Ideating, Building, and Launching Products with Chris Raroque

Hi everybody. In this podcast, I'm going to be talking to Chris Raroque, serial product designer, developer, learner, and entrepreneur. One of the things I really enjoy about Chris's work is that he identifies a real problem, builds a product around it, and then thinks through the full launch, feedback, product, and business side of things. So today we're going to talk about all of that. Chris, great to have you here. Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Yeah. I'm currently working on a startup called Aloa. We do software development outsourcing for startups. I also do a lot of indie side projects. I'm primarily a front-end developer, so I do Swift and React, and that's what takes up most of my time—both of these things. Everything in the world of software is what consumes my life.

Nice. One of the things you do that I think is really cool is that you also have side projects you work on that people know about publicly. Let's talk a little bit about that.

Yeah. I have two projects. One's called Mogul. It's a personal CRM. I think the best way to describe this for people who don't know what a CRM is: it's kind of like a networking app. It's honestly for people who have a not-so-great memory, like me, to remember details about people. The other one is called Ellie, and it's kind of like a daily planner. It helps me; actually, a better way to describe it is almost like Trello and Google Calendar combined.

Nice. Ellie's an interesting one because I've been following you for quite some time. I remember that, quite a while ago, you started talking about Ellie. You wanted to start talking about, "How do I go from talking about it to actually building it?" So I'm getting to watch you through the whole process, from ideation to iterating on a design and getting feedback. It's really fascinating. I want to dive a little further into Ellie with you. What motivated you to start Ellie? Why did you decide to build it? As you already mentioned, you have Google Calendar and all these other things. So, with all of that in mind, why Ellie?

What brought you to it?

You know what's funny? I completely forgot that you're right, I did start just tweeting about it from the ideation phase. I completely forgot about that. But yeah, I think that definitely played a role. I was a user for of theirs for two years and they actually came up with this like concept of this like Trello and Google Calendar combined. Yeah, and the thing that was like super unique- which I've never seen anyone do this- is they had this like infinite kanban view.

So usually, like for kanbans, like Trello, it's like you put, you know, like static columns together for different statuses, but what was unique about them was like, they put a calendar on the kanban, so it was like infinite, like scrolling, like I can scroll like all the way to next year, all the way back a year, and being able to visualize. That was like super interesting to me.

So I can you know, when I start my day, I can put some tasks on this kanban for today and then I can almost like plan out my week and I was a user of theirs for two years, absolutely loved it, and they have a they really have a huge focus on Integrations and I think, because of the, because of that Focus, the pricing like increased significantly. Actually, I don't really know what it was a long time ago, but it's pretty pricey for a consumer app. It's like 20 bucks, I think 20 bucks a month and they're very team focused. So, like they're, they're end user.

I don't think is like consumers, it's definitely businesses- and I found myself like, like I was really using that core functionality of the kanban and they, but with all the Integrations, like that definitely explains why they have to charge that much for it. Those Integrations are really expensive and I just didn't find myself using it. So one day I decided, for fun, and it was actually so I can learn Super Bass- because I was interested in it. So I'm a huge Firebase user, like, absolutely love Firebase, but I was interested in using Super Bass.

So I was like, let me experiment, let me see if I can recreate that like simple kanban, like in a weekend. And I did it. I ended up switching from from Super Bass, back to Firebase and I think that's actually possibly the reason we met is, because I think I tweeted about that, saying like I'm switching back, like there's some some things going on with like super bass at the time, especially like just it was a little like too, there's just too many issues with it. And so I built the.

I built the project over the weekend, just to see what I can do, still like, ported it back to the Firebase in that same weekend and I started using it myself. Again, it was just for fun, I just wanted to see if I can do it. And then, as I started using it, I was like wait, I would actually, I would actually probably use this over sunsama, especially since it's free for me and- and I don't really use sunsama to its full potential, like I'm not one of their power users.

So I actually I hit up the founder of sansama and I asked him like like hey, man, like please don't kill me here. Like do you mind if I like, like it's literally so similar to what you guys are doing? And we follow each other on Twitter and I've been like following him for a while and so I asked this like permission, like do you mind if I put this out there? And he was like it's, he's, like it's the internet, like it's like you can totally do it's all good.

And I was like okay, thank God, and this is proof that, like you know, like I did, you know, I did ask for permission here, but that's actually how it started.

It was literally me, like, as a like for fun, I wanted to see if I can like learn this new technology and do it, but it ended up actually, being something that I ended up using and because I had control over it, I was able to tweak a couple of things, like very little details, like I'm really design oriented, that I wasn't like too like, like I wasn't too happy with sunsama about, and I was like, but I also couldn't ask them to do it because they're so minor and they have so many things on their roadmap. Yeah, but I was able to do it. So I started using it.

I put it online and I started giving out to some friends who saw me using it and they were like let's typically the case with the apps that I built. They're like, oh, can I use this too? And I'm like, yeah for sure, like I'll just give it to you for free, use it. And I learned my lesson from the first, the first app that I built, Mogul I. It took me like four years to monetize that.

I just like it's kind of too scared to do it and I decided to monetize this one, like like I think like a month into a month into building it, just to see what would happen and, shockingly, like people started paying for it and, that's kind of where. That's kind of where it's at right now. It's just me just kind of iterating on it, but building on top of that initial like weekend project to see if I can like learn new technology and pull it.

Yeah, yeah, that's really nice. Part of it is that when you started tweeting about your ideas and talking about this before you were actually building it, did that create pressure to now go make the thing? Or was it completely independent?

Yeah, I think there definitely was a little more of that expectation. I was more motivated to actually make it real once I'd talked about it in public. To take it more seriously, I think if I Didn't Do It might not even be released. To be honest, like it might still just be a project. I remember that there was like two people who did respond to like the Tweet when I initially was like: Hey, like I put this online. Does anyone want to use it?

Even the domain leso was supposed to just be a placeholder, like because it was a weekend project and I actually named it after my hamster, so like that's, that's like where the name came from and I didn't expect it to be like a real thing. I didn't. I also wasn't sure it wasn't going to monetize it. But when I tweeted it out, two people actually signed up. And then they messaged me and they were like this is amazing, like you need to take this seriously. And I was like okay, like that's, that's the motivation I need. I'll I'll take it seriously.

So, for sure, if I didn't tweet that and those two people didn't message me, it might not even be out there right now.

When you sent those tweets, was it just text, or did you include a mock-up, an animation, or a video of what you were planning on building?

Yeah. I think I did put out a video. For sure, if I didn't put out a video, I put out an image or a screenshot, but I think I recorded a video just to show the whole experience: you can drag things across the Kanban and scroll. I think that did help visually let people know, "This is what this is about." That's why those two people tried it too, because they got that initial thought: "This would fit my workflow. This is interesting." Then they tried it. Without it, I don't know if they would have tried it.

Yeah, I think that's a great way of getting people to try something, especially when they have skepticism about what exactly it's going to be. I've historically found a video or image to be very effective in getting people excited about something, even if the finished product is still a ways away—a couple of days, weeks, or months. So you created some initial ideas, spent a weekend building this project just for fun, took a video of it, shared it with people on Twitter, and got two people to sign up. Did I get the order right? Once those two people started using it, did they have feedback for you?

Were you using them almost like early testers to see whether you were building the right thing? Or were you still using yourself as the first customer and asking, "Will I still use it? Will I leave it?" before you went broader?

I think I was definitely the first customer, and that's very much how I treated it. One of those users in particular became like the initial test user alongside me. But this was like one of the first times where, like someone that I knew who's a friend like was like no, I like this is, I'm like starting to rely on this, like this is like like this is actually super useful for me. And I could tell like they were, they weren't like forcing themselves to use it. So once I started noticing that, then I started taking his feet back like as seriously as mine.

Like I started knowing like okay, he's like genuinely like wants to make these things better and he's willing to like ask because he knows like he could. You know, he has access to the developer for this and he could. He could do that, but yeah, you have to answer your question. Like both of us, I think, became like the initial test users.

No, that's awesome. So you probably had a roadmap based on what you thought would be important to do. Was there anything from the feedback that made you think, wow, I didn't realize that would be an important use case, let me adjust my roadmap around that?

Yeah, yeah, there were. There were a couple things. I remember one of them and, honestly, the number one thing shocked me. I'm glad I listened to them on that one. And then, I remember I took that feedback and that's still like the most shocking feature where, I think like probably 75 of the paid users do use that feature. Which also sucks because it's the most complex feature technically but so it causes a lot of issues. But, yeah, that one, that one is like by far the one. I'm like that's, that's pretty. That one shocked me like I'm glad I listened.

Excellent. So once it's basically you and two other people currently using it, how did you broaden the number of people using the product? Was it still through Twitter? Was it word of mouth? Did you build a website? Walk me through the process of going from a few people to real people.

So I decided to create a landing page for it. I think it was like a week or two after my friend and I started using it. So I also made an iOS app. Like really, really quickly, super basic, pulled a lot of code for Mogul to like to do it, so it made it easier. I think it took like a week and I put it on the App Store as quickly as I could because I knew, like I bet people organically will find it, even though it's like a crazy competitive keyword, like you know to do, or daily planner, like that's really competitive.

And I was, I think I think I'm pretty sure I tweeted this, but in within like two or three weeks, like over a hundred people signed up organically, like through the App Store, and I basically did not share it. I didn't do anything and I think the keywords they were looking for were, like you know, to do app or or daily planner and one of the things that's interesting compared to Google: like when someone Googles- like it's so rare- they'll go to the next page of Google or they'll even go to like the third item on Google's list for the App Store.

People go all the way down when they're searching for like to do apps or anything. So even if you're like number 30 on the list, like, they'll actually check it out and that's how I actually got, I think, the first like probably I guess like the first like 500 users like I think there's a couple at this point, even though it's been around for a little bit and I haven't really done much marketing- like over 90 percent of the users come from the organic apps App Store search and I think there's like a couple thousand that have signed up for it.

You mentioned it: you are more front-end focused and have some design interest. I'm assuming that even though you were number 30 on that list, you probably designed a very nice visual icon and wrote pretty good copy. It didn't look like something that was just a generic utility someone created because of a Hello World example. It was actually something well thought out. How much time do you spend on those details? You're pretty busy. You mentioned something you're already doing, and then you're also building this app and your team. You built the web app first, and you built the iOS version next.

In parallel, you're also doing all this marketing and all of these other activities. How do you balance your time between all these activities?

Honestly, I feel like I'm still trying to figure that out. How do I balance it? I've probably been winging it a little bit, and so far it's worked out. It was more like I need a mobile app, I'm gonna do it. And then this: then the next thing was like the landing page. I was like I am ashamed, I have no landing page. I need to do this. And then, and then same thing for like the screenshots and everything. I kind of tackled it based on like, just like, personal preference. Like you know, I feel like this is probably necessary.

Let me, let me drop some stuff or let me finish up some stuff and like tackle it. But yeah, I feel like I didn't really follow any like set standards. I maybe be subconsciously did for mobile because I kind of knew doing it once like okay, I know like I'm now I've seen like the power of having good landing page, a good landing page and amazing screenshots on the App Store. I'm gonna invest a little bit more time in this and this is kind of the order. But, I feel like I did kind of just kind of wing it a little bit and it ended up working out. I think.

Yeah, and I think.

Yeah, and I think, like you mentioned, you probably have the muscle memory for how to do some of these things, so your default reaction would be to do A, B, C, and then D. Someone without your experience building previous apps would've had to learn all of that from scratch. The landing page looks very nice, by the way. Did you build it from scratch, or did you use an existing landing-page builder? There are so many of them out there.

So what's funny is that, while we're recording this, I literally just migrated over to this thing called Framer. For the landing page, I didn't build it from scratch. And for Ellie's landing page, I did that one from scratch, but I took so much inspiration and like so many components from Mogul and then for the Framer site, that the redesign I just did was completely from scratch. Also just an excuse for me to learn Framer, which I ended up like loving, and I think I'll be probably building a bunch of websites like using them. Now, yeah, I know a lot of people like know who are.

They have real things they want to deal with. They want to deal with like creating a Blog from scratch using- ask your cat, many. Like you know, I need to basically get content out in a high quality and starting with something that people really like. And in looking through, you know your landing page again, you know, there it hits all the right marks because you know, over a period of time you learn about, like, what's your good landing page happens to have customer testimonials, used to have little buttons to do instead of pricing in the right order and so on, and you have all of these things provided to you.

They do learn more about this formally, or is it just something you learn to call an error? How? What was your process for bringing all this out? I think it was definitely trial and error. Oh, there definitely were like a lot of inspiration. So, like I would, I love looking at other people's landing pages and seeing, like, like you know, like, while I go through it, I'm like, oh my God, I love the way that they did their testimonials. Like it really it really like, just, you know, it just hit me harder than other sites, or I remember I don't know where I took the video.

I remember on the old landing page for Ellie, I just had a YouTube embed, but then for the Framer site, I think I saw on one of their like one of their galleries they had a frame. It has a gallery where they show a bunch of- they showcase a bunch of websites. I saw someone that had like an auto playing video and then you can click it for the pop-up for the YouTube video and I was like wow, that's like that looks so much cleaner than mine.

So I think I just took a bunch of inspiration from a lot of things that worked and then and then just kind of mash them together and so I kind of saw like what, like what felt right, like trying to- - I think I got a little bit better at this over time- but like putting myself in the in the user shoes, like okay, if they saw this, like what would they like to see?

So like one one thing that I figured out with Mogul was I had massive amounts of sections dedicated to like the features and then I kind of realized like actually it kind of overwhelmed, like like when I went back a couple months and I read it, I was like, as a user scrolling through this, I'm kind of overwhelmed by how many features and like I'm just probably gonna skip through it. So for, like Ellie, I'm like I'm just gonna highlight like the core ones that I think like someone could resonate with and I'm gonna try to condense it like as quickly as possible. So, like little things like that.

It's just a lot of iteration, like I checked back on my landing page every few weeks, which is why I love no code Builders like Framer and webflow, because it makes it so if I, if I just have an idea where I'm like, oh, that I should change, that I don't have to spin up an environment or do anything like that. I could just easily like literally update it and then just hit publish and do that. Even though I'm a developer, like I love using no code tools like that. Yeah, no, I think.

It's actually really cool that you did that. So now you've launched the landing page and you have a few hundred people using the product. At what point did you decide you were going to start charging for the service?

I think this is by far probably the biggest lesson, and my biggest regret with Mogul, too: I didn't charge soon enough. I didn't really care too much about it. And then the minute I think I just saw someone like start charging for their thing and I saw how much they were making and I was like, wait, there's things so simple. There's there's no way, like, if they're charging, maybe I could charge. So I remember I really like kind of let go of that, that fear, and I was like you know what, I don't even care. Like what's the worst that happens? Like I lose some users.

So I turned on monetization for Mogul years ago and the for a year, nothing happened, like no one actually purchased anything for a year. But the minute someone did purchase, like a pro plan for mogul, I was like I was just like I should have done this earlier, like I totally should have done this earlier.

So for Ellie, I decided not to make the same mistake and, I think it was like probably a month into that, like hackathon, like where I built it from scratch into turning on monetization and a big reason why I waited a little bit longer was, partly for the App Store, so I can get a couple more downloads and like rank a little higher, and because people are way more willing to download free apps.

And then, and then- and I was also too lazy to code the actual like strike logic and do all that stuff- but once I, once I did that, yeah, within a month, I like turned it on and I think the first paid user was, I think like a week after that, which, which was like the best feeling where I'm like, oh, thank God, someone was willing to pay for it. I now I know at least, like people are going to pay for. I think I was.

I think I put the price at 299 a month and the other thing I learned from Mogul was to increase the prices if, if I feel like the value is there and the thing that really pushed me over the edge was when I had two users: a one person I knew and then one person I didn't know who talked to me and said: you're not charging enough for this, and it's always a good sign when someone says that. But I didn't think, like when my friends said that, I was like: okay, you're my friend, so like I don't know.

But when the other user, who I did not know, was like, actually, I think you're really under charging for this, and he was like honest enough to tell me that, even though he was paying for it, once I heard that I was like: yeah, I think you're right if you're saying this and I can tell you're not just saying this because we're talking I, maybe there is more value than I'm thinking here, and so I even raised the prices, I think, like probably a month after that first month, like and yeah, that's so two, two months, I think, is where the current pricing is.

So it was pretty quick, I think, for than a typical app that people make.

So how do existing users take it? Because you probably had a few hundred people using the product. Was pricing something that only new users would pay while existing users were grandfathered into the free tier, or did existing users eventually have to pay for the new capabilities too?

Yeah. Whenever I do something like that, I always think, "Okay, what would I want to have as a user?" Every time I do something with pricing, I always grandfather people in. I sent an email out to everyone who was on it. I think there were maybe 200- 300 people signed up, and I said, "It's your lucky day. You're grandfathered in for life." I also decided to do something interesting here and add a lifetime plan, which is very uncommon. Everyone's going SaaS and using SaaS pricing, where it's a monthly subscription.

I decided to also add a lifetime plan to Ellie, so people who wanted to make a one-time purchase could do that. Shockingly, only two people have done that out of however many paid users there are. But I've had messages from people thanking me for doing that and then going with the subscription. They just love that they have the option to do it. Oh my God, I already forgot the original question because I was so interested in answering this one.

I think I asked how existing users were going to take the price increase. You grandfather people in, so no one feels like a pricing change is going to apply retroactively to long-term users, which I think is great. How do you decide on the price you're charging? You said you started at 299. Was there a reason you picked that price, or did you just say, "I'm going to start here and adjust it as time goes on"?

Definitely a start-and-iterate approach. I didn't want to go too high because I knew it was much easier to go up than it is to go down. Personally, it just feels nicer for me to go up than to have to go down. So I thought, "Okay, let me start at a low price point." But I also didn't want to go too low. I wanted to prove that there was enough value being created here for users. I thought 299 was the lowest I was willing to go. Anything lower, and I'm not sure; maybe they're doing it as an accident or on a whim, and they'll cancel later.

At 299, I think people had to think about it. Once I saw enough people doing it, I thought, "Okay, I think 4.99." I decided to email everyone on 299: "You're grandfathered in. You're good to go. Prices are increasing, but don't worry about it." Then I upgraded the price about a month later.

Nice. I'm curious about something else. You mentioned you emailed the people on the different plans. What kind of system do you use for that? Do you have good enough tracking to say these people are on the free plan, these are on the nine-dollar plan, these are on the new plans, and so on? I find that kind of segmentation surprisingly complicated.

Yeah, you're right, there really isn't a great system for that. There's honestly an amazing startup idea in just solving that problem well. It wasn't pylon, but it was JavaScript- and I, since I'm using Firebase, I was, I literally just ran queries to download and figure out okay, who are these users, export the emails, put it in a CSV for me and then I just like sent the email out that way, but I think it did take like maybe two or three hours the first time, then the second time, like, I just modified it, so it was not too bad. So I have the script now.

Maybe I could monetize the script, maybe I can put it out there and do something. There's a new site project for you right there. Yeah, yeah, then I'll call it. I'll call it Kirupa and then I'll always exactly: yeah, yeah, but yeah, so it was very manual. I didn't, I didn't have anything automatic to do it, and then, I think I used MailChimp for the first one and then, I use postmark as my email provider to send out emails and then I like automated it out the second time and like, had it run from, had it run from.

I think I use a cloud function actually to like run the second time.

For Firebase, what I really like about your story is that too often I hear people saying, "Okay, I need to send an email, so I'm going to spend a weekend researching the best email system." Then they spend a weekend researching that and ultimately get the email out. In your case, you took what I think is the more pragmatic approach. You have a billion things going on, and the most important thing for your product right now is not the email system you're going to be using. You start off with a scrappy way of getting the job done, then, over a period of time, you can iterate and add more details.

That's an interesting lesson for those who are watching: be very focused on what activities are actually meaningful. Picking the best email system might make you feel good about what you built, but the time you spent on that may not have been the most valuable use of your limited resources.

Yeah, I agree. I think that's such a good way to approach it.

So you mentioned you switched to building an iOS app. Was that because you felt the market for an iOS app would be larger than the web? Or at least that iOS users might be more willing to pay for a service like this? Or was it purely that you wanted to learn more about building for iOS and build for iOS itself?

Yeah, for sure. It was definitely partly driven by my own need, because as an iOS user I wanted the app there, and I also really wanted to learn more about building for iOS. Todoist is like the best, like the best example of people who do it really well and I kind of knew in the for the future roadmap, like I probably do need a native iOS app to be able to, like you know, leverage Siri or level Widgets or leverage widgets, do all these things. So it was definitely out of need.

But, there was definitely a secondary component which I learned from Mogul, which was even for Mogul, like 90 plus percent of the users come from organic iOS search and that's great for someone like me who has such limited time to do like real marketing, like basically don't do any marketing, so being able to leverage this platform for that that Apple has, like just to instantly like I think I do zero work and I think I get like five or ten sign ups a day on both apps, just pure organic App Store search and. So I knew like I should 100 invest on this, like from the get-go.

I got really lucky with Mogul where, I was not a react developer at the time and so there was only an iOS app for I think like four years. It was just iOS and then once I built the web version because I wanted to learn JavaScript and I really wanted to do that, and I saw the numbers, I was like, wow, okay for my creature app I. I know 100, like because of my limited marketing ability, I should totally do. I need to always have an iOS app like out the gates if I do it.

Did you build using any framework? Are you building on Swift and objective?

Right. For Mogul, it was straight Swift. I tried learning Objective-C early on, and the learning curve felt too steep for me, so Swift was the one that stuck. And now, though, like recently, I saw like some of the new developments with swift UI and I was like, hey, it looks a little bit more mature. So, I spent like I semi regret it, but not really- I ported over the code base, completely ported everything to Swift UI. Like I think like a month ago, for Ellie, and part of it was like I just really want to learn Swift UI.

It feels like it looks so much more natural, like if someone only does front end to, like to use it, and it just looks really fun. And then the other half was like I really liked how they do some animation stuff and some complex things and I felt like as a front-end developer Swift UI, like I'd be able to do some really, really nice things in the future if I just like took the time and invested and just kind of rebuilt it from scratch. It took way longer than I thought, but, I think it was, I think it was worth it in the end.

But, yeah, Swift UI- for Le iOS, Swift, normal Swift for mobile, and then react to the- yeah for the web.

Nice. So if you use React for the web versions, I'm curious whether React Native gave you enough conceptual carryover that you thought, okay, maybe this is the right path, even if it won't all be portable one for one.

I did. I actually tried rebuilding Mogul because it's such a simple concept, just to see whether React Native felt like the right fit. So I did try it, but, at least, I think it was like a year and a half ago when I tried it- there were a couple for basic stuff, it was so good, but then for certain gestures and things that I needed, honestly, I think it's because I'm not that good of, I just was not good enough. So, like I didn't understand it. But, I think I was spending too much time trying to fight edge cases and get complex animations.

So, and since I'm really design oriented, I was like those things are kind of Make It or Break It For Me, and I was like I should just switch to Swift. I'm totally open, though, like, well, one of the things I want to try for Android is, oh my God, what is the? What is the? What is? Oh, flutter, like I want. Flutter is something I really want to try.

I've heard really good things about it and so I think I'm gonna wait like a year or two and then, when I have some free time, I'll probably attempt the Android version of Ellie with flutter and see- yeah, see- what I can do there. But, yeah, right now, just native, just because it was easier. Oh, that's pretty great to.

Oh, that's pretty great to hear. And I have to ask this too: how's your testing story for all of this? As you keep adding more capabilities and trying to keep parity between the web and iOS versions, how do you make sure something new doesn't break something old, especially since you're still the only person doing the development?

Yeah, I'm way more cautious now about adding features. Mogul has been stable for a long time, so if I add something, I try to be really deliberate about it. But in terms of like, yeah and it's, that is definitely a shortcoming being a like a solo developer, I actually, for the first time, decided to you. Usually I just push stuff out, just monitor it and see what happens and try to get an update out quickly. If I did break something.

But for Ellie, when I switched to Swift UI- I think it was like two weeks ago, like when I switched to Swift UI, I was like this is such a major change, like so like I literally rebuilt it. This could be so bad and so buggy that I actually did. I did tell myself, like I should probably put this on test flight, have people beta test it. And, which was funny, I like, I decided to post on Twitter and I said, if anyone's willing to help me out here, for every bug you find, I'll give you a month of premium for free.

And then I upped it up because someone was like, can you make it a year? And I was like, fine, if you every buggy, fine, I'll give you a year of premium for free. And what was interesting was no one really interacted with that tweet. Like literally no, I think it got like two likes and like one like maybe one comment, but, around 200 people downloaded the test flight app and started trying it, and but what was also interesting was no one, like basically no one- reported bugs.

Like it was like one user who reported bugs and, either I got lucky and it wasn't that buggy, or people just like, like maybe there was some critical bug that stopped people from doing it, but, I think that's what I'm gonna do forward- is like, if there's big stuff, I'll probably have a couple people tested on test flight, or put it on some sort of environment. Before I do it.

But yeah, that that is definitely a limit, though, like I've just kind of been putting it out there in the public, testing it as well as I can and then just fixing it, like monitoring it, and fixing it very like retroactively,.

Or if there's good telemetry around what features people are using and things like that, does that give you a better idea of what you should optimize next?

Yeah, I do. I actually use Mixpanel to track specific feature usage. So, if no one's using this feature like, there's one feature that I had, this Focus mode, which is a huge feature for me, where, like, basically, you can, you can, open up a task in this Focus mode. It puts a beautiful like, like video overlay, so, you're, you can just focus on that task. And I stopped using the feature after like a few weeks and then I was like, okay, is anyone actually using this feature?

And so I looked at the data on mixpanel and I realized, like one user a week was using it and it was very clear, like, based on the flow, that it was someone signed up and just used it to see what it was and never used it again. And so when I kind of realized that, compared to the other features, I was like, okay, I don't think this is that big of a selling point. And it was also causing me some frustration, because when I ported to Swift UI, I was like, oh my God, I have to rebuild this, like, should I do this?

And that's when I decided, okay, I'm gonna put that on The Cutting Board. And, honestly, after I did that, that's something I'm going to start doing, is, every few months I'm going to look at the usage and see, is there something I can cut here, or is there something that I can like, like you know, or I should evaluate or or like redo if I feel like maybe it's just not clear enough or something. But yeah, yeah, that's that's kind of how I do it. I like I'm now becoming a little bit more.

And do you foresee a world where the people using the web version have very different usage patterns from the people using the iOS version, to the point where you're really maintaining somewhat disjointed sets of features for each platform because each one appeals to a different audience?

Yeah, absolutely. That's what I'm noticing right now. Different platforms really do attract different kinds of usage patterns. People would rather just see a list on iOS rather than the time box on the calendar and so I noticed that a lot of people like, they read the, they read the time box on their phone, but they actually do a lot of the interactions on.

Actually, that's actually very common for, like, the general usage of the app, most actions take place on the web version and then the iOS is like a reading companion, basically for people to like consume what they planned that day and then just check things off like pretty easily. And like I think they, some people do use it to Quick capture, like on the app when I get- I'm assuming when they're on the go- and then triaging it like on the web. So, yeah, the usage is extremely different.

I think, it's another reason why I don't have exact parody with the app, because I realize some features just don't make sense, and I might start trimming it down even more and like really honing it in just for also, so I have an easier code base to maintain in the future.

Yeah, that typically matches the general trend people always mention: desktop and large-screen devices are for content creation, while smaller mobile devices are for content consumption. That makes an interesting point as well. You mentioned that you're currently focusing on your iOS app and are going to be quite a few years away from having an Android app. When I used WhatsApp for the first time many, many years ago, I realized there was no web version or desktop version of it. It was a mobile-only experience used for mobile scenarios. I was also looking at charts about usage—where in the world it was being used and on what kinds of devices.

IOS was not the biggest market, and maybe it still isn't for WhatsApp; Android devices dominate worldwide. Part of me also feels that what you're creating seems generally applicable to a large audience, even beyond the iOS ecosystem. Have you thought about front-loading or getting ahead of the two-year time frame for releasing a version to Android users, so you can grow your potentially addressable market?

Definitely. I think I've had a few people ask, and I try to track how many people ask for it. So if the demand grows and I keep having enough people ask about the Android version, I think that'll motivate me personally to think, "Okay, you know what? I should try it. I should really bite the bullet and put it out there." If I can learn Flutter or something where it's to my standard, I'll 100 percent expedite it.

Is there a part of it also that you personally use an iOS device, and because so much of this is being built partly for yourself and partly for the joy of building and learning, that naturally pulls you in that direction too?

That's definitely the biggest role. For sure, with the apps I build, both Mogul and Ellie, I see myself as customer number one. If there's something that I don't like and I also see, "Okay, it seems that other people don't like it," then I probably won't do it. That's something I've also had to learn from Mogul 2. When I get user feedback, I look at it and ask, "Would I use this?" If the answer is no, there's a very high chance I won't do it, unless there's so much demand that I think, "Okay, this is interesting enough because I want to see what happens." Then I'll build out that feature.

Maybe I'm wrong here; maybe there's something there. I think that plays a big role. My personal perspective is that I'm definitely maximizing for myself.

And I do think you probably use your own app quite a bit on a day-to-day basis. If you built it through a platform you don't personally use every day, there might be things you simply wouldn't notice, bugs people wouldn't file, and smaller details that would get missed. That's a common pattern in products when the creators broaden their focus before they've really mastered the platform they live in most.

That's true. I've definitely noticed that. And for my next apps, I do plan to be more conscious about how much I personally live inside the platform I'm building for. No, it was more of just like a, just an observation around how products and what platforms you Target and your own personal use of a pretty good platform, influencing the quality of it to a certain extent as well. Yeah, definitely, oh, yes, okay. So I remember the for mobile, it was interesting because, I definitely use that like maybe once or twice a week because it's just whenever I have meetings and I there's something I want to remember.

And then for Ellie, this is something I use like multiple times a day. So this is the first product that I built where, it's like a daily usage kind of thing. I have definitely noticed that, like, things slip by on mobile a lot more because I don't use some of the features. Like I don't use a reminder feature as much anymore and so I haven't really paid attention to that. So definitely the most bugs like get reported about, like those features that I don't use. And but for Ellie, like I think I'm in there pretty deeply with I think, like every single feature, so it's yeah, you, I, you're right.

Like I definitely like the quality and everything is influenced by like when I'm personally like how often I use the app.

Nice. So for Ellie, is your code all on GitHub and open enough that other people can contribute or file issues, or is it something you're intentionally keeping private and just deploying builds from?

Right now it is private. It's private partly because I'm honestly a little ashamed of the code, and I don't necessarily want people seeing it yet. And so I've done that like three times with with, like mobile and Ellie where I'm like, okay, you should like, you should check it out, but I always warn them: like I, like I'm very new to like, like I feel like I'm not that great of a coder and I'm trying to get a lot better, so don't take these as like best practices.

Like I'm, I'm also building really quickly and but I feel like the people who have checked it out, they were like: oh, this is so interesting to see. Like the you know the technical debt you amassed on purpose to move quickly, or like the shortcuts you did. So maybe I think if I polish it up or I do a couple of Sprints where I like refactor code, then maybe it'll see the light of a day. But yeah, for now it's. If anyone wants to see it, you can just reach out and I'll. I'm very open to like letting them check it out to see see how it works.

Yeah, speaking of how it works, I'm also curious about your deployment pipeline. You have a web app and an iOS app. Does it all go through GitHub? Is GitHub the source of truth that then flows into production builds, or how do you orchestrate all of that?

Yeah, mainly I just love testing new technologies and new workflows. Recently I moved basically everything, including Mogul, into a setup that feels a lot cleaner to me. But I recently switched to versel for deployment for the, for the for the react apps, and it's been amazing because it also allows me to link up branches, to create staging sites and try things out and do all these things so I can send like. Anytime a user has like a like a really critical bug, where I'm like: oh, this is actually, this could impact a bunch of things, I can use Purcell to spin up a staging link for them to use like.

So every deployment gets a staging link, which is amazing, and then they can just use it and confirm like: oh, this looks good. Then I can just like roll it out to everyone and then for iOS it's a lot more straightforward. It's like test that goes, you know, build it, test flight, then the App Store and yeah, so it's a lot more straightforward there. But Brazil has been like really, it's been so quick and the I love the auto staging links that they have, but it's really simple, very, very basic stuff.

I did not have like any pipeline for the longest time, because I was still going so quickly and I was like I don't need that, I can just, I can just roll this out, and so I used to just just go straight from when it gets committed, let's just push it out. But I'm a little bit more cautious now that I have like a lot more users that are using it. Back when it was like maybe like 100, I didn't care that much, but now I take it like a little more seriously because I get complaints now, like if it goes down or something.

No, that's great to hear. And this isn't me pushing you toward Firebase or anything like that, but today's FirebaseConf actually announced a pretty big upgrade to our hosting story. You can deploy both static and server-side rendered content now, and we're also working on making preview channels line up front-end and back-end versions more closely. When you have some time among the many other things you have to do, I'd love for you to give it a shot. Especially for something like this, I'd be curious how it feels in practice. It's one of the things the team and I have been working really closely on for the past year or so.

Yeah, yeah, we should chat about it. I'd love to hear more about how that works. By the way, I also religiously use Firebase for lots of things, so it's very relevant to me. Like I remember for the longest time, Firebase did not have like or queries, or like they couldn't do like some some sort of searching. That was really basic. And I just remember like when I saw that, I was like I need to follow this blog, like I need to read it religiously, like because I need to know when these new things happen.

But that's like awesome that you guys are coming out with with, like so much, so many nice stuff, so many nice things. So I'll I'll ask you about it later, yeah.

Absolutely. Now getting back to Ellie and the record, you recently tweeted that you're going to focus more on the marketing side, not just the product side. How do you think about doing that at scale? Do you pay somebody? Do you run ads? What's your thought process for going big?

Yeah. This is something I'm really new to, so I'm also trying to figure it out. Right now a lot of it is still experimentation. So, like, when it comes to things like SEO, when it comes to things like like content and traffic, some of these things are actually pretty common. And then there's like other things that are a bit different, but the way that I'm thinking of about it is, given my limited like bandwidth, I want to do things that like really maximize my like kind of lack of time or the fact that I only have like pockets of time to do so.

For example, like I considered, oh, maybe I'll do like a lot of Social Media stuff, and then I realize like I don't have the bandwidth to like do it consistently like I don't think I can. So one of the first things that I- I 100- will do which I learned from doing like aloe marketing, is, like I really should start investing in like SEO and like and like content, because it's something that I can do in my own time.

I can start building up and I'm sure you know, like, literally creating content, like this is something that, like you know you could kind of do asynchronously or at your own pace, but it'll like reap benefits over time and like as like as as time goes on. So, that's the first thing I'm gonna do, and then for mobile. I experimented a lot with different things. So I actually experimented with paid ads, which I actually learned a lot about. The biggest thing that paid ads got me was testing out different audiences and figuring out, oh, who should Mogul be for? That was super fascinating.

And then, I also experimented a little bit with Partnerships, so like partnering with like mbas, MBA students, or like MBA schools, or different things for like Mogul, I'm not sure what I can do with Ellie, but I might like re, like, revisit those like the paid ads and the Partnerships, but 100. The first one, given the time constraints, is going to be like more content, inbound, organic stuff, and I'm going to be creating all the content yourself. We're going to be Outsourcing it to some other company. I think I'm going to be creating it myself.

I'm going to start first with more like programmatic stuff, which I honestly, just because it's out of Interest, like I'm very interested in like how to do this. But, and what I mean by that is like, spinning up different landing pages that are like more or less like Auto generated, but just swapping out like large pieces of content, and then and so experimenting with some of these, targeting certain keywords, and then, I think I'm going to be writing a lot of the content.

So I'm gonna have to probably take a break, which is why I tweeted like I'm gonna have to take a step back and yeah, I'm just kind of in pure like maintenance, like bug fixing mode or like very critical features that I think I can crank out, and I think for the next like month or two, it's just gonna be like let's just focus on content. So all my Dev time will basically be going to like creating content right now.

No, that's exciting. I'd be curious to see how all of that pans out, and which variation of the homepage I land on at some point in the future when I visit it. But Chris, this was great. I learned a lot about how you're building in public, how you went from tweeting ideas to actually building something, and all the thought process involved in moving through each stage of building an application and getting it in front of more and more people.

Yes, definitely. I am really excited, especially since I'm documenting everything. If we ever do a follow-up or do something, we can always kind of share and compare: "Okay, how did that stuff pan out? How did the marketing pan out? How did these things work? Did it actually work?" That's the beauty of documenting this publicly and doing something like this podcast. Thank you so much for having me.

Oh, absolutely. Thank you for your time. And yes, I think we definitely need a round two of this where we get to follow up on what you've learned since then, and the things you might do differently next time around it. Sweet. Awesome. Yeah, yeah, thank you so much.

Thank you so much for having me.