[achempion]

Thank you for the insight on the development process. Tbh, it seems a very reasonable path for the app without any economic and time pressure to succeed, considering you now have the perfect app for yourself.

It's too early to jump to conclusions without proper marketing for the app and any revenue-related metrics gathered.

The issue with delayed marketing can be that the product is too large to make changes fast and run experiments. Removing features considering committed resources would also be a challenge.

Regarding the Proxy Users, I think the idea is that customers should pay for a solution that solves a problem, not vice versa. You can install a session recording feature, watch app interactions occasionally, and do interviews with paying users (or invite active users to your podcast).

[ptwobrussell]

Great perspective here, I appreciate it!

I am very much still an optimist on the future of the app and my ability to monetize it.

As I synthesize much of this post and these comments, it's increasingly clear to me that I've just been operating too much in isolation, leaning more into what I know well (development) -vs- what I don't know as well (marketing in all its forms)

Now it's time to do some overcorrection and then step back and find the balance.

I very much intend to have a success story to post here one day as a new comment on this post about "how my startup barely dodged death but now I'm writing this update from the beach watching the monies flow" :)