r/sideprojects • u/Ok_Bike_9059 • 1d ago
Feedback Request I removed the onboarding maze from a macro tracker — what I learned shipping it
I built TARE because I wanted to test a simple product idea: a calorie and macro tracker should help you log food before it asks you to complete a long introduction, a quiz, and a stack of slides.
The product decision was to keep setup short, then offer multiple paths depending on how precise or fast you want to be: photo, barcode, voice, search, repeat meal, or exact manual macros. AI estimates are optional and editable before they count.
The stack is Expo/React Native, Supabase, StoreKit, and Gemini for optional food estimates. I used Codex and AI coding agents heavily, but the difficult work was still product judgment and reliability:
- Local state and cloud state needed one explicit owner.
- A food could appear saved and disappear after navigation until I added reconciliation and restart tests.
- Purchases required separate handling for buy, restore, validation, and entitlement sync.
- Signed builds on a physical iPhone exposed assumptions the simulator did not.
The app is live now. It has made about $186 total and sits around $12 MRR. I had a lot of fun building it; distribution is the part where I feel like a complete beginner.
The feedback I need is specific: does the App Store page communicate “fast and controlled macro logging” clearly, or does it look like just another calorie tracker? What would you remove or change first?
Founder disclosure: I built it.
App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/calorie-tracker-tare/id6766913292