Everyone says focus on one thing. I ignored that advice and shipped three macOS/iOS apps at the same time. Six months in, here's what I learned about running multiple products solo — the stuff that worked, and the stuff that nearly killed the whole thing.
The Three Apps
A menu bar token counter — tracks LLM API usage in real time across providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.). Aimed at devs who vibe-code and want to stop guessing their AI costs.
A feed-level distraction blocker — doesn't block entire apps like Screen Time does. It blocks specific feeds (Twitter timeline, YouTube homepage, Reddit front page) while keeping the useful parts accessible.
A photo-based nutrition tracker — snap a photo of your meal, AI estimates the macros. No more typing "1/2 cup brown rice" into MyFitnessPal for 10 minutes.
Different problem spaces. Different users. Same dev.
What Actually Worked
Shared infrastructure, separate codebases
All three apps share the same CI pipeline, the same crash reporting setup, and the same analytics events structure. I templated the boring stuff early — App Store Connect metadata, review request prompts, onboarding flows — and just swap in the specifics per app.
This saved me probably 40 hours over the first few months. Boring? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely.
Time-blocking by app, not by task
I tried the "work on whatever feels interesting" approach first. Disaster. I'd context-switch four times in an afternoon and ship nothing.
What works: dedicated days. Monday/Tuesday = token counter. Wednesday/Thursday = blocker. Friday = nutrition app. Weekends = marketing or whatever's on fire.
The key insight: your brain needs at least a few hours to load a project's full context into working memory. Switching costs are real and they're brutal.
One launch at a time
I staggered launches by about 3-4 weeks. Each app got a focused marketing push — landing page polish, Show HN attempt, a few community posts. Trying to launch all three at once would have been a mess.
Monitoring costs obsessively
When you're a solo dev running AI features, API costs can spiral fast. I built TokenBar partly because I needed it myself — I wanted a glanceable number in my menu bar showing exactly what my AI coding sessions were burning through. It turns out a lot of other devs wanted the same thing.
What Nearly Killed It
Support across three products
Even with small user bases, support requests stack up. Three apps = three sets of edge cases, three App Store review cycles, three sets of "works on my machine" bugs. I underestimated this by a factor of 3x.
Marketing bandwidth
Building three apps is hard. Marketing three apps is harder. You can't half-heartedly post about three products — each one needs its own voice, its own audience, its own content calendar. I'm still figuring this part out honestly.
Feature creep × 3
Every "quick feature" is multiplied by your product count. "I'll just add dark mode" becomes three implementations, three QA passes, three release cycles. Saying no got way easier once I realized this.
The Honest Verdict
Would I do it again? Probably not three at once. Two is manageable if they share enough DNA. Three is a constant juggling act.
But here's the thing — each app validates a different market. If one doesn't get traction, I've got two others. And the cross-pollination of ideas between products is genuinely useful.
If you're thinking about running multiple products solo, my advice: share your infrastructure, protect your focus time, and launch sequentially. And whatever you do, track your costs from day one. Future-you will be grateful.
Currently building TokenBar (LLM token counter), Monk Mode (feed blocker), and MetricSync (photo nutrition tracker). Happy to answer questions about the multi-product solo dev life.
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