Simon Grimm

Indie dev sharing the journey.
Creator of 🌱
Exploring React Native, AI & game dev

[Simon Grimm @schlimmson]

https://t.co/C4refHmlXN

[Simon Grimm @schlimmson]

@p_d_y I don't think so, in any case it's too early to say. But Exact is something we should keep an eye on!

[Simon Grimm @schlimmson]

Expo's CEO just built a React Native alternative.

Not in React. In Rust.

Shopify went back to native. Coinbase is hiring to rewrite its app in Swift and Kotlin. Discord is rebuilding in Rust.

I tried Exact the day after it dropped and built one app for web, macOS and iOS with Claude Code 👇

[Simon Grimm @schlimmson]

Full video: what Exact actually is, the hands-on build, and what I read between the lines for React Native:

https://t.co/Ae2HiPe6T4

[Simon Grimm @schlimmson]

@heysabens @TryAstroApp

[Simon Grimm @schlimmson]

People think running a little game studio means making games.

My Monday: 381 tracked keywords, two ad tests and a lot of spreadsheets. Zero lines of game code.

What a week of a tiny studio actually looks like 🧵

[Simon Grimm @schlimmson]

@skdsounds Yes I feel I could ship 5 more games until EoY but nobody would see them..

[Simon Grimm @schlimmson]

@VishalsProjects I wish I had an answer

[Simon Grimm @schlimmson]

@picklepopjoe I agree that it's absolutely weird how some keywords change for no apparent reason after months...

[Simon Grimm @schlimmson]

@_danielkopecky Mostly @TryAstroApp

[Simon Grimm @schlimmson]

@dev_bre Probably even bigger than writing the code by now

[Simon Grimm @schlimmson]

5/ The honest part: I'd much rather be building features.

But new players dropped from ~1,500 a week in August to around 400. More features won't fix that. Finding players will.

So Mondays are for keywords and ad spend now. I'll share what the tests show, good or bad.

[Simon Grimm @schlimmson]

4/ Even reading the numbers is a job.

Apple counts view-through installs, so totals look better than reality. A big "App Referrer" spike in App Store Connect turned out to be ~97% our own game linking to itself after updates.

Half of marketing is learning which numbers lie.

[Simon Grimm @schlimmson]

@esaia__ It's a slow grind, I had bigger hopes - but I'm still working on it!

[Simon Grimm @schlimmson]

October made $5,245, up 72% from September.

Sounds like a comeback. But 36% of it came from 4 players, and new players just hit their lowest point in 3 months.

The real numbers for our cozy farming game, 11 months in 🧵

[Simon Grimm @schlimmson]

@dariuscosden Looking forward to your game man!

[Simon Grimm @schlimmson]

6/ Lifetime: $38.4k in 11 months, before store cuts. I'll keep sharing the numbers, good or bad.

If you want to see the game: https://t.co/NeFNYrfunM

[Simon Grimm @schlimmson]

5/ The best marketing data I've got: my two Reddit posts got ~1,900 link clicks. My X thread with the same story got 20.

Those posts brought in maybe 140 extra players, which is my estimate from the daily numbers. Not life-changing, but nothing else came close.