Building Pointerly in public
A transparent look at how the product is developed — metrics, decisions, and thinking.
Product Snapshot
Last updated: April 18, 2026
What I am working on
Pointerly started as a 0->1 product experiment. A year in, the app has grown entirely through organic discovery — no marketing, no launch push. Usage has been modest but real, app received some positive reviews, and I got a few emails for feature requests.
People finding the app on their own and caring enough to email about it suggests a genuine (even if small) need. I am currently trying to understand whether that translates into a product worth investing in further, maybe for visibility, maybe for further learning, maybe for monetisation through a paid tier or in-app purchase.
The immediate next steps are deliberately small: respond to the feedback board to show the project is alive, improve onboarding so more new users reach a successful "aha" moment, and find natural places in the app to ask happy users for a review to continue the organic growth. Before making any bigger bets, I need to build a clearer picture of who my users are and what they actually need.
Product Log
Opening the feedback loop
In March I got one more institutional purchase, this time 10k units from Germany, the biggest organisation until now. I also received three user emails in the same week: compliments, feature requests, even an offer to contribute to the project. The fact that people were reaching out, and the recurring institutional purchases, made me take the project more seriously: on April 2 I launched a public feedback board and added a feedback button in the app. First feature request came in on April 16, I’m now monitoring and responding to these.
Added analytics — Better late than never
Pointerly launched with no-analytics (I know, I know). I assumed I could revise that later and also that full-privacy was a nice selling point. After a year, between the institutional purchase spikes, the email feedback, and the reviews, I had been piecing together user behaviour from fragments. Now I introduced TelemetryDeck, a privacy-respecting analytics tool, and started tracking tool activations and feature choices. Privacy is still there — no personal data, no tracking — but now I can see how people use the app and make decisions based on real data.
Second institutional purchase (and a shift)
A second bulk purchase came in, this time 750 units from Australia. Downloads picked up slightly afterwards, suggesting the App Store algorithm noticed. More importantly it confirmed the first spike wasn’t a fluke — there’s some kind of B2B interest, likely education, that I haven’t done anything to attract. App Store doesn’t give me enough data to identify who or follow up. Keeping an eye on it.
First institutional purchase
Seven months in, a single-day spike of 500 downloads from an institutional purchase in France, maybe a school or some kind of organisation. My first instinct was excitement, my second was frustration: the App Store gives you no way to know who bought, why, or whether they’ll come back. Filed it as a signal worth watching, not worth acting on yet.
First real feedback... one star.
One month in, the first review from a stranger: one star, claiming the app might have charged them when a ‘brief message flashed on screen’ and they ‘don’t think it’s worth the risk’. Of course I cannot charge people without knowing their card and any payment going through the App Store would be clearly visible and tracked. I replied politely, they didn’t update it. The feedback itself didn’t sting, too absurd to feel personal, though (only) much later I realised that it sat as the only review in the UK store for nearly a year, and while I don’t think it’s visible, it might have penalised the ranking. I’ve since reported it and requested removal (still pending).
Launched Quietly
Built and launched Pointerly as a personal project to explore new things during a period of many doubts. I wanted to go through the whole process of building an app, from idea to launch to evolution, and be in charge of every decision. Being an exercise, I wanted something small to build, self-contained, but possibly useful to people; the actual idea came from browsing r/macapps and noticing a recurring topic.