Why Being a Solo Mobile Dev is Hard

Being a solo Flutter developer, especially in the B2B mobile app space, means facing a series of demanding tasks. But it's not just the development work that's challenging.

The Realities of B2C App Development

Yesterday, I shared on LinkedIn about why I choose freelancing over going for your own apps:

Here's the breakdown:

• Imagine you've created a mobile app, like a water reminder app, which you worked on for six months. It finally goes live, and you manage to attract 1,000 monthly active users.

• With an average subscription conversion rate of 3%, you get 30 paying users.

• Charging 5 Euros per subscription seems reasonable. But after VAT (I live in Austria) and platform fees, you're left with 3.40 Euros per user, totaling 102 Euros per month.

• Even if you increase your user base to 10,000, you're only making around 1,020 Euros a month.

The reality is, even with 100,000 monthly users, you're earning a decent amount, but 97% of your users aren't paying. Yet, you still need to maintain the app for all users, handling bugs and updates.

The Solo Developer's Dilemma

And It’s not only development that you have to do as a solo dev - there is way more:

1. Design and Development: Designing a user-friendly interface and developing the app with Flutter are the primary responsibilities. Every design choice and line of code matters.

2. Project Management: Solo developers face the challenge of managing projects single-handedly. It's a continuous balancing act of planning, executing, and adjusting. But no matter how well you plan, there is always something that will come up.

3. Marketing and Sales: Marketing your app and convincing users to buy it requires skills beyond coding. And a lot of luck:

4. Customer Support: Whether they're paying or not, every user's experience is important. Addressing their issues is part of your job.

5. Accounting and Business Management: Handling finances and making strategic decisions are critical for your business's survival.

Why I choose freelancing

I’m lucky enough to be able to charge 90+$ per hour for my dev services.

Yes, this is not scalable, but it lets me live more than comfortably.

B2C apps have insane potential when they take off, but the opportunity costs are just not worth it for me.

I have a favor to ask:

As I’m getting more and more emails and dms on Linkedin asking about where to start with Flutter or how to get into freelancing, I would really appreciate it you could reply to this email with the biggest struggles you have at the moment with Flutter or freelancing.

I’m putting together a resource to answer all these questions.

And if you’re thinking about creating your own app:

Here is my Fast Flutter Template, which will let you quick-start the app development. You can save 2 weeks of development time with it.

https://www.fastfluttertemplate.com/