u/AdMysterious7995

Yesterday my running app had 12 downloads. All family.

Today it has nearly 1000.

The only thing I changed was removing the paywall and making
it completely free. No marketing budget. No viral post.
Nothing I can point to.

I genuinely don't know what happened. Apple must have picked
it up somewhere or the free tag changed the algorithm.

If anyone has seen this before I'd love to understand it.

I’ve been building indie apps for 6 months with a full time job and no prior Swift experience.
Got two apps live. Figured out the building part.
The part nobody tells you about — getting anyone outside your family to care that your app exists.
No existing audience. New to every platform. Every community has a minimum account age before you can post. Every algorithm needs history before it amplifies you.
How did you get your first 100 users? Not theory. What actually worked for you specifically?