How I built GitHub Store to 12,500 stars in 6 months — I started at 16

Six months ago I was a 16-year-old in Uzbekistan trying to ship a small Android app I'd built. The Play Store process was so heavy for what the project was worth, I built an alternative instead. Six months later that alternative — GitHub Store — has 12,500+ stars, 250,000+ updates served, ships in 13 languages, runs on Android + Windows + macOS + Linux. I turned 17 a couple of weeks ago. This is the story. Including the part where I almost quit. The Play Console wall I'd shipped apps to the Play