Not the kind with generic horoscopes — the kind that calculates your actual natal chart and lets you interrogate it with AI. Launching on iOS in 7 days. Thread incoming 🧵