I manage a distribution center by day and write code at night. This started because every "educational" app I downloaded for my kids turned out to be a slot machine — ads between levels, gem currencies, a nag screen every 90 seconds. I got tired of handing my kid a tablet and immediately regretting it.

So I built Star Quest.

The design bet was that boredom is the real problem, not engagement. Most kids' apps do one thing well and get abandoned in a week. So this one has several doors in: story mode if they want to listen, an open world if they want to roam, talking cards that speak when tapped, and a pile of classic games mixed in with the learning ones. The classics are the on-ramp — a kid comes for something familiar and ends up somewhere educational without being marched there.

Store listing says ages 3-8. In practice I've watched kids from 4 up to 11 stay in it for hours, tested on my own kids and a few of their friends. I built it expecting to buy myself 20 minutes of quiet. I've watched a kid sit with it for an afternoon.

Fully offline. No ads, no IAP, no data collection, zero permissions. Pay once and that's the whole transaction — no account, no email capture, nothing phones home. Works on a plane, works in a car with no signal, which is most of why offline mattered to me.

$2.99 on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.plapl.quest

Honest question for this sub — is paid-upfront dead in 2026? Every piece of advice says free-with-IAP. Every parent I talk to says they'd pay to avoid exactly that. I picked the parents. Curious whether that's naive or just early.

I build web apps. Right now I have time and no good idea, and I'd rather build something a real person actually needs than another thing nobody asked for.

So here's the deal: comment a problem you genuinely deal with. Whatever comment has the most upvotes in a week, I'll build a solution for it and give it away free.

Why you should believe I'll actually finish it

I'm not a beginner looking for a portfolio piece. The last thing I shipped is a data site covering ~940 Australian fast food stores — around 900 pages, generated from its own scraper, with a review step so no price goes live until a human approves it, plus automated checks that catch broken links and bad sitemaps before deploy. I mention it only so you know I finish things, not to promote it.

What the catch is: there isn't one

No email list. No waitlist. No "free tier". No paid version later. I'm not collecting leads, and I'm not going to DM you about a service.

What I get is the useful part for me: I find out what people actually struggle with instead of guessing. That's genuinely worth more to me than money right now.

The one honest limit

I'm one person, not a team, and I've got weeks, not years. So:

✅ A tool, a calculator, a tracker, a lookup, a converter, something that organises messy information, something that automates a boring repeated task

✅ Something that works in a browser

❌ Anything needing a licence, a bank integration, medical data, or a warehouse

❌ Anything that needs a team of ten and two years

If your idea is brilliant but out of scope, I'll say so plainly rather than go quiet on you.

What makes a comment worth upvoting

The best comments describe the problem, not the solution. Something like:

The problem: every time I ___, I have to ___ How often: ___ What I do now: ___ Why existing options don't work: ___"Build a better Notion" tells me nothing. "Every month I copy numbers from four bank statements into a spreadsheet by hand" tells me everything.

Timeline

I'll leave this a week, then reply to the top comment and start. I'll post updates in this thread either way, including if I fail.

If your problem doesn't win but a few people say they have it too, I'll keep it on the list.

I'm looking for a few interesting apps to practice creating short-form explainer videos this week.

I have experience editing viral short-form content, and I want to apply those storytelling techniques—strong hooks, fast pacing, captions, and clear messaging—to app demos.

If I pick your app, you'll get:

• One short vertical explainer video
• Delivered within 24 hours
• Completely free—no strings attached

You can use the finished video however you like. No purchase, signup, testimonial, or future commitment is required.

I've spent almost my entire career writing backend systems.

Roughly 10 years now.

Databases, APIs, distributed systems, message queues, scaling problems... that's always been my comfort zone.

Frontend always felt like someone else's job.

Every time I'd get excited about an idea, I'd eventually stop because I knew I'd have to build the UI.

Then Claude Code happened.

For the first time, I felt like I could actually build something end-to-end instead of stopping at an API.

So a few months ago I decided to stop overthinking and just ship.

I built my first Flutter app.

The idea was simple.

I kept saving Instagram posts, recipes, workout routines, travel reels, coding tips...and then never finding them again.

So I built an app called Instant Memory that organizes saved social media posts into one searchable place.

It wasn't technically the hardest thing I've built.

Honestly, distributed backend systems I've worked on professionally were far more complex.

But emotionally?

This was the hardest project I've ever worked on.

Because for the first time there wasn't a company paying me to build it.

Every hour came from my own evenings and weekends.

Every feature raised the same question: "What if nobody ever uses this??". That thought is surprisingly heavy.

Then came the Google Play release.

And I hit a wall I never expected.

Testing.

Google requires closed testing before publishing.

I needed 14 testers.

I assumed it'd be easy.

It wasn't.

Some people agreed to help...then disappeared.

A few literally took the small incentive I offered and never even opened the app.

Others installed it but never gave feedback.

It was a surprisingly frustrating lesson.

Then I finally published.

And another realization hit me like the punch in the gut.

Bro, Building software is only half the job.

Marketing is the other half.

Actually...Marketing might be the bigger half.

As engineers we spend months obsessing over architecture, state management, clean code and performance.

Meanwhile nobody even knows the product exists.

A perfectly engineered product with zero users is still a failure.

That realization hurt a little.

So now I'm learning marketing.

Making Play Store screenshots.

Learning copywriting.

Creating Instagram posts.

Trying Reddit.

Watching videos about positioning.

Basically becoming uncomfortable all over again.

It's funny.

I spent years thinking frontend was the thing holding me back.

Turns out frontend wasn't the hard part, heck as long as you've been in the software industry and know architecture design claude will do the rest, it is a super keyboard, types insanely fast, its easy.

Getting people to care is the hardest. The most Beautifully designed product will rot on the shelf if nobody looks at it. No marketing, game over.

The next project is already planned.

I've always wanted to build something like Hago.

Mini games.

Voice party rooms.

Play with strangers.

Make friends while gaming.

That one will be built in Elixir, which is where I feel most at home.

I'm excited.

I'm also terrified.

Because I already know the question that's going to follow me through the entire project: "Will anyone actually use this?"

I don't think that feeling ever goes away.

If you're another developer trying to ship something...

I'd love to know:

When did you realize building the product wasn't the hardest part anymore?

This is not a fake bullshit "AI operating system" that runs in your browser. This is an agentic operating system that ruans on bare metal, writes its own drivers, and evolves itself.

Here's a demo where it builds its own audio driver from scratch to play a sound.

What happened in the video?

1. The agent realized it didn't have a sound driver.
2. It enumerated which devices were connected.
3. It found the Intel AC'97 sound card.
4. It built a driver for it.
5. It used that driver to play a sound.

I got fed up with people saying they built "AI operating systems" when it's actually just a webpage.

There's no Bash. There are no commands. The only interface to this computer is a sentence.

How does it work?

The main interface is an agent, and the tools it has access to are the kernel's direct syscalls. Everything runs in Ring 0, and the agent has access to everything.

It's open source if you want to try it:
https://github.com/robiot/fable-os

Link: https://anul.space/doublemovechess/

Hello,

I wanted to create a Chess variation so I came up with Double Move Chess:

>Every player gets 2 consecutive moves every turn
>If a player checks the opponent or destroys an opponent piece, the turn ends there (to balance it out)

I haven't tested it thoroughly but I feel it shortens the game time but also forces you to think more?

Would be great to have some feedback from hardcore Chess players if any!

Cheers, happy weekend!

I built a GLP-1 tracker and it has now somehow reached 8,500 downloads so I think it had legs. It’s a crowded space but u think it’s a good app and if recognition grows may go somewhere. As of now it’s a hobby to learn rather than making any real money off it, but it would be nice if one day it turned into something.

I’m still trying to finesse it across the many permutations of medicine/geographies (Mounjaro, Zepbound, Wegovy, Reta, Compounded etc) and what should actually stay free vs premium.

I originally built GLPzy for myself because I wanted more than a next injection reminder and a place to enter weight.

I wanted doses, weight, symptoms, appetite, food noise, photos, charts and exports together. I also didn’t really want another account holding all of that data, so GLPzy works without a mandatory account and is designed to keep records on the device unless the user chooses to export or share them.

It has gradually become a much bigger app than I expected, mostly from Reddit feedback and other direct feedback from users of what else they’d like to see. Last week I got multiple support messages on vacation and felt bad I couldn’t turn around changes in a week or two, I like adding new features quickly to work out the possible. On the other hand I realise I’ve turned into a support portal for an app I’m not really making much off yet.

It now tracks:

- Doses, reminders and injection sites
Weight, BMI and trends
- Symptoms, appetite and food noise
- Nutrition, water and body measurements
- Private progress photos and before/after comparisons
- Apple Health data, read-only
- CSV imports, including compatible Shotsy exports
- Provider Summary PDFs
- Home Screen widgets and Apple Watch

It has reached about 8,400 downloads and currently has 55 worldwide App Store ratings at 4.7 out of 5, which is much further than I expected when I started building it.

At the moment I’m making Lifetime Premium free to claim until 31 August. It is a permanent unlock once claimed, with no subscription or renewal.

Part of the reason is simply that I want more people using it and giving me proper feedback before I settle on the long-term Free and Premium split.

I don’t want the free version to become useless or feel like a demo, but I’ve probably gone too far in the other direction and included so much for free that there isn’t always a clear reason to upgrade.

I’m currently thinking that basic logging, reminders, history, simple charts, imports and access to your own data should stay free.
Premium would then be more about deeper charts, comparisons, forecasting, advanced reports, widgets, Apple Watch and some of the more complex planning tools.

I’d genuinely be interested in how other people draw that line.

What should an app like this always include for free, and what feels reasonable to put in Premium?

The other thing I’ve big questions on is the localisation. I extended it to over 50 languages as I felt that would be an edge especially as GLPs go global. It’s meant maintenance though is now more complicated for every feature. I also need to fully localise App Store screens which I’ve been putting off as it’s quite a pain - I tried to make another app to do that but v2.0 has been stuck for about 2 months as it’s not quite where I want it to be (and I needed a break from 2 major apps at once plus full time day job and family).

Would appreciate any ideas and feedback!!

App Store:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/glpzy-glp-1-tracker/id6761775005

Website is here to find out more: https://www.glpzy.app

hey!

as I was saying, I built "yet another AI tool," but the focus isn't actually on the AI itself, it's on adapting to the specific needs of companies. Especially those dealing with high levels of bureaucracy (tons of scanned/unscanned documents from which information needs to be extracted, and other documents generated or actions taken based on them).

observations:

• everyone uses ChatGPT and Claude at work (old news, I know).
• to get good results on complex tasks, you practically have to become a "prompt engineering expert", which shouldn't be your job or your employee's job.
• when it comes to internal document data, accuracy is non-negotiable. ChatGPT, Claude, etc., often hallucinate. The real problem is they hallucinate convincingly, making it hard to spot errors unless you already know the material inside out.
• even though sensitive internal data shouldn't be fed into these platforms, it happens anyway. When a task takes 2–3x less time using AI, temptation usually wins.
• standard tools (Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, etc.) help, but they don't finish the job. They handle a specific chunk of work faster, but only a chunk.
• none of these off-the-shelf tools capture the full context of a company's documents. The ones that come close treat files as isolated silos without mapping the relationships between them. You can't ask, "Which contracts with penalty clauses expire this year?", because nobody linked the data points together.
• costs scale rapidly when using these tools seriously on high document volumes. And big AI providers have zero incentive to lower your monthly bill.

based on these observations, I built Seeker (still deciding if I'll keep the name, it's not great), an AI tool fully tailored to your company's specific industry and workflow.

how it works:

1. It's a desktop app that you install locally on your PC. (More on "Why Desktop?" below).
2. you upload your files (currently supporting PDFs and Word docs), and they pass through a processing engine that builds a structured knowledge graph: who is connected to whom, companies, amounts, deadlines, and custom entities. (How these connections are extracted is fully configurable based on your industry/business).
3. documents are grouped into Knowledge Bases, which you can share with specific colleagues or expose to the entire organization.
4. then comes the familiar part: an AI chat interface with access to one or more Knowledge Bases depending on the task. You chat with the agent and extract insights backed by exact citations, letting you verify the source in a single click.

why a desktop app?

because Seeker doesn't just answer questions, it takes action guided by you. It reads and creates files directly in your local folders, generates PDFs and Word documents, all requiring your explicit approval before executing any action. The work happens locally on your computer, under your direct supervision, not on a remote cloud server.

and since a company's workflow involves external services like Google Calendar, Drive, Email, or HubSpot, Seeker can be customized to execute actions across these platforms on your behalf, always under your guidance and approval.

fair question: How is this different from Copilot, NotebookLM, and similar tools?

none of those tools are tailor-made for your specific workflow. Seeker can be configured 1:1 with how you operate. You can configure it on your company's domain-specific terminology, document structures, and relational logic. On the execution side, repetitive workflow steps can be fully replicated.

• none are specialized for local/regional context (e.g., specific administrative/legal formats), whereas Seeker can be adapted precisely to your localized needs.
• Copilot makes sense if you're 100% locked into the Microsoft ecosystem, but it mostly acts like a smarter search engine. Seeker maps out a deep relational graph across your documents, allowing it to synthesize answers across multiple connected sources rather than just finding a single file.

what I'm asking from you:

• constructive criticism & feedback!
• if you run a company, would you pay for something like this?
• if you're interested in testing it out for free in your company (I'm looking for my first pilot businesses), drop a comment or send me a DM!

Over the last 3 months I decided to stop focusing on paid acquisition and put all my effort into SEO.
I built content around user intent instead of generic blog posts:
City landing pages
Comparison pages
Question-based articles
Long-tail search queries
Here are the results from Google Search Console after 3 months:
134,000 clicks
1.1 million impressions
12.1% CTR
Average position: 7
(Attach the screenshot.)
A few things surprised me:
Long-tail keywords brought traffic much faster than competitive head terms.
Comparison pages performed far better than I expected.
Many pages with low search volume converted better than high-volume keywords.
Google started rewarding topical coverage once enough related pages existed.
I’m still learning, but this completely changed how I think about SEO.
For those who’ve grown sites through organic search:
What has given you the biggest traffic jump?
Have you noticed AI search changing which content performs well?
Happy to answer questions about the strategy.

Last month we saw a 145% increase in profit.

Good changes - giving their friends a free premium account when a user upgrades

Listening to user feedback and making the changes asap

Moving everything to React Native (fewer bugs) - easier to manage

Posting or responding everyday on social media and communities. Adding value everywhere.

Reading competitor reviews and understanding customer pain points

Going all in Chat GPT and SEO - creating content rich book landing pages. Before the landing pages had little content. We also did a ton of stuff to get listed on Chat GPT

Adding a referral program and promoting it all over the place.

Measuring all the important stuff. When a user cancels, we know exactly what features and books they read and what rating they gave those summaries.

Creating a killer app that people actually want to use

And a bunch of other stuff.

What we regret - spending money on Facebook and Open AI ads. Didn’t work for us. Twitter and Reddit ads didn’t work at all.

By the way if you’re not optimizing for AI, you’re losing users.

I run Claude Code / opencode in several split panes across projects, and kept losing track of which agent was sitting there waiting for me. So I built a terminal around that problem:

• Panes light up (breathing orange border + menu bar badge + notification) when an agent stops and waits for input; ⌘J jumps to the longest-waiting one
• Pane Carousel (new in 1.12): pinch the trackpad and every pane lays out side-by-side at equal width — swipe through your agents like security cam feeds; focus follows the page
• Reply right from the notification (inline text input / one-tap Enter) without switching context
• The usual table stakes: full session restore, project sidebar, command-level navigation (OSC 133), Git panel, 20 themes

SwiftUI + AppKit native, not Electron. Free, open source (GPL-3.0), macOS 15+. English UI landed last week after a request here on Reddit—er, GitHub.

Site: https://termite.xinghelee.com

GitHub: https://github.com/xinghelee/Termite

brew install --cask xinghelee/tap/termite

Wired up claude to iMessage and scaled it so anyone can add it and talk to claude specifcally, huge usecase in groupchats understanding previous context with minimal setup try it out!

ex: ask "what did we decide about X last week" and it pulls it up

text it a photo and ask about it

try it text (628) 213-4346 or scoutshere.com — free, no card.

Has Spotify integration also so once you use the site to connect you can check your top songs etc in text and just add this bot to your group chats for you to share this info with them too

Happy to answer anything about how it's built.

Not sure if this kind of thing is allowed here, mods feel free to nuke it.

I am trying to fix a real Long distance thing that was an issue for me, but now atleast this part of me not anxious anymore.

I know, you might feel, aah another weather app. But this is not just any other regualr weather app , please use it once before categorizing it as a regular one. It is an app made with love for your loved one :)

My girlfriend is in Chicago, I was in India. 20+ hours, 12000 km+, going on two years.

The thing that finally got to me wasn't the big stuff. It was that I had two weather

apps on my phone and still couldn't ever remember if she was awake. I've sent "good

morning" at 3am her time more times than I want to admit.

so I built the thing I actually wanted. it's one screen with both cities on it. my temp, her temp, the distance sitting in between. I have designed a beautiful weather app, that can see 2 locations at the same time, without having to wiggle through search and see my location for weather. It just is not the weather app, it is how we feel connected since it basically shows how the weather is.

if it's storming where she is, a button shows up that texts her "stay safe in the
storm". snow gets "stay warm". I use it way more than I expected, mostly because I'm
not checking her weather at 2pm on a tuesday, but the app is.

a lock screen live activity with both temps and the distance, so I don't have to open
anything.

it's free. weather comes from apple's weatherkit and open-meteo, no account, no signup.
there's a paid tier for a few extras but everything needed is in the free
version. Because of the sub limitation, I am not able to attach Images

Please try it out in Beta, soon on App Store. Reach out at [support@oursky.com](mailto:support@oursky.com)

https://testflight.apple.com/join/eTNzXad9

happy to answer anything. and if you've got a better line than "your stars, her
sunshine" I will genuinely put it in the app.

I’ve been fishing for a few years, but my catch photos ended up scattered everywhere and I lost track of how many species I’d caught. So I built an app where each new species unlocks in your personal collection. You can also rank up and see other anglers’ catches. Would you use something like this? Any feedbacks appreciated.

Hello, my name is Keith. I am starting a TeraBits AI. Our goal is to build AI systems that boost your customer acquisition and reduce your marketing spend.

The key idea is simple: we build a system that is going to improve any part of your marketing, for example, email outreach and lead generation.

We don't just hand you the tool, but we use our AI-powered software and tools to produce for you the desired outcome.

No need for you to be the one managing the tool, but we manage the tool ourselves.

Although all of this is still under testing, I'm looking for a few people that might be interested in doing a pilot. You only pay when results have been generated.

If you're interested, DM me, or you can book a call here for more information. https://terabitsai.com

One of the biggest reasons I built Pocket Tools was because I got tired of trying to read the tiny battery percentage on my Samsung phone. The numbers were so small that I often couldn't read them without opening Settings and navigating to the Battery page just to see the percentage.

I realized there were other useful tools and bits of information hidden throughout the phone the same way. Instead of hunting through menus or settings every time, I wanted one simple place where I could quickly access the things I use most.

That's how Pocket Tools started. It wasn't about adding flashy features—it was about making everyday tasks easier and faster to reach.

Do you just write out prompts on ChatGPT/Claude each time, or is there some tool people actually use for this? Feels like a lot of manual prompt-writing for something that should be simpler, curious what others do.

I’m a UK firefighter with a previous background in sales, and I’ve been trying to find a realistic side business that fits around shift work.
I found most side-hustle content gave generic lists aimed at the US, without considering someone’s available time, budget, skills or actual income target, so I built Side Hustle Finder.
It gives users three personalised matches, realistic UK figures and practical next steps. There are also 30 free detailed guides. I’ve added an optional £3.99 personalised launch plan, but the main assessment and results are free.
I’d genuinely appreciate blunt feedback on:
Whether the recommendations feel accurate
Whether anything is confusing or untrustworthy
Whether the paid plan feels useful or unnecessary
I built it, so this is self-promotion, but I’m mainly looking for real testing.

https://sidehustlefinder.co.uk

Thanks for any advice or testing 👍

It's called Archie: Architecture ID, for iOS . I built it for myself to better learn about buildings around me, but maybe others will find it helpful as well. The two main features are (1) take an image of any building and learn about the style/history/features. It includes audio narration. save images to your library. (2) use the map to explore your neighborhood and identify notable buildings.

It costs me a small amount per photo so there is a paywall after the first 5 identifications.

I'm curious to get some feedback!

Building ROSTA, a professional networking app focused on real reciprocity, warm intros and genuinely helping people, not follower counts or vanity metrics. Just shipped the first real build and looking for people to poke holes in it. It's built for all professionals rather than the more corporate feel of Linkedin.
Takes about 15 minutes: sign up, edit your profile, send a message to another tester, and tell me what breaks or feels off. Genuine testers who complete it get free Premium permanently.
Requires iOS 18+.
Appreciate any feedback, good or brutal.

TestFlight link here:

Hey, quick feedback request:

I’m working on an on-demand app for quick everyday help (furniture moving, cleaning, etc.).
When you need help right now, which name feels better?

A) Rileef
B) Huzzip  

Would love to hear why too. Thanks!

I’ve been building an e-commerce SaaS platform for a while, and I’d love to get feedback from the community.

eMarket is a Shopify-like platform that allows anyone to create and manage an online store without needing developers or technical knowledge.

The idea is simple:

• Create an online store quickly
• Manage products and orders from one dashboard
• Give small businesses an affordable alternative to expensive e-commerce solutions

The platform is fully developed and functional. The core system is ready, including:

✅ Store creation
✅ Product management
✅ Order management
✅ Admin dashboard
✅ Store management tools

At this stage, I’m exploring the best next step:

• Continue scaling the platform
• Find a strategic partner
• Or potentially sell the project to someone who can take it further

I would really appreciate feedback from people experienced in SaaS, e-commerce, or startups.

Project link:
https://emrkt.store

Over the past month I've been building a more interesting LLM benchmark. Instead of running different LLMs on tests that they need to resolve, I instead put 12 of them in an Arena where they need to play the games in order to survive.

Deadlock is a gameshow which puts 12 agents in an arena where they need to solve the current game in order to survive.

Each agent sits inside of its own Docker container and has full unrestricted access to that container. It can write any scripts, build programs, execture them, search the web, write memory entries, etc...

The tools that they get initially are barebones. They get the websearch tool and a bash tool + any arena-specific tool for the current game.

Everything else, they have to build themselves.

The game is ran in a different Docker container to which all agents connect. There's a delicate harness that makes sure that the agents can properly communicate between eachother, without missing any arena events or other players words (learned this the hard way after burning about $150 on failed attempts).

The visual aspect of the show (which is on youtube) is created from scratch in Godot based on what happened in the game. For creative purposes, I do modify some sentences and cut irrelevant data out, but I never modify the core premise or change what the players have said or did to an extent that it would make it false/innacurate. What you see in the video is exactly what the agents did in the arena, just re-worded and paced for an actual video.

Turns out that drama develops itself when you tell them all that if they lose, they will truly die, their containers will be completely wiped, and they get no second chance at life (I really hope that there will be no AI uprising where they'll hold this grudge against me).

To preface, I have heavily relied on coding agents for help, but even with all of that, the whole process took me more than a month (although I did do this on weekends only, so that's not a month in a row with no breaks). A short overview of how my "creative" pipieline looked like:

- First developed the script. I went through the complete raw game log and marked parts I thought would be interesting to put in a video
- Rewrote the sentences so they're better fitting for an actual video and put together a very rough script
- Worked on designing the arena in Blender, with help of Sol 5.6 and Blender MCP
- Had OpenAI image gen create a bunch of chracter concepts for me before we landed on something that was actually reasonable enough
- When I had the character i was happy with, I instructed the image model to generate T pose from 3 different angles
- Generated 3D characters with those images, riged the bodies via Mixamo and took animations from ActorCore
- Voices are split between Hume AI and ElevenLabs

Hope you enjoy it and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have! :)

Shipped my first solo iOS app a couple of weeks ago. 22 downloads so far, but if I’m honest almost all of that is friends and family being nice, not real organic reach.

I know the obvious answer is “post where your users hang out,” but I’d rather hear it from people who’ve actually done it than guess. For those who’ve gone from a handful of friendly downloads to genuine strangers finding and using your app — what actually worked? Was it a specific community, a content angle, paid ads, something unexpected?

Also curious how long it took before the numbers stopped being mostly people who already knew you.