# A nutritionist dad's baby food app: live for 8 days with only 2 ratings, it hit #6 on the Australia Food & Drink grossing chart

> Source: https://stringers.io/en/apps/ios_6812483669.html (Stringers / 什么值得做, generated 2026-11-08)
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> The founder is a pediatric nutritionist with 79k followers. Before launch, they built a waitlist by offering early access to anyone who commented NIBBLES. After launch, this crowd first signed up for trials, then together switched to paid 7 days later. On the low-bar Food & Drink Top Grossing chart, a few annual subscriptions pushed it into the top ten in several countries.

[Mobile App](https://stringers.io/en/apps/index.md) · iOS · written 11-6

N

Nibbles: Baby & Toddler Meals · FIRST NIBBLES PTY LTD

# A nutritionist dad's baby food app: live for 8 days with only 2 ratings, it hit #6 on the Australia Food & Drink grossing chart

**What it is** A baby and toddler food subscription app: builds a weekly meal plan by age, generates a shopping list, has 230 recipes, and tracks introducing 11 common allergens. Annual plan about $80.

**Why it took off** The founder is a pediatric nutritionist with 79k followers. Before launch he collected a waitlist with "comment NIBBLES for first access." After launch, that audience signed up for the free trial together, and 7 days later they converted to annual plans together. Food & Drink has a low bar, so a few annual sales were enough to crack the top 10 in several countries.

**B** **How you could copy it** Partner with a local maternal and child health expert who has tens of thousands of followers, and build a weekly baby food planning app for a non-English market. Copy its launch playbook: expert co-posts content, comment keywords build the waitlist, free trial then annual plan, and after launch add ongoing content or ads.

Grade B: Solid Starts has already proven that parents will pay an annual fee for feeding guidance. Nibbles itself got no attention and nobody has followed it, so the playbook is clear. But it only proves one launch spike, and success depends on whether you can find an expert parents trust, which followers may not be able to get. Few people know about it yet

Data (updated daily) · launched 2026-10-26 · US store rating 0 · charted in 11-08 of 10 stores

iOS · best category chart rank · by store

US store Australia UK

Data 2026-11-02 → 2026-11-08 (7 days, 7 observations). Lower rank is higher; gaps mean it wasn't charted that day

iOS · rating count · US store

Data 2026-11-03 → 2026-11-04 (2 days, 2 observations). Apple doesn't publish download counts; rating growth is a proxy for downloads.

Nibbles is a baby food planning app built by an Australian pediatric nutritionist for his own daughter. It launched in Oct 26, and in Nov 3 it hit the top 10 of the Food & Drink grossing charts in Ecuador, UAE, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Malaysia at once. It has dropped every day since. There's no sign of paid ads. It relied on the founder's Instagram, with 79k followers, and a waitlist built before launch. The launch playbook is worth studying, but whether this product can make money long term isn't clear yet.

### A Reel saying "Comment NIBBLES"

In Oct 20, @thenutritiondad on Instagram posted a baby food Reel with one line of text: "Comment NIBBLES for first access 😊". The account owner is Burhan Ahmad. His bio reads "nutritionist, dad, founder of @thenibblesapp", with 79k followers. The Reel was co-posted with the brand account @thenibblesapp, and the comments were full of the same word: "Nibbles", "NIBBLES", "Nibbles 🔥". Comment one word and you get an automatic DM with the first-access link. That's the waitlist.

Two weeks later, in Nov 4, the brand account posted a launch announcement with a photo of his daughter as a baby: "It all started with our little girl. A small problem became a big dream... Nibbles is now live!" By then the app had already been on the store for 9 days, and its chart peak had already passed.

### What it is

A baby food planning tool for babies and toddlers starting solids. You enter the baby's age and any allergies, and it builds a week of meals (purees, BLW baby-led weaning, or a mix), automatically avoiding the foods your child is allergic to. It turns the plan into a combined shopping list with portions scaled automatically. There are also 230 more recipes, and you can introduce 11 common allergens at your own pace, logging each one with photos and reactions.

The food is what stands out most. The four dishes on the homepage are mini lamb shepherd's pies, sardine potato cakes, liver brownies, and roasted bone marrow. The site says "baby food doesn't have to be bland," and suggests adding herbs and spices early so kids are less picky later.

Subscription, with a free trial first. Australia store: A$119.99 per year or A$19.99 per month (App Store Australia page, 11-06), about $80 a year in USD. The developer, FIRST NIBBLES PTY LTD, has only this one app. It's English-only for now, and the website also links to Google Play.

### Why 2 ratings were enough to reach #6

| Store | 11-02 | 11-03 | 11-04 | 11-05 | 11-06 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ecuador | – | **2** | 5 | 6 | 10 |
| UAE | – | **4** | 8 | 22 | 43 |
| Australia | 53 | **6** | 19 | 33 | 62 |
| New Zealand | – | **6** | 12 | 25 | 33 |
| Ireland | – | **9** | 18 | 28 | 41 |
| Malaysia | – | **9** | 15 | 28 | 36 |
| Netherlands | – | 17 | 22 | 44 | 70 |
| UK | – | 45 | 76 | 152 | Dropped out |
| US | – | 116 | 199 | Dropped out | Dropped out |

App Store Food & Drink grossing chart rank, from 11-02 to 11-06.

In Nov 3, when it hit #6 in the Australia store, it had only 2 ratings globally. For comparison, Solid Starts, the leader in that Australia category, was at #7 in Nov 6 with 6,016 ratings. That shows two things. First, the Food & Drink grossing chart has a low bar: a $80 annual subscription can reach the top 10 in small countries with just a few sales. Second, Nibbles probably has very few real paying users, likely in the tens to a couple hundred (my estimate; no public figures).

The timing also fits. It launched in Oct 26, peaked in Nov 3, and the gap was about 7 days. The most likely explanation: waitlist people downloaded heavily in the first few days and started the trial. When the trial ended, annual fees were charged on the same day in many countries (inference; the store only says "free trial" and doesn't state how many days).

The countries it charted in are also scattered: Ecuador, UAE, Malaysia, Ireland, the Netherlands, plus free charts in Iceland and Slovenia. Paid ads usually concentrate in a few core markets. This spread looks more like a nutritionist's Instagram followers spread across the world (inference).

### Where users come from

Nearly all of it came from Instagram, and was built before launch:

- **The founder's personal account** : @thenutritiondad, 79k followers. In October, on 12, 18, 20, and 25, and again in Nov 3, he posted baby food Reels co-posted with the brand account. The launch announcement was also co-posted by both accounts.

- **The brand account** : @thenibblesapp built up to 14.7k followers before launch, following only 0 accounts. Its bio now reads "Nibbles is LIVE! Start free trial."

- **Comment-keyword waitlist** : the "Comment NIBBLES" from the start, with comments triggering an automatic DM link. Into early November, people were still commenting "Nibbles" under that Reel.

- **Early users and email** : the website says it was built "after talking to 100 parents," and the homepage features a review from a "Nibbles founding beta tester": "I especially love the auto-generated meal plan and the allergen introduction... it made me realize how many allergens my eldest should have been introduced to earlier 😳". There's also a weekly recipe email with "200+ parents" subscribed, a very small list.

There's almost no other channel: on TikTok, @thenibblesapp has only 11 followers and 2 videos. I found no mentions on X, Reddit, or in the press, and no sign of ongoing ad spend, though that can't be fully ruled out.

### Who it's competing with

| Product | Scale | How Nibbles is different |
|---|---|---|
| Solid Starts | US store 47,109 ratings, US F&D grossing #28, Australia #7; Google Play 1.83M installs; 4.7M followers across platforms; press reports monthly revenue above $1M | A "how do I feed this to my baby" database of 400+ foods with allergen plans, focused on safety. Nibbles focuses on "what to cook and buy this week." |
| Feeding Littles | An app from two nutritionist/OT Instagram accounts; scale not verified | The closest playbook to Nibbles: nutritionist IG account plus "comment for app link." Feeding Littles has tens of times more followers, but only about 75+ recipes, and it leans toward family meals. |
| BLW Meals | US store 325 ratings, grossing #64 | Singapore team, leans toward BLW guides |
| Baby Led Weaning Recipes | UK store 1,682 ratings, paid chart #1 | A 2016-year-old one-time purchase recipe book |
| Nica, BabyPlate, and others | Tens to a couple hundred ratings | A utility subscription with no expert on camera |

No big company is doing this. Solid Starts already proved that parents will pay $80–$100 a year for feeding guidance. Nibbles rides that payment habit and handles the execution layer. There's also a naming problem: an app called "Nibble: Starting Solids" (launched in July) came out before it.

### Did it actually break out?

Not yet. What it proves is how much preparation a launch can have: persona, brand account, waitlist, and early users were all in place before the store listing went live. When the first week's trials converted, it reached the top of several countries' grossing charts. But after Nov 3, every country dropped daily; the UK and US have already fallen off the charts, and globally it had only 6 ratings by Nov 3. It hasn't yet answered how it will keep bringing in new users once this audience is used up.

The features themselves are not hard to copy: weekly meal plans, shopping lists, allergen tracking. A small team could build them in a few weeks. What's hard to copy is the "pediatric nutritionist dad" himself and the trust he's built.

### If it were you

**Verdict** : You can copy the product, but whether it sells depends on whether you have someone parents trust. The payment habit already exists in this niche. Nibbles itself hasn't gotten attention or followers yet. Its chart run was one launch spike, not evidence of lasting demand.

**Who it suits** : Developers who can partner with a maternal nutritionist, pediatrician, or parenting creator, especially for non-English markets. Think weekly baby food planning apps in Spanish, Arabic, Indonesian, Malay, or Japanese, where local diets, ingredients, and allergen habits differ and English apps don't cover them. Also suits people who are already known in maternal and child health and have tens of thousands of followers.

**Who it doesn't suit** : People with no audience who hope to grow through App Store search and organic reach. Solid Starts and a pile of utility apps already own the search terms. A baby food app with no persona will just be the tenth one.

**How to build it** : Find the person first, then the product. Negotiate a revenue share or partnership with a local expert who has tens of thousands of followers. Ship the product under their name: meal plans, recipes, and allergen introduction all written around local diets. Give the dishes a memorable hook (Nibbles' bone marrow and liver brownies are the talking point). Price it like Nibbles does: free trial plus an annual plan, with the annual option prominent.

**How to get users** : Copy the launch rhythm. Start 3–4 weeks before launch. The expert posts two or three baby food short videos a week, co-posted with the brand account. One of them carries "comment a keyword for first access," and an automatic DM tool collects the waitlist. At the same time, recruit dozens of parents as beta testers to collect the first reviews. Push hard on launch day. The day the trial period ends is when you chase the category grossing chart. After that, you need ongoing content or paid ads, or you'll slide every day like Nibbles is now.

**Is now the right time?** : Timing matters less here. Every year brings a new batch of parents with newborns, so the playbook works at any time. If you want to claim the "expert baby food app" spot in a particular language market, the earlier the better.

**Signs you got this wrong** : (1) By mid-December, Nibbles still holds a top 50 spot in the Australia, New Zealand, or Ireland grossing charts and its ratings climb into the dozens. That would mean it's more than a one-time spike, the category is easier than it looks, and you should move faster. (2) It drops off every chart and never comes back. That would mean one expert with 80k followers can carry a launch but not a business. You'd need a much bigger audience, or an ad budget ready from day one. (3) Solid Starts launches its own weekly meal plans and shopping lists. The execution-layer gap would then narrow.

[iOS store page ↗](https://apps.apple.com/app/id6812483669)

**Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report**

Competitors

| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from this one |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solid Starts | iOS | 2021-05 | US iOS 47,109 ratings, 7 days +313, Food & Drink grossing #28; Australia grossing #7; Play 1.83M installs; 4.7M followers across platforms; reported monthly revenue above $1M (36 Gikai, Sensor Tower) | Solid Starts is a "how do I feed this to my baby" database of 400+ foods, plus an allergen introduction plan, focused on safety. Nibbles focuses on "what to cook this week": weekly plans, recipes, and shopping lists, which is the execution layer of meal prep. |
| BLW Meals | iOS | 2020-11 | US store 325 ratings, grossing #64 (appstore library) | A Singapore team's app with recipes and guides, leaning toward BLW (baby-led weaning). Nibbles supports both purees and BLW, and its weekly plans automatically skip foods the child is allergic to. |
| Feeding Littles(App) | iOS | 2025 | An app from the IG account Feeding Littles (two nutritionists/OTs); scale not verified | Its playbook is the closest to Nibbles: a nutritionist IG account plus "comment for app link." Feeding Littles has tens of times more followers, but only 75+ recipes and no allergen tracking. |
| Baby Led Weaning Recipes / Fussy Toddler Recipes(Natalie Peall) | iOS | 2016 | UK store 1,682 ratings, paid chart #1; Australia paid #7 | An older one-time purchase recipe book app with no planning, shopping list, or allergen features. |
| Nica / BabyPlate / Baby Led Weaning App(Drama Labs)/ Starting Solids & Baby Food(Wiserapps) | iOS | 2023–2026 | Most have only dozens to a couple hundred ratings, charting #82–#199 (appstore library) | They're all utility subscription apps that rely on store search and paid acquisition, with no expert persona or built-in audience |
| Nibble: Starting Solids / sito / First Bites / BabyFoodTracker | iOS | 2025–2026 | Nibble has 3 ratings, sito has 40 ratings, both still tiny | Mostly allergen and food logging (photo recognition, Big 9 check-ins); Nibbles plugs logging into weekly planning and shopping lists |
| Yumi / Little Spoon / Serenity Kids | Other | From ¥2016 | Brands that deliver prepared baby food | They sell ready-made baby food; Nibbles sells a "make it at home" plan |

Where users come from

- **Confirmed** **The founder's own Instagram (@thenutritiondad, 79k followers)** : bio reads "Nutritionist, dad and founder of @thenibblesapp"; from 10-12 to 11-03 he posted at least 5 Reels co-posted with the brand account, and the launch post 11-04 was also co-posted by both accounts (Instagram page)

- **Confirmed** **Brand account pre-launch hype and waitlist building** : @thenibblesapp has 14.7k followers and follows only 0 accounts; the Reel "Comment NIBBLES for first access" runs a comment-triggered auto-DM funnel; the website says they interviewed 100+ parents first and has a "Founding Tester" (Instagram, thenibblesapp.com)

- **Confirmed** **Email list (Baby's First Nibbles weekly recipes)** : burdaddy.store says "Join 200+ parents getting weekly recipes," run on Kit (ConvertKit)

- Inferred **Trial conversions concentrated and pushed the chart up** : listed 10-26, chart peak 11-03, about 7 days apart; so many countries peaking on the same day fits a batch of 7-day trials converting at once. Trial length is unverified (the store only says "free trial")

- Inferred **Apple Search Ads / Meta ads** : no evidence found; with only 3 ratings and the chart decaying daily, it doesn't look like sustained paid acquisition. The recall card's "cheap-market ASA blast" can't be supported

- **Confirmed** **TikTok** : @thenibblesapp has only 11 followers and 2 videos on TikTok (TikHub), so it's not a channel

## Nibbles: Baby & Toddler Meals (iOS id6812483669) research report

> 2026-11-06. Developer FIRST NIBBLES PTY LTD (Australia, ABN 75 696 864 276), with this as its only app; 2026-10-26 listed, current version 1.3.6 (11-04), English only.

### Bottom line

Founder Burhan Ahmad is a pediatric nutritionist and a dad, with 79k followers on Instagram at @thenutritiondad. Before launch he grew the brand account @thenibblesapp to 14.7k followers and built a waitlist with "comment NIBBLES for first access." After 10-26 listing, that audience downloaded and started trials together; from 11-02 to 11-03 the trials converted to paid en masse, pushing it into the top of Food & Drink Top Grossing charts in several countries, after which it has declined every day. **This is a launch spike driven by a built-in audience; no sustained growth is visible yet.** The recall card's guess of "cheap-market ASA blasts" has no evidence behind it.

### What it is

- Features: generates weekly baby meal plans by age (purees, BLW, or mixed, automatically avoiding the child's allergens); 230+ recipes with bold flavors, like bone marrow, liver brownies, and sardine patties; combined shopping lists that auto-scale quantities by servings; introduction logs for 11 common allergens (with photos and reaction notes); reminders; a starter guide. (App Store description, thenibblesapp.com)

- Pricing: subscription with a free trial. AU store A$119.99/year, A$19.99/month (App Store AU page); the recall card's $79.99/$12.99 is probably the US store price.

- The website also links to a Google Play listing (com.nibblesapp.nibbles), but it doesn't appear in the googleplay library, suggesting it has never charted on Play.

### Data (appstore library, app_day)

Food & Drink Top Grossing chart (best_cat_rank, grossing):

| Store | 11-02 | 11-03 | 11-04 | 11-05 | 11-06 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC Ecuador | – | **2** | 5 | 6 | 10 |
| AE UAE | – | **4** | 8 | 22 | 43 |
| AU Australia | 53 | **6** | 19 | 33 | 62 |
| NZ New Zealand | (Top Free 164) | **6** | 12 | 25 | 33 |
| IE Ireland | – | **9** | 18 | 28 | 41 |
| MY Malaysia | – | **9** | 15 | 28 | 36 |
| NL Netherlands | – | 17 | 22 | 44 | 70 |
| GB UK | – | 45 | 76 | 152 | Dropped out |
| US United States | – | 116 | 199 | Dropped out | Dropped out |

- Ratings: only 3 worldwide, all in the AU store, 11-06 added 1, averaging 5 stars.

- For reference, the Australian store leader Solid Starts is currently #7 on Top Grossing with 6,016 ratings (appstore database 11-06). Nibbles 11-03 has only 2 ratings yet sits at #6, which shows the Food & Drink Top Grossing chart has a very low paywall: a handful of annual subscriptions is enough to break into the top ten.

- Trajectory: 11-03 is the peak, and every store has declined daily since. It listed 10-26 and peaked about 7 days later. **Inferred** : a batch of 7-day trials started in the launch days and converted to paid together between 11-02 and 11-03 (the store only says "free trial"; trial length is unverified).

- Charting countries are scattered (EC, AE, MY, NL, IE, IS, SI). Paid campaigns usually concentrate in a few core markets; this spread looks more like the founder's global Instagram follower distribution.

### Where users come from (growth levers)

1. **Founder's own IG (confirmed)** : @thenutritiondad's bio reads "Nutritionist, dad and founder of @thenibblesapp," 79k followers (Jina search results). 10-12, 10-18, 10-20, 10-25, and 11-03 were all baby food Reels co-posted with the brand account; the launch post 11-04 was also co-posted by both accounts ("It all started with our little girl… Nibbles is officially LIVE!").

2. **Brand account pre-launch and waitlist building (confirmed)** : @thenibblesapp has 14.7k followers and follows only 0 accounts, with the bio "Nibbles is LIVE! Start free trial." The earlier Reel "Comment NIBBLES for first access" runs a comment-triggered auto-DM waitlist funnel (instagram.com/reel/DetS1eKRl0u).

3. **Email list (confirmed, small)** : burdaddy.store's "Baby's First Nibbles" weekly recipes, reading "Join 200+ parents."

4. **Product interviews and seed users** : the website says "After speaking with 100+ parents," and the homepage quotes a "Nibbles Founding Tester."

5. **TikTok: essentially none** : @thenibblesapp has only 11 followers and 2 videos (TikHub).

6. **Paid ads: no evidence found** : very few ratings and a chart decaying daily don't look like sustained paid acquisition; the metaads library doesn't track it, so it can't be ruled out.

7. **Press, X, Reddit: none found** : x-radar has 30 posts in 0 days; Jina search returned no coverage.

### Competitors

| Product | Platform | Launched | Scale | How Nibbles is different |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solid Starts | iOS/Android | 2021-05 | US store 47,109 ratings, 7 day +313, F&D Top Grossing #28; AU store #7; Play 1.83M installs; 4.7M followers; press reports monthly revenue above $1M (36 氪, Sensor Tower, builtbyfoundry) | The "how do I feed this food to baby" databases add allergen plans; Nibbles does the execution layer of weekly plans, recipes, and shopping |
| Feeding Littles App | iOS | 2025 | Backed by a nutritionist's large IG account; reach not verified | Closest in approach (expert IG + "comment for the app"); only 75+ recipes, leaning toward family meals |
| BLW Meals | iOS | 2020-11 | US store 325 ratings, grossing #64 | Singapore team, leans toward BLW guides |
| Baby Led Weaning Recipes(Natalie Peall) | iOS | 2016 | UK store 1,682 ratings, paid chart #1 | One-time-purchase recipe books |
| Nica / BabyPlate / Drama Labs BLW / Wiserapps | iOS | 2023–2026 | Tens to a couple hundred ratings | Utility tools with no expert persona |
| Nibble: Starting Solids / sito / First Bites | iOS | 2025–2026 | All small | Mainly allergen and food logging |
| Yumi, Little Spoon | Physical | — | — | They sell ready-made baby food, not a make-at-home plan |

No big player builds this feature. The niche is already validated by Solid Starts: parents will pay $80–100 a year.

### Why it's working

- **Built-in audience** : an expert persona (pediatric nutritionist dad) plus a 79k-follower IG, so on launch day there was already a batch of buyers who trust him.

- **Pre-launch groundwork** : the brand account, waitlist, and seed test users were all ready before launch.

- **High ticket, low bar to charting** : annual price around US$80; on the Food & Drink Top Grossing chart, a few subscriptions can crack the top ten in small countries.

- **Payment habit already exists** : Solid Starts has already taught parents to pay for baby food guidance.

### Differentiation

It positions on "what to make and buy this week," distinct from Solid Starts' "how to cut and serve this food" database; functionally it connects allergen logs to plans and lists, with nutrient-dense, bold-flavored recipes. But this chart run wasn't driven by the feature; it came from the founder's IG audience. The feature itself is easy to copy; what's hard to copy is the expert persona and follower trust.

### What to borrow

The path for vertical experts: "IG persona → brand account → comment-keyword waitlist → high-ticket subscription with a free trial." Pick a category with a low bar to charting; once first-week trials convert, you can break into multi-country top charts. To turn a one-time spike into sustained growth, you'll need to add paid acquisition or an ongoing content loop.

### Visibility

Still nearly unknown: no press coverage, no X discussion, no public revenue, and nobody copying it yet.

### Unknowns

- Actual trial length and paying user count; retention and renewals after the spike fades.

- Whether they run Meta or ASA ads (the ad libraries don't track it).

- Google Play installs.

- Country breakdown of Burhan's followers (why EC, AE, and MY charted is inferred).

### Sources

- App Store:apps.apple.com/au/app/id6812483669;itunes lookup(11-06)

- appstore library: app_day, app_profile (11-02 to 11-06); googleplay library: app_profile (Solid Starts)

- thenibblesapp.com; legal.thenibblesapp.com/terms, /privacy

- instagram.com/thenibblesapp; instagram.com/p/DfWiodcnwLp; instagram.com/reel/DetS1eKRl0u; @thenutritiondad bio (Jina search snippet)

- burdaddy.store

- TikHub: @thenibblesapp user profile

- x-radar: searched "thenibblesapp" and "Nibbles baby app", 0 posts in 30 days

- Solid Starts revenue: builtbyfoundry.io, eu.36kr.com/en/p/4035677847163784, app.sensortower.com/overview/1564189151

This article was written by AI from public data and the data we collect daily. Numbers are sourced, and inferences are labeled.