Mihai Fumarel Profile Banner
Mihai Fumarel Profile
Mihai Fumarel

@father_mihai

3,050
Followers
1,167
Following
156
Media
7,657
Statuses

dopamine dealer

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ $20k/m
Joined March 2020
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
Pinned Tweet
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
How to build shit that pops 👇 1. Find successful app on the store 2. Does app have technical moat? If yes, find another app 3. Is the app fun? Does it leverage a core human driver (lust, greed, anger, social validation)? Can it capture attention within 2 seconds of an ad
21
19
286
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
@nealagarwal Your password must be valid JavaScript code
6
0
1K
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
7 months
It took me 6 years of publishing apps independently to realise this, but… €10k/m is literally just picking some emotionally-relevant problem, creating a simple app with 3-10 buttons to scratch that itch, making a paywall, and running ads That’s literally all there is to it
23
47
566
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
Bros, take good care of your OpenAPI keys Mine got leaked, and lost $700 in 3 days 🫠
87
32
385
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
7 months
17 months ago, I made it my main goal to become an app entrepreneur Back then, I was making ~€250 per month Almost one year and a half later, I've hit one of my biggest milestones: €10k monthly revenue And to add a nice touch to it, it happened on my birthday, too!
Tweet media one
45
6
227
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
4 months
@felix_red_panda Easiest fix would be to make the model do some small talk in the meantime Literally run a 7b model locally and ask it to tell some silly jokes “Oh let me take a look. By the way, talking of look blah blah blah” Product team doesn’t have bullshitting experience and it shows
20
5
212
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
10 Months ago I became a full-time entrepreneur Back then I was making €274 per month. My goal was to reach €1000 MRR It took me 9 months, but last month I finally hit €1000 One month later, this happens I think that once you learn the right lessons, it all blows up
Tweet media one
56
3
209
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
7 months
You’re an indie building apps You’ve launched a few apps in the past, did some marketing on Reddit, and got a few downloads Hell, at some point, you even got serious about it, and decided to really focus on it Yet somehow, after all that work, only 30 people use your app
15
22
175
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
Unpopular opinion — if you’re making mobile apps, stop taking advice meant for SaaS SaaS is selling to a low volume of qualified leads. People with money that are willing to spend You are selling to a huge volume of people that don’t want to spend money You are not building a
16
12
147
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
6 months
For the love of God, before you spend 4 months making an app, spend 1 hour browsing the store If all the apps that do similar things to what you want to do get 5k downloads or less, that’s a signal
7
4
121
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
8 months ago, I took the leap of faith and became a full-time IndieHacker I started out with €177 MRR Today I have completed a goal I have been relentlessly chasing since starting this journey, and crossed €1000 MRR
Tweet media one
29
2
120
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
5 months
You’ve built an app, added a subscription paywall to it, and figured out how to drive traffic to it Good news is that you’ve made it farther than 90% of indies. Bad news is that you’re probably leaving serious money on the table Here’s why I’ve long been a proponent of
11
4
110
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
This month, I've finally broken my €5,000 MRR goal! So, what have I been up to? In terms of growing my MRR, not that much -- I've been making a few tweaks, putting out fires, and doing more of what works Most of my time has been dedicated to brainstorming new ideas - I've
Tweet media one
28
3
106
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
Finished building the quickest MVP in my life Took a grand total of 1.5 days
29
0
99
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
9 months
So, you’ve built a cool little app, and you’re now trying to figure out how to market it? Congrats, you fucked up The reason you’re struggling with marketing is because you’re operating on the assumption that marketing is something *you do* to a product Completely wrong Good
12
10
100
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
7 months
@huntercoldcalls Definitely worth jumping on a quick 5 minute call with them
4
0
95
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
2 years
Check it out #buildinpublic -- just broke $100 in WRR 😎
Tweet media one
21
1
94
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
8 months
How I scale apps 👇 The playbook I use changes dramatically based on the stage of maturity an app is in. What I focus on when I launch is completely different from what I focus on when I have a level of PMF Let's look at the stages: 1. Validation and Early Traction The goal
9
1
80
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
5 months
Super cheap way to validate feature ideas: Add the button in the app. When tapped, show a "Coming Soon" message Track analytics. See how many people tapped the button ezpz
13
2
80
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
2 months
For the past 1.5 years, the goal was to build freedom. I’m slowly approaching that point I can now cover all my living expenses and have enough to travel every couple of months for ~2-3 hours of work per week Level 1 is complete, now it’s time to aim for the fences
10
0
75
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
5 months
If you’re under €2k MRR, forget everything else and focus on this: Ship new apps every 2 weeks. Whatever idea you get, ship it quick. 3rd week you work on launching. You launch on TikTok with €100 worth of ads. Launch on Reddit, discord, product hunt, any any other platform
4
3
71
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
5 months
At this point, I am convinced this is the only way to make it in the app game Lock yourself in a room for a few weeks, and write code non-stop Build everything that seems remotely likely to have a positive impact (at an MVP level) Add analytics and A/B test everything Ship
Tweet media one
13
5
69
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
3 months
YoU CaN't ChArGe ToO MuCh FoR ApPs PeOpLe WoNt PaY This is one user
Tweet media one
6
2
63
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
8 months
@olenabomko You should check out Google Analytics lmao
5
0
63
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
In my experience, it takes devs 4-6 months from joining IndieHacker Twitter to getting their first 1-5k MRR
14
0
60
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
Business is video games for grown ups
23
5
54
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
9 months
I got to a point where my business generates enough money to cover any experiments I want to do I usually burn 300-500$ on validating a new product idea. I can push out around 2 apps per month Worst case scenario, if all my apps get completely nuked, I would bring in around
7
1
58
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 month
Find your gimmick Consumer mobile is really weird. Your users have low purchasing power, and retention is bad across the board The flipside? Distribution is absolutely ridiculous. It’s the most viral business ecosystem available In other words — your users will barely spend
5
5
57
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
5 months
People still think that ASO is about keywords, lol Keywords are Level 1 of the game. You can get a good enough listing in about 1-2 hours of work. I haven’t changed my store listing in 6 months, and shit’s still poppin ASO is actually about quality signals Stop wasting your
6
0
56
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
3 months
You’ve been working on your app for close to one year now. You’ve been adding features requested by your users, and adding shiny new functionalities to the app And yet, the revenue stays flat. What’s going on? If your app has been making €3k / month for the past year, it’s
3
0
55
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
7 months
@julioandresdev Start off with TikTok ads. Buy them from their web console (not the app) The traffic quality is crap, and won’t really convert. But you’ll have two massive payoffs 1. You now have an on/off switch for testing ideas. Make a simple app in 2 weeks, add analytics, spend 100€ on
6
2
54
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
3 months
Look at your app, and figure out what the “golden event” is The golden event (also known as the “aha moment”) is the one thing that the user must experience in order to understand the value of the app For a messaging app, it’s the first message sent For Tinder, it’s the first
2
7
52
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
I’m finally starting to learn something After you build an idea, you’ll still have to market it Doesn’t matter how cool the idea is Unless you have a massive audience, there’s no way around it I’m starting to learn that I can’t escape marketing by building more stuff
15
3
52
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
6 months
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about UX I think I figured out how to solve low retention. Not only for my apps, but in general I’m convinced that good UX is the cornerstone of making apps that pop. With good UX, you can get people to do stuff, even when your product is 3
8
0
53
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
I would like to publicly announce that today I did marketing.
19
1
51
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
3 months
There are only 2 moats in app development — capital and expert knowledge If you want to maintain ownership (and your family doesn’t own a diamond mine), expert knowledge is the one lever you can pull Here’s how that works: To the untrained eye, a lot of tiny design decisions
9
8
52
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
2 years
Hey #buildinpublic , I have a question for people who have experience with @ProductHunt I keep reading these guides about launching that say *Prepare for 3-4 months in advance* And here I am with an app that took 4 days to make. Are small projects not for PH? #indiehackers
24
1
51
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
5 months
If you’re an indie making apps, you should be learning from your competition BUT, there is a common mistake people do when looking at their competition. The mistake? Looking only at THEIR competition The App Store is one of the most vast repositories of knowledge about human
1
1
49
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
7 months
@michaelaubry I love this question, mostly because I have decided to find out the answer first-hand From March — June 2022, my number one focus was getting a six pack. Mind you, I was hitting the gym for close to a decade at this point. So I had the muscle, but I was very fat I made it my
4
1
50
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
An MVP should be small in scope, not in execution I’m going against the IndieHacker consensus on the topic, but the MVP should actually be well polished You’re not supposed to put out a load of janky crap, plaster a paywall on it, and call it a day Not because it’s morally
8
1
45
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
If you have an Android app, the easiest way to get more downloads is to localise your app But that is either expensive, or takes a ton of work... right? Let's keep this our little secret, shall we?
4
6
49
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
4 months
It's absolutely ridiculous how much time it takes to make good app screenshots
21
2
49
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
6 months
You’re a dev. You’re inspired by all the posts you see from indies, and decide to shoot your shot You’re ready to hack your way to freedom. Fantastic! Here’s exactly how you’ll fuck up: You got an idea for an app already? Cool. Let me guess — is it a tracker? Yeah, probably
12
1
48
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
Give away the information, sell the implementation
14
2
48
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
Heya #buildinpublic #indiehackers In a couple of hours, I'll go live on ProductHunt for the first time! Wish me luck!
19
0
48
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
9 months
@jackson_llk With B2C you can get to $600k/month in 2 weeks worth of engineering effort B2C is attractive because it’s much more of a product design game than it is an engineering game. You can have ridiculous amounts of success from an app that has 5 buttons It’s much more about
6
3
48
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
There's something fishy going on with the @openai api My costs are racking up like crazy. So, I have decided to revoke all my API keys Guess what. Costs are still going up WTF is going on
17
1
39
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
3 months
An observation: Newbie app publishers don’t show a paywall in main user journey Intermediates show a paywall right after onboarding Elites show paywalls long after the user has opened the app The difference between newbies and elites is in how deliberate their offers are
6
1
46
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
Just made my first AI Assistant sale! :)
17
0
44
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
6 months
Huge mistake to avoid when running Google Ads — introducing a new product in the app There have been a few times during my indie career where I have made some dumb mistake, messed everything up, then slowly built back up This is one of those You have an app. You use Google Ads
7
2
46
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
We're live! The AI project I've been working on has finally been approved by Google It's an app that allows you to chat with your favourite characters from TV shows, video games, history, and more! You can get it for free here
16
1
43
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
4 months
If you’re a dev, and want to build your own product, you have to know this: Business is a completely different skill set than coding. Furthermore, it’s just as complex and multilayered as coding is Just because you know HOW to build, it doesn’t know you mean you know WHAT to
3
4
45
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
4 months
Make apps. Get really, really good at CRO, engagement, viral loops, and shipping fast. Look for trends. Ship app in 2 weeks. Run TikTok ads to get traffic. Use traffic to get reviews so you get indexed for high-volume keywords. Use first mover advantage to dominate the niche
5
0
44
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 month
If you don’t know how you’ll market it, don’t build it
12
2
44
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
5 months
If you've never learned about game design, dedicating 10 hours to doing so will likely be one of the most lucrative investments you'll do for a while I can hear you say: "But, Mihai - I am building a food tracker app. Learning about game design won't help me in the slightest"
2
5
43
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
I’m starting to love the idea of Micro-Startups These are very tiny products, with one feature and one paid funnel. Something you build in a week They teach you a lot, very fast “Oh, the last app I made failed because of the offer stack… let me fix it with the next one”
12
1
42
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
7 months
Make your MVPs look nice The point of an MVP is to prove/disprove a hypothesis. However, if the user downloads your app, and immediately uninstalls it because it looks like shit, that doesn't give you any information about the concept you're trying to build Don't be lazy
14
2
41
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
6 months
First you solve User Acquisition Then you solve Conversion Rate Then you solve Retention Then you solve Period-2 Renewal Then you double down on traffic and buy a Lambo
8
1
40
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
7 months
This will upset some people, but it is the truth — here’s what made me start seeing success with apps I stopped treating apps like they were my baby, and started treating them as a business
6
1
40
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
@AlexHormozi People think that waiting will let them proceed from a place of wisdom. But, they forget that wisdom is the result of experience, not thinking
4
7
40
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
7 months
I’m tired of leaving money on the table, and here’s how I plan to change that In Google Analytics, you can figure out how long it takes for a user to convert to a subscriber. For me 80% of users convert within the first day Knowing that, when a user first opens my app, I start
4
0
40
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
4 months
“There’s only 200k users on the Vision Pro store I’m not building apps for that it’s a waste of time” Yeah, but every single one of those 200k could casually spend 3.5k on a device meant purely for entertainment You don’t get a more qualified audience than this
6
1
39
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
2 months
Twitter is really cool because it normalises success If you see 20 people balling every day, you start thinking balling is the norm. This removes a lot of the mental blocks associated with success Outside Twitter, when someone says that a person earns a lot, they are talking
2
3
40
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
5 months
What if I told you that there’s a feature you can build in less than one day, that will make you tens of thousands? Got your attention? Cool Add a public feedback screen. Users post feedback, and other users vote on existing ideas
6
1
39
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
@AlexHormozi That’s why it’s so incredibly important to be picky about the people we surround ourselves with The people we spend time around unconsciously define what we consider to be normal
3
5
39
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
3 months
If you’re building apps, do yourself a favour and Google the Fogg Behaviour Model
0
3
39
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
Learn to kill projects very fast If it's not picking up steam in ~2 weeks of advertising, bring the axe The more time you spend trying to save a sinking ship, the less time you spend building a floating one
9
1
38
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
7 months
If you have a level of PMF, the easiest thing you can do to blow up your app is to localise it Localise your store listing for all Tier-1 countries and for all high-population Tier-2 You can literally 2x your DAU and revenue in one hour of work
5
1
38
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
You know what's weird? If you pay attention to the Indie Hacker community, everyone says you should double down on marketing But if you pay attention to the Startup bubble (YC, for example), they say you should double down on product and rely on word of mouth
21
0
38
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
Solopreneurship kindof broke me Not because it destroyed my spirit or anything like that (lol). But because it got me hooked on an insane level of stimulation I've realised that money isn't even the primary motivator here At this point, I launch new products because I want
9
3
38
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
When the launch is going better than expected, but now you're literally burning cash with OpenAI tokens
Tweet media one
7
0
35
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
6 months
Everytime you ship an app you will learn about a constraint. When the constraint becomes clear, it’s easy to move to the next level My first app targeted a small, hard to reach market. Because of that I could not grow it The next app addressed that and targeted a bigger, newly
2
0
36
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
10 months
Starting to think I’ve made a big, but difficult to detect mistake. Here’s what happened 3 Aug — I write a reminder: “Are my sales suspiciously low?” I check my analytics multiple times per day. I’m very sensitive to any changes in the health of my biz. So, when I noticed sales
8
4
36
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
2 months
@eshear At some point, I was approaching these types of scenarios using a sort of scientific method First I identified the problem Problem: I have gone to sleep at 4am today. Then I came up with a hypothesis for why it would be happening Hypothesis: sleep is boring and I don’t like
1
3
35
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
Cool idea I took away from @levelsio that really worked for me Don’t build one product with 1000 features, build 1000 products with 1 feature
3
3
34
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
10 months
I've seen this over and over again New, massive trend hits. People think of an obvious idea to make money off it People think "someone else must have done it already", so they do nothing Dude builds the obvious thing after a while and makes millions "Too obvious" is a signal
8
1
33
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
11 months
In dating apps, success leads to churn If you find a partner, you leave the platform and stop being a paying customer
12
0
32
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
7 months
@AdvaitSaravade It’s not a specific template. Look for an idea that makes you feel a knot in the stomach. That’s how you know you got it Take these ideas: 1. Food tracker that uses pictures to calculate calories. Useful? Sure. Knot in stomach? Not really 2. Alarm clock app. You don’t wake up,
4
0
33
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
You want to learn how to come up with ideas that blow up? Here's an exercise Go to the app store, and start clicking on apps. Click on recommended apps 3–4 times Good, you're now in the pit. Time to get our hands dirty Look at the recommended apps. For each app, try and guess
3
2
33
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
Just hit 600 followers 🎉
17
1
32
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
4 months
If you’re just getting started with apps, wtf are you doing on Twitter asking for advice? If you want to learn how to make shit that pops, go on the store and start browsing Download random apps that kill it and use them. See how and when they ask you to pay. Figure out how
3
2
32
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
Heya #buildinpublic ! Just finished pushing the last commit for , now waiting for approval from Google In the meantime, just one decision remains -- what logo should I pick?
Tweet media one
30
0
31
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
5 months
The Golden Law of Apps: Build stuff people already want You cannot make people want your app. You can not educate people into wanting your app. You cannot market your way into people wanting your app They have to already want it
3
2
32
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
7 months
Bro are you telling me you can literally train a model in 50 lines of python and with like 100 images? What the fuck
6
0
32
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
9 months
If you’re an Indie Hacker, you need to read DotCom Secrets — no exceptions If you don’t understand funnels, you will keep building stupid shit that doesn’t convert If Level 1 is learning how to ship, then Level 2 is learning about how to think in terms of Eyeballs and Money
8
0
31
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
8 months
I'm learning Flutter and I started building a Todo app I feel dirty
20
1
32
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
I’ve had a big brain moment over the weekend I have two apps: One gets tons of traffic, but converts at a lower rate One converts like crazy, but advertising it directly is difficult And then I realised the most obvious thing in the world: “Well, one has the traffic, and the
5
1
31
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
2 months
@CatalinGhita4 At some point I think every single dev should take 6 months and just try to make money online with their apps It teaches you volumes about what’s meaningful and what’s mental masturbation
12
2
29
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
I’ve started to learn sales Bro why did I wait for so long to do this. This stuff is dope 🔥
20
1
30
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
11 months
Easiest heuristic you can use for building an app that has a good chance of success is picking a visceral emotion, and designing your entire flow around triggering that emotion repeatedly
2
0
30
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
Heya, #buildinpublic ! is finally live! Know that moment when you match with someone HOT, but don't know what to say? That's now history! Your personal AI wingman is here! Stand out with creative and unique opener lines based on your match's interests!
Tweet media one
12
1
28
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
6 months
Currently reading @yukaichou ’s book, Actionable Gamification Before coming across it, I felt like such a genius for figuring out that you can drive revenue up by introducing emotional tension, and offering to relieve it via a paywall I’m 2 chapters in, and I already learned
9
1
30
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
5 months
Quick and dirty guide to monetisation When monetising an app, I usually go through several phases. If I were to start fresh with an app, here’s what I would do Phase 1 — Subscription paywall €4.99 weekly, €9.99 monthly, €29,99 yearly I use this for early validation. This
3
0
30
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
If you're a dev, and you're just getting started with Indie Hacking, the most important thing you have to do is answer the following question: What do you want to get out of it? Do you want as much money as you possibly can? You want freedom? Do you want to code cool stuff?
7
3
29
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
Your first app will fail. It's supposed to But there will be something about it that kindof worked Take that, spin it into a new app The new app will do slightly better. Take the best part of that app, and make a new one Rinse, wash, repeat That's how you build hit after hit
5
2
28
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
2 months
If you’re in the gaming space (or your app is open to gamification), here’s a way to potentially create whales Add one-time offers at low price points with massively inflated value Let’s say you have these currency packs: $0.99 -> 5000 coins $1.99 -> 12500 coins $3.99 -> 27500
1
2
29
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
Thank you to the 400 badasses who decided to hit the follow button!
Tweet media one
6
0
29
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
4 months
The chances that your first app will blow up are practically zero Do you know why? It's not about luck. It's not only about volume either. It's much more insidious than that The fate of the app is established in the first 2–3 days of work. Before you get your first dollar,
3
0
29
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
5 months
No amount of reading will teach you as much as launching a failed product and eating dirt
4
0
29
@father_mihai
Mihai Fumarel
1 year
Started building an app without downloading at least 10 competitor apps and going through the flow? Amateur.
8
0
28