I recently started actively marketing my app on reddit and it drove good amount of traffic and even though app wasn't published on play store or app store, on my landing page once users clicked download I just showed window saying "app isn't published yet, email me for direct access". So people kept emailing me and it's been very motivating and I got a lot of early testers that way to speed up publishing process.
And few minutes ago I got this email which hit me differently:
""" Hi there,
I saw on Reddit r/Getoutofbed you posted about a very cool app you created, [mentions my app name here, but I'm hiding it cause i don'twant to promote, just sharinga story]! Unsure if it’s out to try anywhere on iPhone, but I’d be super interested. Maybe push ups will be the thing that wakes me up after I get over the mental of dropping and giving ten 🤝😅
Thank you for working on such a cool helpful tool !
Tommy
"""