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Building My First App Solo: The Story Behind Make Me Workout

Working in software is not usually associated with moving around a lot. It is associated with sitting for long hours, looking at a screen, and typing. While that is just part of the job, it led to a variety of neck and hip issues for me. And now, I’ve undone years of muscle pain and neck spasms because I built the workout app I wanted to use.

This is the story of how Make Me Workout went from a personal frustration to a real product. If you’ve ever wondered whether one person can build an app, I’m here to tell you: you can. But it helps to start with a problem that actually matters to you.

The Problem That Started It All

It started the way a lot of good ideas do: with something that annoyed me.

Most workout apps use a subscription model and make the workouts for you. You can log your workouts up to a limit, but above that, you have to pay. They also don’t allow for the workouts, exercises, or stretches you can find on social media that aren’t mainstream.

In addition, many apps include features that feel like they were slapped in just because they are trendy. Two of the ones I’m tired of seeing are streaks and reminders to work out. Streaks can be motivating until they are broken, and a reminder that you should work out on a busy day is less than helpful.

I wanted something that fixed these annoyances, so I set out to build it.

Why I Workout (And Why This App Exists)

At first, I didn’t intend to make a workout app. I wanted something to help me do reaction drills for Muay Thai, and I thought I’d just add workouts on top of that. But as I built it, I refined what I wanted, and the current version came into being. While I still want to make that reaction app, my focus shifted to working out and just making it more fun and easy to move.

I work out so I can explore the world with the people I love and be strong enough to help people if they need it. I don’t want to chase leaderboards or just lift to lift. I’m interested in real-world applications, not just physique. But working out isn’t just lifting. It’s stretching, flexibility, movement drills, and focusing on fixing muscles that have atrophied through daily life.

That’s the “why” behind this app. Make Me Workout isn’t just a collection of exercises. It’s a tool to help people get moving, stay consistent, and remember the things they need and want to do so they can live the lives they actually want.

Building an App by Yourself: What It Really Takes

Building an app by yourself is equal parts exciting and humbling. You’re the product manager, the designer, the developer, and the tester all at once.

Over a few months, I turned Make Me Workout from an idea into a live app in the App Store. I kept the scope small: a clean, focused app that solved the few problems I cared about most. I didn’t try to build everything. I built the main thing I wanted to see.

That wasn’t easy, by the way. Multiple times I thought “I need this feature” only to realize later that it didn’t fit my vision, and I cut it.

Things to keep in mind when building solo:

  • Keep the scope small. An MVP forces you to focus on the real problem and cut the rest. There are many features I still want to add to the app, but they can all wait.
  • You’ll wear every hat and doing so will make you a better builder. You’ll have to look at your app and your decisions from a variety of perspectives. It’s hard, but you’ll learn a ton.
  • Shipping beats perfect. Get it out there, then refine.
  • Your own frustration is a great compass. Build what you’d actually use. And once you build it, if some functionality annoys you, you can all but be certain it will annoy one of your users.
  • Protect your users’ data. If you collect personal information, treat it like it’s your own. I wrote about this in The Hidden Costs of Vibe Coding: Security and Trust.

Lessons I Learned Along the Way

Building the app was only half the story. Here are the lessons that hit me hardest along the way.

  1. The learning curve is real, and worth it. I’d never used Swift or SwiftUI before. Everything was new, and the learning curve was steep. I’m still not great at Swift, but I’m much better than I was, and I can read it well enough to keep building. You don’t need to master a language to ship with it. You need to know enough to make progress. I used AI heavily to learn and improve my knowledge here, much like I wrote about in How to Use AI and Not Become Dependent On It.

  2. Not requiring an account causes headaches. Most tools you’d drop in, like Firebase, assume users will create an account. I didn’t want to force that on anyone, so I had to design around it with patterns of my own. It was fun, but it was time-consuming. Never underestimate how long that “one tiny detail” will cost you in implementation time.

  3. The approval process is deeper than you think. Apple’s review process is thorough and involves a lot of paperwork. I was mostly ready for it, but it still took longer than I expected. Budget time for it. It’s part of shipping. Everything you will ever want to sell will have to get shipped, and unless you handle the distribution as well, Apple, Android, Microsoft, and others will be involved at some point.

  4. Building the app is the easy part. The hard part is marketing it, finding customers, and showing people why they should care.

    So build the app. But the process won’t stop when it’s done.

Can One Person Build an App? Yes, Here’s How

In the age of AI, it’s not surprising that one person can build an app. But it’s not as easy as so many make it sound. And just because it’s hard doesn’t mean you have to make it even more complex.

A simple path to get started:

  1. Find a problem you actually have.
  2. Define the smallest version that solves it.
  3. Build it, even if it’s rough.
  4. Ship it and get feedback.
  5. Refine based on what real users tell you.
  6. Through the entire process, remember why you started building.

You don’t need a team or a big budget. You need a real problem, a willingness to learn, and the discipline to finish. These are the ideas that carried me through building Make Me Workout, and I continue to use them each day as I learn more about marketing and sales and improve the app’s features.

Key Takeaways

  • Build for a problem you personally care about. It keeps you motivated.
  • Keep your first version small and focused.
  • Your “why” will carry you through the hard parts.
  • One person absolutely can build and ship an app.

And finally, one thing I beg of you: please don’t follow the advice that so many social media personalities push, which is to copy someone else’s app and ship that. That doesn’t mean you can’t make another to-do list app. It means build one you design, with your own ideas, that solves your own annoyances.

AI makes it easy to copy. Be original.

I hope this was either helpful or entertaining. Check out Make Me Workout now live in the Apple App Store!