Life Update: I Just Sold My App (Part 2)
Hey, back again with the continuation of my last post.
This one is about what happened right after the deal and what I took away from that short but intense 60-day project.
A couple of weeks after we agreed on the number, I officially handed over the app. It wasn’t a huge exit, but enough to buy me peace of mind for the next six months. After months of living with little runway, simply being able to breathe was worth it. It gave me time to think more clearly about what I wanted to do next.
Most of our users came through TikTok content localized for the Vietnamese audience. On good days we pulled in up to 8 new users, and on slower days 2 or 3. For a brand-new product with no reputation behind it, this felt like a win. I also faced some difficulties. My very first Stripe chargeback happened in Vietnam, coming from a power user who spammed the AI non-stop and then claimed the product had not delivered. The market also felt slower to respond with constructive feedback compared to English-speaking audiences, where people tend to be more direct. most students here also didn’t have a lot of money.
Eventually, my investor and I decided that continuing in this market didn’t make sense. It was better to close this chapter and start fresh.
Once the project was over, I gave myself a month to wander a bit. I tried making AI music, producing YouTube Shorts for a Korean audience, and a few quick experiments on other app concepts. None of those ideas really stuck. What kept pulling me back, though, was my girlfriend’s endometriosis.
My girlfriend has been suffering from endometriosis for many years and has never found a tool that supported her properly. If you don't know endometriosis, well, you should. It’s a really ugly disease that makes life really hard for women who have it.
One noticeable thing is you’ve got to actively track your symptoms before even you get diagnosed since the diagnosis process itself is an uphill battle. Endometriosis is a really insidious disease, and is hard to detect, so a lot of women fight a lot against the system in order to get their disease officially diagnosed. It takes on average 7 years for women to get an official diagnosis.
As far as I'm concerned, there’s currently no market-leading app that combines symptom tracking, diet, and physical activity logging in a way that patients feel is practical. So I started digging into forums and Reddit threads and saw a lot of frustration from many women, and that’s when I really decided to build a prototype.
It was my first time using React Native coming from Next.js, so the learning curve was steep because of the build process. I had a lot of trial-and-error days where nothing worked. But eventually, I got a version running and am now in the process of distributing it to a few handful of people via testflight to gather early feedback. For now, the most important thing is not endless new features but seeing how people react and whether the idea holds.
My plan is to slow down development and focus more on distribution. I’ll set up a landing page, launch content on TikTok again, and begin testing if there is enough demand in this niche. The same approach as before applies: aim for low effort, high impact. Repurpose simple visuals, experiment with formats, and see what sticks. If signals are positive, I’ll lean in more. If not, I’ll pivot again.
On the personal side, life feels calm. I’m still in Ho Chi Minh City, but in a quiet pocket of the city with my girlfriend. Our mornings are long walks, sometimes with the dog, sometimes just us, and the rest of the day we do our things. Between the app sale and our other offline businesses, we don’t have a lot of financial stress, so life feels good. That has given me the space to slow down, explore, and build without feeling rushed.
That’s where I am today. Next time, I’ll share a few reflections from almost two years of indie hacking here in Vietnam and the lifestyle choices that have kept me going.
