Here's the thing about having a plan. You need to actually make one.

I have not done that.

What I do have is a Vercel deployment, a Supabase database I only partially understand, a Product Hunt launch date that is also my birthday (July 11th, that’s the goal anyway), and the unshakable confidence of someone who has watched exactly enough YouTube tutorials to be dangerous.

This is the update you didn't ask for.

What does it actually cost to ship an app? Let me save you the Google search.

Apple wants $99 a year to let you put your app on their platform. Google only charges $25, one time, because Google is apparently the reasonable one and that sentence felt weird to type.

Stripe doesn't charge you a monthly fee. They just take a small cut every time someone pays you, which is fine because first someone has to actually pay you.

RevenueCat, which handles subscriptions, is free until you're making $2,500 a month. So that's a very comfortable $0 for now.

Shopify is currently $10 a month because I'm using their starter plan, which is the digital equivalent of showing up to a car dealership on a bicycle. I'll need to upgrade before launch. That's $39 a month. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it, which is a great strategy if the bridge definitely exists.

Total damage to actually ship this thing: somewhere around $150 to $200.

I have spent more than that on worse ideas. I’m moving it forward…..maybe….

I applied for a pitch contest and got rejected in 24 hours.

The contest was the Pitch by Deel competition on Product Hunt. I submitted Uplyft, felt good about it, and received a polite rejection faster than most restaurants bring out bread.

24 hours. I didn't even have time to get nervous about things.

The silver lining: I now have a one-pager. A real one. With the Uplyft brand colors and everything. It exists entirely because I had to make it for the application, which means the rejection produced a tangible asset I didn't have before.

I'm choosing to call that a win, and nobody can tell me different.

Here's the V1 one-pager I built for the submission. It's not perfect…not even close, but it's exactly what it needs to be right now.

The part where I don't give you advice.

I'm not going to tell you to just ship it. I'm not going to tell you done is better than perfect. I'm not going to give you a five step framework for launching your MVP with confidence and intention.

I'm a guy who is about to push his app to the App Store with $150, a birthday launch date, and a GTM strategy that is best described as "F’ it, just give it a shot."

Action is better than nothing. But action with no plan is like using Tesla's self-driving feature without turning it on. You're moving. You're just not entirely sure where.

I'll report back.

How you can help…

When it’s launched, sign up for the Founding Member offer: $4.99/month locked in forever for the first 100 people, before it moves to $7.99/month Standard or $12.99/month for the full Family Plan.

There will be a Free option too, but it will be super limited.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully this inspires you to take action and build something…..even if you have no idea where you’re going.

All the best!

Brad

*Product Hunt launch date is incorrect because I can only schedule 1 month in advance.*