Portal for iOS
Beautiful & immersive ambience for focus, sleep & relaxation
Well this was a nice surprise!
We've been entering Portal into a few awards as experiments around marketing and growing our credibility and were pleasantly surprised that we've been nominated for both categories we entered - Best User Interface and Best Visual Design - Function in the Apps & Mobile category!
We're up against giants including products from Google but were in the lead for Visual Design in the Public Vote earlier in the week which is encouraging.
It's still to be seen what the impact will be on the business long term but we've definitely already noticed an increase in inbound interest since the nominations, so hopefully it does end up being a good investment of time.
If you have a spare few minutes it would be hugely appreciated if you could take a look and consider voting for us and helping an Indie Hacker compete against the big guys :)
Best Visual Design - Function https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2020/apps-mobile-and-voice/apps-mobile-features/best-visual-design-function
Best User Interface
https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2020/apps-mobile-and-voice/apps-mobile-features/best-user-interface
We're taking the plunge and launching Portal on Product Hunt today.
We didn't actually do a launch of the first version as I became a father shortly after launching the app (that was the immovable deadline that motivated me for that first release!!) but we're really happy with the new version of the app and are going to give it a shot today.
We probably could have done a bit more to prep for the launch - we didn't manage to secure a hunter so have hunted it ourselves, we haven't built up a social media following in the run up and don't have an existing one to lean on, but we have grown to around 650 beta testers who were very engaged and enthusiastic and do think we have a good product so fingers that helps us!
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It's probably the most beautiful mobile app I've ever seen. You can just see how much love went into creating & designing this product. Wishing you all the best! Using it on my iPhone XS and already sent out an order for the Philips hue light!
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Wow, Daniel thanks so so much for the kind words and the download! You won't regret the Hue lights (although watch out they can become an expensive addiction!). Defs keep me posted on how you find it and of course any other feedback you have!
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18 months? Wow - that's a lot of work. Congrats on launch. Upvoted!
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Thanks Marcin, yeh it feels both like a lifetime and a like it's gone in a flash!
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Downloaded, purchased, and upvoted. Amazing product. The Hue integration just sends this thing over the edge. Well done.
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Cheers Brett, really appreciate it and hope you enjoy the Hue integration. And of course let me know if you have any feedback/requests.
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Love the design, Nick. Beautiful work. Upvoted.
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Thanks so much Levi! Really appreciate it 👍
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Good luck guys
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Thanks :)
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Congrats on the launch @nickdaniels! Looks beautiful :)
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Thanks Abey and thanks for dropping a comment on Product Hunt as well!
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Looks really nice! You got my upvote
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Really appreciate it, thank you!
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Just downloaded it, it's an amazing work! Congrats :)
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Massive thanks for the kind words and the download Flo!
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Congrats, upvoted and downloaded!
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Cheers Arnaud and thanks so much for the download, hope you enjoy it!
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Congrats, upvoted and good luck :)
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Thanks so much!
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Congrats on the launch. ❤
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Cheers Sivaram :)
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Congrats on the launch, Nick. Portal looks great!
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Thanks so much Matt, really appreciate it!
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Back in September we received an email from Apple asking if we were interested in submitting a retail demo of the app for use in Apple Retail and Partner stores. We obviously jumped at the opportunity but things went quiet and we started to lose hope that it would actually happen...until a friend texted last week to say they'd seen the app in a UK Apple Retail store!
We've now had reports it's been spotted in stores in the UK, US, Australia, NZ, South Africa, Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines and parts of Europe!
It's still too early to see what the full impact will be on downloads but there's definitely been an uptick and it's an incredible piece of "social proof" we can now use. I also posted it on Reddit over the weekend which brought in a big uptick in sales https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/egr46y/i_just_found_out_apples_been_using_my_indie_app/ as well as lots of valuable feedback.
We still can't really believe it's happened but it's definitely given us a real high to end the year on as part of the indie hacker roller coaster :)
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Dangggg this is super awesome Nick! We got contacted by Apple too, but we didn't really know if it has been featured yet :(
I love the way you used it to post on r/Apple. 5k upvotes mean you will have at least 5k visits to your site. Am I close?
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Thanks :) Ah that's awesome, yeh we've never been told ahead of time if a feature's happening and it often takes months after the requests come in, but so far they've always come through eventually so fingers crossed the same happens to you guys!
Pretty close, I just looked at the analytics and the post led to 6k product page views and around 700 sales with some really awesome new users who've reached out with feedback.
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Nice job!
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Congrats! It's hard to think of better validation.
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This is great. What an awesome thing to happen. Good luck guys!
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Congrats! Well deserved, that app looks slick!
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That’s awesome! Next time when I will visit the Apple Store in Vienna I will check if I can find Portal 🙌
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Thanks so much! Avocation looks great btw. If you haven't already it's definitely worth submitting to http://appstore.com/promote when you do major updates to the app. It's not actually a black hole and definitely helped lead to some of our features.
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Your app looks really cool!
Unfortunately, only on iOS, right?The screenshots you have featured on the AppStore are looking beautiful as well. Really like the design :)
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Thanks so much :) Yes iOS only at this stage, I'm sure we'll eventually make it to Android but it's helped to keep it focused on one platform so far with our limited resources!
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Well done! That's huge! Hopefully it gets portal heaps more exposure :)
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Thank so much! Kampsite looks great btw and congrats on the #1 on Product Hunt! I've actually been looking for options for managing and prioritising feedback with the app so will definitely try it out in the New Year (just need to get our V2 out of the door first!)
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Thanks! Looking forward to seeing the new version 🎉
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This one was a big surprise for us. We noticed a number of Chinese reviews coming in through App Store Connect which lead us to find out we'd been featured as App of the Day despite not having the app translated into Chinese. The reception was surprisingly good considering the lack of localisation and we received a nice uptick in users.
The "Big One" - we were featured as App of the Day on the Today Tab in the US which drove a huge number of downloads and helped propel us to #9 in the overall paid charts and #1 in the Health & Fitness paid charts. It was a crazy day and brought in more new users on a single day than the previous 8 months combined...
This was a major release adding iPad support which had been one of the main user requests over the previous months. It led to a number of smaller features within the App Store over the following months including being included on Daily lists and New Apps We Love.
Our first major "Today Tab" feature as App of the Day in the UK! It was a huge boost but is especially memorable because it came at a difficult time personally - my wife had developed Mastitis and we'd spent the last 5 days in hospital with our 2 month old! It had been a pretty awful few days (especially for my wife) so it was definitely a helpful boost in morale at a difficult time for us all.
This was the first time Portal was featured in the App Store as part of a "5 New Apps We Love" feature on the Today Tab. It took us a little by surprise (Apple don't let you know in advance when features are going to happen) but it was an amazing feeling!!
We spent a few months in beta ironing out the creases but it was a great feeling and the App really took some huge leaps in the last few months especially with a few "ah ha" moments with the designs. It was an amazing feeling to get the app released (and a bit of a relief!)
It took just over 5 months of full time work to get to the private beta. I was learning native app development for the first time which definitely took longer than I expected (especially compared to web!) and the designs ended up requiring quite a lot of low-level optimisations to get things working well. The great news was the reaction to the Private Beta was incredibly positive and helped spur me on towards launch.
12 Comments
This is a huge accomplishment! Awesome for you guys, I'm gonna put my vote in to get you a little closer to winning :D
Really really appreciate it, thank you!
I bought your app within seconds of discovering it. It's simply beautiful, so I'm not at all surprised by this.
Cheers Brett, really appreciate the support as always!!
Congrats on the nomination! Just voted for you in both categories, good luck!
Also the app looks amazing, just downloaded it from the App Store and cant wait to try it out.
Any thoughts on creating a desktop or web version? Would be even cooler on my 27” screen compared to my iPhone or iPad.
Cheers Steven, really appreciate it and big thanks for the download as well.
Apple TV & MacOS versions are in the works for release later in the year, totally agree it'll be great to fill the bigger screen space!
Just downloaded from the app store, looks amazing.
Thanks so much for the download and kind words Shimon!
Gorgeous design. Really well done! Almost makes me wish I was an iOS user.
Haha cheers, we'll hopefully make it to Android eventually!
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The entry fee was £300 per category so it was a bit of a punt and we definitely would have entered more categories if we could have afforded more which is a shame. It's definitely skewed towards the larger companies in that sense...
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Yeh you pay whether you get a nomination or not so it was definitely a bit of a gamble!