MoneyCoach Diaries is my ongoing journey to turn my indie app into a more sustainable part of my business. First time reading? See what happened until now by tapping this link.
First things first I would like to thank all of you for the support and the feedback you gave me by replying to this email. I am not naming names, but you know who you are. Thank you! I am glad that you liked the idea of the MoneyCoach Diaries and I am happy to announce that I will be doing them every 15 days. I will be sharing my journey with you, the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, the wins and the losses. I will be sharing my thoughts, my ideas, my plans, my goals, my dreams, my hopes, my fears, my failures, my successes, my everything. I will be sharing my life with you. My goal is to motivate you to take action and follow your dreams, but also at the same time understand that behind apps and companies there are real people with real lives and real problems.
Back to our scheduled programme. In the first two weeks of August, I was not in Berlin. I was in a sunny, Mediterranean place, enjoying the sun, the sea, the food, the drinks, the company of my family and friends. I was on workation. Who am I lying to? I was on vacation, since I didn't have to prepare my kids for the daycare or do anything kid-related until 5 PM. I got to spend a lot of time with my kids, my wife, my brother, my relatives, my friends. I got to relax, to recharge my batteries, to get a new perspective on things, to get a new perspective on life. Oh and had a couple of little friendly fights too. Who can relate to that, raise your hands please 🤚.
Now you might ask, what about MoneyCoach? What happened there? Well, I am glad you asked. Let me open my version control app, GitTower and see what I did.
2 New App Updates Released
I released two new updates for MoneyCoach, version 8.6.1 and 8.6.2. I would not get into the details here. I will just link the release notes and you can see what we did there.
Talk to Users
You might know that I am a big fan of talking to users. I love to hear their stories, their problems, their ideas, their suggestions, their feedback. That is why a couple of months ago I took over the WhatsApp channel, since there we talk to our Premium users. Based on your feedback, I implemented 2 new improvements.
- Now you can see how much you spent on a budget vs how much you have budgeted for something.
- I added a filter to group the transactions by month, for those who get paid biweekly or weekly. This filter is available in the Net Worth report and in the Summary report.
Screen Time Realtime Needs Some love
We recently released a new app designed for those who want to take control of their app usage and develop healthier digital habits. Launching a new app is always difficult, especially for indie developers like us with limited marketing budgets.
So here's how you can help us. Just download Screen Time Realtime and leave a positive rating or review. That's it. You have no idea how much that helps a small indie dev like me.
Now if you have already downloaded the app, please let me know what you think about it and any ideas of how I can improve it.
MoneyCoach for iOS 17 is progressing
A lot to do here. I got to work on the new interactive widgets. Basically I want you to add a new transaction from the home screen, without opening the app. We already have a Today widget (that's how Apple calls them), but those are not reliable, because they were deprecated by Apple. So the new way to go are interactive widgets. We have to design it in a way that considers not only the amount, but categories and accounts too. And the other problem is that you cannot scroll inside a widget. You just have to use buttons for navigating up and down or left and right. I am still working on this, but I am confident that I will find a solution.
Keyboard changes
Some iOS 17 beta users complained about keyboards acting funny when entering a transaction. Hopefully the problem will fix itself, but just in case, I am working on a different solution.
New Onboarding
I want to improve onboarding for new users. I want to make it easier for them to get started with MoneyCoach. And easier for them to understand how to use the app. The goal is to convert more users, because we need to pay the bills and keep the lights on. And buy dairy products, the price of which has gone up astronomically.
All-new MoneyCoach for watchOS 10
I am working on a new version of MoneyCoach for watchOS 10. I am not going to say much here, but I am excited about this. I think you will like it. We fully redesigned it. As of now, nothing works. But I am confident that I will be able to release it in September. The main problem here is that now we have to support 2 apps into 1, the watchOS 9 app and the watchOS 10.
Golden Ticket to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory
A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from Apple. They invited me to see and try first-hand the all-new Apple Vision Pro. I was so happy and excited. I was jumping up and down like a little kid. I will be going to Munich next week to try the device and see what it can do. I don't think I am allowed to talk specifics. Nevertheless it will be awesome to test my apps in person.
Which brings me to the other point. Many apps are not ready for the new Apple Vision Pro. MoneyCoach included. I will focus on that after the official release of iOS 17. Until then, we have bigger fish to fry.
Searching for influencers and partners
I am looking for influencers to promote MoneyCoach. I am looking for people who are passionate about personal finance, who are passionate about helping others, who are passionate about making the world a better place. Althought I talked to a lot of them, the offer still doesn't seem to be economically viable for me. I am still looking for the right people to work with. And if you are one of them, or know someone, please remember that we don't have money to light up on fire, like VC-based companies do. For me the math is simple. If you cost less than what I generate from subscriptions - taxes - Apple's cut - our salaries and expenses, then we can work together. If not, then we can't. I am not here to burn money just to get downloads. I am here to build a sustainable business that will last for decades.
New MoneyCoach Website
We improved the website and now we are getting some traffic from Google. I will be working on this more in the future, but for now I am happy with the results. If you are into SEO or have something to share, hit me up.
............. And as I am writing this, I got an email from American Express, saying they blocked my company's card, because they can't pull the money from my other company's bank account. This is the kind of stuff we deal with on a daily basis. I am not complaining, I am just saying that this is the reality of running a business.
I have to take a rain check. Talk to you later.
Stay healthy, Perjan
