the bold idea that read itself

After SubFarm I moved on to Bionica. The goal was straightforward: help people with scattered attention read faster by bolding the first half of every word. The bold letters act as anchors for the eyes to help find the next word. I wrapped the idea into an iOS app, added a way to feed it ebooks and web pages, then shipped it.

A Reddit post brought in plenty of eyes. People asked for a one time payment option, so I added it and went to bed. By morning I had earned thirty five dollars and thirty two cents from names I did not recognize. Seeing that number felt different from any metric I had chased before. It meant someone valued the work enough to pay.

the app store treasure map

That small win nudged me to rethink how people even find these apps. Instead of scrolling the search box myself, I tried a tool called Astro. Type in a phrase and it tells you how many folks look for it and how tough it is to show up at the top. I fed it everything that crossed my mind, from reading help for ADHD to cat related trackers to prompts couples might google at midnight. Patterns appeared. Some phrases had steady traffic and low competition. Gold dots on a map.

This was the big shift from my old build‑first days. I was finally starting with demand. Astro’s numbers steered me toward ideas where users already exist, then I used basic App Store optimisation to meet them halfway. It is not a guarantee of success, but it feels like walking with a compass instead of guessing north.

deeply, maybe more

Wanting an idea that people might share with partners(read: easy to organically market), I started deeply.. It is a collection of conversation prompts designed to skip over small talk and reach topics that matter. I leaned on the same search approach and launched quietly. No ads. No big splash. Ten people started the free trial just from stumbling across it in search. One conversion. 15$ in revenue.

small numbers, solid direction

So far my indie revenue stands at seventy dollars and some change. It will not cover rent, yet it tells me the approach is working better than my old habit of building first and hoping later. I am still the underdog in this story, but now I can point to a result.

Next week I will be back at the keyboard, looking for the next search phrase worth building around and learning a bit more about how this storefront works.

Progress is slow, yet steady, and for now that is enough.

SubFarm - A gamified subscription tracker

Download on the App Store

Bionica - 2x your reading speed for ADHD

Download on the App Store

deeply. - never a dull conversation

Download on the App Store

Yes, I know this is Season 2 Episode 1. No, I have not lost my mind. I just really wanted to start with the new stuff while it's still fresh. I promise I will go back and fill in the missing stories from Season 1 very soon. Consider this the Tarantino approach to blogging - slightly out of order but worth it.

Let me take you back to February 2025. I had just finished building my first iOS app and decided to finally throw it out into the wild. It had pixel art, playful animals, and yes, even a physics engine. Because of course I thought the one thing my subscription tracker was missing was farm animals bumping into invisible fences. The plan was to build something light and useful. What I ended up with was a weird little farm where your bills walked around on four legs.

The idea? A subscription tracker.

But with charm.

Imagine a tiny pixelated cow waddling across your screen, proudly representing your Netflix bill. Or a pig slowly walking in circles because you forgot to cancel your Spotify trial. That was the entire pitch. You were not just managing expenses, you were managing livestock.

Scope Creep but with Vibes
The original plan was just a list. A simple UI where you could see your active subscriptions. But somewhere between designing ducks and adding sound effects, I lost control. I added physics. I learned just enough pixel art to ruin my sleep schedule. I became emotionally attached to a goat sprite. It was never meant to go this far.
But I launched it anyway. I called it SubFarm. I sent the TestFlight link to some friends. I uploaded it to the App Store. I crossed my fingers.

The Launch and My First Indie Dollars
A few downloads came in. Not many. No spikes. No launch-day high. But then something magical happened. Two of my friends subscribed.
Just like that, I had made twenty dollars from something I built entirely on my own. No company name behind it. No team. Just me, a handful of pixel animals, and one unnecessarily complicated collision engine.
Sure, they were my friends. Sure, it was probably equal parts support and guilt. But it counted.
This was my first real indie revenue.
I would go on to make another app soon after - and that time, random people I had never spoken to started paying me. But I am jumping the gun. More on that in the next blog.

What I Learned from My Tiny Pasture
SubFarm may not be the next billion dollar app. But it gave me something I had not felt in a while - momentum.
It was a small win, but it flipped a switch. That twenty dollar moment made the work feel real. It turned an idea into something tangible. It gave me:

1. Proof that someone found value in what I built

2. Motivation to keep building and experimenting

3. Clarity that this path, while slow, is actually working

That was the spark. In the next post, I will talk about how I followed that spark straight into a niche ADHD reader, and got random people to pay me money.

For now, I am off to check if my digital cow is still walking in a straight line.

SubFarm - A gamified subscription tracker

Download on the App Store