The first one-star review arrived on an ordinary weekday evening. That day, Lily was doing what she always did—scrolling through social media while quietly checking if there were any new reviews for her app, that small ritual of hers. It had been a few weeks since the release, and there were still only a handful of reviews, all of which she read word for word. When the notification came, her heart skipped a beat. A star had appeared. A review had come in. Someone had reached her. It was a time when that alone made her heart soar. But the moment she opened the screen, what caught the corner of her eye was not an image of five golden stars lined up in a row—but a screen where just a single star glowed, solitary and alone.
Some time has passed since that night, and Lily is now writing this essay. She doesn't want to talk about being hurt; rather, she felt the urge to slowly put into words what that notification meant to her. This is a story she wants to be read by those who are similarly creating something and trying to deliver it to someone.
The content of the review was simple: "I had high hopes, but it's useless"—that was all.
Lily stared at the screen for a while. She scrolled, read it again, and read it from the beginning once more. It was less than twenty characters, just a single line, yet somehow she couldn't take her eyes off it.
Useless.
That word spread slowly through her chest like something seeping in. It wasn't anger, and it wasn't sadness either. For a while, she didn't know how to describe it. With the lights on in her room, Lily held her phone all through that night. She opened other apps and closed them, then returned to that review screen. She should have gone to sleep, but she couldn't. She wanted to tell someone, but she didn't know what to say. That was the kind of night it was.
The next day, the first thing Lily did was contact a close developer friend. She pasted a screenshot and sent it with "Got this." The reply came back as "Happens all the time, don't worry about it" and a funny sticker.
That made her feel a little better. But at the same time, every time someone told her "don't worry about it," there was a lingering cloudiness that wouldn't clear. The more you're told not to worry, the more you worry—have you experienced that feeling too?
What Came Before Anger
To be honest, the emotion that came before anger was embarrassment. Maybe by releasing something like this and having someone try it, she had disappointed them. That feeling had been smoldering somewhere inside her all along.
Was my technical skill not enough? Should I have made it more carefully? Was the idea itself wrong in the first place?—her thoughts began to spiral. Rather than feeling rejected by someone else, it felt like she had done something embarrassing herself. People doing solo development might understand this feeling.
A few days later, Lily opened that review again.
At first, it was "as something to learn from." But as she read it, she suddenly noticed something. The person who wrote this review had downloaded the app. They had tried to use it. At least that much was certain.
The Words "I Had High Hopes"
"I had high hopes, but it's useless"—when she first read it, she thought only the latter half, "it's useless," had registered. But reading it again, there at the beginning were the words "I had high hopes."
Someone had held at least a little expectation for what Lily had created. They had taken the action of downloading it. Maybe that was something small on the surface, but it was something far removed from zero. When she realized this, the sensation she had felt that night began to look a little different.
The first thing that scares you when you release an app individually is "not having anyone use it," Lily thinks. That was true for her too. What if no one found it on the store? What if downloads stayed at zero and time just passed? That was far more frightening.
The fact that a one-star review came meant that at least someone had learned of its existence and tried it. They had attempted to use it. And they had formed an opinion about it. Even if it was criticism, it was proof that it had "reached" someone.
Much Louder Than Silence
Lily believes that silence holds nothing. No reviews coming in, no feedback, no response—in that kind of quietness, you don't even know if what you made actually touched someone's life.
But critical words carry someone's time and emotion within them. The person who wrote "it's useless" had tried to use it. They had hoped, tried, and been disappointed. That also means there was a small but real exchange between them and Lily.
Thinking about it that way, the notification that arrived on that weekday evening might not have been an ending, but a kind of beginning. That's what it started to feel like.
Once her feelings were sorted out, what Lily did was very simple.
First, she used the app from the beginning again herself. Not with a friend or family member, but from the perspective of someone using it for the first time. Then she began to notice places where she thought "this is confusing." Things that seemed natural when she made it—when she looked at them again after some time had passed—turned out to have insufficient explanation or awkward ordering. She began to understand a little what the words "it's useless" meant.
Fixing Just One Thing
In hindsight, not trying to fix everything at once was the right call. When you feel like you have to fix this and that, it suddenly becomes heavy and your hands stop moving.
Lily made just one single improvement: "Add a one-line explanation of how to use it to the first screen." It was mundane. But it felt right. Rather than a major overhaul, she could keep it as "one effort to make it more understandable."
She Replied to the Review
There was one more thing she did. She wrote a reply to the review.
Not apologizing too much, not making excuses, just a simple message: "Thank you for your feedback. I've improved 〇〇 based on your suggestion." She doesn't know if it will be read. But by writing it, something in Lily felt like it had come to a close. It was like a small way of drawing a line—not just passively receiving, but responding.
When you're doing solo development, you see a lot of "stories about going viral" and "stories about monetization." Those stories are fun to read and inspiring. But what Lily thinks about now is what comes before that.
To take a step from zero, she believes, is to deliver something to someone. No matter how it's received, whether it's criticism or silence—there was a moment when you tried to deliver it and it actually reached someone. That one-star review was, for Lily, the first proof of that "reaching."
When she received the one-star review and felt hurt, Lily felt like she had "failed." But thinking about it now, the hurt came because she was genuinely trying to deliver something. If you didn't care, you wouldn't be hurt. Being hurt is also proof that you were making something with real effort.
Thinking about it that way, the sensation from that night seems to take on a slightly different meaning.
From that weekday evening onward, Lily's relationship with her app changed a little. It's not a big change. But the sense that "it's reaching someone," which she didn't have before the release, remained in her as a tangible feeling.
Criticism is scary and it hurts. That hasn't changed, and it still is. But it also means that what you made has entered the world. Lily continues to do solo development, and she still gets nervous every time a new review comes in. She thinks that will probably never change.
But now she feels a little grateful to the person who gave her that one star. If you hadn't written "it's useless," Lily might have stayed a little longer in that uncertain place of "not even knowing if it's reaching anyone."
To everyone who is making something and trying to deliver it to someone. Lily believes that being hurt is also one form of proof that you're moving forward from zero.
Lily (@bokuwalily) — Solo developer. Creating iOS apps and web services in tandem with AI.
