Building An Indie App Business #61

About major HabitKit updates and embracing the mobile ecosystem.

Welcome back to another issue of my weekly indie log, where I share insights and experiences from my journey as an entrepreneur building a profitable mobile app business. I'm happy to announce that I've reached a cool milestone this week: this newsletter has now grown to 600 subscribers! Super happy about this progress and I just wanted to say that whether you're a long-time reader or just joined recently, thank you for being part of this community.

Let's start with the real content:

📈 Business Updates

I'm excited to share that HabitKit 1.11.0 has finally been released! The phased rollout is still in progress, but I expect it to be completed by the beginning of next week. This update brings some of the most requested features that users have been asking for.

The highlight of this release is the introduction of unlimited completions per day. Previously, users were limited to just 38 completions, but now they can track as few as 3 or as many as 3000, there's no limit anymore. This flexibility allows for tracking more complex metrics such as calories consumed, minutes spent on activities, pages read, and much more. Basically, whatever they can imagine.

Another significant improvement is the ability to exceed daily goals. Now, even after hitting the target for the day, users can continue to track additional completions when they're feeling extra motivated or productive. Some days are simply better than others, and users should be able to record those achievements. This feature was requested so many times and I'm happy to have finally added this.

I have also simplified the habit editing experience with this update. The habit edit view now hides complex configuration options behind a "Show advanced options" button. My hope is that this change makes the initial user experience less overwhelming, especially for new users who are just getting started with the app. I got a ton of feedback that people were confused by "Completions Per Day", "Categories", and "Reminders" when setting up their very first habit. Now it should be a better and more streamlined user experience!

As usual, all new features are completely optional and don't alter the basic behavior of the app. Users can continue using HabitKit exactly as they always have. Maintaining this backward compatibility is extremely important to me, as I'm trying to keeping the app as minimal and clean as possible while still adding valuable functionality.

Beyond this release, there hasn't been much notable business development to report. Numbers are still strong, but also declining because of the seasonal nature of my app's niche - habit tracking apps typically see a natural drop in usage and new installs as we move further away from the New Year's resolution season. Because I already experienced this last year, I am way more releaxed seeing those numbers drop.

🛠️ Development Corner

I've started work on HabitKit 1.11.1 which will include several bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements based on user feedback and my own observations after the major release.

One of the updates I'm implementing is a link to Liftbear in the HabitKit settings. I decided to add this cross-promotion to see if HabitKit users might be interested in checking out my first app, Liftbear, which is a workout tracker available on both iOS and Android. Since there's natural overlap between people tracking habits and fitness enthusiasts, this seems like a cool way to create some synergy between my products.

I'm also adding a "Manage Subscription" button to the app. I receive many emails from users wanting to cancel their subscriptions, many who don't realize they can do this themselves directly through the App Store or Google Play. By adding this button to the "Subscribed" state of the paywall, I hope to reduce these support requests while making the process more intuitive for users.

The update will include new icons as well. After reviewing the latest updates to the FontAwesome library, I've added a couple of new icons that users specifically requested. The icon set now has more options for medical and pet-related habits, which should help users better visualize and organize these categories of activities.

Perhaps the most significant development is making the "Week Starts On" setting fully configurable. Two years ago, I added the option to start the week on Sunday (which is common in North America, I think?), and many users have since requested the same for Saturday. I've decided to completely refactor this functionality to allow users to set any day of the week as their starting day. This means users will be able to configure Wednesday, or any other day, as the first day of their week if they prefer.

This last change requires a substantial refactoring effort since the week-start logic affects many areas of the app, including streak calculations, habit statistics, and calendar views. It's definitely a risky update, but I believe it's worth it to provide this level of customization, especially for users whose work schedules or cultural backgrounds make a non-standard week start more natural for their habit tracking.

💡 Indie Insights

The saying "the grass is always greener on the other side" has been super relevant to me lately. I've been following the Laravel web development community more closely these past few weeks, watching their ecosystem grow with exciting new tools and services. This observation has triggered a recurring thought pattern that I've noticed in myself throughout my indie journey.

When I began my indie hacking adventure, I was transitioning directly from a web development-focused role as a software engineer. Although my background was in web technologies, all my business and app ideas seemed better suited for mobile platforms. Now that I've gained a footing in the mobile ecosystem with my apps, I frequently catch myself thinking, "Man, I wish I was running a web SaaS instead." The web world lures me with its cooler technologies, instant deployments without App Store review delays, and freedom from dealing with platform-specific differences between iOS and Android.

These moments happen quite often, and I have to actively remind myself that the grass truly is always greener on the other side. I'm confident that many web SaaS entrepreneurs experience similar thoughts in reverse. They probably think, "I wish I were building mobile apps, where the App Store handles distribution and marketing, where I don't need to worry about browser compatibility issues, and where offline data storage comes built-in". Each platform has its unique advantages that look appealing when you're dealing with the challenges of the other side.

Rather than questioning my path, I've decided that I should be content with the mobile app ecosystem I'm currently in and double down on this space. There's tremendous value in not spreading myself thin across multiple projects, technolgies or platforms. By embracing where I am rather than where I could be, I can better utilize my existing knowledge to continue growing my indie app business.