User Power
Value/Post Ratio
200%
- Sep 5, 2023
- 2
- 4
I recently read The Millionaire Fastlane (currently reading Unscripted ) and I'm incredibly inspired to get going on this. I'm starting this thread to document my progress on getting to financial freedom by creating a mobile app that will be used by millions.
A quick bit about me:
My goals:
Now with the intros out of the way, let me tell you about my app and where I'm at with it!
The app:
As far as the business side goes (actually making $$$), my current plan is to offer a way for individuals to boost their posts to get more exposure. Boosts will cost money. Additionally, there will be a business plan for companies that want to promote through polls (eg. pineapple on pizza? posted by Domino's). Charging the users on the app isn't the primary goal here - my goal is to provide value to them so more and more people use the app. Once enough people are using the app, the value comes from the data and the users that are on it, which can then be eventually sold. The ways the users can pay would be more of a way to keep the app afloat if there isn't outside funding. An app is great for scaling since it can pretty much scale infinitely (as long as you have infinite cash) and impact millions of people around the world, which is great for me - the more people I impact, the more money I can make.
I've validated the app mostly by observation so far:
I've created most of the designs needed to implement the app already. My designs for this app are simple, uncluttered, bold, clean, and smooth (in terms of animations). Navigating the app should be easy, and there should be minimal distractions from the main activity: voting in endless polls. I want the user experience to be fast and seamless, especially for polls. I've already set up one initial poll (with infinite scalability) with live voting and results - if there are one million people voting at the same time, they'll all see the polls update in realtime (which can add to the slot machine factor, in terms of scrolling endlessly to see if you get more good posts or see if the votes change).
Right now, I have about 50% of the basic user interface done on the app, with many of the interactions added. Sign up and onboarding is done (one tap sign in with socials for frictionless onboarding). Implementing the UI and hooking it up to a backend isn't too much of a challenge right now. The biggest challenge that I'm looking forward to will be the automated curated feed. I'm going to have to dive into a lot of the recent AI/ML personalization/recommendation systems to create one that fits my needs. When users scroll, it should note that they "like" a poll if they voted, and they "dislike" it if they skipped it. Other metrics can be used as well, but that's the basic gist of it. The more they scroll, the better recommendations they'll get, plus some other content mixed in, such as X% random or near you (or places you've been).
I've also started an initial marketing campaign using memes, because everyone loves memes. The memes are your usual memes, handcrafted by yours truly, in the format of polls that you'll see on the app (very clean). I have a somewhat-automated system for this, meaning that I can crank out one meme every minute or two if I'm focused (and I don't have to come up with the meme, yet they're original at the same time).
That's it for the first post! I don't know how often I'll post progress - probably at least once a month, unless there's even more progress to share.
A quick bit about me:
- Mid twenties
- Software engineer by trade
- Working the slowlane at a big tech company
- I'm always working on a fun side project, but now it's time to turn it into a business
- I've released two apps to the app stores (one of which I've removed now after validating it...or not)
My goals:
- Get millions of people on my app
- Sell my app for high eight figures
- Financial freedom by 30 (by doing the above)
Now with the intros out of the way, let me tell you about my app and where I'm at with it!
The app:
- Think TikTok, but for polls: there's an endless feed of fun polls curated for you
- Polls are created by users that should ask fun and engaging questions with a wide variety of topics that get you thinking (or not)
- Polls can be posted anonymously so viewers won't know who posted it
- Addictive time killer, yet informational and exposes you to viewpoints other than your own ("that many people thought that?")
- No commenting, only voting (and saving polls for later to check back on the results)
- You can follow people whose polls you like ("hot" algorithm feed and "following" chronological feed)
As far as the business side goes (actually making $$$), my current plan is to offer a way for individuals to boost their posts to get more exposure. Boosts will cost money. Additionally, there will be a business plan for companies that want to promote through polls (eg. pineapple on pizza? posted by Domino's). Charging the users on the app isn't the primary goal here - my goal is to provide value to them so more and more people use the app. Once enough people are using the app, the value comes from the data and the users that are on it, which can then be eventually sold. The ways the users can pay would be more of a way to keep the app afloat if there isn't outside funding. An app is great for scaling since it can pretty much scale infinitely (as long as you have infinite cash) and impact millions of people around the world, which is great for me - the more people I impact, the more money I can make.
I've validated the app mostly by observation so far:
- There's another polling app (a competitor) that launched a few years ago in a different part of the world (I'm in the USA). It has 100k downloads, but doesn't seem very good (for a number of reasons I won't get into here). If enough people downloaded that, where the main activity is posting and voting in polls, then I think this could work.
- Some Instagram influencers are popular because of the polls that they post, because they're engaging, though provoking, and funny - they would be great as early adopters, and shows that there's a market for it here
I've created most of the designs needed to implement the app already. My designs for this app are simple, uncluttered, bold, clean, and smooth (in terms of animations). Navigating the app should be easy, and there should be minimal distractions from the main activity: voting in endless polls. I want the user experience to be fast and seamless, especially for polls. I've already set up one initial poll (with infinite scalability) with live voting and results - if there are one million people voting at the same time, they'll all see the polls update in realtime (which can add to the slot machine factor, in terms of scrolling endlessly to see if you get more good posts or see if the votes change).
Right now, I have about 50% of the basic user interface done on the app, with many of the interactions added. Sign up and onboarding is done (one tap sign in with socials for frictionless onboarding). Implementing the UI and hooking it up to a backend isn't too much of a challenge right now. The biggest challenge that I'm looking forward to will be the automated curated feed. I'm going to have to dive into a lot of the recent AI/ML personalization/recommendation systems to create one that fits my needs. When users scroll, it should note that they "like" a poll if they voted, and they "dislike" it if they skipped it. Other metrics can be used as well, but that's the basic gist of it. The more they scroll, the better recommendations they'll get, plus some other content mixed in, such as X% random or near you (or places you've been).
I've also started an initial marketing campaign using memes, because everyone loves memes. The memes are your usual memes, handcrafted by yours truly, in the format of polls that you'll see on the app (very clean). I have a somewhat-automated system for this, meaning that I can crank out one meme every minute or two if I'm focused (and I don't have to come up with the meme, yet they're original at the same time).
That's it for the first post! I don't know how often I'll post progress - probably at least once a month, unless there's even more progress to share.
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