Indie Maker W28 | User Feedback, a Breakthrough Overseas, My First Time Bouldering, and a Day at POPLAND

Today is day 200 of my one-person company. This Indie Maker column is where I record my own growth and how the business is going. I hope you find something useful in it.

Taking user feedback seriously is a great deal

In an era where every other sentence is about AI/Agents replacing everything, I still firmly believe in the value of listening to your users. This week, after I shipped a new version, I got several little love letters about the product.

"Listen to users carefully, and turn what they say into an excellent product experience" — I think that's what I've been chasing since day one of building products, and it's a product value that won't change just because AI arrived.

0807: A breakthrough in my overseas marketing

Lately I've started to develop a bit of a feel for one overseas social platform. It proves the point again: if you want to find your footing on a platform, you have to post a lot! And if nobody replies to your posts, try going and replying under other people's posts instead.

I also worked out a strategy that suits me — when I can't sleep at night, or when I'm anxious about traffic, I force myself to scroll the feed and look for things worth posting or commenting on. A few comments, one post, then go to sleep. You might wake up to something you didn't expect.

I wrote the above on Thursday night, after doing this for several nights in a row before bed. Every morning brought some unexpected result (and on Sunday, my product broke into the Top 50 of a category chart in one overseas region).

What to do when a minor update is stuck in review

Lately I've heard a lot of developers complain that Apple's App Review is too slow. I never really felt that way myself — almost every version I've submitted got approved within 48 hours. But this time a minor update sat there for 7 days with no movement at all.

So on Thursday morning I tried requesting an expedited review. The moment I submitted the ticket, the review status changed within minutes! It went into review shortly after and was approved a few minutes later. So it turns out that when you've been waiting too long, expediting really does work.

If you've run into the same thing and are interested, I'll write a separate walkthrough next week.

How do you actually do well on Threads?

To get better at Threads, I've basically been living on it for the past couple of days. I happened to scroll past this post, thought it made a lot of sense, and screenshotted it.

Let me rewrite it in my own words:

• Don't care too much about the numbers (including, but not limited to, repeatedly asking why the algorithm isn't pushing you)
• Your first 30 posts are practice and exploration (a few people are naturals; most of us find the feel and the rhythm through practice — and the ones who fail all die of not posting enough)
• No likes and no comments doesn't mean nobody is reading (some of my posts have thousands of views and almost no engagement)
• Stay in your lane (if you're building an indie product, build your content around the product; don't post at random)
• First make sure people understand what you're even talking about (don't talk to yourself)
• Consistent output matters more than anything (a steady cadence — don't stop posting just because there's no feedback)
• Engage; leaving your point of view somewhere beats grinding out posts in silence (when you have no reach yet, replying under popular posts is a way to get some — good content gets seen)
• Sincerity beats tactics (true on every platform; sincerity is the real weapon)
• Publishing isn't an exam — you don't have to wait until you're ready, and you don't need a perfect score to hit post (shipping beats perfect)
• Give it at least 3 months

Do all of the above before you judge whether a platform is worth it. I think these principles apply to marketing on most platforms.

0808: Two observations

Another habit I've picked up before bed is scrolling through user reviews of similar products. Two sharp takes after doing that:

If a product chases whatever's hot at the moment, what you end up with is a product that's: _ _ _ (fill in the blank yourself — I wanted to write this after reading a one-star review of some product before bed, and it was a useful warning).

If a product can't get to positive cash flow, then it will _ _ (same origin: looking at vibe coding projects that had a small moment on social media and haven't been updated in a long time).

Outside of work: unlocking bouldering

This Monday I tried climbing for the first time. Plenty of friends around me love it and keep recommending it, but I always assumed my arms and back were too weak and I was too heavy to handle it at all.

Then last week my friend Boss He, a serious climber, told me none of that is a problem and invited me to his gym on Monday for a private lesson. That cleared my hesitation, so I spent Monday afternoon learning to boulder with him.

Two small takeaways from climbing:

First, safety awareness. The lesson started with how to come down and how to land, practiced over and over, and only then moved on to the moves themselves. What I noticed about myself: I was a bit tense before starting a new sport, but with a friend's encouragement and patient teaching, I got more and more comfortable as I went.

Second, reading a route's solution and reviewing your failures:

• Before you get on a route, you have to learn to observe it and simulate the possible solutions in your head. In that sense it really is a bit like chess.
• And rather than brute-forcing it, summarize from the points where you failed. If you fail at the same spot several times in a row, think about why you couldn't generate force there — including watching the video of your failed attempts to see what could be better.

From that angle, no wonder so many people are obsessed with this sport. The above is what one beginner with exactly one session under their belt took away — writing it down, and I may well be wrong.

A footnote: that night my fingers and arms hurt like hell. Clearly I don't train those parts of my body nearly enough.

A daytime trip to POPLAND

On Wednesday I went to the Pop Mart theme park (POPLAND from here on) during the day. It was a very clear and very hot day. Third time at POPLAND, and this time I discovered I have a talent for two of the games:

• One is a ball-pit shooting game — I don't remember the official name. Roughly: groups of 8, you scoop up armfuls of ball-pit balls and throw them into a container in the distance that opens and closes. Whoever gets the most in within 40 seconds wins. (I came first once before, and first again this time on my first try.)
• The other: you throw three small basketballs into a high opening one by one, they fall through a maze-like set of paths, and at least two of them have to land in the same designated slot to win first prize. To my surprise, three casual throws in a row put all three balls in the same slot.

These little interactive games really do tap into the most primal, childlike kind of fun.

Another fun experience was my first MOKOKO meet-and-greet — taking photos up close and interacting with her. She really is impossibly cute.

Running

Three runs this week: Friday morning, plus two night runs over the weekend. Friday morning was genuinely too hot; the weekend night runs were pretty comfortable.

That's it for this week. Somehow a third of August is already gone — wild.