TinyLog: Stop Building Web Apps
The ideas you rule out without realizing
I build web apps. You probably do too. It’s the default. Every product idea I’ve ever had was a website. But some ideas just don’t work in a browser.
DockFlow - Instantly switch between macOS dock presets to supercharge your workflow.
Last week’s winners
The following products got the most votes during the past launch week.
🥇 RubyOnVibes — AI platform for building real software
🥈 Hndmark — Mark up screenshots the human way
🥉 Tiny Lessons — Learn what you need. In minutes.
Personal favorite
Telemetry Studio — Syncs your cycling data with video footage and creates high quality overlays ready for social media.
What’s new?
TinyShots is now live. A screenshot beautifier great for product images for launches and social media. Independent image movement, built in crop and censor, custom backgrounds, markup and more. 100% free, no signup. Give it a try.
I’m now turning it to a native Mac app. More on that below.
I also got accepted to the Hacker Residency. It’s a one-month program in Da Nang, Vietnam, during May 2026. Ten founders, a villa with ocean views, and the only job is to build. It’s completely free. No equity, no revenue share. Just show up and lock in.
I’ll share my experience and try to take TinyLaunch to the next level while I’m there.
Stop Building Web Apps
Klack is a keyboard sound app. $5. Built as a demo for a SaaS product. The demo blew up. Apple featured it, Forbes wrote about it. Became bigger than the actual product. It can’t be a web app. A browser can’t play sounds on every keystroke system-wide.
Screen Studio is a screen recorder. Made screen recordings look cinematic for the first time. It can’t be a web app either. Needs system-level screen access.
These ideas couldn’t exist if their creators only thought in web apps. And most of us do. We filter out ideas before they even form.
I caught myself doing it. I built TinyShots as a web app, a screenshot beautifier, clone of shots.so. It got users from day one because TinyLaunch users need visuals for their launches. What I really wanted though was global shortcuts. Nico Jeannen suggested I go native with it. Hit a key combo, capture, edit, done. No browser, no pasting. Always there. That’s not a web app. So I’m building a native Mac app.
I always ignored native. Never done it, felt too foreign. But with AI it’s actually not that hard to get into.
There are so many native app ideas that nobody is building because everyone defaults to web. And they tend to pay well. Mac users are used to paying for software, and you can sell lifetime deals with no server costs on your end.
What’s the idea you’ve never had because you only build for the web?
Community Question
I’m trying something new. Every week I’ll post a question in the TinyLaunch Discord, and I’ll summarize the overall sentiment and quote some of you here.
This week’s question: Have you made money indie hacking, and if so, which product made your first dollar?
I built five products before I made my first dollar. TinyLaunch, my 6th product, was the one.
25 people voted in the poll. 56% haven’t made money yet. 20% made money with their first product, 8% with their second. 12% needed 9 or more. Nothing in between (except me). It seems you either get it early or you grind through a lot of failures. I didn’t ask how long people have been working on one product though. Would be interesting to see if the immediate successes spent more total time than the ones with lots of failures.
I promised I’d feature some of you here. Doesn’t really fit the story, but a promise is a promise. Check out Johann’s planHQ and Boon’s TheBlue.social, MyOG.social, and Stacknaut. Read their stories in the discussion.
What would you want to know about other indie hackers? Reply to this email and I might ask it next.
Next week’s question: What’s one specific thing you wish you did sooner (in order to be more successful)? Not “marketing”. Something specific, like running Meta ads or adding Google auth. Join the TinyLaunch Discord to discuss and I’ll feature some of your stories in the next issue (including links to your product).
Tweet of the week
PS
As always, you can reach me by simply replying to this email or messaging me on 𝕏 @chrissyinspace.