Aim to Moon, day 1: I launched my app (and broke it on the same day)
I almost messed up my launch.
Not in a dramatic, startup-ending way…
But enough to make early users unable to pay.
Yeah. Day 1.
Hey, I’m Haluk.
I’m building a subscription-based mobile app as a solo founder, and I’m documenting.
The goal is simple:)
$10K MRR. No team. Just me.
Why this app?
I didn’t start with some genius idea.Actually, I saw something interesting:
Apple started banning or limiting certain AI-generated “slide/gamma-style” apps.
Most people would avoid that space. I went directly into it.
Because when platforms start cleaning a category, it usually means one thing:
There’s money there.
The plan (which sounded simple)
Build a slide generation app.
- AI generates the content
- App turns it into slides
- User exports it
Done, right?
Not even close.
Reality kicked in fast
Generating content with AI?
Easy.
Turning that into structured, editable slides inside an app?
Pain.
I built everything in FlutterFlow because I wanted speed, not perfection.
But then I hit the real problem:
How do you structure AI output into something users can actually use?
I ended up building a weird indexing system where every piece of content becomes editable text blocks.
It works… But the preview and export still don’t fully match.
That alone cost me about a week of just debugging and rebuilding.
The part that almost broke me: subscriptions
I knew I wanted recurring revenue from day one.
So I thought:
“Okay, just plug in subscriptions.”
No.
FlutterFlow docs are outdated.
Tutorials don’t match reality.
Half the internet points to things that don’t exist anymore.
I did around 30 TestFlight builds just to understand what’s going on.
Eventually, I realized:
They moved everything to RevenueCat.
No clear docs. No proper guide.
Just one random blog post that saved me.
After that, everything suddenly worked.
My risky decision
I didn’t do what most apps do.
No free trial.
No freemium.
Hard paywall.
You open the app → you pay.
I don’t know yet if this is smart or stupid.
We’ll see.
App Store review humbled me
I submitted the app thinking:
“Okay, MVP is ready.”
Rejected.
Fair enough.
Issues:
- No logout
- Dark mode broken
Fixed them.
Submitted again.
Rejected again.
This time the reason made no sense at first:
“We can’t find your paywall.”
Turns out…
I never submitted my subscriptions.
I thought subscriptions were separate from in-app purchases.
They’re not.
That mistake alone delayed everything.
The launch (and the mistake)
Finally got approved.
App is live.
I’m checking everything, excited…
Then I realize:
I accidentally deleted one of the subscription products while fixing things.
Result:
- Some users couldn’t see all plans
- Some couldn’t purchase at all
On Day 1.
Perfect.
Where I am right now
The app works.
People can use it.
Some things are broken.
Some things are surprisingly solid.
And honestly?
It finally feels like a real product, not just another side project.
Why I’m sharing this
Because most “build in public” posts are too clean.
Everything sounds planned.
Everything looks smooth.
It’s not.
It’s messy, confusing, and sometimes you spend hours on problems that shouldn’t exist.
What’s next
- Fix payment issues
- Improve slide rendering
- Start testing user behavior
- Figure out if this can actually make money
Day 1 is done.
Not perfect. Not pretty.
But real.
If you’re also building something solo, you’ll probably recognise parts of this.
I’ll keep sharing everything — wins, mistakes, all of it.
Let’s see where this goes.
Fallow me
🌙