I was building an intentionally annoying app against doomscrolling [1]. Being technical, I tried to focus on product, marketing and more instead of the implementation. But I still didn't ship quick enough. It's so hard. Only after a few months did I start with marketing, and it hit me like a wall.

So I'm giving a try to a project which started with marketing. No implementation, just a TikTok to see if people like it. And holy crap, we got 75k views!

The new idea [2] is easier to explain (1 pushup = 1 minute of scrolling) and already has a community. Plus, not working alone helps me focus on what I'm good at: programming. I don't regret learning about other areas but doing marketing for a living is not my thing.

I'm not getting rid of SpeedBump, though. It's a fun side project and it does help people :)

[1] https://speedbumpapp.com

[2] https://pushscroll.com

TikTok - you don't need followers to get views. It's not easy, especially if you've never used the platform before. But for B2C it's one of the best platforms.

Do founder stories ("I built this") or demos ("here's this SaaS you'll like"). They get less views than memes or tangential videos. But conversion is much higher and you'll get replies from people who liked it or tried it out. So you can send them a message to ask for feedback.

Thank you for the support! I actually wrote an article about it here: https://speedbumpapp.com/en/blog/mobile-app-promotion/. It has the most useful resources I found so far (mostly B2C). I'm also happy to have a chat and help out: https://chat.nullderef.com :)

I've been building an intentionally annoying app against doomscrolling [1]. I've recently started with marketing, but oh boy is that out of my comfort zone!

I never thought that as an engineer I'd be doing TikToks. And here I am. It's fun to crack the algorithm little by little, but also frustrating because it's like a black box.

So far, I've discovered that going to the point works best. For example, I was sharing student tips and mentioning my app to improve focus. But conversion and engagement were terrible. Instead, I'm doing founder stories and tutorials, which get less views but more downloads. Plus, I can ask people in the comments for feedback on the app!

I'm happy to be doing something that devs overlook so much: marketing. Even if it's tough and slow. It's been an awesome learning experience.

[1] https://speedbumpapp.com/en/

The link mentions: "Health experts say screen time at home should be limited to two hours or less a day" -- https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/wecan/reduce-sc...

Maybe doomscrolling is reading too many news for you? Or do you think it's not too excessive?