WP Lookout

I recently decided that it is time to shut down WP Lookout, and today I publicized an announcement about that and sent out notice to my users. I have a full "shutdown checklist" that I'll be working on over the next month. The announcement post summarizes my reasoning, basically that it's not providing enough value to enough people to justify the (relatively small but non-zero) time and expense involved. It's been a great experience and I'm so glad I built and launched WP Lookout. Now, on to other things!

This week I launched the refreshed branding and marketing website for WP Lookout, a great milestone in the work started back in May (see earlier update) as I began collaborating with someone to help me improve overall marketing, content and user acquisition strategy. We'll still be working on refinements to the user onboarding email campaign, introduction and tutorial videos, and some other user acquisition strategies, but I'm glad to be at this point so I can see if/how the refreshed site and brand along with some test paid campaigns affect user account signups.

Today a subscriber who had been paying monthly converted to an annual plan, our first one, and also upgraded plan tiers at the same time. It was a nice vote of confidence for WP Lookout's value and it was also a relief that the subscription conversion worked. :) The user's motivation for converting was to increase the quantity of themes/plugins they could track, so it's also good to know that this can be a driving factor (at least for a sample size of one).

Earlier this month I started contracting with someone to help me improve my marketing, content and user acquisition strategy. I've largely not touched the public website, brand assets and other marketing infrastructure since launching in the fall, so it's past time to refresh those things. I'm excited because the person I'm working with has some great experience and insights in the WordPress space specifically.

The WordPress news/community website Post Status interviewed me for a podcast episode; we talked a fair amount about WP Lookout but also about my personal journey as a founder and software developer. I've received some nice feedback and comments since from new users.

The excitement that went with the first paying subscriber came from feeling happy (and relieved!) that the thing I built is useful/valuable to at least one person out there. For the second paying user the excitement comes from feeling affirmed that the thing I built might be useful/valuable to many people — great in a whole new way. Yay!

As a result of recent media coverage, WP Lookout now has well over 100 users using our app in some form. It's neat to see how people are interacting with what WP Lookout offers, and I'm hopeful that it eventually results in some user feedback. I'm considering a survey/review invitation (with some kind of tangible incentive) to the most active users some time in the next week or two.

After several quick mentions on podcasts and social media, today saw the first notable coverage of WP Lookout in WordPress industry media. WP Tavern published the article, WP Lookout Lets WordPress Users Track and Receive Notifications for Their Preferred Plugins and Themes. The article gives some context for the development of WP Lookout and describes how it works. I'm excited about it because it's a nice connection to an audience (savvy WordPress professionals) that I think will really appreciate the tool. It also comes at an important time for me personally in terms of maintaining momentum.

In the spirit of being an "open startup," today I published a page on the WP Lookout website that increases transparency about our key metrics, finances and ownership. The metrics are updated automatically from the application itself, which was kind of fun to set up.

Today I had my first user sign up for a paid monthly subscription! After likely coming in through a Twitter ad, using a free trial and requesting a feature that I had been planning on but then quickly implemented, the user signed up for the top tier paid plan. From what I can tell the user is exactly the kind of WordPress professional I created WP Lookout to serve, so it’s a great feeling to find that match. Yay!