Sky Grid

An alarm that makes you step outside and photograph the sky. One photo a morning builds a year-long mosaic, and a buddy's sky stays sealed until you show up too.

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At a glance

No revenue yet. This is the story of a two-person app that I marketed to individuals, what I changed, and how RevenueCat is set up to test it.

  • What: an iPhone wake-up alarm app. After the alarm, you take one photo of the sky; it becomes a tile in a year-long mosaic. A friend's photo stays sealed until you have both posted that day, so someone is waiting on your alarm.
  • Status: live on the App Store since 6 Aug 2026, free with an optional Pro plan. Built and run by one person.
  • RevenueCat used: Offerings, an in-app multi-step paywall, a "second chance" Offering, restore purchases, webhooks, and promotional entitlements. Judges also get an Apple offer code (see the private promo-code field).
  • Numbers (RevenueCat, last 28 days, as of 30 Sep 2026): 36 new and 42 active customers (this includes people given a free promotional grant, and may include my own test devices); 0 active subscriptions; $0 revenue. At least 7 free Pro grants were issued through RevenueCat in the last 12 days.
  • Try Pro: redeem the offer code from the private promo-code field of this submission, then reopen the app or tap Restore Purchases.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sky-grid-morning-wake/id6796222704

The problem

Alarms are easy to dismiss and habit trackers are easy to fake. Sky Grid makes the morning task a photo of the real sky, so you have to be awake enough to look up.

How it works

  1. Alarm. A morning alarm (Apple's AlarmKit on iOS 26+), followed by a lock-screen nudge to take the photo.
  2. Photo. One sky photo per day. The app takes the sky's colours from your photo and adds a tile to your year mosaic, with a short reward animation and a small companion character, Moku.
  3. Buddies. Invite a friend by link or code. Your buddy's photo stays sealed until you have both posted. Free users can have up to 5 buddies.
  4. Look back. Streaks, milestones, a shareable weekly recap card, and a month-by-month view of your archive.

It works in English and Japanese, and there is no public feed.

How RevenueCat is used

Sky Grid is free to start, with one paid tier, Sky Grid Pro. RevenueCat manages the products, offerings, entitlement checks and promotional grants (Apple handles the billing itself).

  • Products (US prices): monthly $3.99, annual $19.99, lifetime $55.
  • What Pro unlocks: the full photo archive (free keeps the last 30 days), unlimited buddies (free: up to 5), and the weekly recap card.
  • Offerings and paywall: the app loads the current Offering from RevenueCat and shows a multi-step in-app paywall. If someone leaves without buying, a separate "second chance" Offering shows a one-month introductory price.
  • Restore purchases is available from the paywall and from Settings.
  • Server side: RevenueCat webhooks keep a copy of each user's subscription state in my backend, so buddy limits are enforced on the server as well as in the app.
  • Promotional entitlements: the first 100 users get 60 days of Pro, granted from my server through RevenueCat. At least 7 grants were issued in the last 12 days.
  • Offer code for judges: an Apple offer code created in App Store Connect, in the private promo-code field of this submission. Redemption had not been tested on a device by me when I wrote this.

Why a soft paywall: the app only works when a friend is waiting for you, so a hard paywall in front of a new user would block the reason to stay. Pro is aimed at people who already have the habit.

Where things stand

  • App Store: no ratings on the US page yet; 2 in Japan.
  • Changes since launch: buddy invite link and share card, English/Japanese localization, Pro redesign (unlimited buddies, buddy comparison, weekly recap), early-adopter grant, VoiceOver and contrast fixes, and more than one pricing change. I do not yet know whether the pricing or paywall is right.

What went wrong with marketing

The main mistake: I built a product for two people and marketed it to individuals.

  1. No way to bring a friend. For the first weeks there was no invite link, so a happy user could not bring the friend the app depends on. I have since added an invite link, a share card and a group code.
  2. Positioning. I first described the app as a sky photo diary, which did not explain what it does. I now describe it as an alarm that gets you outside and rewrote the App Store subtitle around that. It is too early to know whether that helps.
  3. Cold outreach. From memory, I sent roughly a dozen hand-written messages to morning-routine creators, mostly on Instagram, and got few replies. I believe TikTok blocked a message that contained a link.
  4. Paid creators. I decided not to pay creators after finding that my cost estimate relied on listed rates that are not what you actually pay.
  5. Landing page. It still said "join the waitlist" after launch; it now links to the App Store.

What I learned

  • If the product is for two people, growth starts with the second person.
  • Describe what the app does to someone's morning, not its category.
  • Check the numbers behind a marketing plan before spending on it.

What's next

Make "start tomorrow with one friend" the default first-run path, keep posting short clips of the real app (a few are already on TikTok @sky.grid.app and X; reach is small), and see whether the invite link changes how many new users have a buddy in their first week.

Try it (for judges)

Install from the App Store link above, then redeem the offer code from the private promo-code field. If Pro does not appear right away, reopen the app or tap Restore Purchases.

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