TLDR - scratched my own itch with an app, added a pro plan and got my first subscribers this week!<p>Last December I started digging into poetry, it was a topic I always thought I liked, but just hadn’t explored very much. I soon discovered that a lot of the poetry sites online had pretty annoying designs, e.g. ads right at the end of the poem, (muting any emotional impact).<p>I also wanted to be able to easily save a list of my favourites to come back to.<p>I decided to build and release a react native app which addressed these needs/issues. It took about 4 weeks during the winter break to release an MVP to the App Store. The backend is using Firebase, which has been superb in allowing me to bootstrap the app quickly.<p>I soon added a poem of the day feature, which forced me into curation (needing to find 365 poems for the year!). I’ve discovered so many amazing poems and poets as a result. One of the things I love about tech is that it can touch so many different domains and industries.<p>Anyway, fast forward six months of continuous development, adding features and refining the design, lots of late nights. I finally had enough of a feature set to demarcate some out to a paid plan with a free trial. And the first users have actually started subscribing!<p>I’ll soon be ramping up ads, currently just on the App Store Search, but soon with Google and Instagram. I’ll be seeing if I can spend x amount on ads to net a return in subscriptions. If so, I’ll be scaling it as fast as the budget will allow.<p>For the instagram ads, I’ll be marketing the poetry app with a mindfulness twist. Some people have already talked about this connection online, and I’ve personally experienced a deeper bond with nature and awareness of my own feelings as a result of reading so many poems.<p>So that’s where the app is now, and where I have in mind to take it. It’s been super fun working on it and any feedback is welcome!