Guide · Build
Building a small app, alone
Ship a small, polished version first. Everything else can wait for version 1.1.
Building alone means every hour counts. The goal of the first version is not to be complete. It's to be good at one thing and to reach the store.
Pick a stack you can repeat
I use SwiftUI with a simple MVVM structure for every iPhone app. Using the same building blocks each time means the second app is much faster than the first, and fixes in one project carry over to the next. Keep a folder of pieces you reuse: onboarding, a paywall, settings, a review prompt, localization.
Cut the first version down
Write the list of features you want. Then cross out everything that isn't needed for the main promise of the app. What's left is version 1.0. Good candidates to postpone:
- Accounts and sign-in, unless the app truly needs them
- Sync between devices
- Settings that only a few people will change
- A second or third main feature
Spend the saved time on polish
People judge an app in the first ten seconds. A clean onboarding, readable typography, smooth animations and a home-screen widget make a small app feel premium. Those details also show up in your screenshots, which decide whether people download at all.
Plan how it makes money
Decide before you build, because it shapes the design. For most of my apps, a free tier with a daily limit plus a subscription works well. A tool like RevenueCat saves weeks of work on purchases and receipts. Whatever you choose, let people see the value of the app before you show them a paywall.
Translate from day one
Put every piece of text in a localization file from the start, even if you only ship English at first. Adding a new language later then takes hours instead of days. Remember right-to-left layouts if you plan to support Arabic.