I Built 3 Apps That Didn’t Take Off. Here’s What I’m Doing Differently With My 4th.

I’ve been working as a software engineer for years, mostly building stuff for other people.

At some point, I thought, why not build something for myself?

So I did.

Three apps, actually.

None of them really took off.

And now I’m building my fourth. Apparently, I haven’t learned enough yet.

The first three

Steppet was an iOS step tracker where you raise virtual pets by walking. The more you walk, the more your pets grow and evolve. I thought making fitness feel a bit like playing a game would be fun.

EasyReceipt Scanner was an app for scanning and organizing receipts, tracking expenses, and keeping everything in one place.

ForecastedFit was an app that suggested what to wear based on the weather. Nothing too complicated, just something I thought could be useful.

All three were different ideas, but they had one thing in common.

I spent most of my time building them and almost no time getting people to use them.

I’d get excited about an idea, start working on it, add features, improve the UI, fix things, and eventually launch.

Then I’d check if anyone was using it.

Not exactly the numbers I was hoping for.

Vibe coding made things worse. Sort of.

I’ve been a software engineer for years, so I’m used to writing code, debugging things, and spending hours figuring out why something isn’t working.

But these days, I’m mostly vibe coding my personal projects.

And I have to admit, it’s pretty addictive.

An idea pops into my head, I open my AI coding tool, explain what I want, and suddenly I have a working prototype.

Something that would’ve taken me weeks before can now take days, sometimes even hours.

Of course, the AI still manages to break something that was working perfectly fine five minutes ago. Some things never change.

But overall, building software has become much faster for me.

The problem is, now it’s even easier to start another project.

Before, I’d think twice about spending months building an idea.

Now I just think, “I could probably build that this weekend.”

And that’s how you end up with multiple apps and barely any users.

The part AI can’t really solve for me

Getting people to actually use what I build.

I can ask AI to create a landing page, improve the UI, implement a feature, or help fix a bug.

But getting someone to care about the product is a different problem.

I used to think that if I built something good enough, people would eventually find it.

I’d launch, share it somewhere, and hope for the best.

Then go back to coding because that was the part I enjoyed.

Looking back, I was basically using development as an excuse to avoid marketing.

There’s always another feature to add, another bug to fix, or another part of the UI that could look better.

And now with AI, I can do all of that even faster.

Which doesn’t help when the actual problem is that nobody knows the app exists.

So naturally, I built another app

My fourth project is ZaneShot, a screenshot and screen recording app for macOS.

I use screenshots a lot in my daily work, especially when explaining bugs, sharing UI feedback, or showing someone how something works.

I wanted a tool that could handle screenshots, annotations, scrolling capture, and screen recording without making the workflow complicated.

So I started building one.

And yes, I vibe coded a lot of it.

I still review things, test features, debug issues, and make technical decisions. Having years of development experience definitely helps when AI confidently generates something that makes absolutely no sense.

There are already some great screenshot tools for macOS. I’m not pretending I came up with something nobody has ever thought of.

I just wanted to build my own version, with the features and workflow I personally wanted.

But this time, I’m trying not to repeat what happened with my previous apps.

What I’m doing differently

For starters, I’m trying to talk about the product instead of just building it.

I’ve started posting on Threads, sharing what I’m working on, asking for feedback, and learning a bit more about marketing.

I’m also working on SEO and figuring out how people actually discover apps like mine.

Which, to be fair, is a lot less exciting than building another feature.

I’m still tempted to open my editor whenever I have a new idea.

Sometimes I’ll be working on marketing, then suddenly think of a feature that would be cool to add.

Next thing I know, I’m back talking to Codex.

Old habits.

But I’m trying to be more intentional about what I build.

Instead of immediately adding something because it sounds useful, I’m asking whether it’s something people actually want.

I’m also trying to share the process while I’m building, rather than waiting until everything feels perfect.

Because if I wait until the app is perfect before I start marketing, I’ll probably end up building a fifth app first.

One thing I’ve realized

AI has made it ridiculously easy to build software.

That’s a good thing, especially for developers who have more ideas than free time.

But it also means more people can build and launch products.

And when everyone can ship apps quickly, simply having a working product isn’t much of an advantage anymore.

You still need to figure out who it’s for, why they should care, and how they’ll find it.

I spent years learning how to build software.

Now I’m realizing I probably need to spend some time learning how to get people to use it.

Not exactly my favorite part, but here we are.

Will the fourth app do any better?

I have no idea.

ZaneShot is live, and I’m still improving it.

Maybe it’ll grow into something. Maybe it won’t.

I’m not going to write about how I cracked the secret to building a successful SaaS when I’m still figuring out how to get people to visit my website.

For now, I’m just trying something different.

Less building in silence. More sharing, getting feedback, and learning how to reach the right people.

I’ll probably share some technical stuff about ZaneShot here too, especially what I’ve learned building a native macOS app with Swift and AI coding tools.

And hopefully, my next article won’t be titled:

“I Built 4 Apps That Didn’t Take Off. Here’s What I’m Doing Differently With My 5th.”

Anyway, I’m curious.

For developers who are also vibe coding their own products, is building still the hard part, or is getting users the real challenge now?

Because I’m starting to think shipping the app was the easy part.