Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 84 posts

Re: Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

#41

Post by oliverjanssen »

hbcondo714 wrote: post #36
oliverjanssen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising: Zero paid advertising so far. All organic - App Store search, word of mouth, a few blog mentions. First HN post and review in German print Magazine helped a lot. Subscription journey: Started with one-time payment, but hard to justify ongoing development time. Switched to subscription. Not everybody was amused. First model was freemium – one playlist with max 10 tracks for free. Felt too limiting for new…

What was the level of (development) effort switching to subscription?

Not too bad technically – Apple handles most of it with StoreKit. Maybe a week of work for the initial implementation: setting up products in App Store Connect, handling purchase flow, receipt validation, restoring purchases.

The harder part was deciding on the model. Freemium limits? Trial length? What to lock? I changed this multiple times. The code changes for each iteration were small, but the decisions took longer.

Re: Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

#42

Post by oliverjanssen »

noAnswer wrote: post #30
oliverjanssen wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question. Same catalog - Muky uses your Apple Music or Spotify subscription underneath. The difference: Muky separates the audio player from the admin area. Kids get a locked-down player showing only playlists you created – big artwork, tap to play, nothing else. Parents manage everything in a separate admin area – create playlists, add content, adjust settings. Spotify means infinite browsing, algorithm recomme…

> Spotify means infinite browsing, algorithm recommendations, and "Dad, how do I get back to my song?" I hope you are successful and eventually go after video content too. Imagine a Youtube app without infinite browsing or the algo and a "you can watch 3 videos this weekend"-counter/countdown.

Ha, I'd love that too! YouTube for kids is a nightmare – even YouTube Kids has weird rabbit holes.

Video is tempting but a different beast – streaming APIs, licensing, way more complex. Maybe someday. For now staying focused on audio.

Re: Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

#44

Post by oliverjanssen »

jamieatlason wrote: post #34

This is one of my favorite tell/ show HN posts. Very interesting to see the reactions to your original "Show HN", and learn that was meaningful for your business. Very well executed product and posts, and congratulations on your success!

Thanks, really appreciate that! HN has been great – the first post brought real users and valuable feedback. This community gets the indie dev journey.

Re: Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

#45

Post by oliverjanssen »

knuit wrote: post #32

I’m currently using a Yoto (3 devices) with my 1 and 4 year old and they thoroughly enjoy it. The MYO experience and loading up cards is pretty straightforward as well. Love the concept here and I would be a customer if you were still offering lifetime, but with so many things going subscription nowadays adding another at $40/year just feels a bit on the higher side. Definitely understand how that assists with cash f…

Totally get it – subscription fatigue is real. Yoto is great for that age, we still have the Toniebox for our younger one.

The pricing is tricky. One-time worked for users but not for ongoing development. $40/year sounds steep, but it's ~$3.30/month – less than a single Tonie figurine. Family plan can be shared with grandparents too.

That said, I hear you. Always evaluating the model.

Re: Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

#46

Post by oliverjanssen »

hi_hi wrote: post #39

My kid is 9. I feel like this is a good fit with how I would like her to experience music, especially the sharing and curation part. I have a few questions... 1. I bought her an "old school" mp3 player for Christmas, like an iPod. It's pretty good, but it's really missing the easy to use app similar to the original iTunes where she can load and manage songs by herself, without needing me to grab them from a folder, p…

Thanks! You nailed the niche – that gap between toddler devices and full streaming access is exactly where Muky sits.

To your questions:

1. Unfortunately no – Muky only works with streaming content from Apple Music or Spotify. No local MP3 support or syncing to external devices. You'd still need something like the old iTunes workflow for that MP3 player. Local file support comes up often though, it's on the roadmap.

2. There's actually a lot of audiobook content on Apple Music – especially kids stuff. The new Browse tab in Mukychas curated audiobooks to help you discover them.

And yes – "how hard can it be" is a dangerous question. Found that out myself!

Re: Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

#47

Post by oliverjanssen »

recursivecaveat wrote: post #38
oliverjanssen wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! Exactly. The mental model thing is brutal. You know every corner of the app, so everything feels obvious. Then you watch someone use it for the first time and they're completely lost. Need to do that more often, perfect way to learn. And yes - QR sharing was about bringing back that "here, just take it" moment. Sending library export as JSON, explaining how to import... too much friction. Scan and done feels…

The mental model is usually what I want most (and often find missing) from onboarding. If you give me the model and vocabulary I can find the buttons myself. If you teach me 1 workflow I'm probably helpless at doing anything else.

100%. The goal shifted from "show where buttons are" to "explain what this app is for." Once parents get the player vs admin concept, everything else clicks.

Re: Tell HN: 2 years building a kids audio app as a solo dev – lessons learned

#48

Post by oliverjanssen »

mbirth wrote: post #31

Regarding the Toniebox and custom audiobooks - do you know that there’s a tool to add audio files that can be triggered by custom NFC tags? Here’s the talk about it: https://media.ccc.de/v/37c3-11993-toniebox_reverse_engineeri... And the project website: https://tonies-wiki.revvox.de/ There’s even a custom firmware that can send activity data to Home Assistant, can pull audio from a local server, etc.

Yes! I watched that talk – fascinating reverse engineering work. The custom NFC tag approach is really clever.

What stood out to me was how much data gets tracked by the original firmware. Kind of eye-opening. The custom firmware fixing that is great for privacy-conscious parents.

Post reply on HN