"Architecture student, quit social media, shipped their own app": how a Saudi student pushed a habit app onto a category chart with a few TikToks

Watira (وتيرة, meaning "pace") is an Arabic task-and-habit app launched in Oct 23 by an architecture student in Saudi Arabia. Within two weeks it reached #30 on the Saudi App Store Top Free productivity chart. Ratings went from 38 to 98, averaging 4.84. What pushed it up wasn't the features but the founder's own TikTok account, a line like "made by a Saudi, support it," and a low-bar category chart. The playbook is worth learning, but the app itself isn't worth following, and the hype is already fading.

a 27,000-view video

2026 Oct 25, the TikTok account @abo9da7m posted a video captioned: "Architecture student, quit social media, shipped my own app 🤍 وتيرة: your tasks, habits, and projects in one place. The first 30 people who comment 'وتيرة' get a year of Pro free."

As of 11-06, the video had 27,245 views, 1,313 likes, and 512 comments (TikTok, 11-06). 512 comments, most of them just the word "وتيرة"; viewers were racing for the 30 spots. The comment count pushed the video to more people, and those who grabbed a spot downloaded the app and went back to leave five-star reviews on the App Store.

This wasn't a new account. @abo9da7m has 8,572 followers, 479 videos, and 570k total likes; the bio linked a discount code for Calo, a Saudi healthy-meal brand, and in late September he was still promoting a honey shop. He was a lifestyle creator with an existing audience, and he wrote the app himself. On launch day (10-23) he posted: "From one line of code in my room to the App Store 🚀 Between architecture homework and late nights, I built my first app."

What it is

Put the day's to-dos and daily habits in one checklist. One tap marks partial completion, two taps mark it done. A circle at the top shows how much you finished today, and doing even one thing keeps your streak alive. On days you can't manage, you can "freeze" the streak, which preserves your count. The store page's first line names the pain point: "Most habit apps treat your day as all or nothing. You finished 10 of 9 things, and the streak broke over one."

It also has countdowns for exams, dates, and holidays (it can count by the lunar or Gregorian calendar), plus shared spaces for family and friends. 11-06 shipped 1.4.0 with a new set aimed at students: build a building or a whole city during focus sessions; form a study group with friends and watch each other's towers grow; weekly leaderboards; and on Pro, lock other apps while you focus. All of these were requested in TikTok comments, including "if it locks apps like Forest does, lots of people will use it."

Pricing: the free tier is limited to 3 items per day and 4 freezes per month; Pro is $1.99/month, $12.99/year, or $34.99 lifetime, with everything unlocked for the first 7 days. It's iPhone-only, and many reviewers are asking for Android.

"Partial completions count" and "freeze your streak" aren't new. Duolingo's Streak Freeze and Streaks' skip days already existed. What it does is turn "no punishment" into the app's whole positioning, a line you can make a video out of. The first hook video from the brand account in Oct 12 was exactly that: "Finished 10 of 9 things, and the app says your streak broke. Ever happened to you?"

Where users came from: two TikTok accounts, each post lifting the numbers

Almost entirely from two accounts: the founder's personal @abo9da7m and the brand account @watiraapp. I found no evidence of paid ads, and neither account's videos carry a commercial partnership label.

TikTok, 11-06.

The daily new ratings in the Saudi App Store line up almost one-to-one with these posts: 10-29 and 10-30 gained +11 and +15, exactly when the 54K video and the two posts in a row went up; 11-01 gained +9, following "help me get into the top ten"; 11-03 gained +11, following the 11.7K video. Once video views dropped below a thousand, ratings rose only 4–7 a day (Saudi App Store rating counts, 10-28 to 11-06).

The founder also slotted the app into his vlog series "اشتغل لين أتعب" (work until I'm tired). Episode 9 on 11-02: "11 hours of work, still not done, and in the middle I told you about وتيرة, the app I use myself." The same day, another video asked "Reach for your phone within 5 minutes of opening a book? Try these 3 tips," and the last tip was to use وتيرة.

Why people downloaded it: "made by a Saudi"

One five-star review from 10-28 put it plainly: "What made me download it is that it's a Saudi-made app, downloading it supports the country's young people."

On the 54K video from 10-29, the top comment (92 likes) read: "First ازرع, now وتيرة, Saudi kids' progress makes you proud." Others said "I'll download anything a Saudi makes" and "downloading to support students from our college."

ازرع (Azr3, "plant") is another focus app made by a different Saudi student, launched in Sep 2. Like Forest, you "plant trees" by focusing, and the result is a growing oasis, with prayer times not breaking the streak. It sells as a SAR 4.99 one-time purchase, has been the #1 paid productivity app in Saudi since 11-06 (10-28), and has 443 ratings (Saudi App Store, 11-06). Watira is the second app riding the same wave.

Early reviews clustered in 10-27 to 10-29 with excited language: "It organized my life, unnaturally good" and "I used to be lazy, two days with it and I changed completely." The timing lines up with the Pro-for-comments giveaway, and I'd guess friends and followers make up a large share.

How hard the chart is to crack

Not hard. On the day 10-31 Watira hit #30 on Saudi Arabia's free Productivity chart, the #24 and #26 spots were held by two small apps with only 11 and 16 ratings (Saudi App Store chart, 10-31). On that chart, a few dozen downloads a day is enough to reach the top 50 inference

That's also why the heat fades fast: #30 (10-31) → #55 (11-02) → #112 (11-04) → #145 (11-05) → 11-06, dropped off Top Free.

Little money. It ranked #166–173 on the Saudi Top Grossing productivity chart, next to Any.do (170), Todoist (175), and HabitKit (182). Even the big international names sell few copies in this category in Saudi; #173 probably means a few to a dozen-odd dollars a day (estimate). No public revenue.

Who it's competing with

The last line says it best: several Arabic habit apps with nearly identical features launched this year, but without a founder TikTok, and their ratings stalled in single digits. Watira won on distribution, not on an empty niche.

No media has covered it, and X shows zero posts mentioning it in the last 30 days (11-06). Those who know about it are mostly the founder's followers and Saudi student TikTok.

If it were you

C. There's a playbook to learn here, but this app isn't worth following. It took off on the founder's own few thousand followers and the "made in Saudi" sentiment, which people copying it can't get. The chart it climbed has a low bar and drops fast, and it only earns a few dollars a day. Saudi already has Azr3 and this one, so a third "Saudi student productivity app" will get much weaker sentiment.

The playbook worth copying: in small-language countries, the category chart bar is only dozens of downloads a day; locals post repeatedly as "I'm a student who built an app, help me climb the chart"; "comment a keyword to win a free year of Pro" buys comments, early seed users and reviews in one go; once charted, screenshot it and post again; ship the features requested in the comments within a week, then post again.

Who it fits: someone who is from a small-language country and ideally already has a local account with a few thousand followers, able to film a casual "I built an app" video; a product students actually need (habits, focus, memorization, exam countdowns). Markets with strong national pride work best; the Gulf states, Egypt, Turkey and Indonesia are worth testing (inference).

Who it doesn't fit: anyone without a local identity or who won't appear on camera; anyone wanting to target the Saudi market (two local student apps already hold the spot, and the market is small); anyone hoping to earn real money in this category. Habit apps are a red ocean worldwide, and in Saudi Watira's Top Grossing rank is about the same as Todoist's, which means very few sales.

How to build it: Copy its structure, don't try to outdo it. A pain-point hook ("did 9 chores and still broke the streak"), a forgiving streak counter, your local calendar and holiday countdowns, and copy in local slang. Free tier capped by number of items; annual plan at $10–15 plus a lifetime one-time purchase. Post two or three pain-point videos to build buzz first, tell your founder story on launch day, and on day three run a "comment to win a free year" giveaway.

When to start by: there's no deadline, since this playbook doesn't depend on timing; but student-focused apps should launch before the next finals and enrollment season, ideally a month before exams.

I got it wrong: ① Watira returned to the top 50 of Saudi's free productivity chart in November, driven by 1.4's "study together" and city features, and the founder didn't post a viral video during that stretch. That suggests the product itself drives organic growth and deserves a closer look. ② It shipped an Android version, or charted in Egypt, the UAE, or other Arabic-speaking countries, which suggests the "Arabic student productivity app" niche is bigger than it looks. ③ Conversely, a month later, daily new ratings dropped below 1, so even this playbook only had a shelf life of about two weeks.