From the corporate world to indie creator: Building the Productivity App I needed

Hi PH Community!

I’m Wouter and am from the Netherlands. I joined Product Hunt because I’m hoping to draw some attention for the product I'm about to launch, and am hoping to learn from other co-creaters.

I've had a long career of almost 20 years in IT spanning software engineering, database engineering, project management and product management. I recently raised my hand for voluntary severance when my company was going through a big reorg as it felt like the right time to start something I can call my own.

As I began my solo entrepreneur journey, I noticed something unexpected: without the daily stand-ups, status meetings for senior management, and 1-on-1s with team members, my day suddenly felt… structureless. Even though many of those meetings weren’t always valuable, they did give shape to my day.

I've always had a keen interest in productivity, and I've read all the classics: Deep Work, Atomic Habits, The 5am Club, Essentialism, The Power of Full Engagement, and others, but I still lacked something practical to structure my day.

That’s what led me to build Kairo.

Kairo is an AI-powered daily planner that helps you structure your day based on your energy, focus levels, priorities and commitments. It blends productivity best practices with the latest AI models to help you actually get meaningful work done.

I’ve built Kairo for people like me: indies, creatives, entrepreneurs, or basically anyone who has the freedom (and challenge!) to design their own day.

Over the last few months, Kairo has helped me optimise my own focus and energy. It has planned productive focus sessions around my family commitments, doctors’ appointment, and gym sessions, and scheduled time for habits I wanted to build. It’s something I believe others could benefit from as well.

I had tried other tools on the App Store, but they didn't quite hit the mark for me. They were either too focused on "to do management", or too bloated for an independent creator like myself.

Now comes the hard part: marketing. How do I grab attention? Price it? Promote it in the App Store? I’ve realized that this is where I have the most to learn.

So, I’d love to hear from other indie makers here:

• What do you wish you knew before launching your app?

• What marketing lessons or mistakes helped shape your journey?

• What is some low hanging fruit all indie developers should know about when it comes to marketing?

Looking forward to connecting and learning from you all!