Theoriq

That. Just. Feels. Good.
I've been pouring passion into Theoriq for years, moving it from a full time endeavor to a side project ; kept running it though having a very demanding day job and little traction number to show up for. And today, I am seeing my paying customer (monthly membership) on Google Play console.
I feel like I want to conquer the world again.
Peace.

Using mainly google ads has proven to be the most cost-effective way to acquire users (so far). Adwords campaing also proved to have an effect on organic discovery/downloads of the app. Though this was not expected, those first few thousands downloads have also been a good opportunity to collect feedback from ealy users through stores reviews and direct messaging to us within the app. Namely that nowadays, smartphone users are expecting the app to propose a dark mode (which in the end I am using myself a lot), and second, that the application was wayyyy to slow in consideration to big names standards.

This has lead us to put a lot of effort on redesign the API to server, and improve as well the back-end logic to improve loading performances. And the result are stunning compare to previous version :)

Extremely happy with the improvements! hopefully those will lower the uninstall rate (we also implemented a push notification drip campaign last month to boost user retention).

For the first time, i really feel confident about the product ... or am I biaised ?

Early January 2020, someone has posted the first complete entry on https://theoriq.com By "complete" I mean that the user has created a new entry based on the passage from a book (Sprint) he was reading, adding the authors and book category (important as we aim at building a structure database of big ideas). This does not sound like much, but it is a huge sign for me. It means some people migth start using the app not only for perusing content/ scrolling feed, but also to save their own favorites findings from their readings.

This comes along with first real sign of engagement with the platform : user sharing thoughfull comments and some other users using another feature which i had no clue whether it will get interest : posting private entries from their own learning / understanding of the world around them.

As part of the my marketing endeavours, I have published my firs blog post on Medium, on a dedicated publication named (obvisouly) "Theoriq Publication".
This is the first step in trying to :
a/ force me to write down thoughts about the industry i sit in (I will not (this might change) document the startup or indie hacker journey) but more thoughts about the market you compete in eg. media/knowledge.

Link : https://medium.com/theoriq/what-is-it-that-we-call-common-knowledge-9d68d51f8b4e

Looks like a small number .. for some who reached the million downloads, but as the saying goes "every journey starts with a small steps"

Next target : 1,000 >10,000 > 100,000 > the sky

The downloads though are not organics as of today ... my ASO game is null, most of those I beleive come from paid added. Also, i got a high number of uninstalls (196) :( --- > May be I my ads are misleading ? Something to work on ...

We relaunched our Android app by late summer 2019, so a couple of month ago. This time, I tried to put some new efforts in marketing the service. I've been first playing around facebook ads and a bit of Quora ads, and Google ads on Playstore.

-> FB : With a small budget (5 dols / day) and testing different format and audiences, i only got a few install per day for a high CPI (betwen 0.8 and 2.1 dollars)
-> Quora : I got some decent response, but haven't really invested the time I should have in this channel. Need to continue experimenting with higher bidding amounts
-> Google ads : winner. I initially thought that it will not really work - may be cause I saw google ads as an untargeted mass-media approach, but got really great click through rates and number of installs per day started to really increase since then (in the 20-45 installs range for a 5 dols / day budget)

2018 has been a tough year. Entrepreneurship is hard. Costed me my financial viability and sanity. Had to find a day job, couldn't spend a single more minute in front of a screen. in retrospective, this had actually been a beneficial time. A time to reflect on past failures. A long process which took almost a year. But January 2019 is the time of the rebirth. Fueled again with ambition and clear mind, i rethink the product strategy and put some heavy work in polishing the website and the app that have been collecting dust for too long. While putting on my suit each morning to go to my day job - which I don't hate by the way. On the opposite, i does me real good.

Originally called "bluesophy", a name that I coma to hate myself, i search for days for the perfect domain name, until i found theoriq.com, still available. Theroriq it will be

Seemed like a great advancement, but minimal outcome.