Show HN: My weekend project: Scrollendar (for iOS)

by smweber • 15 years ago

1 3 15 years ago

smweber2• 15 years ago

Hi all,

I'm hoping to get some feedback on my second iOS app, Scrollendar. My first app, LessonLog, is pretty niche (teachers with iPhones), so Scrollendar is my first app that I feel has a chance at any kind of popularity.

Some background: I finished Scrollendar v1 and got it on the App Store last May. The first version only took about a week to build, and although I was fairly happy with it, it had some rough edges. Having an engineering background, I figured I'd leave the marketing until after I submitted a few updates and got things a little more polished.

However, I made two assumptions that (unsurprisingly) turned out to be false:

1. I greatly underestimated the amount of time needed to fix the rough edges and be really happy with the final product. I ended up adding the scrolling day view, which ended up being a lot of work, then I rewrote the entire backend due to deficiencies in NSDate and EventKit. What I figured would take a couple weeks took over a month.

2. I greatly overestimated the amount of people that would find Scrollendar without any marketing. I wasn't expecting many people to find it through organic App Store searches, but I figured at least one or two people would stumble on it each day. What actually happened is after an initial spike of six whole downloads the first day, the daily downloads quickly dropped to zero. I haven't had a single purchase in the last 30 days. This is even less than my niche teaching app LessonLog.

So I'm hoping to get some feedback on the app and the website (scrollendar.com). I'd also love any tips for a first time mobile app marketer. I've poured over every HN post that has anything to do with online marketing, and most of it comes down to: - have a viral component to the app (not really applicable to Scrollendar) - build a following online with a well written blog and great social media posts (I have neither right now) - build a great website with lots of useful content (like bingo cards) to drive search traffic (again, not really applicable)

So basically, my online marketing plan boils down to: e-mail mobile app review sites. Is this sufficient? What else can someone in my position do?

Thanks in advance! Scott

iamdave• 15 years ago

Works with Google Calendar, Exchange

Sold.

But I'm an Android user, if you port it, I'll buy it. This is exactly the kind of calendar system I've been on the hunt for, and great UI design by just scrolling through the months (based on the screenshots).

smweber2• 15 years ago

I'd love to port it, but I'm at the point where I can't justify spending any more time on it unless I get some sales to prove there is a market for it. That and I don't actually have an Android device :S

If sales actually pick up on iPhone, I think it'd be a good project for me to learn the Android SDK.

Show HN: My weekend project: Scrollendar (for iOS)

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