Reflection.app

I remember when we first launched Reflection.app. I dreamed of hitting 10,000 users. I saw other indiehackers posting their user numbers and it always felt so far away.

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” ― Lao Tzu

It definitely hasn't been quick, or even easy, but step by step we got there. Early on our growth was slow 20 new users a month, 100 new users a month, and slowly but steadily that number started to go up and in December we had nearly 2,000 signups in a single month.

Our goal for 2021 is to hit 50K by the end of the year.

A turning point for us was launching our native mobile apps.

Before launching our mobile native apps it was our most requested feature, and since launching them we have benefited from some discovery in the app store, and our engagement has jumped as well.

We just passed 42,000 entries created on the platform. We have noticed a big jump in engagement since we launched our mobile apps (reflection.app/mobile) and we are also gaining momentum with new user signup, we an increase in new signups each month for the last 3 months.

We are still far off from our MRR target but at least we are seeing traction, which is motivating us to continue pushing further. And to continue listening to our users and implementing their feedback.

Next week are are preparing a release for mobile with some of the the top requested features (more guided entries, more prominent prompts, and more customization).

Excited for 2021 — our goal is to 10x our performance across the board. 10x the new accounts created from this year, 10x the entries, 10x the premium signups.

To the road ahead!

Reflection.app is officially live in the Apple and Android app stores! 🎉

These apps have been months in the making, with hundreds of designs and beta versions before this official release. They are built with Flutter - which turned out to be a great tech decision for us! Allows is to build cross platform from the start. (We are already looking to replace our web app with Flutter for web!)

We are excited, proud, and more than anything, we are feeling grateful.

Grateful for the opportunity to build a product we are so passionate about.

Grateful for Reflection.app's developers Britannio, Bryan, and Edward—who have worked their magic to make Reflection.app a reality.

Grateful for the Reflection.app community for helping us make it to this milestone.

And grateful for all the encouragement and wisdom over the months from fellow Indie Hackers — thank you!

We have refactored the UI now using Tailwind and the web app is much slicker. We also adding in a few custom logo animations to polish the app a bit more.

Check it out here: my.reflection.app

It feels like with this update we are finally out of beta. :-D

We are also deep in mobile development building our mobile app on flutter.

On Friday we quietly launched Premium features (like photo support!) and added billing through Stripe checkout.

Our plan in these first few months to continue to show our users that we are adding more and more valuable features to the premium offering, letting them discover the value on their own instead of pushing for premium signups. Especially until the offering is more robust.

We will continue going back to our feature request board, and adding the most requested features as part of the premium offering.

At the same we will continue to build a rock solid platform with base features free for all users — continuing to build a trusted and enjoyable journaling platform for all Reflection.app users.

We have been continuously working at way adding new features, squashing bugs, and improving the experience for users to create new entries.

We got our biggest bump over December and January with our Personal Guided Annual Review launch.

Since then new member growth as slowed a bit but remained steady.

Most members are finding out about us through our work at Holstee and through the Holstee homepage.

We have been tracking and responding to all feature requests which is building a nice sense of community among our first users.

We hit our goal of 1,000 early access requests to try the beta of Reflection.app in the first week.

I went into a bit more detail on our new user welcome flow in this post here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/launch-week-results-and-the-simple-zapier-hack-that-supercharged-our-customer-discovery-b9ca313750

We are slowly adding users to the app, with about 200 users so far.

We had a few bugs that we squashed, and over all feedback from new users has been positive - it's still too soon to see if we have product market fit but definitely feels like we are heading in a good direction.

I am thrilled to introduce you to:

Reflection.app — a simple way to start a meaningful reflection practice with an online journal that guides your personal growth each month.

Mike and I are big believers in the power of reflection. Through reflection, we get the chance to appreciate, learn from, and find peace with our past as we take steps toward the future ahead.

The challenge is that starting and keeping a reflection practice is hard. It can be difficult to know how to begin, and once you do begin, it can be difficult to maintain with all the distractions life throws our way.

For years, journaling has been our go-to tool for reflection. But even when we mastered the habit of writing about our days, there wasn’t an easy framework for looking back on past entries — no guide to help us find patterns in the things that brought us joy, or learnings from the moments that challenged us.

It’s a problem we have experienced first-hand, and after speaking with, our community, we realized we were not alone.

Two years ago, we began researching, testing, and developing concepts to solve this problem. We have created, scrapped, and recreated dozens of prototypes (“reflectionapp_mockupv10-7a_copy-v2-final-FINAL1.sketch” may or may not be a file on my Dropbox ;-).

Finally, we arrived at a tool that we believe can really help people start and keep a meaningful reflection practice.

Here is how Reflection.app works:

Daily Journaling

Through a simple web interface, you can add daily entries in one of three categories:

Highlights - Things that brought you joy.
Lowlights - Challenges you experienced.
Free Writes - Everything else on your mind :-) (with optional writing prompts for inspiration!)
End-of-Month Review

At the end of each month, you are guided through your Highlights and Lowlights so you can understand how to grow from them. After, you are led through a short self-assessment in six key areas:

Mind - Do you feel clear-headed, engaged, and intellectually challenged?
Body - Does your body feel healthy, nourished, and strong?
Soul - Do you feel at peace and connected to the world around you?
Work - Do you feel interested in and fulfilled by your work?
Play - Do you feel joyful? Are you engaging in activities that bring you joy?
Love - Do you feel positive about the relationships in your life?
Your end-of-month review comes together in one stunning personal monthly report that you can return to at any time.

End-of-Year Review

At the end of the year, you will have the chance to look back on the whole year. Your daily entries roll into your monthly reviews, and your monthly reviews roll into your annual review.

Our goal with Reflection.app is to provide a simple and delightful framework to help guide you through a meaningful reflection practice. A practice that naturally builds on itself by using your entries to guide your reflection, at each step making the next milestone in your life more enjoyable and meaningful.

Reflection.app is in beta and we will be adding new people every week.

We plan to work closely with our community to continue making this tool as valuable and useful for you as possible.

Excited to hear your thoughts!

We spent the last 14 months fine tuning the idea with our customers, and working through the customer experience.

The last 8 weeks we have been working on our MVP.

And we are looking forward to sharing with your existing community this upcoming Monday!