Issue #13 - Happus
Black Friday is approaching, and many indie developers will be planning sales. Matt Corey is running a Black Friday edition of Indie App Sales, an event that was previously organized in July and featured over 100 indie apps.
The Black Friday event will run from the 24th of November through the 28th of November. For this occasion, we've joined forces to help promote indie apps. I’ll be running special Black Friday issues everyday of the event, each issue will have a cut down feature but with multiple apps.
Sign up for Indie App Sales is now open here. We look forward to your participation!
This week, we're taking a look at Happus, created by Regina Dan. Happus allows couples to work on their relationship. It uses daily and weekly missions to guide you through tracking your mood and offers tips on improving your relationship. The explore section delves deeper into each topic and also includes quizzes to test your knowledge. The app places emphasis on the hormones that affect your mood. Each is explained and includes statistics to track this over time. Happus is a well-designed app that simplifies the understanding of a complicated topic.
App Spotlight
App Name : Happus
Developer : Regina Dan - Twitter/X
What is Happus?
Happus is an app for building happy and healthy relationship. It offers a science-based approach for improving couples relationships
Where did the idea for Happus come from?
Honestly, I was trying to find a balance between my personal needs and what the market needed. I conducted some research first and then, I remembered a personal problem I had faced. When I was working, my partner and I were often too tired and exhausted after work to do anything enjoyable besides watching TV or playing video games. Back then we solved this by planning fun activities in advance alongside our work and stuff. When I was brainstorming ideas for my first app, it occurred to me that turning this into an app might be a good idea. So, I did some more research on that particular topic and found a potential niche in the market for such an app
What’s one stand out feature you’d like everyone to know about?
Definitely science-based date ideas! They are very detailed descriptions of quality time you can have with your partner. They are creative and fun, and most importantly each one of them triggers a release of some happiness hormone, so you have no other option but to become a little bit happier after having one of these science-based dates
How do you promote Happus?
I use multiple methods and channels and I am always open to new ones. The primary method I use is ASO. Additionally, I manage my app's social media accounts on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Threads and I posted on Reddit a couple of times. I have some plans for blog posting and paid marketing too
How did you decide on the pricing?
I conducted some pricing research to know the typical cost of designing, developing, and marketing a similar app. This helped me determine the minimum amount of money my business would need to earn in order to be profitable while still being competitive with other similar apps in the market
How did you launch Happus?
I decided to go for a soft launch because, having worked as a product manager before, I wanted to test my initial hypothesis that people face the problem of not having the energy to come up with quality time ideas. I also wanted to see if people were willing to at least download and at most even pay for a subscription to my app. However, I didn't have much knowledge about keywords, different ASO tools, and mobile marketing platforms. Initially, I thought that paid social media networks were the main marketing channels for apps like mine, but from my past experience, I knew they were quite expensive.
In order to avoid spending a lot of money on attracting users to my first production app, which was still in its MVP stage, I decided to focus on understanding how to attract users organically. I wanted to adapt the product to their needs and learn more about mobile marketing through hands-on and learning-by-doing experiences. Happus was my first app, and I wanted to understand the entire production cycle, from 0 to 1 and from 1 to infinity, with it.
Would I do the soft launch of Happus again?
Right now I’m thinking yes. I learned a lot about ASO since then (like the importance of the order of words in the title, subtitle, and keywords and the number of new ratings) and now I’m trying to conduct the keyword research before building a new app. An alternative version of Happus would be slightly different with this new knowledge. However, the soft launch allowed me to gain that knowledge in the first place and it helped me to save some money, which now I could spend more effectively, I hope.
How long did it take to get to the first version?
Almost 6 months! But it was my first production app after completing a Flutter course
Is there anything you’ve learnt that stands out?
I’m still learning something new related to app development every day! But as a former product manager, I’d say it’s very important to make all you decision data-driven. Even with 10 downloads per day you can build a funnel and find some area for improvement
Any tools or apps you would recommend others check out?
Appfigures is the best ASO tool among those that I tried (SensorTower, AppFollow), especially because of Ariel ’s articles and guides.
What's one tip you would give to someone starting out?
Do the market research first before building anything. It’s really easy to check if there’s enough people who have the problem you wish to solve
Where can everyone go to find out more?
You can find out more on the Happus website.
App Radar
Updates
Peak by Harshil Shah - Mastodon, Twitter/X
Peak lets you make your own fitness dashboard, and always stay on top of it with a range of widgets.Version 2.1
You can now create goals for your weight, view charts for your BMI, see how your body fat percentage is trending, and more. And of course, you can make widgets to always be updated right from your home screen or lock screen.
Sequel by Roman Lefebvre - Mastodon
Whether it’s the TV show your friend raved about, a new book from your favorite author or an upcoming video game, Sequel is your go-to media wishlist.
Version 2.1
- Sync your series and movie-watching activity with Trakt (Sequel+ required).
- Explore the entire cast and crew of movies and series.
- The filmography screen includes additional details and is accessible for any crew members, not just actors.
- Online search can now find actors, directors and crew members by name.
GiftList by Craig Osborne - Mastodon, Twitter/X
Gift List is great for organizing your gift-giving process. You can easily track and add ideas to your lists as they come to you, keeping all your thoughts organized.
Version 1.2
- Add photos to gift ideas
- Add notes to gift ideas
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoying reading as much I do putting it together. Please help support the newsletter by sharing it. The social links are below.
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IndieAppSpotlight - Mastodon, Twitter/X
by Craig Osborne - Mastodon, Twitter/X