everyday, one year later
Hello IndieHackers!
It's been one year since my interview here on IH and since everyday.app got 🙏 hunted on ProductHunt today I felt it would be nice to share an status update!
everyday.app is a simple and beautiful habit tracker available for the Web, iOS and Android. It helps you break goals down into actionable achievable daily tasks we can execute on every day, no matter how little we do, forming new habits and ultimately reaching our goals.
For those who didn't read the interview, a summary: I launched the first version of my sideproject "everydayCheck" in March 2017 and got my first paying customer in May 2017 after a very successful post on reddit's r/GetDisciplined. I kept improving the app and did some marketing that brought me a lot of traffic, specially after the first ProductHunt hunt in the end of June 2017. The second half of 2017 was quite frustrating to me because even though I kept getting passive traffic and sales that amounted at around $450/mo I didn't have enough time to work on the app.
There were days I barely devoted 30 min to it just not to break my streak. With another successful post on new year's I made the resolution to step up the product on the side for the first half of the year and then quit freelancing and work full time on it to make it grow. My initial idea was to spend the first quarter developing the mobile app versions for iOS and Android while learning react-native. I also added a few features like skip, noweekend and stats on every platform and moved everything to Amazon. Oh boy did I struggle with the last bit. With the arrival of the .app I took the opportunity to buy everyday.app and rebrand the whole app, with a new design and logo. I did it myself so please have some pitty x)
After stagnating at $400ish a month, even going lower by mid spring, the app started growing organically with the release of the mobile apps. The last couple of months it's made it past the $1000 mark, partly due to the mobile apps, partly to the web app and also due to the renewals from last year. This is the power of Micro-SaaS! What's really motivating me is that I've barely done any real marketing. Yeah, I said that last year too, but it's shamefully true. There's a lot of room for improvement for me on that aspect...
I've been working on it full time for over a month now and I am even more overwhelmed by everything I should be doing. Maintaining 5 code bases, support, marketing, etc. So yeah, do things that don't scale but once you see there's future in it, start making them scalable or you'll die in your own flood of work :D
Looking back it's incredible how much has my mindset changed. I remember my first sale blew my mind and despite I still feel I'm on my baby steps in indiehackering I can already feel I've travelled a long way. Organizing the IndieHackers Barcelona meetup has definitely helped. Make sure to join us any time you are in town!
About the next steps, I'm really focusing on the goal of 10 sales per day. I'm still quite far from it but it's about the sum that'd equal my salary as a freelance. I just read a quote by Bruce Lee saying something along the lines that "Goals don't always need to be achieved, we just need to have something to aim for" so there goes my goal. I think it's achievable but it will require me to go from "lucky marketer" to "decent marketer" :P It's a challenge I'm learning to enjoy.
If you got any feedback on how'd you go about spreading the word on everyday.app make sure to let me know! I've got a long roadmap that needs to be prioritised!
Also, I don't want to miss the chance to share my awesome-indie - Resources for independent developers to make money with you. Contributions are very welcome!
No need to remind you how important it is to work on your sideproject every day! ;D I'm on a 127 day streak working on everyday.app!
If you like everyday.app consider 🙏 upvoting it on ProductHunt today! :)
Also feel free to get in touch for anything at joan@everyday.app! I'm always happy to help!
That's a very cool story Joan, I wish you good luck with achieving your goal, it looks like you deserve it.
I am also glad you posted because I believe this is just the thing I need, signed up for a free trial, hope it goes well :)
Thank you Ante!
joan, I use your product and love it! Keep up the good work!
Thanks man! Seeing users engaged is the most motivating bit since it's the proof that you find it valuable :)
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Just installed and played around. Nice work @mezod!
Thank you Jared! I hope the app helps you! :)
Upvoted :) Thanks for the inspiring and real story, and good luck with the PH launch!
My first indie project was a goal tracking app. Yours is simple and beautiful! Mine was a tedious beast :-P
Thank you Andrew! Hehe now you got my curiosity, is it still up? Would love to see how you solved the problem! It's hard not to add a thousand features considering all the feedback customers come up with. The perfect solution for most of the people would be an all-in-one productivity solution but that isn't possible, to begin with because everyone has different productivity systems that work best for them... :P
Ugh. Yeah, it is still up :-P It actually started as a way to find hobbies/interests/bucket list-type stuff, then I added goal tracking because it seemed necessary. Then I added to do lists because obviously that's necessary too! I also planned to add keep-the-streak style as well, but realized I was never going to ship the thing. It's curiosity-spark.com - gplus logins broke recently so you can only login through FB haha. I planned to backup some content and shut it down, just haven't gotten around to it.
Feel free to message me if any of it is interesting (I doubt it :). Would be happy to explain or share some code.
Haha well it's got curiosity on the title so it's got my attention now! I see how you got there, product design frankenstein process (been there, done that, several times actually x(). When I started working on everyday.app I really forced myself to make one thing and get it right. When I finished I thought "well, lol, this thing only does one thing, noone is ever gonna pay for this" but it turns out it's the opposite, it's super counterintuitive, it's so simple that people get it immediately and that's what convinces them. I still struggle on a daily basis when deciding what features to get in, and actually I think I made a mistake with a couple of them for this v2. So yeah, keep it damn simple! :P
I liked the habit suggestions bit though, been considering bringing it into the app for some time myself!
Ouch, you nailed it. When I build something simple, I think "why would anyone bother?" But when it has the kitchen sink, it's more like "who would understand all of this?" I'm not out of the woods with this problem yet, but hopefully will get there.
Anyway, congrats! I see Everyday is #2 on PH!
Hehe, neither I am yet!
Yeah, still #2 but #3 cut me 40 upvotes in the last 50 so ughh seems that guy has lots of friends lol :p
Hi Joan,
I was recently asking about an app like this (https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/habits-building-app-does-something-like-this-exist-10abaddae1). And someone recommended everyday. It looks really cool and user-friendly. But it lacks one feature which I really need -- to be able to track the number of repetitions for certain habits. Would it be possible to add something like this in the future?
Cheers,
Alex
Hey Alex, I remember reading that post and not answering since your needs were quite different to what the app has to offer. It's funny that then someone else decided to share my app, I appreciate that :P Tracking the number of repetitions is something I have on the roadmap but it's not on the top of the list right now so I can't promise it will be there any time soon, sorry :/ It'll be definitely there at some point though! Cheers!
Thanks Joan, I will keep an eye on your app.
And good luck with it!
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I don't have much experience in those but anything that helps you build motivation is welcome, specially at hard times! What I'd recommend is to use those communities to build momentum, not to market to them. Most of the indie makers tend to market specifically to other indie makers and that's not a good idea. It's certainly good for early validation but the volume is out there and we need to go find it. I've also seen a trend of makers developing very specific products for other makers. This might be a good idea when you consider that the maker community is growing, and fast, on the other hand, makers then too have very short budgets if any at all and products for them need to be outstandingly valuable for anyone to make a purchase. So, unless the idea is core to the small businesses strategy, I'd focus on something else!