[deze333]

As an indie developer for the last 10 years my key learning is writing apps for “under privileged” communities. Firstly, it’s a niche. Secondly, people really value your effort and appreciate giving. This creates a nice feeling.

I have created my major app, Time Nomad [1], out of pure curiosity. Don’t laugh, scientific minds… I wanted to see how astronomy and astrology coexisted for hundreds of years without all that new age nonsense that corrupted the ancient discipline.

So I made it different. It’s more of a toolkit to calculate and grok movements of celestial bodies and find moments of specific alignments. That is pure fun. I have enjoyed maths and computational challenges, while the users surprised me by liking the app’s ability to give quick answers about what (and equally importantly when) is happening in the sky — from an astronomical standpoint. No voodoo language needed, just pure geometry.

Why am I saying all this? Taking an old idea and giving it a new modern spin can win hearts. There are communities of people who are open to support that.

[1] https://timenomad.app

[criddell]

Isn’t a big part of your userbase into new age stuff? If you think of it as nonsense, how do you earnestly try to serve them? Aren’t they asking for features you think are bunk?

[deze333]

By sticking to truth and reality. There is integrity in showing the numbers (planetary coordinates, segments of time, etc) as they are, they are real phenomenon.

It’s up to the user to devise their own interpretations. I do not do any interpretations, and that’s by choice. Pure calculations.

And what I have discovered is that all “astrologers” are different. Some are into glossy magazine style horoscopes. Others are more interested in a kind of “celestial statistics” — how and when things align, how movements create harmonics, etc. There’s a rich field of mathematical thinking if one wishes for that.

Everybody gets their own piece of cake. I am happy with what I do, they are happy with the toolkit provided. One can’t judge a pocket calculator for how it may be used.

Funky feature requests? Surprisingly not that often. The reason is perhaps the intent behind the app. It doesn’t classify itself as a “crystal ball”, it’s a calculator. So I stick to what is called “classical astrology”, ie something borderline between astronomy, philosophy and mathematics. Pure foundational basics.

[diggan]

> Isn’t a big part of your userbase into new age stuff? If you think of it as nonsense, how do you earnestly try to serve them? Aren’t they asking for features you think are bunk?

A chiropractor uses maps of human bodies to understand where things are, even though they use the information differently than doctors and surgeons, both groups base their understanding on the same facts.

I'm guessing the same can apply in more areas than medicine too.

[crooked-v]

> both groups base their understanding on the same facts

Chiropractors base their knowledge on secret messages from a ghost [1].

[1]: https://nationalpost.com/health/the-first-chiropractor-was-a...

[animal_spirits]

Don’t generalize all practitioners based on the strangeness of the first one.

[crooked-v]

The strangeness of the first one is the basis of the field. Literally all of chiropractic practice stems, objectively, from the one guy and his ghost revelations circa 1896 or so.

[Henchman21]

Chiropractic medicine is quackery. I am happy to acknowledge that some people find it helpful!

But let’s be honest: it isn’t scientific in the least, no matter what modern practitioners have gussied it up with.

[deze333]

Exactly that. Instead of fighting belief systems, offer something that is useful for different practitioners. There is massive amount knowledge that can be made interactive and broaden our understanding of reality we live in. And there is an aspect of fun and unexpected discoveries once one decoupled themselves from any kind of ideology. Be outside the box.

[criddell]

Absolutely. So if you made a body map and your user base starts asking for you to add chakras or reflexology areas or acupuncture locations and you think that's all a bunch of woo, how do you respond?

[diggan]

For reflexology/acupuncture, you could have a section where you highlight typical focus points used in reflexology/acupuncture, without giving any sort of positive acknowledgement for them as treatments.

[jakubmazanec]

App looks great, but astrology is still nonsense, with our without the new age stuff.

[deze333]

There are factors of both reality and imagination in pretty much everything we do, including things like LLMs. What is considered cutting edge today may be considered sheer quackery in the future.

My perception is that there is value in sticking to reality. Who am I to judge the users? They are free to interpret numbers as they wish. Just look at the big data. The numbers are real, yet interpretations and conclusions can be anything - the interpreter is inherently biased and constrained by their own field of view, political and employment context. Not that dissimilar from astrology, in essence.

Why astrology in this case? My interest has always been in the analysis of movement of planetary bodies. I like to see and understand how things move out there in space. There is a beauty in that, for me.

I don’t think I’d pass any space company interview, it’s too elitist. So I thought, hmm astrology…. but why not? I’d get to play with celestial mechanics. And the users can use it for what they wish. After all, in the past, astrologers always were astronomers and mathematicians in the first place. Perhaps there’s a mysticism in the sky that allows to be equally scientific and inspired? This is the case where belief isn’t that important. What’s more important is to be moved by what one does.

[briandear]

The app itself isn’t something that interests me, but wanted to complement your beautiful home page. Nicely done. You’ve executed it very beautifully. I wish more apps were like yours.

[deze333]

Oh, wow, thank you! I am touched. Since the very beginning I've been using a simple Jekyll template and added some graphics to make it more interesting and appealing. Perhaps the amount of features that the app offers is helping here. Each feature has enough depth to ensure its own slot in the broader narrative.

[aleksiy123]

How do you find these underserved communities?

[deze333]

From my perspective. Firstly, know yourself. Try to identify directions of knowledge you have a natural attraction towards. This phase takes time. Use the sense of curiosity as opposed to common entrepreneurial logic. What would you do even if unpaid? Do a few small projects, explore different directions before committing to something specific.

By the time you’ve identified and experimented with what makes you tick you will have already built an idea of what people discuss on forums, etc. There will be already existing solutions and incumbent providers. Don't be intimidated by them. Read what users say and how they express themselves within that domain. Very likely incumbent providers are “old style” burdened by legacy patterns. People use them because there’s no alternatives.

If at this stage you do have a genuine feeling that you can do better - supported by product vision (that's important!) - go for it. But it has to be real for you. You’ll need enough passion to last through the first year of development. If you will survive that year the chances are you will have created something genuine and there’s some real IP behind your effort. Users will recognise that.

[ukuina]

Great-looking website and app. How did you decide on what becomes an IAP and what is core functionality? Why did you disable family-sharing of IAPs (or is that just an Apple quirk on iOS)?

[deze333]

It grew organically.

Initially I made the app as an experiment, just wanted to see how planets rotate and align, and what makes people interested in that. That became the foundation.

Then somebody asked “can I have some extra asteroids and minor bodies added?” This became the first add-on I have introduced.

Each time I can think of an interesting feature, I think “is there enough standalone value to classify it as an add-on?”. The app is organically growing using the methodology of having the core and extensions.

Family sharing? I never really looked into that. I had maybe two requests over the years. It’s just a different kind of user base.