DEV Community: Vivien Mahé

I just launched my first affiliate program (50% commission!) - here's why and what I learned

Vivien Mahé — Wed, 27 Aug 2025 17:36:56 +0000

Today I launched something I never thought I'd do as a solo developer: an affiliate program for my Kotlin Multiplatform boilerplate, KMPShip.

TL;DR: After 3 months of grinding solo marketing, I realized I needed help. So I launched a 50% commission affiliate program. No idea if it'll work, but here's my thinking.

The reality check 📊

Let me be transparent about where KMPShip stands:

21 customers since launch
€900 revenue
Tried 7+ marketing channels: Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, HackerNews, ProductHunt, Uneed, TinyLaunch

The problem? I'm burning out trying to do all the marketing myself. Building the product was the easy part - getting it in front of the right developers is exhausting.

Why affiliates, why now? 🤔

Honestly? I saw other boilerplate creators doing it and thought "maybe I should try this too." Not the most strategic reasoning, but sometimes you just need to experiment.

My logic:

Solo marketing is hard and time-consuming
Other developers might have audiences I can't reach
50% commission means they're incentivized to actually promote it
If it doesn't work, I'll shut it down and try something else

The program details 📋

Here's what I set up:

50% commission (yes, half the revenue - figured go big or go home)
60-day cookie duration (seems fair for a developer tool)
No minimum payout (pay them even for one sale)
Monthly payments on the 10th
Manual approval (I review each application)

Using Refindie to manage it all.

What I don't know (yet) 🤷‍♂️

Being honest, I'm making educated guesses:

Should I create marketing materials for affiliates?
What promotion methods should I restrict?
What results can I realistically expect?
Is 50% too generous or not enough?

I launched it literally today, so zero affiliates and zero conversions so far.

My developer's hypothesis 🔬

I'm betting that:

Developers trust other developers more than my solo marketing efforts
High commission will motivate quality promotion over quantity
People already building with KMP will be natural advocates
It's better than doing nothing while I figure out other growth channels

The Kotlin Multiplatform community is pretty tight-knit, so word-of-mouth could actually work well here.

The technical setup 🛠️

Since we're on DEV.to, here are the technical details:

Platform: Using Refindie for affiliate management

Clean dashboard for affiliates
Automatic tracking and attribution
Built-in payment processing

Integration: Pretty straightforward setup

Added tracking scripts to KMPShip website
Created affiliate registration flow
Set up automated email notifications

Tracking: 60-day cookie duration should capture the typical developer evaluation cycle (we all know how long it takes to decide on tooling!).

Questions for fellow developers 💭

For those who've built dev tools and run affiliate programs:

What marketing materials are essential for affiliates?
How do you prevent low-quality promotional tactics?
What's a realistic timeline to see results?
Any red flags I should watch for?

For potential affiliates in the KMP space:

What would make you want to promote a developer tool?
Is the application process too formal?

The bigger picture 🎯

This feels like another experiment in the long journey of building a developer tool business. Some channels work, others don't. Twitter, Reddit, and ProductHunt all brought decent traffic, but I need more consistent reach.

Maybe affiliates will be the thing that unlocks growth, or maybe I'll learn something valuable trying. Either way, I'm committed to sharing the results here.

Will update this post in 30 days with real numbers. 📈

For the curious 🔍

KMPShip is a production-ready Kotlin Multiplatform + Compose Multiplatform boilerplate that helps developers ship Android & iOS apps faster. It includes:

Firebase Auth integration
RevenueCat for in-app purchases
Push notifications setup
CI/CD with GitHub Actions
Clean architecture foundation
And a lot more boring-but-necessary setup

Perfect for indie developers, freelancers, and small teams who want to focus on building features rather than configuring dependencies.

What do you think? Too generous with the commission? Missing something obvious?

And if you're building mobile apps with Kotlin Multiplatform, feel free to check out KMPShip 🚀

Follow me for more updates on this experiment and other indie dev adventures!

Alarmee: Local and Push Notifications in Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP)

Vivien Mahé — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 05:21:08 +0000

Handling notifications in Kotlin Multiplatform isn’t exactly fun. Android wants AlarmManager or WorkManager, iOS expects UNUserNotificationCenter, and good luck trying to share any logic.

So I built Alarmee, a Kotlin/Compose Multiplatform library to schedule local and push notifications using a single, shared API. It works on Android and iOS, and lets you create one-off or repeating alarms, send push notifications, and even show instant alerts.

Let’s dive in.

Features

➡️ Schedule one-time alarms
➡️ Set repeating alarms (hourly, daily, weekly, etc.)
➡️ Trigger instant notifications
➡️ Handle push notifications (FCM and APNs)
➡️ Customize platform behaviors

Alarmee works with Kotlin Multiplatform and Compose Multiplatform, so you can use it from your shared codebase.

Installation

To get started, add the Maven Central repository in your settings.gradle.kts:

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

If you're using a version catalog (libs.versions.toml), declare the version and dependency like this:

[versions]
alarmee = "2.0.0" # Or the latest version

[libraries]
alarmee = { group = "io.github.tweener", name = "alarmee", version.ref = "alarmee" }

Then use it in your build.gradle.kts:

dependencies {
    implementation(libs.alarmee)
}

If you’re not using a catalog, add the dependency directly:

val alarmee_version = "2.0.0"
implementation("io.github.tweener:alarmee:$alarmee_version")

Configuration (Android & iOS)

Before using Alarmee, you’ll need to provide platform-specific configuration. Here's how to do it.

Step 1: Declare an expect function in shared code

In your commonMain sourceSet:

expect fun createAlarmeePlatformConfiguration(): AlarmeePlatformConfiguration

Step 2: Android implementation

In your androidMain, provide the actual configuration:

actual fun createAlarmeePlatformConfiguration(): AlarmeePlatformConfiguration =
    AlarmeeAndroidPlatformConfiguration(
        notificationIconResId = R.drawable.ic_notification,
        notificationIconColor = Color.Red,
        notificationChannels = listOf(
            AlarmeeNotificationChannel(
                id = "dailyNewsChannelId",
                name = "Daily news notifications",
                importance = NotificationManager.IMPORTANCE_HIGH,
                soundFilename = "notifications_sound"
            ),
            AlarmeeNotificationChannel(
                id = "breakingNewsChannelId",
                name = "Breaking news notifications",
                importance = NotificationManager.IMPORTANCE_LOW
            )
        )
    )

Step 3: iOS implementation

In your iosMain sourceSet, return the built-in platform config:

actual fun createAlarmeePlatformConfiguration(): AlarmeePlatformConfiguration =
    AlarmeeIosPlatformConfiguration

⚠️ Make sure to add Firebase to your Xcode project and enable Remote notifications and Push notifications in the capabilities.

Step 4: Initialize in your root Composable

Then, in your commonMain sourceSet, Use the rememberAlarmeeService helper in a Composable function:

val alarmService = rememberAlarmeeService(
    platformConfiguration = createAlarmeePlatformConfiguration()
)

Usage

First, make sure your app has notification permissions. You can use moko-permissions to help with this.

Access the local notification service

To use local notifications, you need to get the LocalNotificationService like this:

val localService = alarmService.local

Access the push notification service (mobile only)

To use push notifications, you need to get the PushNotificationService like this:

val pushService = (alarmService as? MobileAlarmeeService)?.push

Push notifications are only supported on Android and iOS, so be sure to call this from one of those targets.

Schedule one-off alarm

To schedule an alarm for a specific date and time, pass an Alarmee instance with scheduledDateTime:

localService.schedule(
    alarmee = Alarmee(
        uuid = "myAlarmId",
        scheduledDateTime = LocalDateTime(2025, 1, 12, 17, 0),
        notificationTitle = "🎉 Congratulations!",
        notificationBody = "This will appear at the specified time.",
        deepLinkUri = "https://example.com",
        androidNotificationConfiguration = AndroidNotificationConfiguration(
            priority = AndroidNotificationPriority.HIGH,
            channelId = "dailyNewsChannelId"
        ),
        iosNotificationConfiguration = IosNotificationConfiguration()
    )
)

Schedule repeating alarm

Alarmee supports both fixed and custom repeat intervals.

Daily at 9:30 AM

Here's how to repeat an alarm every day at the same time:

repeatInterval = RepeatInterval.Daily

Every 15 minutes (custom)

If you want a custom duration (like every 15 minutes), use RepeatInterval.Custom:

repeatInterval = RepeatInterval.Custom(duration = 15.minutes)

Cancel an alarm

To stop a scheduled alarm, just cancel it by its uuid:

localService.cancel(uuid = "myAlarmId")

Trigger an instant notification

You can display a notification immediately using immediate(...):

localService.immediate(
    alarmee = Alarmee(
        uuid = "now",
        notificationTitle = "🚀 Instant alert!",
        notificationBody = "This shows right away.",
        androidNotificationConfiguration = AndroidNotificationConfiguration(
            priority = AndroidNotificationPriority.DEFAULT,
            channelId = "immediateChannelId"
        ),
        iosNotificationConfiguration = IosNotificationConfiguration()
    )
)

Customize notifications

Alarmee supports custom sound files, icon colors, and badge updates on iOS.

Custom sound

Android: Place the .ogg file in res/raw and reference it in soundFilename when defining your notification channel.
iOS: Add the file to the main bundle and pass it in IosNotificationConfiguration.

Custom icon (Android only)

Set a default icon in the platform config or override per alarm:

notificationIconResId = R.drawable.ic_notification
notificationIconColor = Color.Yellow

Badge count (iOS only)

Use this to update or clear the app icon badge:

IosNotificationConfiguration(badge = 4) // Set badge
IosNotificationConfiguration(badge = 0) // Clear badge

Push Notifications

On Android and iOS, Alarmee supports FCM and APNs through MobileAlarmeeService.push.

Right now, Alarmee will automatically display a notification when a push message with title and body is received. More custom handling is coming soon.

Try Alarmee

If you're building a Kotlin Multiplatform app and want to handle notifications without writing platform-specific mess, give Alarmee a shot.

It already powers real apps like Bloomeo and is included by default in KMPShip, my KMP boilerplate.

📚 GitHub: github.com/Tweener/alarmee
🌐 Website: kmpship.app

If you find it helpful, star the repo or drop your feedback in the comments.

Build Android & iOS Apps Faster with KMPShip: A Kotlin Multiplatform Boilerplate for Indie Devs

Vivien Mahé — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 09:38:38 +0000

Over the past few years, Kotlin Multiplatform has grown into a powerful solution for building cross-platform apps. But if you’ve ever tried starting a new KMP project, you know how much setup it takes: authentication flows, payments, CI/CD, store publishing, in-app reviews, remote config… The list goes on.

After repeating the same setup across multiple projects, I finally decided to build a boilerplate that solves all of this. It’s called KMPShip, and it’s now available.

Why I Built KMPShip

As an indie developer, my time is limited. Every time I kicked off a new project, I found myself spending days (sometimes weeks) integrating Firebase Auth, configuring payments with RevenueCat, setting up CI/CD for App Store and Google Play, or configuring push notifications.

Eventually, it hit me: “Why not create a production-ready boilerplate I can reuse, and that other devs can use too?” That’s how KMPShip was born.

I even used it to create my own app, Bloomeo, which is live on the App Store and Google Play. Building with KMPShip allowed me to ship faster and focus on product features instead of wiring up the same integrations again.

What’s Included in KMPShip?

KMPShip is a Kotlin Multiplatform + Compose Multiplatform boilerplate that helps you ship Android & iOS apps faster. It’s perfect for solo devs, indie makers, and startups.

🔐 Authentication

Google, Apple, and Email/Password
Built using Passage, my KMP library for authentication via Firebase Auth

💳 Payments

In-app purchases with RevenueCat
Subscription support

🔔 Notifications

Local and push notifications
Powered by Alarmee, my KMP library for alarms and scheduling

📝 In-App Reviews

Trigger store-compliant reviews with a few lines of code

⚙️ Remote Config

Firebase Remote Config support to dynamically tweak your app behavior (Feature Flags & App Configuration Parameters)

🚀 CI/CD Setup

Preconfigured GitHub Actions to publish your app to the App Store via Fastlane and Google Play with a single release tag

Built on Clean Architecture

KMPShip is designed with Clean Architecture principles in mind. The shared module is organized into well-separated layers for data, domain, and presentation, making it easier to scale and maintain your codebase over time.

Additional Highlights

KMPShip also comes with:

Dependency injection using Koin
Networking setup with Ktor
Image loading with Coil
A UI layer built with Compose Multiplatform and styled using Czan, my open-source atomic design system

Who Is KMPShip For?

If you’re any of the following:

🧑‍💻 A solo or indie dev tired of setting up projects from scratch
🚀 A startup founder looking to launch your MVP fast
🛠️ A developer wanting to explore Kotlin Multiplatform without the boilerplate pain Then shared is made for you.

You can build virtually any kind of mobile app with it: AI wrappers, personal finance tools, news apps, paid products — you name it.

What’s Next?

I’ve got tons of ideas in the pipeline: new features, integrations, and launchers to make development even faster. But more on that soon.

👉 Visit the website

Thanks for reading, and happy shipping!