Weekly update: Coding complete for my upcoming product "Better Today". Ready to make it public next week
This is a weekly update for my upcoming product "Better Today". Better Today is a research based personal productivity dashboard to manage your days better by tracking your goals, todos, life, health and habits.
(If you are also building something and want to talk to me or share something with me, I am always available to answer your questions and share whatever I have learnt in this process, both related to technology and product development)
I have been working on this for the past seven months, but my last 4 weeks in general and the last week in particular has been the most productive.
All the development and coding is finally complete. There were a lot of moving parts and bugs that kept me awake till late nights but finally everything works as expected. Now I will spend a few days testing everything before sharing it with the awesome people of IH and Reddit who showed interest in reviewing it.
Screenshot of the actual web and mobile app: https://i.imgur.com/IMfq9hY.png
Here is what I have ready today:
- Web app for desktops/laptops
- Web app for mobile
- Mobile app for Android
- Mobile app for iOS
- Chrome app (New tab replacement app)
This weekly update puts a good kind of pressure to push me to complete it faster.
Tasks for next week
1. Test everything:
This app has to work on all major browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari).
I also need to test the web app on mobile browsers for Android and iOS too. Not everybody will install the app, so if they want to use it in their browser, they should get the same experience.
I need to test the native mobile apps for both Android and iOS and also test it on different screen sizes and memory configurations (specially for Android).
Once this is done, I will have confidence to release it to reviewers.
2. Landing page:
I have seriously been procrastinating this for a few weeks now. Being a developer, my excuse was to get the functionality ready. Now that the coding is over, I have run out of excuses. This week, this is priority #1
3. Create welcome emails:
I am creating a welcome email sequence for new users. I am using MailChimp for this.
I plan to send an email daily for a few days. This will serve two purposes:
a. It will introduce one important feature in byte sized daily emails without overwhelming the users
b. It might bring back people who abandon my app in the first few days
(The probability of people abandoning the app during the early days is very high).
And a final email after say 10 days asking for feedback and suggestions.
4. Payment gateway and coupon system
I have to implement a payment gateway. That is low priority. But I have built a coupon system to give discount to users and for promotion purposes. This will be helpful for me to let reviewers review the pro features also give discount during promotions.
I can also use unique coupon codes for different campaigns/platforms/channels. That way I can track the performance of each campaign on each channel. I can also use that data to create cohorts of users for further analysis.
5. Assets for App Stores
This includes creating screenshots, write ups for title/description etc. I will need all this for publishing this app.
6. Publish
By the end of next week, I plan to publish the following:
- Chrome app (New tab replacement app)
- Landing page
- Web app for mobile
- Web app for desktops/laptops
- Mobile app for Android
- Mobile app for iOS
7. Share the details with reviewers
At this stage I am not looking at revenue. My focus is to find product market fit and validate the product. I desperately need feedback and suggestions to improve this and make it usable for my users.
If you are interested in helping me and reviewing it, please DM me or leave a comment here so that I can share the details as soon as everything is published.
Public Trello board of the tasks of this project:
