Yesterday I fixed a bug that had been breaking ForkCount for days. The app worked in a browser but failed when installed as a PWA. The fix: stop using redirects after login, use React state instead, and set detectSessionInUrl: false on the Supabase client so the installed app never tries to parse a URL that doesn't exist in standalone mode.
That's the technical part. It's fixed. The app works.
Here's the part I don't understand.
I have 258 followers on dev.to. I've written about the metabolic floor, the Firestore outage, the 70 phishing accounts I got banned. People read the posts. People follow. But when I check Supabase, the number of signups is zero.
Not low. Zero.
So I'm asking directly: if you're following me, why haven't you tried the app?
Maybe it's because you're a developer and a calorie tracker isn't for you. That's fair. Maybe you're waiting for someone else to try it first. Also fair. Maybe you followed because the technical posts were interesting and you never intended to use the product. That's the most likely answer, and it's fine.
But if you're following because you're curious, the app is live and free and takes 30 seconds to sign up:
No card. No trial. No email verification wall (yet — that's coming). Sign up with a username and password. Set your height, weight, age, activity level. The app calculates your BMR and TDEE and gives you a calorie target that won't let you go below your BMR. Log a meal. See if it works.
If it doesn't work, tell me. That's the other reason I'm posting. I can't fix bugs I don't know about. I fixed a PWA sign-in bug yesterday that took me three days to diagnose because nobody told me the installed app was broken. One message from a user would have saved two of those days.
What I'm asking:
- If you're following and you haven't tried it, sign up. It takes 30 seconds. If it's not for you, close the tab and move on.
- If you try it and something breaks, tell me what you did and what phone you're on. That's a bug report I can act on.
- If you're a developer who follows me for the technical posts, that's fine too. You don't owe me a signup. But if you've ever built something and watched the follower count go up while the signup count stayed at zero, you know why I'm asking.
What's new in the app since the last post:
- Photo log (take a picture of food, AI identifies it)
- Barcode scanner (Open Food Facts)
- Logging streaks (🔥 X day streak)
- Weekly macro consistency score
- Share my week (download or native share)
- Request a feature button (goes to my dev.to)
- Macro progress bars
What still doesn't work:
- Email verification (coming)
- The meal plan respects vegetarian but not pescatarian yet (fixing)
- The app requires an internet connection (offline mode coming)
forkcount.github.io
I'm 13. I built this by describing what I wanted to Google AI Studio and debugging what broke. If something looks like a beginner mistake, it probably is. Tell me and I'll fix it.
258 followers. 0 signups. Let's see if this post changes that.
Top comments (5)
The gap between followers and signups hit me too. People follow to see what you build, but signing up needs a reason right now. Check whether your landing page says what ForkCount does in one line, and where your few signups came from. Full disclosure, I run a small dev game called Vigilante, and it has $1 in-game placements for dev tools if you want a cheap test of whether devs notice.
The "reason right now" line is the one I've been chewing on since I read this.
I think the problem is that my landing page says what the app is, not what it does for you in the next 10 seconds. "Free calorie tracker with a metabolic safety floor" is accurate but it's a description, not a reason. The reason is "you've been eating 800 calories and wondering why you're exhausted and still not losing weight — this app won't let you do that." That's the pitch. The current page doesn't say it.
On where the signups came from: I can see them in Supabase, and the honest answer is that most are me and my mum testing. The few that aren't are from dev.to posts where someone read the whole thing and then clicked through. Which is basically one person, and they told me the PWA was broken, which is how I found the bug. So the conversion path is: read a long post, trust the technical honesty, try the app, tell me what broke. That's slow. It works, but it's slow.
On Vigilante — I'll take a look. $1 for a placement is cheap enough that it's not a real risk. My worry is the same as everywhere: if the game's audience is developers, they'll see a calorie tracker and scroll past. If they're developers who also work out, that's a different story. What's the split like for your players? And do the placements have any way to show clicks, or is it just impressions?
Appreciate you asking the real question instead of the "cool project!" comment. Those are the ones that help.
Appreciate YOU for asking the real question too.
That 800 calorie line is the pitch. I’d put it at the top of the page almost word for word and let the current line become the subhead.
And one person reading a long post, trying the app and telling you what broke is a real signal. Slow, yes, but those are the people to keep writing for.
On Vigilante, the honest answer is that it’s a new game and still small, and I don’t have a number for how many players also work out, so I can’t promise it’s the right crowd. You do get daily views and taps, so you’d see clicks as well as impressions, and there are no trackers. If you try it, I’d do one day on a $1 placement with that 800 calorie line on it. If nobody taps, you’ve learned something for less than a coffee:
myvigilante.ocix.in/advertise
most people following you here came for the build posts, not because they track macros, so i wouldnt read 258 followers as a funnel. same thing i think about with searchspot, the devs reading build logs usually arent the ones planning the trip. go where people already talk about calories and keep this for the build story
Yeah that's fair. I think I've been reading my own follower count as a funnel when it's really just an audience for the build posts. Different thing entirely.
Searchspot is a good comparison. The people who read "how I built this" are not the people who need the thing. I keep forgetting that.
The annoying part is I know where the calorie people are. They're on Reddit and the fitness forums. But every one of those has a rule against posting your own app and I don't want to get banned. So I've been posting at the dev audience because they're the ones who'll actually read me, and then wondering why they don't sign up. That's on me.
Going where people already talk about calories means commenting for weeks without mentioning ForkCount, then mentioning it once when someone asks. Slow. But it's the only thing that doesn't get you removed.
Keeping dev.to for the build story. Finding the calorie people somewhere else. That's the plan.
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