13/05/23
So, a few days ago I posted this:
Tweet went incredibly viral and people asked for the app. So, I thought, why not release it.
Going to pause Coworkmaps for a few hours/days and make research about desktop apps.
Seems like Electron is the best. I tried to get tutorials using ChatGPT, but since the training stopped in 2021, it’s not working with the last version, so I just bought a course:
15/05/23
Finished the course, and got the basics of making desktop apps!
Spend some time answering people on the post to get more info about the possible use cases. It’s a very “abstract” app, in the sense that you can do lots of stuff with it. Possibilities are endless, so my job is to narrow it down as much as necessary into something people consider useful.
Made a temporary mockup:
18/05/2023
Managed to get my first mac app! Very basic, but now I know I can do it.
Going to split Levi into 2 apps, one for data entry, and the other one for scrapping.
19/05/2023
Spend yesterday making the landing page, I’m going to make pre-sales for the app:
Not gonna lie, pretty proud of the result. Glad I bought Refactoring UI course to learn how to make nice design.
Spent the whole day improving the page, and it’s live!
20/05/2023
Holly shit, I made 57 sales in 10h!! Crazy. Now need to focus on contacting buyers, making a Discord community and starting making the app.
23/05/2023
Made more than $3000 worth of pre-orders in 3 days, that’s just insane. I blocked y neck this morning so I have a very hard time focusing today, but I was able to make some tests. The core of the app is mainly done, now I just need to wait for my Apple developer account to be approved.
09/06/2023
Damn, it’s been 3 weeks already… I got the Dev account approved, created a Discord server for beta testers, got nice feedback, added features, fixed bugs, and was finally able to launch the public beta!
Next steps: Fix the few bugs left, add some features, then raise the price and start ads!
11/06/2023
Made plenty of sales from this post! I also got lots of bug reports, so I need to get something to check the logs. I used Discord webhook to ping me with the logs, but there is a size limit, so I’m making my own back-end instead that will allow users to upload their logs.
13/06/2023
Last 2 days were foggy. Lots of bugs, and lots of feature requests. I will need to remake the app from 0 imo. And to improve it will be way more complex that I thought. But no choice, I can only make it happens, people trust me.
I’ll go step by step. For now, main priority is fixing bugs. Once a fully stable version is working for users, then I’ll add more features.
18/06/2023
Still fixing things and remaking the app for the 4th time. I found a way to give WAY more flexibility and improve the app, but it made everything more complex.
The #1 issue is with Google search. It simply works better when the URLs are already here. Not gonna lie, I feel lost. I just released I’ve been on that for more than a month, fucking hell.
03/07/2023
Wow, it’s been more than 2 weeks since the last post.
I fixed major issues and the app works pretty decently. Remaking the whole app exhausted me, so I’m taking some vacations now.
I decided to remove Google Search from the main “process”, considering it was not a main selling point. Instead, users will have the option to import their tasks from different sources, including Google search, it’s just easier that way.
11/07/2023
Took some vacations after a looooong time. Focus was terrible those last few months, I think this will help.
Anyway, back to work now:
My focus is to make my app “ads-friendly”. Meaning, preparing everything for ads
1️⃣ Make a proper support inbox
Essential to keep track of every email (+ easier to delegate in the future). I use Freshdesk for that, it’s decent and free
2️⃣ Adding proper tracking:
Adding all necessary pixels, as well as a dashboard to track essential metrics)
3️⃣ Improving the landing page:
Adding terms of use, refund policies, and other “ads requirements” (you get banned without those), and improving conversion rate (social proof and copywriting)
4️⃣ Improving the onboarding:
Current onboarding relies too much on email to give the license key, and lots of people don’t check it, so I will have to improve that. The .so domain decreases the deliverability apparently, so might get a new domain.
5️⃣ Improve the UI.
Again, to reduce customer support, I’ll have to tweak the UI a bit and add some “quality of life” features. Right now the app is made for early adopters, but it might not fit the majority of users. Those “regular” users will say “fuck it, it’s too complex” and ask for a refund if they feel lost.
13/07/2022
Spend yesterday remaking the landing page on a proper front end. It increased loading time a bit tho, so need to check if there is a better solution.
Also made a separate inbox the the support.
+ Finally added a mini onboarding in the app to reduce the customer support volume.
Next step: Making a tracking system.