I Built 6 Apps in 3 Months as a Solo Dev — Here's What Actually Worked

Between December 2025 and March 2026, I shipped 6 apps. iOS apps, a macOS app, landing pages, backends. All solo, all while working a full-time job.

The indie hacker community loves the "ship fast" mantra. I took it literally. Here's the scoreboard.

The apps

One app has real users and momentum. Five don't. Let's talk about why.

Lesson 1: Building is easy, distribution is everything

Every one of those apps works. They're well-designed, well-coded, and solve a real problem. But having a working app and having users are completely different things.

I spent 90% of my time building and 10% on distribution. That ratio should be inverted once you have an MVP. I know this intellectually. I still didn't do it. Building feels productive. Marketing feels vulnerable. That's the trap.

Lesson 2: Pick the one with natural pull

Mac Wisper is the only app where people found me instead of me finding them. People search for "voice to text mac", "whisper alternative", "wisprflow alternative." There's organic demand.

The fitness apps? Nobody wakes up and searches "streak fitness tracker iOS." The market is saturated with apps that look exactly like mine. I was competing on features in a market where distribution wins.

Build where there's search demand. If people are actively looking for a solution, you have a distribution channel built in.

Lesson 3: Shipping fast isn't shipping smart

I shipped 6 apps in 3 months. That sounds impressive. But what if I'd spent those 3 months on one app?

Mac Wisper would have better onboarding, more features, a polished website, and actual marketing. Instead, it launched with a permissions bug that blocked most users from even trying it.

Speed is a weapon when aimed at one target. Speed scattered across six targets is just chaos.

Lesson 4: Your first 10 users teach you more than your code does

Mac Wisper has 8 users. I know their emails, what tier they're on, and how many times they've used the app. Some signed up and never activated — that told me the onboarding was broken. One user from Japan signed up at 4am — that told me there's global interest.

The apps I abandoned? I have no idea if anyone would have used them, because I never put them in front of real people. I just assumed and moved on.

Lesson 5: AI tools change the calculus but not the game

I used Claude Code for most of this work. It made me dramatically faster at building. But faster building just means you hit the distribution wall sooner.

AI tools are incredible for shipping. They don't help you find users, pick the right market, or create demand. The hard part of indie development was never writing code — it was everything else.

What I'm doing differently now

1. One app, full focus. Mac Wisper is my flagship. Everything else is paused.
2. Distribution first. SEO, content, community posts — before new features.
3. Talk to users. 8 users is enough to learn from. I'm reaching out to all of them.
4. Build in public. Share the journey, not just the product. People follow stories.
5. Patience. The blog posts I wrote yesterday won't rank for weeks. The SEO work from March will pay off in June. That's fine.

If you're a solo dev considering shipping multiple apps — maybe don't. Pick one. Make 10 people love it. Then make 100. That's the whole game.