Why I killed FIFTN and Fishify

I ship quite a lot of apps.

That doesn’t mean I should keep all of them alive.

This week I basically removed two of my apps from the work I show to clients: FIFTN and Fishify.

Both made it to the App Store. Both were real products. But I don’t think either of them represents the kind of work I actually want to keep doing.

And I think that’s an important distinction.

Shipping something doesn’t mean you need to spend the next three years trying to make it work.

FIFTN

FIFTN came from Alex Hormozi’s 15-minute productivity rule, at least the way I understood it.

Every 15 minutes, write down what you actually did.

The idea is basically to stay honest with yourself about where your time is going.

I thought that could make a pretty interesting app.

So FIFTN became a focus timer mixed with app blocking.

You do 15 minutes of focused work, then you earn your screen time.

There was a timer, blocking, a score, the whole thing.

And I shipped it.

The problem is that the focus timer and app-blocker category is incredibly crowded.

But that’s actually not even the biggest problem.

The bigger problem is that I didn’t really love the product.

And I think that’s enough of a reason to stop.

Because if I don’t really care about this category, am I realistically going to spend the next couple of years competing with a hundred other timers and app blockers?

Probably not.

I shipped the first version.

That doesn’t mean I committed to the category.

Shipping is not the same as committing.

Fishify

Fishify was a little bit different.

It’s a simple AI fish identifier.

You take a picture of a fish, it tells you the species, you can save your catch, check some information and rules around it.

The main reason I built this one was actually ASO.

I thought there were interesting search terms around fish identification, catch logs, fishing rules, specific fish names, etc.

And I wanted to see if I could get organic App Store traffic from that.

Which is funny considering I’ve been writing recently about how much harder App Store organic distribution is becoming.

But the thing is, I realised I wanted the ASO opportunity more than I wanted the actual product.

And that’s not a particularly strong reason to keep building something.

I’m not an angler.

I’m not going to be the person who knows what the next ten features anglers actually need.

I’m probably not going to spend my evenings reading fishing forums and talking to fishermen just because one App Store listing started ranking.

And I think that eventually becomes a trap.

You have a product that technically works.

Maybe it even gets some traffic.

But you don’t really care enough about the people using it to turn it into something much better.

So I stopped.

What I still show

This also changed the way I think about the apps I put on my mobile development offer.

I don’t think “I shipped this” is enough proof anymore.

I now want to show apps that I either still run or apps that I successfully sold.

Aividly stays because someone bought it.

Newsletterytics stays because someone bought it too.

VidNotes, Teleprompter, Coldsmith and YapperX stay because I still stand behind those products.

FIFTN and Fishify don’t.

They are already off the App Store.

That doesn’t mean I want to use them as proof of what I do.

Because for me the actual proof isn’t that I managed to get an app through App Review.

The proof is that I would still be comfortable getting on a call with someone and saying:

Yes, I built this. I understand why it works. And I still stand behind it.