12 apps in 12 months while working full-time

I've completed four small iOS apps in the past quarter (three of them in the App Store, one in review), and while joking around with some friends about the unintended "12 apps in 12 months while 9 to 5", I thought:

Why not formalize it? Show up almost every day, be consistent with intention, and let's launch 12 apps in 12 months.

As a self-taught iOS developer I want to be clear: I don't have all the answers. This is my personal journey towards building skills, exploring creativity, and gradually working towards financial independence through app development. Any feedback at any time is appreciated 🙇🏻‍♂️

The Core Principles

The main idea when doing these apps is simple:

• They have to be simple. Generally, each app focuses on one or two core features. I'm creating MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) that must be ready within 40 hours—otherwise, I wouldn't have time to finish them. Scope is essential.

• Must scratch an itch. Every app needs a genuine purpose. If it doesn't solve a problem or fulfil a need, then there's no point in creating it. The need can be extremely small and a lot of times you may think “I don’t need an app for that”.

• Should make me learn something new. Whether it's exploring a new Apple API, integrating a third-party service, or developing a novel approach to a problem—continuous learning is the key.

Learning:

Now, the goals extends beyond just shipping the apps, it’s also a way of growing as an engineer:

• Explore and use Apple APIs I'm not typically exposed to.

• Experiment with third-party APIs and potentially create my own.

• Develop skills in backend development, web technologies, databases, and authentication, … you name it.

Sharing

I’ll be sharing each project details in public, the idea generation, the tech stack used, the problems, what I’ve learned, etc, … this helps with accountability.

Time management: The real challenge

Managing time has been more challenging than coding itself, so far.

It's incredibly easy to let days slip by and suddenly realize a month has passed without progress. I've abandoned many projects in the past, typically because their scope was too ambitious for a solo-project.

My current strategy involves dedicating 1-2 hours per day, not necessarily every single day. I allocate more time on weekends or days off while trying to maintain a healthy work-life balance. I still prioritize personal health, like consistently going to the gym at least 3 times per week.

Reuse components: Building a personal framework

Each app I've developed has contributed to a growing toolkit of reusable components:

• Wheel Flow took six weeks

• Nomad Pins took three weeks

• Pixelette took one week

• Dumb Gym took one week

All of them share different services that at some point I had to build from zero, and then adapt to the new use cases, but the underneath service is the same. Take my UpgradesService for example, this interfaces with Apple’s StoreKit, so I don’t have to re-implement it every time:

• First app: Created the service

• Second app: Adapted for multiple products

• Third app: Added subscription support.

This service now handles retrieving products from the App Store, managing purchases and transactions, checks against existing user purchases, purchase restoration, tracking transactions that might occur outside the app, etc, …

The efficiency gain is significant just by reusing this service, contributing to reduce development time in subsequent apps and allow me to focus on the rest.

Tools and resources:

I’ll have to write a more in-depth post about, but apart from Xcode I’ve been learning more about the usage of AI tools to improve my workflows, which has been great to specially prototype the initial big chunks of code.

• AI: So far I’ve only used Cursor and Alex Sidebar , which is basically Cursor for Xcode, but feels more natural as you still use Xcode as the main editor.

• App development: Plain Xcode, native Swift/SwiftUI, no plugins.

• Sites: I’m using NextJS for companion sites to the apps, like https://nomadpins.app/, hosted in Vercel’s free plan.

• Backend/Servers/APIS: Two of the apps require their own backend, I’ve created these with the same Node/Express hosted in a DigitalOcean $5/mo cluster, using free MongoDB for persistence.

Apart from this I used tools like Astro for keyword research, Figma for the App Store screenshot design, and free online icon generators.

Looking beyond iOS

While my current focus is iOS apps, I’m planning to expand scope at some point and to create and productize web services or APIs. I've recently acquired resources like Shipfast, or the Tao of Node to learn more about web apps and web development.

On this regard, the first site I’ve created to experiment with this it’s already up and can be found here https://www.nomadpins.app/ . As you can see is just a simple static site for one of the iOS apps I’ve created. Very minimalistic and featureless, but an important step in the learning process.

What’s next?

As I write this I'm a bit ahead of schedule, so while contemplating my fifth app I'll be spending some time learning the bits about web development, and creating mini sites for my existing projects.

This challenge is more than just about creating apps—it's about consistent growth, learning, and pushing my boundaries as a developer.

Stay tuned!