170 Days of Debnix, and Why I'm Shutting It Down for Now
It did not work the way I hoped. Here is what happened, and what I learned anyway.
- Days 1 to 100Building and launching
- Days 101 to 113Still posting on X and Threads
- About a weekNot looking at Debnix
- The weeks afterReal users arrive
- Day 170Shutting it down for now
Every bar is one day. I did not keep a log after day 113, so the days after that are my best guess.
At day 100 I wrote that I had zero active users and that I was still here. Seventy days later the story is different. I got about nine real users, they paid me, some of them liked it, and I still closed Debnix down. This is why.
I got tired and stopped
After day 100, I kept posting on X and Threads for 13 more days. Same updates, same silence. Then I felt tired. Really tired. I stopped posting, and I stopped looking at Debnix completely.
No dashboard, no Search Console, nothing. I was done, or I thought I was.
One comment on Reddit
About a week later I saw a Reddit post about inventory and AI, written for small sellers who cannot afford ERP-level apps. I wrote a comment. I told them Debnix exists, that it costs $21.99 a month, and that right now it has no installs and no ratings. I did not try to hide that.
Installs came. Most of them were not real. Spammers, and marketing agencies emailing me to sell me something. I was frustrated again. It looked like another dead end.
The real ones
Then I saw one real user. They synced their products first on a test store, so I emailed them. They installed Debnix on their real store. I asked for honest feedback. They said a few things should change, but for their store it was genuinely good. I asked them to leave a review after a month.
After that, 3 more real users installed. Then 3 more.
For the first time in a long while, I felt hope again.
I ended up with about nine real users. Each one took the free month and then stayed on for another one. Counting everything, they have been with Debnix for roughly three months, and the last trials end next week. Everyone started on a different day, so the dates are different for each person.
The math did not work
Nine users felt like a lot of work for one person. To grow, I needed money. After taxes and fees, what I earned was not enough to pay for it. So I waited, and I reached out to some people, but I did not get good replies.
In these two months I earned around $300 after taxes. I never kept proper accounts, so that number is rough. I am not even sure of the exact number of installs.
The day I decided
One day my mind was just frustrated, and I made the decision. I emailed every user and told them I am shutting Debnix down for now to focus on other things. I cancelled all of their next month payments. Then I stopped.
What it looks like today
I do not open the dashboard. I do not check the logs to see if everything is fine. I only look if a user complains.
Debnix is still on the Shopify App Store. If someone installs it, they get the free trial, and I am not charging anyone after it for now.
What I am keeping from this
- Say the true thing first. The comment that brought my first real users said Debnix had no installs and no ratings. I did not pretend otherwise.
- Learn who is real. Most installs were spammers and agencies. The real users did something. They synced products, answered my email, and told me what to change.
- Write to the first few people yourself. One email moved the first user from a test store to a real store. 113 days of posting did not do that.
- Growing costs money, and I hit my limit. Nine paying users was real. After taxes and fees it still could not fund growth, and I was doing everything alone.
It did not work the way I hoped. I learned a lot while building it, and that part I keep. To the people who installed Debnix for real and told me honestly what they thought: thank you.
Debnix is still listed on the Shopify App Store. I am not actively running it, so please do not expect quick replies.