I failed 😩

Back in May 2025, I was eating pierogi in Krakow. It was during my traditional trip to AppJS conf, and I was sitting across from Lukas, telling him how much I miss building and launching apps. The adrenaline that startups bring me.

I remember saying out loud: "I wish I had more time to launch my own apps."

And then I caught myself.

Here's the thing - there's no such thing as "not having time" for something. We all have 24 hours a day. The same 24 hours that Elon has. The same 24 hours that you have.

The only thing that prevented me from launching my own apps was prioritization.

It was never my number 1 priority in the last 4 years. During this period, my number 1 priority was growing notJust.dev. Growing on YouTube. Growing our Academy. Providing quality education for mobile developers. Everything else was noise. Working on an app felt like procrastination.

But 2025 felt different.

I realized I could finally use AI to actually speed up the development process. I could leverage all the tools and experience I built over the years to be hyper-efficient.

As I was finishing my last pierogi, I said to Lukas - "Let's launch 10 apps this year."

You should have seen the look on his face 😂

The thing is, I'm terrible at estimating time and complexity. If I'm excited about something, I'm overly optimistic (ps: this has burned me before... many times).

But this time I was ready to commit. I was ready to make this THE priority.

That's exactly why I decided to make this commitment public. So there would be fewer reasons to change the plan. We switched to a nice café, I opened my laptop, and wrote down the whole strategy.

On May 27th, I sent it as an email with the subject line "My strategy for launching 10 apps by the end of the year."

Expo even published this story on their blog. That's even more pressure to actually deliver.

Did I know what I was doing? Was I sure about any of this?

Definitely not.

I'm an expert when it comes to building apps. I can probably build one at 2am if I have to.

But monetizing and growing a profitable app portfolio was a completely new game to me.

As I explained in my original plan, I would treat all these apps as experiments. Because there's nothing better you can do to learn new things than actually doing it.

The Progress

We started working together with Lukas. The goal was for each of us to take on 1 app at a time and develop them in parallel.

The strategy was highly based on ASO-first development. We started by researching popular keywords that weren't impossible to compete for. Then, optimize the whole app and App Store listing for that particular keyword.

For keyword analysis, I use Astro. Highly recommend it if you're launching to the App Store.

It was going well. We developed internal tools and processes to speed things up. Every app was taking us less and less time. That was a sign that we were learning.

Then Shit Got Real

Not everything was smooth.

Running a business and having a team that depends on you is tough. It means that sometimes I have to make decisions that are needed short term, just to be able to pay the team.

This meant that again I was putting my long-term priority of building a profitable portfolio of mobile apps on the second or third priority.

In June, we launched the Bootcamp, and I helped 25 students master React Native.

In September, we re-launched the Incubator. This is a 10-week program for indie developers who want to launch their own apps. During the last few months, I've been working closely with 7 founders, helping them launch their apps.

The Incubator was an amazing success. Far better than I expected. All 7 founders launched their apps. And I had a blast coaching them.

It was so good that I decided to do it again in 2026.

If you want to launch your own app, you can sign up for the waitlist and I'll let you know when we open applications.

All of this is great, but it means I was again putting my own apps on the second or third priority.

There were months where I wasn't launching any new apps because I was so busy running the Incubator.

At that time, I was feeling okay because Lukas was there with me and he was investing more time into apps.

Then everything changed.

Lukas invited me for a 1-on-1 call. I knew something was off.

He let me know that he received an offer from a great company and was thinking about accepting it.

It was tough, but I encouraged him to take the offer (for reasons I won't go into depth here).

The good thing is that Lukas is in a great place now. We'll always remain great friends, and I'm sure we'll work together again in the future.

But that meant I was the only developer left in the company.

It was even harder to manage everything else at notJust.dev AND launch new apps. That's also one of the reasons I wasn't very active on YouTube.

So... The Results

Now that 2025 is behind us, we can draw the line and look at the results.

Did I achieve the goal of "Launching 10 apps in 2025"?

Yes, I did it 🥳

...I could say, and nobody would notice anything...

But who am I lying to?

The honest answer is: No. And let's be real about it.

From the 10 apps above:

• 2 were launched at the very end of 2024
• 6 were built and launched during 2025
• 2 are "pending developer release." I built them in the last days of 2025 but didn't want to release them during the holiday season. So technically I built them in 2025, but I'll launch them this year.

Even though I have the 10 apps in the portfolio, I would consider only 8 apps launched during 2025. Not 10.

Still, a great result that taught me a lot.

And this might sound like cope, but hear me out - the goal was never really about hitting exactly 10. The goal was to build a system, learn the game, and actually ship.

And I did ship. More than I had in the previous 4 years combined.

Speaking of shipping...

In fact, let's actually launch one of those "pending" apps right now.

This is Lock In - an app that will help you lock in and focus on what matters most. It's an app that I'll be using a lot this year.

If you want to be more focused this year, start tracking your focused time with Lock In.

Public Leaderboard coming soon, so better start logging your time if you're serious about it 🚀

What's Next

I'll write a separate email about the lessons learned. And another one about the actual stats - the downloads, revenue, everything transparent.

Which topic would you like me to cover next? Hit reply and let me know.

Cheers, Vadim

PS. I know I technically failed. But 8 apps, a successful Incubator with 7 launched founders, and a Bootcamp with 25 students... 2025 wasn't that bad after all. Sometimes your "failures" teach you more than hitting the target ever would.

PPS. If you want to launch an app in 2026, sign up for the notJust.Incubator waitlist here. I am looking for the next 7 founders.