# The First 1,000 Memories: An Honest Update from a Solo iOS Developer > Remember Them just passed 1,000 memories saved by users. An honest, humble 10-week update from a solo iOS developer — the real numbers and what they mean. *Published July 18, 2026 by Marvin Blase · [https://rememberthem.app/blog/first-1000-memories/](https://rememberthem.app/blog/first-1000-memories/)* --- Sometime this week, a small counter I've been quietly watching ticked past 1,000. That's the number of memories that people using Remember Them have saved — the birthdays, the allergies, the "his mum's name is Judith," the little things they didn't want to forget about the people they care about. A thousand isn't a big number by internet standards. Plenty of apps do that before lunch. But I'm a solo iOS developer, this app is ten weeks old, and every one of those thousand memories was typed by a real person about a real relationship. So I made a small "Special Event" for it in the App Store, and I wanted to write down honestly where things actually stand.
Remember Them 'The First 1000 Memories' special event cards shown in the App Store, with vine-and-flower heart artwork
The little in-app celebration for our first 1,000 saved memories.
## The numbers, in full I'd rather show the real figures than talk around them. Here's where Remember Them sits ten weeks after launch, with the change from last week in brackets: | Metric | This week | vs. last week | |---|---|---| | Downloads (total) | 57 | +3 | | Daily active users | 20 | −2 | | Memories saved by users | 1,009 | +38 | | Active subscriptions | 8 | ±0 | | Total revenue | $39 | +$1 | I want to be honest about what these say. Fifty-seven downloads is tiny. Thirty-nine dollars would not cover a nice dinner, let alone the hours behind the app. If you came here looking for an overnight-success story, this isn't one, and I'd be lying if I dressed it up as one. But look at the third row. Twenty or so people opened the app on an average day, and between them they've now recorded more than a thousand details about the people in their lives. That's roughly fifty memories per active user — which tells me the people who *do* use it, actually use it. That ratio matters more to me than the download count. ## Why 1,000 memories beats 1,000 downloads It would be easy to chase the vanity numbers. Downloads look good in a screenshot. But a download is just someone giving the app a chance; a *saved memory* is someone trusting it with something that matters. When I read the (anonymous, aggregate) counter tick up, I don't picture users. I picture the thing itself: someone jotting down that their new colleague is gluten-free before the next team lunch. A daughter noting the exact medication her dad takes. Somebody adding "wants that lavender hand cream" in July so they're not stuck for a gift in December. A thousand small acts of paying attention. That's the whole reason I built this. I wrote a longer piece on [how to remember details about people](/blog/how-to-remember-details-about-people/) if you want the techniques — but the short version is that our brains were never built to hold all of it, and a thousand memories is a thousand times my own head would have dropped the ball. ## What ten weeks solo has actually looked like A few honest things I've learned building this alone, in case it's useful to another indie dev reading: - **Retention told me more than installs.** Early on I fixated on the download graph. It's mostly flat and mostly demoralising. The number that actually reassured me was how much the existing users kept saving — that's the signal the product does something real. - **The free app has to be genuinely good.** Remember Them's core is free and stays free. Of those 57 downloads, 8 chose to subscribe. I can't feel bad about the 49 who didn't — most people don't need the paid extras, and the app is built to be worth keeping either way. - **Small revenue is still a real signal.** Eight people paying for something I made is eight more than zero. It's not a business yet. It's evidence that the thing has *some* value to *some* people, which at ten weeks is all I was hoping for. - **Word of mouth is slow and worth it.** Almost no marketing budget means growth is a trickle. But the users who arrive tend to stick, and I'd take fifty people who love it over five thousand who forget it by Tuesday. I'll be transparent about my bias, since I make the thing: Remember Them is a private, on-device iOS app for remembering people. There's no account, no tracking, and your memories live on your device and your own iCloud — I genuinely can't see them, which is exactly why my milestone counter is just a number and not your data. The core is free; there's an optional subscription for people who want unlimited AI detection and a few cosmetic extras. ## What's next Nothing dramatic. The honest priority for the coming weeks is **App Store Optimization** — better keywords, a clearer screenshot story, a more findable listing. Right now the biggest bottleneck isn't the app, it's that almost nobody knows it exists. So I'm going to spend less time adding features and more time helping the right people stumble across it. If that's you — if you're the person who always means to remember and always forgets — you can [try Remember Them free on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/remember-them/id6756941740). And if a paper notebook already does the job for you, honestly, keep the notebook. The goal was never the download. It was the remembering. ## Frequently asked questions ### Who makes Remember Them? Just me — Marvin Blase, a solo iOS developer. There's no team and no investors behind it. I build the app, answer the support emails, and write these updates myself, which is also why I try to keep everything about it honest. ### How much does Remember Them cost? The core app is free, and it stays free. There's an optional subscription that unlocks unlimited AI-powered memory detection (the free app includes a few AI detections per day), plus custom app icons and extra themes. Most people never need to pay to get the full benefit. ### Is my data private if you're counting memories? Yes. The 1,000-memory figure is a simple aggregate count — I have no access to the memories themselves or who saved them. Everything you enter stays on your device and in your personal iCloud. There's no account, no analytics inside the app, and you can export all your data as JSON at any time. ### Is Remember Them available on Android? Not right now — it's iOS only, built natively for iPhone. As a solo developer I've chosen to do one platform properly rather than two platforms poorly. An Android version isn't ruled out for the future, but it's not something I can promise today. ### Should I use an app, or is a notebook fine? A notebook is completely fine, and I mean that. The best system for remembering people is the one you'll actually keep up with. An app like this helps if you want fast capture, structure, and reminders for dates without maintaining it all by hand — but if pen and paper already works for you, don't let anyone (including me) talk you out of it. --- *From the Remember Them blog — https://rememberthem.app/blog/. Remember Them is a private, on-device iOS app for remembering the details about people in your life: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/remember-them/id6756941740*