Dream.Me started simple: a lightweight dream journal with a clean UI, quick entry flow, and seamless cloud sync. It shipped. It works, but building and launching it taught us more than we expected. This was not just about iOS development, but about the real friction of getting a product into the world.

The original idea was to move fast and launch by the end of February. Instead, we launched at the start of April.

We spent critical days building a 40-page onboarding sequence modeled after “viral” apps that lead users into subscription flows. The problem wasn’t just the time spent, it was the shift in focus.

We were trying to sell users on the app before we had finished making the app worth using. We eventually cut the flow to 5 screens, but by then, we had already sunk time into in-app purchase logic that only made sense in a more aggressive funnel. It was a sharp reminder that feature creep rarely announces itself. It just builds one “quick improvement” at a time.

Other setbacks came from UI quirks that never showed up in TestFlight but surfaced only after a clean install. One rejection was due to a legitimate bug, but most boiled down to interpretation. The takeaway was clear: App Review isn’t a final formality. It’s a gate you have to plan for, and often, rework around.

Dream.Me shipped later than we planned. It didn’t go viral. But it shipped clean, and we’re proud of how much ground we covered. Every hurdle we hit gave us clearer instincts for the road ahead. That experience now shapes every product we build.

— The Zephyr Studios Team