/growth

name: growth
description: Growth skills for indie Apple developers — user acquisition, analytics interpretation, press/media outreach, community building, and indie business operations. Also covers the stage-by-stage store-growth audit and the post-launch store-signals loop. Use when user asks about growing their app, auditing growth levers, understanding metrics, getting press coverage, or running an indie dev business.
allowed-tools: [Read, Glob, Grep, AskUserQuestion, WebSearch]
last_verified: 2026-07-16
review_by: 2027-06-22

Growth Skills

Growth skills for indie Apple developers — from analytics interpretation to press outreach to community building. Covers the non-code aspects of building a sustainable app business.

When This Skill Activates

Use this skill when the user:

• Asks about growing their app or user acquisition
• Wants to understand app metrics or analytics
• Asks about press/media outreach or getting reviews
• Wants to build a community around their app
• Asks about indie business operations (LLC, taxes, hiring)
• Mentions growth strategy, marketing, or user engagement
• Wants data-driven guidance on what to improve next

Available Skills

store-growth-audit/

Stage-by-stage audit of an app's App Store growth machinery against a 54-item P0–P9 playbook — every item scored from an ASC read, a codebase check, or an explicit question, then routed to the skill that fixes it. Read-only; works for live apps (audit) and pre-launch apps (growth plan).

store-signals/

Close the post-launch loop — turn a live app's App Store signals (reviews, analytics, sales, crashes, listing conversion) into a metric-tagged backlog, and verify whether last cycle's changes moved the metric they promised to move.

analytics-interpretation/

Interpret app metrics and make data-driven decisions. Covers DAU/MAU, retention curves, LTV/ARPU, App Store Connect analytics, funnel analysis (AARRR), cohort analysis, and decision trees for what to fix based on which metric is underperforming.

press-media/

Get press coverage and media attention for your app. Covers press kit preparation, finding relevant journalists/bloggers/YouTubers, pitch timing and embargo strategy, indie developer story angles, and email templates for outreach.

community-building/

Build and engage a user community around your app. Covers platform selection (Twitter/X, Mastodon, Reddit, Discord), building in public strategy, content calendars for solo developers, and converting community members into advocates.

indie-business/

Business fundamentals for indie app developers. Covers business entity setup (LLC, S-Corp), Apple Small Business Program, tax basics for app revenue, revenue tracking, when to hire, and financial planning for indie sustainability.

How to Use

1. Identify what growth stage the user is at:

• **Pre-launch**: store-growth-audit (seed the growth plan), press-media (prepare press kit), community-building (build anticipation)
• **Just launched**: analytics-interpretation (baseline metrics), press-media (launch outreach)
• **Growing**: store-signals (monthly loop), analytics-interpretation (optimize funnel), community-building (scale engagement)
• **Established**: store-growth-audit (quarterly re-audit), indie-business (formalize operations), analytics-interpretation (advanced cohorts)

2. Read the relevant sub-skill's SKILL.md for detailed workflow 3. Ask clarifying questions about the user's app, audience, and current metrics 4. Provide actionable guidance tailored to their specific situation