February 2021 Updates
Posted onRecap: February 2021
Just like last month, most of my time was spent working on launching Thought Detox on the App Store. This had a lot more to do with all of the other moving parts, besides the app: the landing page, the marketing copy, the press emails, and the Product Hunt announcement.
Here’s what the download numbers looked like for February:
- HoneyJar: 9 downloads (-55% ▽)
- Per: 8 downloads (+14% △)
- Thought Detox: 127 downloads
Thought Detox is the only paid app; it was available for pre-order at USD$0.99 for one week, then launched on February 15 at the same price; one week later (February 22), it went up to its regular price of US$2.99 — making for Dropped Bits’ first profitable month in a long time!
Revenues and proceeds on February sales are estimates based on the information I get from Apple, in US Dollars.
- Revenues, February 2021: USD$218 (what customers paid Apple)
- Proceeds, February 2021: USD$178 (what Apple pays me)
- Expenses, February 2021: CAD$129 (approximately USD$103)
Now, this isn’t quit-your-job money, but it’s still a far better response to anything I’ve launched before. I wrote more about how the launch went here.
Out with the Old
As mentioned in the past few updates, HoneyJar is no longer available for sale on the App Store. If you downloaded it prior to March 1st, 2021, you can always download it again.
I’ll admit that it’s been bittersweet. HoneyJar was the first iOS app I ever launched, and I learned a lot from it. I never did much in the way of marketing, and despite that it was still downloaded around 2,800 times. But I don’t think it ever really found its way towards product-market fit — it provided some interesting visualizations, sure, but beyond that I don’t think its value proposition was especially interesting.
As a one-person “team”, I’ve got to be very deliberate about where I focus the scraps of time, energy, and attention that I steal from daily life, and HoneyJar frankly wasn’t worth that investment.
In with the New
On the other hand, Thought Detox’s launch went better than I expected:
- 📰 It was included in Club MacStories’ weekly list of “notable app debuts” on February 19th
- 📰 It was featured on iMore on February 25th
- 📲 It was downloaded 127 times in two weeks (127 units)
- 🚀 To date, it’s got 193 upvotes on Product Hunt (come on, help me break 200!)
- 👍 It got two really great reviews on the App Store, with a total of three 5-star ratings ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’ll be releasing a new version soon that fixes some bugs and sets the app up for translation to other languages. Check out the public roadmap to see what I’m working on, and add your own suggestions, thoughts, and votes!
