12 Ways to Your First 1k in App Downloads

How to boost app downloads on a bootstrapped budget

Publishing an app to the app store is a major accomplishment.

As someone who has worked with a startup to release an app, I can tell you — the journey is one for the books.

From experience, I know you don’t want to hear crickets.

However the app landscape is so crowded, it’s hard to not hear crickets when you want to see thousands of downloads.

How do I get app users and downloads?

The big question that I’m answering in this post…

How do you overcome the intense market saturation and the “big guys” in your app’s niche category?

The app market is more crowded than ever. There are approximately two million apps on the Apple App Store and 2.8 million apps on the Google Play Store.

Each month, the number of app releases to the app store hovers between 30–40k.

How do you gain traction in the competitive space? How do you get people to know about you and want to smash the “Get” button on the App Store?

Below I share some free avenues and key thinking points, as well as a few budget-friendly ways to boost app awareness…