I'm looking for 30 people to help me launch the app on Google Play Store

For newcomers to the blog, in two sentences: I'm a programmer from Warsaw who seasonally stays in the Bieszczady Mountains, I amateur-garden a small plot of land and together with my wife we built the Zielona Manufaktura app. It's a gardening assistant — a database of about a hundred plant species calibrated for the Polish climate, task scheduler, garden journal, AI disease scanner, work calendar. It's been running for a few months on the website and in closed beta on Android. Today I want to talk about the latter part.

Why exactly 30 people

Google changed the app publishing rules in the Play Store a few months ago. If you're an individual developer (which I am), before publishing you must show that the app has been tested by a group of at least twelve people who used it actively for fourteen consecutive days. Not twelve people on different days — twelve of the same people, for two weeks, continuously.

The math is simple and brutal. To have a guaranteed twelve at the end, you need to start with significantly more at the beginning. People change their minds, delete the app after three days, forget to open it, go on vacation. Assuming one-third will drop out along the way — and that's an optimistic assumption — I need to start with about thirty people to get twelve to the finish line.

I already have the first few testers. These are people who responded to my earlier posts and I'm very grateful to them. I still need about twenty more. That's why I'm writing this text.

What a tester actually does

I'm aware that "testing an app" sounds like work. I want to be honest here, because the more you understand this, the greater the chance you won't quit after three days.

In practice it looks like this: you get an email from me with a link to install the app from the Play Store — this is a regular installation, not some backdoor APK. From the moment of first launch, the clock starts ticking. For the next fourteen days you need to have the app installed and open it at least once a day, even for a minute. You click on a few things, add two of your plants, check the schedule, make an entry in the journal, test the scanner on leaves of whatever you have at hand. Five to ten minutes. Google sees that the app is active on your device and counts down the days.

If you encounter something that doesn't work — and you will, because it's beta and things break — you let me know. By email, message on the fanpage, however you prefer. You don't need to be a programmer, you don't need to write "bug reports". Just: "I clicked here, expected this, got something else". I turn this into fixes, you get the fixed problem in the next update.

And that's it. After fourteen days your part of the work is done. After that — if you like it — you stay and use the app normally, if not — you uninstall and that's it.

What you get in return

I don't offer money because I don't have any. I don't offer exclusive PDF guides because that would be unconvincing. I offer three things that are realistic for me and that I can actually deliver.

First: lifetime Premium. The app will eventually have a free plan and a paid Premium plan. The paid one includes features that cost me real money — AI disease scans (each scan is a query to a paid API), extended journal with more entries per month, priority support. Every Founding Tester gets Premium permanently. As long as the app exists, you won't pay. I write "as long as the app exists" because it would be dishonest to promise lifetime in the biological sense — I run the project solo, after hours. But as long as I run it, your account has Premium.

Second: Founding Tester badge on your profile. A small marker next to your name visible to other app users. It shows you were with the project from the beginning. It's automatically awarded by the system after fourteen days of active testing — I've verified this actually works, I tested it myself.

Third: your name in the "About app" section. There's a screen in the app with thanks to people who helped. If you agree (and only then), your name goes on that list. Last name not necessarily — first name is enough, though if you want full details or a pseudonym, that works too.

The exact mechanism is already built into the app — admin panel, automatic email notifications, tester status page with a special access token where you can see how many days you've been active and how many remain. This isn't a promise, this is something that already works and that I just recently finished programming myself.

How to apply

On the zielnamanufaktura.pl website I have a /beta subpage with a short form. Three fields: name, email, optionally phone model. No account, no password. You submit — you get an email from me with further instructions and a request to provide the Google address where you have the Play Store (because I need to manually add this address in Google Play Console as an authorized tester — it's a bit archaic, but that's how Google designed it).

From the moment of application to when you can install the app, it usually takes several hours, at most two business days. I need this time to add you on my end. When I do this, the Play Store shows the app as available on your account and you can install it like any other.

What I don't promise

I don't promise the app is already perfect. It's in beta. Something will break, something won't work as intended, something will be ugly. On my task list there are still dozens of things I know need fixing — and probably twice as many I don't know about yet until someone clicks on them.

I also don't promise the app will survive. This is a project run solo, after hours, on a modest household budget. I give what I can, but I have no illusions — most projects in my category simply don't make it to the third year. I do promise though that if I ever need to withdraw, I'll do it honestly and with adequate notice, not shut down the server on a Sunday without warning.

A small matter at the end

If you're thinking about applying but have doubts — write to me before filling out the form. Honestly. What am I hesitating about, what worries me, what don't I understand. I'll reply. I won't force you to become a tester. I'd rather have twenty truly engaged people than thirty on paper, half of whom disappear after three days.

Thank you to those who have already applied — I see you in the panel.
And thank you in advance if this text convinced you to do one of those small things that for me means getting the app on its feet.

Form: zielnamanufaktura.pl/beta
Questions: kontakt@zielnamanufaktura.pl