u/Smithhb89

What's up everyone. Spent a lot of time on this subreddit and would love to talk a little bit about the app I built, but as I spent a lot of time on this subreddit I realized there was a lot of individuals posting the Zetamac clone they created but not a lot of discourse around what individuals are actually looking for. I was curious if users her could help clarify this for me.

When my business partner and I started the process of developing a 'mental math' app about 10 months ago, I felt like we did a healthy amount of market research. We downloaded an endless supply of apps in the niche (apps looking to rapidly test math/arithmatic skills, not teach it). We found apps with >100K uses that seemed so simple it was baffling. We also found sleek, professional, and polished apps with only 1000 downloads... and we found everything in between.

Our conclusion was there was, in fact, a massive market (globally speaking) for individuals looking for rapid-fire mental math apps/quizzes/challenges but there was wide variability of what a 'mental math' app really was. Now that our app is launched and live, we are struggling to find some degree of organic growth.

As individuals who have started similar businesses, this slow growth phase has not scared us, but it has forced us to come 'back to the drawing board' so to speak, and make small healthy iterations on our product to, first and foremost, make a valuable product that individuals (of all ages) find enjoyable and valuable, that is age-agnostic, has a healthy but (mildly) addictive loop, and leads to organic growth and return-use day after day.

So, to the community here with, what appears to be, a really serious passion for these forms of applications. What are you looking for when you navigate to a website (i.e. Zetamac), or download an app (i.e. Brillant, Duo Math, Mental Math Cards, etc.). What do you like? What turns you off at first download? What is valuable? How much of a challenge do you want? what keeps you coming back? I am so over the overly encouraging AI-generated slop that is generated when asking for help and feedback. I want warm-blooded individuals to offer guidance. Is that already too much to ask for in 2026?! Haha thanks.

I appreciate you. Cheers!

Unclear if this is the best place to be posting this, so please direct me if I am shouting into the void of the wrong subreddit, but my business partner and I spent the better half of 2025 building a simple mental math app/brain training app. We ultimately released it in February of 2026 on iOS and Android. Our goal was to create something educational that would challenge users who enjoy math/arithmetic with fast tactile quizzes that would challenge them, pit them against their peers on a global leaderboard, and help them retain/hone the math knowledge they already have.

Now that we are post launch of our MVP, getting the app in front of our target audience has been challenging. We initially started with paid app promotion in iOS only but quickly found that, though we got a few hundred downloads, the data we were getting was useless and could not guide us towards what users wanted and how to better grow or iterate on the app to make it better, or to better guide our marketing strategy.

We dont have endless capital so finding ways to get the highest impact fix (either through updating the app or better changing our promotion or growth strategy) with the least budgetary impact has proven challenging. Any helpful thoughts here? Always appreciate the input of the collective hive mind here. Cheers!

So I am unclear exactly if this is the correct forum for this, or the correct subreddit, so I apologize to the Reddit God's if I have offended them, but my business partner and I recently created a Math app that seems like may be of interest to this subreddit.

Our goal was to create something that would, even if only briefly, stops the doom-scroll and allow users to sharpen their math skills in short digestible minutes each day. If we can create something that is educational and interrupts the hours a day we spend on our phones, then we feel like (perhaps?) we have created something good.

We didnt technically want to TEACH math, our goal was to help users of all ages hone what they already know. We also have found a community that engages with programs like Zetamac that are looking to compete with others for fastest response time, highest score, etc. If this is a forum to discuss what we have built and to garner feedback from a community that seem interested in a program/app like this, we would love to share more. Let me know. Cheers!