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Building an app is like an enormous, enormous amount of effort and I find it's literally hundreds of times easier if it's something you care about and even if nobody else uses it you'll be able to use it and enjoy it. So I always try to tell people like build something that you yourself will enjoy and you know a lot more about it in that way so you can approach it from a more unique perspective.

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For how to build a successful business. I'm your host Ilya Bezdeliv, I'm a CEO and co-founder of Metacast, a new podcast app that we are about to ship in a couple of months and with me is my co-host fellow co-founder and CEO of Metacast, Arnapp Deca. Arnapp, why don't you take it away?

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Today we have with us Christian Selig, Christian is the creator of the much loved Apollo app. It's one of the most well-known iOS apps for Reddit was we'll talk about all that journey. Christian, your tenacity working on the app for so long the whole journey, it's kind of inspiring for me personally. So welcome to the podcast.

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That's very nice of you to say thank you. It's a real honor. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. So before I guess we get into all of that Apollo and the kerfuffle with Reddit and everything else, why don't you introduce yourself to us?

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I'm an iOS developer from Eastern Canada. I've been doing this gosh probably about ten years now more or less professionally. And yeah, I kind of just try to build apps that I would enjoy and hopefully other people would enjoy normally kind of scratch my own itch.

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I've had a lot of fun doing that over the years and hope to keep being able to do it is fire into the future. Right. The most well-known one is Apollo, but you did do pixel pals and I think there was one more before X syllabus or syllables or yeah, yeah, yeah, I had that. Yeah, probably a few years before Apollo was my first app I had released during university. Yeah, it's a good time.

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So where you always like right from school, you are always into like I want to build apps are specifically iOS apps kind of yeah, like I think when I was finishing high school, it was kind of that.

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I don't know if you're super familiar, but there was that period where Apple had all those commercials for like, oh, there's an app for everything or there's an app for that apps for this cool new thing that people didn't know about.

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And I think it's a great idea to me as like a teenager like this that you could build something on your computer and then publish it and some guy walking down the street could be using something you built that didn't seem like a thing before that.

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I'm sure it was, but it just kind of was like holy crap. That's really cool. And I really liked Apple stuff. So it seemed like something that's like, okay, I'm trying to figure out what to do after high school. That feels like a good thread to tug on.

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So I ended up going down that route and it was a pretty good decision. I think all things considered.

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You can be too of a ditor here. You mentioned your teenager when Apple came up with apps and all that. So you know, when we were graduating universities at age 22 or something, iPhone didn't even exist at that point.

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The smartphones were the Nokia phones with buttons and blackberries. So I was always curious because I guess I don't get to meet many people who are kind of much younger than me.

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How old were you when you first experienced a computer or a phone or something? Any kind of like technological gadget if you even remember.

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I want to say it was later than a lot of school mates I would have had. It was around like 11 or so. I think my family finally got like a Windows XP computer.

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Yeah, yeah. That was kind of my first exposure. It wasn't anything like really groundbreaking to me. Like I think the first tech I fell in love with was when I got an iPod.

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The computer would have been around 10s. I was like, Blumry. Obviously you're like the kids who were like started programming at three years old. And I wasn't quite there. But yeah, it was a lot of fun.

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So how did you like work your way into like Apple? You were an intern there. You also work there for a little bit or.

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Yeah, yeah. It was like during university our university had like a co-op program. So they're like, go find a job. I was already doing like they wanted you to do three internships.

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And I was doing my second in Toronto at a company. And I was actually about to go back to school. But I saw that they had a job posting for an internship at Apple.

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And I was like, I'll just send a PDF and apply and see if they say anything like not intended to hear anything back. And like I had plenty tickets book to go back home.

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And yeah, I think like a week later a recruiter emailed back and like we did a bunch of interviews. And I ended up going to California that summer, which was really fun.

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Unexpected departure for me. And that was like my last joby job that I had like a regular paycheck coming in through. Yeah, that was almost like 10 years ago now.

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What were you working on there in your internship?

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The team doesn't exist anymore as far as I know, but it was kind of like this enterprise app development side of things. It was almost like evangelism where they did a lot with working with companies on how to build apps well.

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Back then was a lot of the time when a lot of companies were building web apps instead of normal apps. And they were being like, okay, here's why a native app is a better experience. And we can show you some best practices.

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And it was a lot of fun in that way. There was like so many smart people there you got to work with and learn a lot from. And it was fun only enough the summer that Swift came out.

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So it was like a cool place to be in terms of everyone at Apple. A lot of them learning about it for the first time and kind of trying to figure it out.

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And it was 2014 you said. Yeah, yeah. And you had already started working on Apollo before this, right? Or yeah, I think I had the general idea in the back of my head.

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I don't know if I had any code at the point Apollo is like 100% Swift. So if I had any code before it, I ended up throwing it out. But I think it was just kind of like design ideas at the time.

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Because an Apple is really touchy about like when you're working there, you can't work on any apps of your own. I think I like officially started getting serious about it the September or whatever it was after I finished the Apple.

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What drove you to like focus on our Reddit client, Reddit app?

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Well, with my first app syllable, like it was a similar thing where it was to help you learn to read faster. And it was kind of just something I wanted to learn how to do.

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And I was kind of thinking about, oh, what do I want to do after this? And I really loved Reddit. But I was using it all the time. It was like super big during university.

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And at that point, there wasn't really any apps out for iOS that were kind of what I wanted in a Reddit app, similar to what you folks are doing with like the podcast space.

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And I was like, I use this so often. So I want it to be exactly what I want. If I'm using it this often, it's like having like a, I don't know, like being a carpenter and having a hammer.

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If you're using it that often, you want it to be really good and really comfortable in your hand. So I was like, screw it.

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And like, at that point, to be clear, like, alien blue and a few others were out and they were like phenomenal apps, but they just didn't like perfectly jive with me. Like I wanted something that felt really like appley.

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Maybe it was just finished the internship there, but I wanted something that was like super iOS design. I got started on that and ended up being a lot of fun. Like I learned so much doing it because I was still pretty green as an iOS developer.

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But yeah, just building something for myself there and finding what worked and what I like. It was a really fast and fun journey getting to something that I could actually use.

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And yeah, it was a lot of fun. Where did the name come from?

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So I was walking around campus with a friend of mine and I was like, I could not come up with a name for it. And we were trying to think of like how you could come up with a name.

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We were going along the line of thinking like, okay, reddit with its mascot and whatnot. It's like kind of an alien. So there's kind of like a space theme going on.

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And this reddit app helps you explore reddit, which is kind of space theme. So what helps you explore space and you're like, okay, kind of like a spaceship.

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And then I was like Apollo is one of the most famous spaceships or space shuttles. I guess. And I was like, that's a great name. It's alphabetically high. It has like a nice punch to the name.

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As soon as I said it aloud, it was like, that's the name. That's perfect. I really like that.

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I guess I'm just realizing that it also sounds very close to Apple itself.

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It does. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, I don't even sure I ever put that together. But yeah, there's kind of a nice mix there. And it kind of has app in the name too.

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So there's a bunch of little Easter eggs there almost. And it turns out I didn't realize until like years later that the day that the Apollo space shuttle landed on the moon or whatever his birthday.

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I was important in 1969, but it was like the same day of the year. So a lot of people were like, oh, you named it that because you have the same birthday. And I was like, no, it just happened to work out like that.

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Yeah, it's a good name. So tell us a bit about your mindset at this point. You're like fresh out of an internship. What gave you the, I guess the conviction that this is what you want to do.

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And was it more about hobby project at that time or was it like a full time? This is what I'm going to put all my time into for the next. However many years it takes.

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At the beginning, I think it was effectively just like a hobby project. I built syllable and it gave some like nice like a few hundred bucks a month here, which in university is like your millionaire.

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So that was handy and I was satisfied with that and where it was. So I was looking for something new to cut my teeth on. And I knew it would be a big project, but I know I liked it a lot. So I could probably just see it through just for my own use.

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So it became something that I just wanted to do as like a fun thing to do. And in worst case scenario, it would be a good item for the resume or something.

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But mostly it was just I love building apps and it was something fun to build and then eventually get to the point where I'm like, hey, this is usable. Like maybe some other people would care about this and I ended up posting about it. And thankfully people did. And at that point it kind of became like maybe this can evolve further than just a hobby project and it can become something that I can turn into something of a career.

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Because when I finished Apple and started doing it, I think I still had two semesters left or maybe even three of university. So I had quite a bit of time before I had to go into the real world where I could build Apollo.

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So I was still just finishing it there during university. And I think by the time I graduated, it was at a good point. And I was like, okay, I can either go get a job or I can like see this thing through that a lot of people seemed to actually like and maybe it'll be worthwhile.

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Yeah, thankfully I ended up going with it. Great. Yeah. How long did it take for that initial like from a hobby phase to like, okay, maybe I want to throw this out into the world and maybe people will like it.

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That's a great question. I want to say it was about a year and a half of building out somewhat seriously. Maybe closer to a year. I can't quite remember, but it was somewhere around a year where I was happy enough that I can at least show this to people. It's very alpha.

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It's not a beta. It's the very alpha level, but it's comfortable enough that I can post it. So tell us a bit about like what was in there. There were no notifications back then from what I remember you could browse ready.

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I guess could you like comment where pretty much all what you would expect from a client already in there for the initial beta. It was pretty bear down. You could comment and browse subreddits.

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You could definitely sign in and everything, but it was I remember like the initial alpha was like very very alpha. There was a lot of bugs and a lot of things I needed to fix.

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I think it took me like from when the beta was posted another year and a half of work to get it from this unpolished potential to something that I could actually submit.

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And by the time it was actually available for purchase on the app store, if anything, I think I went too far and I kept adding more and more features because I was like it needs this in order to be a compelling app at launch. There's already read it apps and if it doesn't do feature X nobody's going to take it seriously.

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We are familiar with this item.

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And in all honesty, I probably could have released it earlier and it would have been fine. But yeah, I just kept tacking on features and I remember my girlfriend was just like stop. I can tell you're adding a feature that's stop it. There's bugs work on those.

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I eventually got out the door, but like because of that in decision, I guess the end result it actually had quite a few features for the initial like there is tons more by the end, but the initial launch is pretty feature packed I think.

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You mean the initial public launch walk us through when you had your alpha when you had your beta, the public launch before using some kind of private groups for testing.

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Actually, I don't know if it was available back then test flight and all.

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Yeah, test flight was available, but it would have been pretty young. It was still independent from Apple.

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No, I think at this point it was part of Apple, but it would have been like it was relatively recent. I don't think I was smart enough to figure out all this stuff before that it was really tricky to coordinate all the beta tester stuff.

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But I want to say it was like January of maybe 2015 that I like, OK, I think this is something that I can talk about. It's shaped enough that it's something I can talk about.

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And I posted it on Reddit on one of like the promotional days and I'm like, Hey, I'm working on a Reddit client. It's more of a focus on an iOS first design.

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Is anybody interested in beta testing? I hear some screenshots and videos and whatnot. And it ended up like that post went pretty viral as far as like Reddit Apple only posts went and I had more beta testers than I could ever use fully.

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And I ended up adding them. And then I think it took yeah, a year and a half after that I finally ended up releasing it. But through that period I just had all those beta testers who were like, come on, release it and all these people who hadn't gotten to the beta who had heard about it from the beta tester,

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stalking about it who wanted to be in a release. So there is a decent amount of pent up demand by the time I did actually get around posting it, which helped with the launch, which also went really well.

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Can you share if you remember how many people were there was like in the hundreds or thousands for the beta testing? That's a great question. This was the period where I think Apple had apps. They do still, but it was much lower than where I think like when I first launched it was like you can have 1000 beta testers and that maxed out.

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And I think by the end it was like 5000 maybe and I think it pretty much had that more or less fill at this point. There was no like pricing or anything right from what I remember.

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Yeah, yeah, it was just at that point by the time the app was released like I hadn't made a dollar off of it. You can't make money through beta is obviously just how test flight works. But yeah, there was no like pre-order pricing or anything. And I'm not even sure. I think I always knew in the back my head.

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I was like all of a pro version that unlocks some extra features because that was just how things worked on the apps are back then. But yeah, yeah, so I was hoping for the launch.

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So I'm curious for your very first priced version. How do you think about pricing, what kind of tiers were available and how do you think about setting the price point?

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I didn't put a lot of thought into it because I was still like basically a kid just trying to release an app I hadn't thought about it as much as I maybe should. And I think I kind of just looked around at what other apps in the space were doing.

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And in hindsight, like it was comically cheap, like I think it was like a dollar 99 for bro like when I first launched it.

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And I think that's just like what alien blue. Because I think by the time I launched it to the reddit app or reddit had bought alien blue.

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And then turned alien blue into the official app. So there was already like a popular free app because alien blue would be made free as well. So like there was kind of like I can't charge 20 dollars for this because people are going to be like well, I'm happy with what I already have.

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I wanted a price that was a low enough barrier of entry that you could kind of just impulse buy it and not be too bothered.

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Well also keeping it so like if you didn't want to buy it at all, it's still be good. So that was kind of where I approached it from in hindsight.

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And then the time app was closed. It was like $5 for the pro version just because it was one of those things where like you got so much for the price. It was kind of silly pricing it as little as I did.

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And as I increased it over the years, I don't know if I got a single person who was like this is unreasonable. So not the most educated and initial pricing, but it worked out okay.

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And it was a one of payment no subscription.

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Yeah, exactly. There was no subscriptions. And I think the first subscription I added like a year later because I started having some like ongoing fees with one of the features I wanted to introduce.

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But at the initial it was free. You could pay like $1.99 and I think David Smith had a similar thing in his pedometer plus plus app that I thought was really cool where it was like you can pay $1.99 you can pay like $5 or you can pay 10.

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Like basically pay what you want to unlock it. And I thought that was super cool. In hindsight, I think like 95% of people just chose whatever the cheapest option was in my head.

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People are going to be really generous. But ultimately people just want the cheapest option available. So it didn't work out quite like that. But it was kind of yeah that tip-a-system.

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Yeah, you had a tip-john everything very early on itself. Yeah, I remember.

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Can I ask question about the tip-john because we were considering something like that as well. The plans that we want to introduce in our app and it will be like the free climate ads and kind of an ad-free and almost like a pro version kind of thing.

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Then we also want to add like a supported version which is double the price of the pro. There's no extra features. So it's like if you want to give us more money, you're welcome to.

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So how did it work for you? Do you remember what percentage of people paid you more than the minimum?

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Honestly, my memory is that it was very low. I want to say like 90% plus percent of people just chose whatever the cheapest option was.

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And it was to the extent that like I think by the end for the pro version, I think I just had the one button just because in my head I was thinking like if 90% plus percent of people are choosing just the one option having like the three or five options or whatever I did is just going to confuse that 90% who already know what they're like maybe I can get the total amount of people buying a higher by just making the page less confusing.

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Sure, I'll lose like an extra dollar tip here and there but maybe the entire tide will increase kind of thing. So it wasn't that big for me. I also had a separate tip jar that was kind of just like oh you bought pro maybe you just really like the app and you're like dang I'm feeling generous today you can throw an extra two bucks in or whatever it got used here and there but it was like compared to the price of unlocking the actual app it was like maybe one percent of all app revenue.

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So that was kind of like you could take it or leave it the only time I found it did make a big difference was near the end I started I forgot who I saw did it but I'd have a change log that would be like hey I added like feature XYZ to this version the app and people love that they'd be like oh great like and see that oh there's all these new features that I care about whereas if there wasn't like kind of an alert I probably would just not know that features there.

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And then eventually I was like oh I'll just add up the bottom like a button like how if you like these extra features throw in two dollars and that ended up being used like a hundred times more than like the separate tip jar almost like a contextual tip jar.

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That made a difference but I find one on the apps or page and the one that was kind of just like separate you had to find it yourself just said of good will that I don't think was super worthwhile.

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It's an interesting question though because I know with ivory for instance the mass and on client Paul has it so you can I think like there's effectively those two versions where you pay like $10 a year or you can pay 20 and just out of the goodness of your heart and I know like myself and a lot of people pay extra just because you know these developers there nice people yeah you care about and like maybe that's the way to go I feel like it would almost be different with subscriptions where like it just feels like easier buried entry where like I was much more willing to do that especially if you know the developers you kind of know their story it's definitely something worth playing around with.

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You could always a be tested and just say like I'll put it up for 50% of people and like to even move the needle because it might not and I might just make the page more confusing but it's it's worth testing quick detour while we're on the topic of like tips and revenue from tips and all that you had some really cool t-shirts and stuff to I have one upstart I should have been wearing it today but I forgot.

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No so good I forgot too yeah.

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Anyway so did you design all that how did that come about did you make any substantial revenue of it.

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The whole merch business is another area where I'm just clearly not a very good businessman because like I feel like there's a lot of complexity and a lot of potential revenue there that I just didn't understand too well.

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So for me I just went with cotton bureau and they're fantastic folks they were super helpful and they really high quality stuff and they helped out a lot with getting everything set up and I was basically just like I know Apollo has all these

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app icons that are really well designed from these really talented designers that like I paid quite a bit of money to get designed and I was like instead of just living in the app it would be cool if they had a physical version as well and t-shirts kind of felt like at least for me I was like I want to see this design on a t-shirt maybe some other people will too and I published in there and quite a few people bought them like it wasn't substantially like you see like YouTubers are like 50% of my revenue is merchandise I would be highly surprised if any app developer had even double digit revenue but it definitely helped and it was kind of just always cool seeing someone like me.

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I was always cool seeing someone like yourself saying like oh I have one of those shirts like that's cool you can't put a price on that for me it wasn't a massive mover with cotton bureau there focus so on quality and they take a slightly larger cut than other people it depends too that if you got a partner like I only think I made a few dollars for shirt selling them but there's other partners that if you maybe put in a little bit more work you could maybe like $10 a shirt and then at that point it might be more worthwhile but these were kind of like premium shirts at a premium price so it was kind of like a tricky sell for a lot of people.

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When the app started to like wind down I sold probably 90% of the shirts Apollo ever sold in its lifetime were sold in the last two months and that made like a lot of money and that was one of those ones where I was like damn am I stupid or something like this made up the profit margin yeah yeah I was like I've clearly been neglecting this aspect of the business for years now there's this demand because a lot of people are like I didn't even know you sold shirts so I think I was doing something wrong there yeah it's a tricky one where I think if you are willing to put in the

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time and effort and have some cool designs I think and have a good partner you can work with where you can get the good revenue share I think it's definitely an area worth exploring yeah I'm used to this point because we've been doing some t-shirts here in there like nothing major but I have been playing with a bunch of print on demand providers and actually right now I'm wearing one of the meta cast t-shirts that we did for ourselves it's about 10 bucks you can troll how much you sell them for and then basically their cut is fixed and then yeah you can control your margin and I forgot my question.

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So, why do you remember that another detour of this detour and this is how this podcast goes sometimes by the way you mentioned that you got a lot of like really good app icons done by

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a high profile kind of designers right how did that come about did you reach out to them or where like people interested because they were already loving the app.

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It was very convoluted how I got there I think for the initial like 1.0 app launch I had no designers working on app icons I just remember I think it was

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James Thompson for P.Calc this was around like iOS 10.4 I think when they announced you can change an apps icon like for 10 versions of iOS that was just not a thing and I

00:21:06.960 --> 00:21:18.839
remember thinking like oh that's so cool how James does that in P.Calc like I love that you can customize the icon and I remember being like okay for a Apollo I want that that would be a cool pro feature and people love that just as much as I did like and it hides it it's not super

00:21:18.839 --> 00:21:30.319
surprising like you see important night and stuff how much people loves buying skins and stuff it's not like super surprising that people love customizing things but it was to me at the time and those ended up being a big reason people bought the original

00:21:30.319 --> 00:21:36.680
pro version and honestly it was just like me going into sketch and changing the blue icon to a red one it was super low level graphic design.

00:21:37.039 --> 00:21:50.799
But people really loved it so about a year after Apollo launched I notifications for when you get a reply to your comment or whatever one of the like the bigger feature requests and I was like okay well learn how to build this like push notification server and I did that and I

00:21:50.799 --> 00:22:05.799
like submitted this and I think I called it like I don't even remember it's like Apollo push or Apollo push notifications or something and I was like okay this server cost a fair bit to run because Reddit's API was there was some fun aspects of about how it was built but basically there is no way to

00:22:05.799 --> 00:22:14.119
get a notification when like say you sign into your Reddit account like there's no way for me to know when you got a new message except if I just asked Reddit repeatedly.

00:22:14.119 --> 00:22:21.000
Right there isn't actually a push mechanism from Reddit's API it's you pull it and figure out if there's something new.

00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:31.839
Exactly. So basically if I wanted to get timely and I was competing with the Reddit app so like I didn't want notifications to come 15 minutes late I wanted them to come hopefully within 10 seconds or so so if it was your account

00:22:31.839 --> 00:22:41.799
if I wanted it like every 5 seconds that would be 12 times a minute I'd be checking and if I did that for like say I have a thousand accounts that would be like every 5 seconds I'd be checking a thousand accounts.

00:22:41.799 --> 00:22:55.799
So as especially someone knew the servers like this was complex to build and there was a decent amount of server infrastructure involved in it so it's like crap okay so I can't just have this in pro I'll put myself at a business I'll make it like 99 cents a month or whatever and if you want that you can do it and then

00:22:55.799 --> 00:23:11.599
finally I submit that and Apple like immediately rejected not immediately it took a while but they rejected it and I was like huh and their reason was that you can't monetize built in system features so they were like push notifications are like iOS level feature and you can't monetize something built into iOS and I was like I get that rule

00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:21.719
at a high level but it was like in order for me to provide that feature I have to pay a bunch and we ended up getting on a phone call they were like we get that we can't really remove this rule so what you should do is don't make it a

00:23:21.719 --> 00:23:38.599
Apollo push make it the Apollo pro plus and include push notifications and other stuff and I was like okay I can do that so I ended up changing it to like Apollo ultra and I was like what other features do I want to add and I knew icons for like this really big thing that people liked I was like I'm not a good enough graphic designer where I can be like

00:23:38.599 --> 00:23:51.599
pay 99 cents a month for my artwork nobody would pay for that but I was like I do know like there's great artists in the community let me work with them and I'll make it kind of like hey even if you don't like notifications you can get the new icon every month and people really really like that idea and that kind of just

00:23:51.599 --> 00:24:03.599
be game a thing where I was like okay every month new icon so I gosh like the next six years I want to say just that icon designer every month turn out like a new beautiful icon by the end of it I think there was like over a hundred custom

00:24:03.599 --> 00:24:11.599
like really nicely built icons back to the t-shirts yeah also happen to make really nice t-shirts as well yeah I can't be back to the t-shirts I remember my question

00:24:11.599 --> 00:24:22.599
yes I was curious because you said that the margin was just a few dollars did you have to deal with the returns like if they were like the wrong size was shaped or maybe there was a quality issue

00:24:22.599 --> 00:24:36.599
no thanks really they handled cotton bureau yeah I never handled like a customer issue I never had any of the t-shirts in my own house that I was shipping out like everything everything was handled by them you just upload a png and basically everything the rest of them it was really nice

00:24:36.599 --> 00:24:46.599
about that I ended up at the end going with fourth wall is another provider and the computer samples from them and you can kind of find like a shirt that you're like okay this is a great quality I really like here is the cost

00:24:46.599 --> 00:25:01.599
for sure here's how much I would make for sure you can kind of find like a sweet spot between like a shirt that's really good quality but maybe you won't have to charge the customer $30 to make any money and that kind of changes the calculus and like those companies will also handle the customer support and everything you don't

00:25:01.599 --> 00:25:11.599
have to go full like Linus tech tips and handle all the t-shirt procurement and shipping yourself I don't think I'd ever want to do that most of these companies will handle like all that stuff where you think

00:25:11.599 --> 00:25:21.599
yeah I was thinking more about the case where like if you go to whatever Zara and you buy a t-shirt you come back home like like I don't like it all like the size isn't quite right you just take it back to the store and get your money back

00:25:21.599 --> 00:25:32.599
right or get replacement with an online order I was always assuming that if somebody doesn't like it I mean basically there is no defect with the product right they just want a new one then it's basically just pure cost

00:25:32.599 --> 00:25:47.599
I think and it might be wrong that's a really good point but I think in cotton bureaus case at least like they were so awesome about that I remember a few cases like somebody would pay me on Twitter and be like hey like my shirt the design came like it was slightly off center something like weird where just like one and a hundred

00:25:47.599 --> 00:26:01.599
and cotton bureau would always swoop in and be like just email us will handle it and they would like just give them their money back completely like refund the shipping and everything like just keep the off center shirt you can buy another one if you want but just whatever I don't think that came out of me the creators pocket I think they absorb that as a

00:26:01.599 --> 00:26:14.599
whoopsie on their end their customer service was really great so I don't know for sure but if you just came home from Zara and we're like yeah I really don't like this after all they probably just give you your money back they had such good customer guarantees that I don't think there is really any worry

00:26:14.599 --> 00:26:29.599
there right so let's go back to that so you launched it what was the initial reception like and from what I remember the Apollo app like subreddit that was huge right for you in terms of like getting excellent feedback

00:26:29.599 --> 00:26:42.599
but you were also very engaged in it I think I read somewhere that you have over 20,000 comments in that subreddit like replying to people and all that so talk us through that process like you were the only person working on this by yourself

00:26:42.599 --> 00:26:58.599
so like for the initial launch like I said I had a thousands of beta testers and outside of the beta testers whenever I posted an update on the subreddit there was like another thousand people who weren't beta testers who were like oh this looks so good just post it I knew there was like a decent amount of pent up demand I still at that point didn't know if it would be an issue

00:26:58.599 --> 00:27:23.599
that I'm like okay I can make a full-time job out of this at that point I had graduated university I've been working on this for a year and a half and I was basically just living off of the revenue I made it apple so I was living with a bunch of roommates from college not living like the high life or anything it was very frugal so I was like okay my goal with this launch is hopefully recuperate enough that I can have a little bit of cash for like maybe the next year and then worst case scenario I'll find a proper job after that

00:27:23.599 --> 00:27:52.599
when I finally was like okay I'm ready to publicly launch this I made the post in the apple subreddit and all that pent up demand came in really clutch and people were super excited about it and they uploaded it like crazy and the initial launch was just a thousand times more than I could have ever expected and it did super well and it was kind of like day one I was like okay this is going to be something I can make into a career because you always hear people are leaving grumpy reviews like I have to pay for an app this bullshit it turns out like there's quite a few people who aren't grumpy who maybe don't talk about it but are very happy to pay for quality apps

00:27:52.599 --> 00:28:22.599
and those people came really came through and it did really well on the first day and I'm like okay I can see this through I have a million things I want to do better with it I'm really happy I get to stick with it and I was smart enough one of the few smart things I did do was I made it so the first time you log-in it's kind of like do you want to subscribe to the app all apps subreddit so every time you signed into the app even if you were just testing it you got almost like an email newsletter where you were like part of this subreddit that you're already using the app and so it was kind of like hard to escape what was going on in a part of it was not going so much for me and you can do it that's cool and I mean it's the first time I've got it and I'm happy and I'm like you want to ask you to sign me for the app and I'm not so much about it and I'm like I love it I'm really happy and I'm really happy I

00:28:22.599 --> 00:28:26.359
You could always unsubscribe, but it was always like front and center and in an exciting way.

00:28:26.359 --> 00:28:28.119
So it kind of worked out well for everybody.

00:28:28.119 --> 00:28:31.719
And that meant that I was building it in this public way for all these people to see.

00:28:31.719 --> 00:28:35.079
And I had this big subreddit where people could watch the progress on.

00:28:35.079 --> 00:28:41.000
And it kind of became this like self-momentum entity that I could just keep plugging into over the years to come.

00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:48.199
Yeah, it was a ton of fun just building on that, especially in the beginning where it was so many people had the cool ideas and you were just chatting with them all day and cranking out the

00:28:48.200 --> 00:28:58.200
updates and it was a lot of fun. You never considered getting like a customer support, but I think it's called a customer happiness and whatever else kind of agents and all that.

00:28:58.200 --> 00:29:04.119
I didn't honestly because the vast majority of customer inquiries I'd get were through the subreddit.

00:29:04.119 --> 00:29:07.640
Not a lot of people would post. A lot of the people who used the app were obviously people who

00:29:07.640 --> 00:29:16.119
were familiar with Reddit. And I think they understood that I'll probably be able to get a question or an answer to my question faster if I post it here versus emailing someone in the waiting hours

00:29:16.119 --> 00:29:25.479
or a day for them to answer. So they just post in the subreddit and 99% of the time by the time I saw it somebody else answered the question because it was probably just like an obvious, oh how do I post?

00:29:25.479 --> 00:29:35.638
And they'd be like, oh just go to the subreddit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like 99.9% of like the customer service was automatically handled by this community that grew up and helped each other and

00:29:35.638 --> 00:29:40.279
we're really helpful toward making the app better and better. Right. So I mean that community is

00:29:40.279 --> 00:29:45.719
still super engaged and active. I'm sure you know, but yeah. No, it's a phenomenal spot.

00:29:45.720 --> 00:29:49.480
I think by the end it was almost closing in on a million subscribers. I was just mind boggling

00:29:49.480 --> 00:29:53.799
how many people were there. I think it was ended up being in like the top 500 or 1000 most popular

00:29:53.799 --> 00:29:59.000
subreddits. And this is just like a meta subreddit about an app. But yeah, it's bonkers.

00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:02.759
It's incredible. How do you like your point about offering people to automatically subscribe to

00:30:02.759 --> 00:30:07.559
this subreddit? I think it comes to mind is all of those like you make a purchase of a t-shirt from

00:30:07.559 --> 00:30:11.480
Zara. It's up to speak right. And they're like, a script or a newsletter. You're like, of course not.

00:30:11.480 --> 00:30:15.799
I don't need the emails from you, right. But in your case, because it's an app for a Reddit,

00:30:15.799 --> 00:30:20.680
subscribing to the subreddit is just so logical. I'm thinking actually we want to do our

00:30:20.680 --> 00:30:25.640
change log in the form of a podcast. So it's like a metaphor for a podcast app. Maybe it should also

00:30:25.640 --> 00:30:31.720
have this kind of pre-checked checkbox that like, yeah, subscribe me to your podcast. It's not

00:30:31.720 --> 00:30:35.960
as annoying as well. She's probably not even annoying. It's useful compared to all of those email

00:30:35.960 --> 00:30:50.039
newsletters from retail companies. That's a really good point. It's tricky because I think it's because like that these fashion stores and whatnot have almost ruined the system so much in your expectations over the years that you're not thinking, oh, if I sign up for this, I'm going to get

00:30:50.039 --> 00:30:53.960
really good deals. It's more so I'm going to get an email every three days about a new jacket.

00:30:53.960 --> 00:30:58.519
In an alternate world where you shop that Zara and they were like, hey, we notice you shop here a

00:30:58.519 --> 00:31:01.799
lot. Do you want us to give you a heads up when there's a really good sale? You'd probably be like,

00:31:01.799 --> 00:31:11.559
hell yeah, that sounds awesome. But unfortunately, that's not what they did. So I feel like with apps, maybe it's hopefully a slightly more better alternate reality where people are able to go, okay,

00:31:11.559 --> 00:31:16.519
these people haven't completely ruined my perception of how this is going to work. Maybe this

00:31:16.519 --> 00:31:21.079
will be something I can easily subscribe to and unsubscribe to if I want to. And yeah, and thank

00:31:21.079 --> 00:31:24.839
for a lot. And it was just so easy to just click no. And so many of the online forums, it's like

00:31:24.839 --> 00:31:29.240
there's a check mark that's auto enabled for you and whatnot. I could have done that, but it felt

00:31:29.240 --> 00:31:34.680
kind of scummy. So I think it's all about setting expectations. So from the first launch till the

00:31:34.680 --> 00:31:41.640
demise will come to the demise in 2023 in a little bit. Was the growth and like retention pretty

00:31:41.640 --> 00:31:47.799
stable, pretty standard or where they're big bursts somewhere. If so, what were those turning points?

00:31:47.799 --> 00:31:53.000
I'm the worst at business in some ways. I knew downloads were slowly increasing over time. The

00:31:53.000 --> 00:31:56.119
revenue was increasing over time. Like you'll see some people are really good at the stuff they

00:31:56.119 --> 00:32:00.119
have a graphs on their wall and they're tracking everything like super analytically. And I was never

00:32:00.119 --> 00:32:09.638
super passionate about that. I was like the app's doing well. It's growing. I'm happy with that. I didn't really follow like the micro trends almost, but at a macro level, there were growth periods

00:32:09.638 --> 00:32:17.959
whenever I added either feature people were really clamoring for. I'm trying to think of ones off the top of my head, but like the feature stuff was more so earlier because there was still one I

00:32:17.959 --> 00:32:25.559
launched. There was some like obvious stuff I was missing that people were like, I'll come back and check out this app when it has feature X. And so when I added feature X for a lot of people that

00:32:25.559 --> 00:32:29.878
would have a noticeable uptake near the end, it was just like a polo head. Most of Reddit features

00:32:29.878 --> 00:32:33.878
pretty well covered. It was less noticeable jumps when new features were added. But a big thing

00:32:33.878 --> 00:32:38.119
every year was new iOS releases just out of fun a lot of the time. I would just be like, oh, that's

00:32:38.119 --> 00:32:48.119
a really cool new feature Apple added iOS. I'm going to add that into a polo and be it through being featured by Apple for integrating this new API or just people updating their phone and being

00:32:48.119 --> 00:32:52.679
like, okay, now what's new? A lot of people came to know Apollo as this app that would have

00:32:52.680 --> 00:32:57.400
the new shiny stuff. So every September or October or whatever ended up being there normally was a

00:32:57.400 --> 00:33:07.000
nice uptick in users and revenue and whatnot just around the new iOS releases. But outside of that, it was kind of just like a slow healthy growth curve where people would tell their friends

00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:11.160
about the app. They would discover the app. They would enjoy the app. It was like 99% word of mouth.

00:33:11.160 --> 00:33:16.680
Anya, I'll just continue. And I think Apollo got a few awards. It was featured by Apple in the

00:33:16.680 --> 00:33:23.079
App Store quite a few times and all that. How did that come about? Do you apply for these things or...

00:33:23.079 --> 00:33:27.319
No, it was so funny. Like Apollo got editor's choice on the App Store, which like blew my mind,

00:33:27.319 --> 00:33:31.319
but like finally it was in the US, which is like the best market to get it in. But finally I'm

00:33:31.319 --> 00:33:35.720
Canadian and it wasn't in the Canadian market. I want to say it was Brian who makes the carrot app.

00:33:35.720 --> 00:33:39.400
I'm pretty sure he like texted me and told me like, oh my god, like Apollo because it might

00:33:39.400 --> 00:33:43.559
have been the same time that carrot got featured as well as an editor's choice. And I was like, oh my

00:33:43.559 --> 00:33:47.319
god, to my knowledge, they don't send you an email. You don't apply someone tweets at you or

00:33:47.319 --> 00:33:50.519
something and tells you that you got it. And then you go to your own app store and you can't even

00:33:50.519 --> 00:33:54.759
see it because it's not on your app store. So you're like, oh, I guess I'll take your word for it.

00:33:54.759 --> 00:34:01.480
Finally, not most of the stuff with Apple is kind of just surprised you with it. You'll sometimes get like the promotional art requests, which is a different thing, but sometimes they'll just put

00:34:01.480 --> 00:34:10.039
you on a list or feature you in some way and it's just new to you. So some of these were also because like you were one of the early adopters of like Apple would come out with, let's say for

00:34:10.039 --> 00:34:14.759
example, dynamic island. And yours would be one of the like first apps to integrate in a beautiful

00:34:14.759 --> 00:34:24.360
way with it. And that's why you would get feature. Yeah, yeah. Apple like they love when they've got a new really cool feature to show off and they've got apps that use it because it kind of

00:34:24.360 --> 00:34:27.719
works for both parties because if they build a really cool feature, no apps adopted. It is not

00:34:27.719 --> 00:34:30.278
much point to the feature, right? You're not just sitting on the home screen swiping around,

00:34:30.278 --> 00:34:34.278
you're using apps and those are the core experience. You can build something into your app that

00:34:34.278 --> 00:34:38.679
customers really enjoy, that Apple's happy that you integrate into your app. A lot of the time,

00:34:38.679 --> 00:34:47.559
like some of the features are just really fun to integrate. I remember when Apple added the feature where you can like select the text within the photo, like there's a date or a sign or like

00:34:47.559 --> 00:34:51.719
it's a story or something. I remember Apple had that in one version of iOS and everyone was like,

00:34:51.719 --> 00:34:55.159
oh my god, I had that to a poll. I'm like, I can. It's not an API yet. Apple's just doing it in

00:34:55.159 --> 00:34:59.000
photos. And then the next year they added it and it was super easy to add and it was a lot of fun.

00:34:59.000 --> 00:35:02.599
And you did a few lines of code and suddenly your app had this really cool feature. A little

00:35:02.599 --> 00:35:06.679
stuff like that. It's fun to integrate. Users love it. Apple loves it. It's kind of just like a win,

00:35:06.679 --> 00:35:10.838
win, win, win, win. And then you publish that update and like downloads and sales go up

00:35:10.838 --> 00:35:14.519
and everything. It became a no brainer to integrate these really cool iOS features because

00:35:14.519 --> 00:35:25.960
just everybody loved it. Right. Are there like some specific UX or design philosophies for Apollo that you set up like, okay, these things are what's going to make it successful?

00:35:25.960 --> 00:35:29.960
Or this is what I'm aiming for. In my head, I was kind of just like, I want to read it out that

00:35:29.960 --> 00:35:33.960
was like if Apple themselves designed to read it up. So whenever I was adding a new feature,

00:35:33.960 --> 00:35:38.679
my kind of North Star was I want to build this in a way that feels native to iOS. So there's not

00:35:38.679 --> 00:35:44.280
some crazy 3D swipe through your phone in the air way to do it. It's what you would expect and

00:35:44.280 --> 00:35:50.519
it's familiar. And it's super easy to be like, I have a really cool way to do this super innovative.

00:35:51.159 --> 00:36:00.679
But in my experience, unless it would make it five times faster for a user to do it, just doing it in a way that they would immediately know how to use it was much better than like a

00:36:00.679 --> 00:36:09.159
crazy custom design. And there are a few places where I did have some custom designs. But most of the time, I was just building it with I want this to be like, if you've used iOS at all, I want this

00:36:09.159 --> 00:36:12.759
to be an app that you can pick up and immediately hit the ground running with. And that was the North

00:36:12.759 --> 00:36:17.159
Star as I built the app all the way through. I want it to be super familiar. That kind of influenced

00:36:17.159 --> 00:36:23.079
every decision. I'm curious how much of that was influenced by your time at Apple versus it was

00:36:23.079 --> 00:36:27.639
part of your world view before that. I think it was part of my world view before that because I kind

00:36:27.639 --> 00:36:33.239
of had the idea for Apollo being an iOS-y app before I worked it out. But definitely going there for

00:36:33.239 --> 00:36:37.239
that summer reinforced it heavily. I believed in it more and more as I worked in there. And I was like,

00:36:37.239 --> 00:36:41.719
okay, this is the right idea. This has likes. And you were also like you said in an internship,

00:36:41.719 --> 00:36:45.798
you were in the right place, right? That team was evangelizing why you should build and how you

00:36:45.798 --> 00:36:52.039
should build an iOS app. So it's like the perfect place to hone this craft. Yeah. And I had all these

00:36:52.039 --> 00:36:55.719
awesome coworkers. Even after I left, I kept texting and say, hey, I'm thinking about this for

00:36:55.719 --> 00:37:03.559
the future. And they'd be like, oh, that's great. Maybe try this and have excellent input. So I had access to some really brilliant, super, super talented people who could give me great input.

00:37:04.119 --> 00:37:09.639
Did you consider building an app for Android as well? It was one of those things where like for me,

00:37:09.639 --> 00:37:14.358
if there was more hours in the day, yeah, that probably could have been fun. But for me, it was like

00:37:14.358 --> 00:37:19.318
Apollo was taking up so much of my time in a good way. I was enjoying building it. But I just need

00:37:19.318 --> 00:37:25.000
like, okay, I'll have to learn Kotlin or Java or whatever it is or was. I'd have to probably spend

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:28.360
a few months with an Android phone because I don't really know Android that well. Part of what made

00:37:28.360 --> 00:37:32.280
iOS great was it felt like an app on the operating system. And if I don't know what an app on the

00:37:32.280 --> 00:37:36.760
operating system on Android feels like why bother? There was all these like upfront things I had to

00:37:36.760 --> 00:37:41.559
get over before I could even start building it. And then at the same time, I just don't have enough

00:37:41.559 --> 00:37:46.280
time in the day to commit to this. If I had more time, yeah, that sounds like something that could

00:37:46.280 --> 00:37:51.559
have been fun to do. But iOS was just so great and so fulfilling to build for that. It wasn't

00:37:51.559 --> 00:37:55.480
something that was like I was really down on myself for not being able to do. It was just a

00:37:55.480 --> 00:37:59.400
Apollo for Android 1 was almost like a meme. It would have been cool to have an answer to that.

00:37:59.400 --> 00:38:04.920
It just really never came to be. You were spending more time working on the iPad app, right?

00:38:05.480 --> 00:38:13.639
Yeah, that was kind of what was I was focusing on toward the end. And that felt almost more worthwhile than an Android app to me because it was almost an app for a new platform and that it

00:38:13.639 --> 00:38:23.400
took much more advantage of the platform. And around like 15% of my users were iPad users. So I said, okay, I can almost expand access to at least 15% of people in a better way where the

00:38:23.400 --> 00:38:27.880
Android app might just flop. It felt obvious to me at least. So towards the end,

00:38:27.880 --> 00:38:33.320
financially, was doing really well, right? But throughout the process, it was nine years, right?

00:38:33.320 --> 00:38:40.599
Did you ever consider taking funding, investments, or did people offer to acquire it? That sort of

00:38:40.599 --> 00:38:44.840
stuff? There's lots of offers to acquire it and the fund it more and everything. But it was just

00:38:44.840 --> 00:38:53.639
one of those things where I never saw the benefit, I guess. There's definitely services where that's arguably needed in order to compete in any meaningful way you need upfront capital to do

00:38:53.639 --> 00:38:58.440
what you want to do. If I was building like an AI thing today, having 1000 GPUs isn't something I

00:38:58.440 --> 00:39:02.039
could probably just go down to my best buy and put on my credit card like that. You need money for

00:39:02.039 --> 00:39:06.039
that. But for this, for Apollo, like never was I building a feature that I'm like, if I had more

00:39:06.039 --> 00:39:10.119
money, I could do this, but I'm not able to. I never felt limited by my current situation.

00:39:10.119 --> 00:39:14.920
The money was always great. The amount I could do was always great. I never felt limited. There

00:39:14.920 --> 00:39:25.159
was no shortage of ideas that I wanted to build. If anything like throwing a few more people on the project probably would have been a better, would have been a smart idea at some point just from a

00:39:25.159 --> 00:39:29.480
productivity standpoint. But that was another area where I'm like, I've never managed people. I

00:39:29.480 --> 00:39:33.480
don't know how that would even go. So that was kind of an area. I was shied away from a little bit.

00:39:33.480 --> 00:39:37.318
But there are lots of options to do things differently. But I think the whole bootstrapping and what

00:39:37.320 --> 00:39:42.599
not, they worked out really well, I think. So before we come to the end, what were some of the

00:39:42.599 --> 00:39:53.880
like bigger challenges working on Apollo over the years? Near the end, even before like the demise, the Reddit API was starting to get a little crust in some ways where it was clear Reddit had

00:39:53.880 --> 00:39:58.519
their own internal API they were using for their own apps. And they were no longer keeping that

00:39:58.519 --> 00:40:02.920
consistent and updated with the public API. So you had features like Reddit chat, which was kind

00:40:02.920 --> 00:40:08.039
of like a newer version of Reddit private messages. Almost in the same way like emails would be

00:40:08.039 --> 00:40:11.719
the eye message. The new thing was kind of like shiny or faster messaging. Features like that,

00:40:11.719 --> 00:40:15.800
they no longer shared in the API. So you would have a lot of users being like, hey, how come I can't

00:40:15.800 --> 00:40:20.039
use this in Apollo? And you'd have to say like, I'd love to, but I can't. So stuff like that was a

00:40:20.039 --> 00:40:24.440
little tricky. But outside of that, there wasn't a lot of stuff that was tricky. It was fun to build.

00:40:24.440 --> 00:40:28.760
It was just like technological challenges like building the iPad app. Since I felt pretty ambitious

00:40:28.760 --> 00:40:34.280
about it. And since I didn't want like one view controller up at a time, I wanted a multi-modal,

00:40:34.280 --> 00:40:44.199
swiping kind of like Twitter for iPad circa 2012 feel. And that took a lot of learning how view controllers work in reference to each other and memory management and keeping everything

00:40:44.199 --> 00:40:49.639
flowing smoothly in gestural systems. That was definitely the most complex thing I had built.

00:40:49.639 --> 00:40:57.800
And sometimes I take a week to work on something else and I come back and it would almost take me a few hours just to like understand the code I had so far, even though it was like heavily commented

00:40:57.800 --> 00:41:02.519
and stuff. So it was complex. And it's one of the ones that I'm sad I never actually got to ship.

00:41:02.519 --> 00:41:05.800
Because of there's so much work was put into it. But at the same time, there's still quite a bit more

00:41:05.800 --> 00:41:10.840
work left. So at least I didn't have to spend a much more time doing that. It's kind of rare for

00:41:10.840 --> 00:41:16.519
somebody to work on one app and buy themself, right? You didn't hire anybody for that. I think the

00:41:16.519 --> 00:41:20.760
notifications part you worked with somebody for a little bit, but that was pretty much it. Yeah,

00:41:20.760 --> 00:41:24.840
exactly. His name was Andre and he was phenomenal near the end. It just got to a point where there were

00:41:24.840 --> 00:41:29.960
too many people for my crappy code that I wrote. He DMed me on Twitter and said like, hey, I work

00:41:29.960 --> 00:41:33.480
in this area professionally doing some help. And yeah, that was a good idea. And I think that

00:41:33.480 --> 00:41:37.800
part is actually open source, right? Yeah, I read it was like saying like, oh, it's so inefficient.

00:41:37.800 --> 00:41:42.039
They just hit us with request 24 seven. And I was like, no, it's not like we talked to you all

00:41:42.039 --> 00:41:45.719
about this. We have emails. It's very efficient and written with a lot of attention to detail.

00:41:45.719 --> 00:41:48.920
And then rather it'd be our word against them. We just ended up saying like, let's just open

00:41:48.920 --> 00:41:54.199
source it so people can see what that we're not lying. Okay. So let's talk about the demise of

00:41:54.199 --> 00:42:00.278
Apple, right? And it's publicly like you've documented it very well. The subreddit Apollo app has

00:42:00.278 --> 00:42:06.438
a lot of data on it already. So we don't need to like re-urgit everything, but your space. So tell

00:42:06.438 --> 00:42:12.119
us about your take on it. How does it feel? Not exactly a year, but almost a year back after.

00:42:12.838 --> 00:42:17.798
Yeah, it was just so abrupt, I guess my feeling was. Like I mentioned, the Reddit hadn't been like

00:42:17.798 --> 00:42:22.438
sharing the API super well over the last few years. So it was like, okay, so they're not super

00:42:22.440 --> 00:42:26.599
committed to the API. I knew that much at least, but in my head, it was kind of like we'll just let

00:42:26.599 --> 00:42:29.880
them do their own thing. We're not going to put a lot of effort into that, but that also means

00:42:29.880 --> 00:42:36.920
we're not going to necessarily try to destroy it. And I did have interactions with Reddit. If they were going to do something that would potentially break an existing system, like at one point, they

00:42:36.920 --> 00:42:40.840
added requirements for posting. So like if you tried to post in it and didn't have a certain

00:42:41.400 --> 00:42:45.639
flare or certain keyword in your title, it would fail. So they wanted to make sure everybody who

00:42:45.639 --> 00:42:49.559
worked with the posting API that worked. So they were honestly great at giving heads up and

00:42:49.559 --> 00:42:53.719
communicating things that were important. And I always felt like I had a contact there who would

00:42:53.719 --> 00:42:58.360
answer questions quickly. So they were great from communications and partnerships standpoint,

00:42:58.360 --> 00:43:01.798
but they maybe weren't so great at keeping the API maintained. And that was kind of like my

00:43:01.798 --> 00:43:04.759
understanding. It's like, okay, this is how it'll be until the end of time. They're just going to

00:43:04.759 --> 00:43:13.400
do their own thing, make the app as complex as they want with their own features. But they'll leave a core functionality as a thing for advanced users like people use Apollo or NARWAL or

00:43:13.400 --> 00:43:19.079
Reddit is fun or whatever. And then like they were just suddenly like, okay, we're updating the API

00:43:19.079 --> 00:43:28.840
in so far as like, we're looking to monetize it. And we're like, okay, that's honestly fine because for a lot of us in the same way that the API hasn't been updated in ages, like I was

00:43:28.840 --> 00:43:32.440
mentioning, we were like, oh, great. Maybe if we ratify a better relationship where we're like,

00:43:32.440 --> 00:43:40.039
okay, we're paying you, we're the consumers of this API, maybe we'll get better API access. And they'll put some more effort into it if we're paying potentially thousands or tens of thousands

00:43:40.039 --> 00:43:49.320
a month. Quick question at this point, where do you think this came from? Was it chat GPT and Open AI sucking up everything from Reddit and Reddit feeling like, okay, we need to monetize

00:43:49.320 --> 00:43:54.519
API access to it or something else? I think it was a function of that and that it looked like

00:43:54.519 --> 00:44:04.199
their financials weren't doing super well. A lot of people I knew who worked at Reddit were saying things like internally, the money wasn't as great as and their projected targets weren't necessarily

00:44:04.199 --> 00:44:07.880
where they wanted them to be during the whole saga. I think they ended up laying off a ton of

00:44:07.880 --> 00:44:16.840
employees. So I don't think financially things were going maybe as well as they wanted. So it seemed to me like they were penny pinching in some areas while also being annoyed at the OpenAI's of the

00:44:16.840 --> 00:44:25.960
world for consuming all their content for free. And it was one of those things where it's like, I totally got it, having a billion dollar company that's probably worth much more than Reddit is now,

00:44:25.960 --> 00:44:29.960
taking all their data and almost making an even more valuable company out of it. That must be

00:44:29.960 --> 00:44:34.840
infuriating. I get wanting to charge that. But to me, it seemed like in the same way that some

00:44:34.840 --> 00:44:43.798
companies will have licensing for different use cases. They're like, if you're using it for training AI models, here's your pricing versus if you're building an app for our own users to make

00:44:43.798 --> 00:44:48.039
the platform better, maybe here's separate pricing. That was kind of how I thought they would do it.

00:44:48.039 --> 00:44:51.878
Because to be clear, like all of us had no issue paying. Like I said, if anything, we're like,

00:44:51.878 --> 00:44:55.559
if we pay, we'll have a better relationship with Reddit, maybe better API access. This sounds

00:44:55.559 --> 00:45:10.039
great and it'll give us a healthy future and a more steady foundation with Reddit. And it was kind of one of those things where the devils and the details where the pricing that we thought they would announce and that they hinted toward announcing ended up being so much astronomically higher

00:45:10.039 --> 00:45:15.318
than what they were saying and coupled with the fact that they gave you 30 days for

00:45:15.318 --> 00:45:19.480
you'd certain current charges. It became like one month you were happily building the app with a

00:45:19.480 --> 00:45:22.440
good relationship with Reddit the next month. They were going to start building you for potentially

00:45:22.440 --> 00:45:30.759
a million upon millions a year. It was so abrupt. It was a made feeling I felt that I was just like, holy crap, felt like last month I was working all these hours, building this really cool iPad app.

00:45:30.760 --> 00:45:34.119
The next month, it's completely over. That was the most surprising I think.

00:45:34.840 --> 00:45:41.079
I think this led to the whole big Reddit boycott that lasted a good few days. Almost all of

00:45:41.079 --> 00:45:46.760
Reddit went dark and all that crazy stuff. At the end of this, I think in June, you decided that

00:45:46.760 --> 00:45:52.199
this can go on and you decided to shut down Apollo. Because they were giving us such a short

00:45:52.199 --> 00:46:03.559
period of time before we'd start incurring charges. With the app store, there's certain rules where they're like, if you have a subscription with users and you can no longer provide that subscription, if you pay for a year and halfway through it, I go, yeah, I'm not going to give it to you anymore.

00:46:03.559 --> 00:46:07.400
You have to pay back that other half, which is completely understandable. There is stuff like that,

00:46:07.400 --> 00:46:12.280
where I'm like, okay, I need to figure that stuff out if it comes to that. The clock was kicking down.

00:46:12.280 --> 00:46:16.199
There was only a little bit of time left. At that point, Reddit based off being responsive in

00:46:16.199 --> 00:46:30.119
emails, to being like, can we have a bit more time? They just suddenly stopped answering. So it became a thing where I'm like, I saw no way forward for this to resolve if they're not communicating with you and you have this massive financial hit coming that you need to deal with and talk to Apple

00:46:30.119 --> 00:46:34.760
about. They're really forcing your hands there, which ultimately I think was the goal. So it came

00:46:34.760 --> 00:46:42.519
down to that. I didn't want to close it. Finally, if it happened at WWDC where I was staying with a bunch of other developers, and I remember talking to them and being like, I just don't see a way out

00:46:42.519 --> 00:46:46.199
of this. And they're kind of like, yeah, this is just kind of a shit sandwich. Yeah, after a lot of

00:46:46.199 --> 00:46:50.599
talking, it just seemed like the only path forward. Yeah. And ironically, I think just around this time,

00:46:50.599 --> 00:46:58.920
Apollo was featured in WWDC. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It was sad, but it was also a coolest, almost like

00:46:58.920 --> 00:47:03.639
goodbye. I think it was the first time Craig ever said the Apollo's name, which was super cool to

00:47:03.639 --> 00:47:08.119
see during a keynote. And they mentioned it in the Vision Pro portion as well. So there's a bunch of

00:47:08.119 --> 00:47:13.719
really cool stuff. But yeah, it was definitely unfortunate time. So Ed, I'll end up all this. How much

00:47:13.719 --> 00:47:19.239
of the financials can you share? Like how many active users did you have at the end revenue profits?

00:47:19.239 --> 00:47:23.878
It's money is a tricky one. I don't want to talk a ton about that. But as far as users go, I think

00:47:23.878 --> 00:47:28.199
it was around one and a half million monthly active users were actively using the app. It had a

00:47:28.199 --> 00:47:32.438
really good amount of people who were either pro. So they had the one off purchase. I want to say,

00:47:32.438 --> 00:47:37.958
like, of the active users over 50% converted to that. And then there was a good sub portion of that

00:47:37.958 --> 00:47:42.119
who converted to the monthly subscription, which was great. And a lot of ways during the period

00:47:42.119 --> 00:47:54.599
where Apollo was healthy and whatnot. And you had this great underlying subscription revenue. And when this recurring revenue for features that people cared about that helped kept the upload healthily, it kind of cut both ways where when the app shut down, you suddenly had potentially

00:47:54.599 --> 00:47:59.000
hundreds of thousands of dollars up in the air where you'd have to refund with 30 days notice

00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:06.760
basically. And that was where it gets carried. And I think it was like the first time in apps or history where that really happened occurred six months earlier when all the Twitter apps shut down.

00:48:06.760 --> 00:48:10.119
So I remember like talking to the poor people at Apple. And it's like, you guys have had a year

00:48:10.119 --> 00:48:14.519
haven't you? I'm pretty sure like the first time they're going through these processes of like

00:48:14.519 --> 00:48:18.360
with tweet bot and Twitter, or if I can whatnot implementing these systems. But of course,

00:48:18.360 --> 00:48:22.679
the people at Apple are so nice. So did you end up having to refund people? Oh, yeah.

00:48:23.320 --> 00:48:31.079
Thankfully, I didn't have to refund 100% of them because again, Apple is phenomenal work with they had a similar system with tweet bot and Twitter or if I could say like, you can put a

00:48:31.079 --> 00:48:35.239
thing in your app where you can allow users to opt out of the refund. So you can say like,

00:48:35.239 --> 00:48:40.440
hey, you have four months left on your one year subscription. Do you want to get a refund for

00:48:40.440 --> 00:48:45.639
that, which would be a third of whatever you paid? Or do you just want to say like, hey,

00:48:45.639 --> 00:48:54.440
thanks for the great app. I enjoyed it. You know what? Don't worry about it. I don't think I can give exact figures because of Apple asking me not to, but there was a good amount of people who said,

00:48:54.440 --> 00:48:58.199
uh, that's okay. And it helped phenomenally in terms of not having to bear the full

00:48:58.199 --> 00:49:01.480
brunt of the refund process. But there was still, yeah, definitely some hefty costs.

00:49:02.440 --> 00:49:07.239
If you bear your break even, you might just spend all the money that comes in and then time comes

00:49:07.239 --> 00:49:12.918
to do refund and you actually have no cash, right? That was the financial outlook. I think towards

00:49:12.918 --> 00:49:17.318
the end, right? Because I've read it. Yeah. Well, thanks for like, I didn't go out and spend all

00:49:17.318 --> 00:49:21.318
this money on Ferrari's and stuff. Nor could I have. Like if I had to refund it, it wouldn't have

00:49:21.318 --> 00:49:29.000
killed me. Apollo didn't have a ton of operating expenses, but if you had an app where maybe you had crazy server costs every month and you could only pay from month to month and maybe you did spend

00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:33.398
that previously. Then yeah, it could really hurt you. But with Apollo, I tried to save my money.

00:49:33.400 --> 00:49:37.400
So I could have paid it back, but I'm not even sure that would have worked because the way it ultimately

00:49:37.400 --> 00:49:41.639
worked in the end was your pay each month, right? At one point, you're suddenly getting hit with say,

00:49:41.639 --> 00:49:51.159
like a $5,000 debit on your account. You basically owe Apple money at that point. If you're going to continue on in the app store, they're like, whatever we're going to keep paying you and we can debit

00:49:51.159 --> 00:49:55.480
that off the amount we're already paying you. But like, I don't know how it would have worked if

00:49:55.480 --> 00:50:02.440
Apollo was my only app and say I got X tens of whatever thousands of dollars in debit fees. And I

00:50:02.440 --> 00:50:06.840
had no other apps to pay for it. I don't know if Apple would have asked for a check or what would

00:50:06.840 --> 00:50:10.519
have happened, but it would have been, yeah, definitely a lot messier. Thankfully, I had Pixel

00:50:10.519 --> 00:50:15.320
Pals, which is doing very well. So I was able to just pay it off through Pixel Pals revenue.

00:50:15.320 --> 00:50:20.199
Yeah, interesting. I was thinking that in theory, one way to handle this, if you can't pay it back,

00:50:20.199 --> 00:50:24.920
right? So then this is why legal entities exist, right? Then basically just declare your legal

00:50:24.920 --> 00:50:30.599
entities solvent and whatever, bankrupt, whatever they local lois, right? And then basically Apple

00:50:30.599 --> 00:50:37.559
will have to debit the cost. That's a great detour because that's the first conversation I had with

00:50:37.559 --> 00:50:42.519
you. Now that I remember going back in Twitter DMs, that's what I asked you, how did you go about

00:50:42.519 --> 00:50:51.798
like setting up the legal entity, T Corp and all that? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And that probably would have been the answer or like Apple would have probably had to come after you for like damages or

00:50:51.798 --> 00:50:55.400
something legally. And yeah, you probably would have had to declare bankruptcy or something.

00:50:55.400 --> 00:50:59.480
It would have been a very messy situation that I'm glad I saved money enough not to have to

00:50:59.480 --> 00:51:05.559
do a face. Quick question about the revenue. Did you have like globally the same pricing for the app

00:51:05.559 --> 00:51:10.920
all over? Finally enough, the only country I think I had special pricing for was India because they

00:51:10.920 --> 00:51:16.280
would always email me and ask about it. And I said, you know what, fine, you guys are always emailing

00:51:16.280 --> 00:51:20.280
me complete respect. That's awesome. And no, actually, and I think Brazil did too. There was two

00:51:20.280 --> 00:51:24.360
countries that are I was like, you guys are always laying like, it's really expensive here. Can you

00:51:24.360 --> 00:51:29.079
lower it? And I was like, fine, yeah, comparatively. I think Apollo was like 90% US users.

00:51:29.079 --> 00:51:34.119
So like India and Brazil combined were probably like 1%. So it's like, you know what, I don't want to

00:51:34.119 --> 00:51:38.920
take a week's salary for my silly app. If I can lower that a little bit, sure. And I respect the

00:51:38.920 --> 00:51:49.639
amount of dedication they had to hitting that drum. I think that 37 signals with hey, they have done something similar recently where they reduce the pricing for Brazil and India specifically.

00:51:49.639 --> 00:51:53.798
So yeah, yeah. I thought Apple was introducing something where like maybe there was an option you

00:51:53.798 --> 00:51:57.960
could click an App Store connect. There would be pricing that it could hopefully make a bit more

00:51:57.960 --> 00:52:03.000
sense. But it is tricky with some of the features being like server based where say it costs me a

00:52:03.000 --> 00:52:07.800
dollar a month to check your notifications. It's like, you're in India or the US, if those

00:52:07.800 --> 00:52:11.239
server costs are the same to me. So it's tricky. But thankfully, I got Apollo to a point where like

00:52:11.239 --> 00:52:20.199
the server costs were at a good point. And there was other things that didn't necessarily have those like the app icons had a monthly price to keep paying designers, but I kind of built that out a bit

00:52:20.199 --> 00:52:26.199
easier. Okay, we're coming to a close like very soon. So I just want to like wrap up. But tell us

00:52:26.199 --> 00:52:31.398
after 9 plus years working on that app, right? How hard was it to like just say, okay, I've done

00:52:31.398 --> 00:52:37.318
with this. What have you been doing recently? Yeah. It was hard, but it was also like the last

00:52:37.318 --> 00:52:42.358
month was like a battle. So it was like by the end of it, I was so tired. It was kind of nice to

00:52:42.358 --> 00:52:49.719
take a break. If it just suddenly got like Apple deleted it one day, they never would. But if that happened, I think that would have been a little bit hard because it would have been so abrupt.

00:52:49.719 --> 00:52:54.438
The Reddit stuff was very abrupt, but at least I had that short 30 days to like hash it out and

00:52:54.440 --> 00:52:58.440
talk it over with everybody. Like I said, I was at WWDC when it was all happening. So I had a lot of

00:52:58.440 --> 00:53:09.000
really smart people I could talk to and give me advice. In the way it went down was I didn't want it to, but as far as it did go down in terms of the people around me and the advice I got, it helped

00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:14.199
me come to terms with that I think better than other situations might have allowed for. So I think

00:53:14.199 --> 00:53:19.000
like a shutdown June 30th and like by July 1st, here's the Kingdom. The Zelda game came out and

00:53:19.000 --> 00:53:21.719
I was like, I'm just going to fight this for like two weeks. I'm not going to do anything. I just

00:53:21.719 --> 00:53:26.039
want to sleep for a little while. I think I was content doing nothing because it was so exhausting

00:53:26.039 --> 00:53:30.039
dealing with all of that. But since then, I've been working more on Pixel pals with Apollo. I was

00:53:30.039 --> 00:53:34.519
going crazy all the time building it like crazy. And in some ways that took a lot out of me and I'm

00:53:34.519 --> 00:53:42.918
approaching Pixel pals a little more slowly and a little more balanced, I guess. It's maybe not growing as fast as Apollo was at certain points, but it's still growing really nicely and I'm happy

00:53:42.918 --> 00:53:47.159
with the balance it has there. And it's a much lighter app to build. It's nice in some ways to just

00:53:47.159 --> 00:53:52.278
have a little bit of a different experience. You don't depend on somebody else's API this time also.

00:53:53.318 --> 00:54:01.398
Exactly. That's really nice too. It's like one of those things that like, yeah, now that I don't have to think about that, it's something that I didn't realize was learning so heavy on me.

00:54:01.398 --> 00:54:05.960
And I loved building Apollo, but like even if you love doing something like doing it for nine

00:54:05.960 --> 00:54:09.079
years and then getting a break from it, it's kind of fun in some ways. So I've kind of been

00:54:09.079 --> 00:54:13.719
enjoying doing something a little different. Right. Just a quick side, maybe a minute, not more than

00:54:13.719 --> 00:54:18.519
that. I remember Pixel pals inside the Apollo app where you could like, I don't know if you're

00:54:18.519 --> 00:54:26.278
familiar, but you could adopt a pet inside the Apollo app, right? Like a cat or like a cute dog and

00:54:26.278 --> 00:54:32.039
things like that. And the more you use the Apollo app, the pet gets to play and eat and all that.

00:54:32.039 --> 00:54:38.119
So it was like very well done. You decided to spin it out of that into a app or a bit soon.

00:54:38.679 --> 00:54:43.000
Yeah, because I think like I built all those features and people loved it. And I ended up getting

00:54:43.000 --> 00:54:45.960
tens of millions of views on TikTok or something. And there were a lot of people who were like,

00:54:45.960 --> 00:54:50.679
what the hell is reddit? Like I just want to feed a dog. Like I don't get the connection. And I was

00:54:50.679 --> 00:54:54.599
like, okay, that kind of makes sense. They didn't know why they had to download this big complex app

00:54:54.599 --> 00:54:59.079
just to get a dog. So it was like for these people, I'll build a separate app and like make it

00:54:59.079 --> 00:55:03.159
just about the animals, just about the pets, give it some more features. And then they can download

00:55:03.159 --> 00:55:07.880
that and it'll kind of make more sense. Because telling people if you want Pixel pals, download Apollo,

00:55:07.880 --> 00:55:10.840
like they're like, wouldn't I download Pixel pals? It didn't make a lot of sense for a lot of people.

00:55:10.840 --> 00:55:14.599
So spinning it off into the separate app will add it to live a life of its own and kind of become

00:55:14.599 --> 00:55:23.079
its own app. And thankfully, like I just did that on a whim. And it was one of the best decisions I made because after Apollo shut down, I now have this like secondary app that has a ton of users now.

00:55:23.079 --> 00:55:25.559
Have you thought about like, what else do I want to work on?

00:55:26.280 --> 00:55:30.280
Not a ton honestly. I'm having a lot of fun with Pixel pals just because it is so different

00:55:30.280 --> 00:55:34.440
and it's cute and fun and artsy. It's just so different that I'm having a lot of fun with that.

00:55:34.440 --> 00:55:39.320
And it's doing so well. It's a lot of fun. There's other ideas I have, but I'm kind of just like,

00:55:39.320 --> 00:55:43.239
there's so many things I could do that it's almost paralyzing. I'm kind of just enjoying taking a

00:55:43.239 --> 00:55:47.880
little slow for a little bit and figuring out what I want to do. That's totally well deserved too.

00:55:47.880 --> 00:55:52.599
So it makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever I open like an iPad, an old iPad or something that

00:55:52.599 --> 00:55:55.719
still has Apollo on the home screen. The part of me is like, I just want to build a massive,

00:55:55.719 --> 00:56:04.199
super focused app that does really cool things. But at the same time, I'm also enjoying a little bit of taking a step back from iOS development and just going a little bit slower, even though I love

00:56:04.199 --> 00:56:10.438
it so much. Okay. So just coming to the end, what advice do you have for app developers?

00:56:10.438 --> 00:56:16.039
Maybe people like us building our first app or more season ones? There's so many things you could

00:56:16.039 --> 00:56:25.318
say. Like I feel like if you're beginning, try to choose a project that you yourself are passionate about as well because you guys know building an app is like an enormous, enormous amount

00:56:25.318 --> 00:56:29.318
of effort. And I find it's literally hundreds of times easier if it's something you care about.

00:56:29.318 --> 00:56:32.918
If you're building an app to help people learn how to mow their lawn and you don't

00:56:32.920 --> 00:56:36.679
loan a lawnmower, like you're just not going to care. Whereas if it's something that you're like,

00:56:36.679 --> 00:56:39.559
oh, sweet, I'm going to be able to figure out how to use my own lawnmower better. That is

00:56:39.559 --> 00:56:42.760
something you're passionate about. And even if nobody else uses it, you'll be able to use it and

00:56:42.760 --> 00:56:47.400
enjoy it. So I always try to tell people like build something that you yourself will enjoy. And

00:56:47.400 --> 00:56:51.559
you know a lot more about it in that way. So you can approach it from a more unique perspective.

00:56:51.559 --> 00:56:55.000
But in terms of like having it out there, I find just like the best thing is just listening to

00:56:55.000 --> 00:57:00.039
users. So many people I find get in their own head saying like, I know what users want more

00:57:00.039 --> 00:57:03.559
than they do. And to a certain extent, there is an aspect of that. Like you're building the app.

00:57:03.559 --> 00:57:14.440
You need to know what makes your app different than others. But from a certain point, just listening to users and knowing what their pain points are and what they wish the app would do differently really can help you form a roadmap as to like, you have this unique perspective into

00:57:14.440 --> 00:57:26.199
what makes your users happy. And you'd be really silly not to listen to it. So like always listening to like the emails and feedback you get and shaping that and using that to shape your app into something better, I think is one of the most important and big things you can do as an app developer.

00:57:26.199 --> 00:57:31.878
All right. Yeah. Let's wrap it up. Any books, podcasts that you're listening to that you want to

00:57:31.878 --> 00:57:36.599
share with the world? This one's really good. I definitely suggest people keep listening to this one.

00:57:37.318 --> 00:57:43.159
Thank you. I'm Christian sailing on pretty much every social media out there. But outside of that,

00:57:43.159 --> 00:57:47.480
no, I'm just enjoying stuff. Check out Pixelpiles, I guess. I just say you look like reading much

00:57:47.480 --> 00:57:51.639
or listening to podcasts. No, no, no, it's all good. I listen to podcasts here and there, but

00:57:51.639 --> 00:57:56.440
nothing like consistent. No, I'm the worst person in the one weird person in the tech universe.

00:57:56.440 --> 00:58:01.079
That's not super into that. And like most of the reading I do is just random. Like I got the new

00:58:01.079 --> 00:58:05.719
like XACD, what a book and I'm reading through that. That's one of our I think Ilya, you and I both

00:58:05.719 --> 00:58:10.599
have that right? You have the second one too, I think. So we have three books in our house and my son

00:58:10.599 --> 00:58:14.838
loves them. Actually, I haven't read the other one because he asked me to buy it and I bought it for him

00:58:14.838 --> 00:58:20.278
and he just devoured it in like two evenings. Your son has excellent taste. He is like into STEM and

00:58:20.280 --> 00:58:25.320
he loved it. I mean, I loved it too. I got it for free at the conference. It was a Slack developer

00:58:25.320 --> 00:58:30.119
conference back in like 2016, I think 2017. They were giving it away for free because random

00:58:30.119 --> 00:58:35.800
and raw was doing the keynote. And I read the whole thing in the hotel in the evening and also

00:58:35.800 --> 00:58:41.239
on the flight next day because it was just so good. I feel like the second book is even better.

00:58:41.239 --> 00:58:45.639
Like I enjoyed it even more. The second book. That's fair. Yeah, no, I forget which one I have,

00:58:45.639 --> 00:58:50.119
but I'll have to pick up the other one too. Yeah, it's what if and how to. I forgot which one

00:58:50.119 --> 00:58:56.358
I like more. Okay, I'll read both and then get back to you. Cool. Well, I'll be fully transparent.

00:58:56.358 --> 00:58:59.239
I'm not a big Reddit user. Me neither anymore. No, I am.

00:59:00.838 --> 00:59:05.639
All right, I was. Yeah. I mean, I've tried it multiple times. It just doesn't stick. Yeah.

00:59:05.639 --> 00:59:08.679
That's fair. There's so many social networks out there that it is always going to be something

00:59:08.679 --> 00:59:12.039
for someone. Yeah. That's why I was keeping quiet in the last like 20 minutes because I wasn't

00:59:12.039 --> 00:59:16.119
following all of that as much. But I really enjoyed talking to you about the app development and all

00:59:16.119 --> 00:59:20.679
that that resonates a lot because like I'm seeing similarities on the metal level. Like, oh,

00:59:20.679 --> 00:59:24.358
we could apply this. We could apply that. And there's other people doing stuff. Could also apply

00:59:24.358 --> 00:59:28.759
that. So yeah, I think so lot for saying yes and coming to our podcast. This was a lot of fun.

00:59:28.759 --> 00:59:33.000
I'm really glad you guys invited me. Yeah, it was awesome to have you. Thank you. No, pleasure.

00:59:33.000 --> 00:59:37.400
Smile. Thank you guys so much. Yeah. And for those who are listening, we are about to ship our app.

00:59:37.400 --> 00:59:42.039
It's probably about another three or four weeks. But we ship our beta. It's got this still in this kind

00:59:42.039 --> 00:59:48.039
of alpha stage where you have lots of bugs. But you can sign up for the weightlisnetmetacast.app.