§ 01 — What it isA studio, not a startup.
Sapplify makes a small number of small apps, slowly, for money that is also small.
There is a difference between a studio and a startup, and Sapplify is a studio. A startup is a bet on getting big. A studio is a commitment to getting good. One measures itself in users and funding rounds; the other measures itself in how many years it's been quietly shipping.
Sapplify has been shipping for about eighteen months. The plan is to still be shipping in ten.
§ 02 — What we makeSix apps. All small.
Each one does exactly one thing, and politely refuses to do a second.
The apps share a design language, a privacy posture, and a general attitude of staying out of your way. They don't share data, notifications, or a "super app" roof. If you want one, download one. If you want six, download six.
There's a seventh planned. It's called Palate, it's a food tracker, and it's taking longer than the others because the design problem is harder. It'll ship when it's ready.
§ 03 — Where it comes fromA tired person, a quiet idea.
Every Sapplify app is the app I went looking for and couldn't find.
In 2024 I was using a list app that sold my groceries to an ad network. I was using a weight app that had push notifications I couldn't turn off. I was using a budgeting app that wanted to link to my bank. And I thought: these are very small pieces of software, doing very simple things, and somewhere between "useful" and "usable" they have all been eaten by business models.
So I started rewriting them, one at a time, with the goal of making the smallest possible version that still did the thing.
Six apps later, that's still the only rule.
Make the smallest possible version that still does the thing.
§ 04 — What we believeFive small convictions.
None of these are novel. Most software studios believe them and ship the opposite anyway.
- Software for daily life should be quiet. An app you use every morning should not ask you how you feel about it.
- Data about your body, your money, and your people should stay on your phone. Anywhere else is a liability waiting to happen.
- A feature is a promise to maintain something forever. Most features cost more than they give.
- Free-with-no-tricks is a stance. It costs something, and it's worth it.
- You should be able to leave at any time, with all of your data, in a format someone else can read.
§ 05 — How it's fundedSmall, independent, sustainable.
No venture capital, no rich relative, no exit plan, no Series A.
The studio runs on a mix of small income sources — part-time consulting, the occasional reader donation, and a handful of newsletter sponsorships — none of which depend on tracking you.
That's enough to live on, with room left over for the tools and servers Sapplify actually needs — which isn't much, because the apps are local-first. There is no CRM, no marketing stack, no analytics bill.
If the apps ever become the main income, great. If not, also great. The point isn't scale.
§ 06 — How the apps are madeSlowly. Publicly.
Every app takes between one and four months. Every one of them is still being maintained.
They're written in Swift, using SwiftUI where it behaves and UIKit where it doesn't. The backend, when one is strictly necessary, is a small Cloudflare Worker that forgets everything it sees within a few seconds.
The design system is written down in one file. The brand system is public. The colors are in OKLCH because I find them easier to reason about. Typography is Instrument Serif and Geist; both are free, both are well-drawn, neither is fashionable enough to age badly.
There's a monthly ship log on the blog that says what changed in each app, in plain English, with a why next to each change. No marketing tone. No "blazingly fast." Just what moved.
§ 07 — What's nextPalate. Then quiet.
The seventh app is Palate, a food tracker. After that, the studio goes into maintenance mode for a while.
Six apps is a lot to keep up with for one person. After Palate ships — probably in late 2026 — the plan is to stop adding apps and focus on keeping the existing seven excellent. Small, quiet upgrades. Fewer announcements. More years.
If something catastrophic happens to me, each app has a plan: an export tool, a lifetime local license, and a clear note that if the studio stops, your apps keep working. Nothing breaks when I do.