07 Sep 2014
Josh

Existing month to month, August 2014

This is the third in our series of monthly reports about our product, Exist. Catch up on month one and two.

Let's recap August.

Development

Withings Pulse support launched at the start of August, which was one we'd promised from the start. We still have to integrate weight tracking, but if you're using a Pulse to track your steps and sleep, you'll now get more value from Exist.

Every month we see a significant percentage of recurring payments fail due to credit cards being declined. This month we smoothed out the process of handling this so that Belle and the user both get notified, with the user getting two weeks and multiple reminders to rectify the situation before their account is closed. The high number of card errors is frustrating, though, and we may move from AUD to charging in USD if this fixes the issue. We also allowed users to "suspend" their accounts if they like, so they can retain their data and begin paying again at a later date.

We redesigned the Services page to add logos and descriptions for each service available. This should give more context about how each works and what it's good for.

The most exciting change for me in August was the start of our redesign. By adding the ability to save and track both averages and correlations (rather than just calculating them whenever the user requests the page), we made it much easier to actually make use of this data! You'll see the results of this in our new"organiser view" redesign which gives much more context to how your day is going.

Other small things: we have Misfit Shine API access, so this is now on the list to integrate; and some better admin reports so we can see which pages are most popular, what users are up to, and more easily resolve issues.

Marketing

Belle jumped on the bandwagon and created us a Pinterest presence this month. We'll be using this to share wearables and Quantified Self products that we round up in our links posts.

We also created some great resource pages this month for the categories of sleep, habits, and productivity. These round up relevant content including stuff we've created for the blog in the past.

In addition, we published three links posts and two new blog posts:

Hustling, strategy, other business stuff

This month we talked to some Australian 500 Startups alum, to hear about their experience and get some tips for applying. We don't expect to get in, as they're very traction-focused, but we'd still love the resources and help from really smart people that come with high-level accelerators — so we continue to apply.

The other news: Hello Code has officially launched our second product! This month we built and launched The List, a premium newsletter for anyone learning the process of content marketing and creating authentic content. In particular we're trying to help developers, and early-stage startups in general, get started with marketing in a way that doesn't make them hate themselves. It is possible!

We're also looking for a new Hello Code HQ in Melbourne's inner North and inner Eastern suburbs.

The numbers

Business stats
  • 356 users (301 paid)
  • 7% growth from last month with 24 signups
  • 5% churn with 18 cancelled accounts
  • $863.42 earned after Stripe fees
  • $0 earned from The List
Site stats
  • 3,025 uniques to the exist.io landing page (down 25% from July)
  • 5,894 uniques to the blog (down 36% from July)
  • 2,962 uniques to our top blog post, How does your tracker know you're asleep? (same post up 7% from July)
  • Top traffic sources were organic search, Twitter, the Buffer blog

August: how'd we do?

Last month I planned on adding Withings integration, which I did get done. I'm still working on calendar integration — sadly I missed this deadline. Next month! We also decided to put off introducing free trials until we're closer to rolling out our redesign.

However, our churn reduced a little and that is cause for celebration. I alternate regularly between depression at our slow growth, our product, our skills, our teensy incomes right now — and optimism that we're close to getting it right. Overall, though, I'm enthused about our plans and confident (more confidence, Josh, come on) we're on our way to bigger things.

Next month

This month is the month of calendar integration, launch of the free trial, and launch of our redesign. I haven't learned yet that I never hit these targets, so once again I boldly make claims I probably can't back up.

See you next month.

Exist helps you make sense of your data and understand your life. It really is terribly good.

Author and co-founder @joshsharp is on Twitter until they make a better Twitter-like social network. Say hi.