Behind each application there is at least one person. One or several developers looking to create something that entertains or helps users, and in the vast majority of cases they do so looking for a good way to monetize it and get income from it by forming a community.

When you do that, the ideal situation is to get to a point like what they have achieved in Tapbots (which despite their debacle with Tweetbot, are getting great reactions with Ivory thanks to having a community of loyal users). But it is not necessary to have that level: today we have an example of this with EveryDay, an application that allows us to follow our habits and whose manager has recently chatted with me.

From doing it for free to creating a business

You start small at first, but you can amass a nice mosaic of colors if you put in the effort.

Joan, the creator of EveryDay, started developing the application in the form of a web page for personal use. Like many other people, detected that social networks and other applications were causing distractions. So he set to work to have his own habit tracker, looking for the reverse effect of what many apps do.

At that time Joan was exercising his knowledge of computer engineering studied in Barcelona, ​​first in startups and then solo as a freelancer. He had always worked as a developer front endso the habit tracker was born as a web application back in 2017. But back then, Joan was interested in the product part, the idea and experience of creating something new.

EveryDay’s first serious steps began when Joan began sharing the web app with her acquaintances. This side project caught the attention of a number of people and the next step became clear: we had to turn that into a mobile app. All those who tried the web They asked for a mobile versionwhile saying that the application was helping them a lot.

I was excited to learn how to code a mobile app, and having the habits there made a lot of sense. When you track them you want to be able to fill in the box quickly, get the “reward” of seeing the color of your habit change as soon as you’ve finished fulfilling one of those habits.

Perhaps the key point of the EveryDay story is when Joan showed off the app on a subreddit about motivation and discipline:

I commented on it [en el subreddit] above, saying it was free and anyone could use it if it was useful. There it exploded, and ended up at the top of the Product Hunt list a couple of times. Many people liked it and I began to receive “feedback” from people who advised me how to improve some functions or how to create others. They even told me that they would pay for an application like this, and then I started to take it much more seriously.

Joan tells us about the dream that every developer has when they start to think about these things (or anyone who has done a little mental exercise): “if 200 users paid me 10 euros a month, that would be something”. That dream has become too small for her: the subscription to EveryDay is cheaper (30 euros a year) and Joan can boast of living off her subscribers. She has not only fulfilled her dream, but that she can afford live calmly and know that if one day you feel bad you can rest without worrying.

Neither points nor messages: the strength of your habit is the color and its intensity

As you master the habits you aim to have, your board is more attractive. This is how it looks in the version of EveryDay for Mac.

I want EveryDay to be a list of the things you want to do each day, that you review each morning and that you fill in the boxes as you complete them.

It wasn’t exactly easy for EveryDay: there are dozens of iOS apps that help us adopt good habits, and each one does so with a different point of view and with a different interface. It is not exactly a market where there is a lot of space, but Joan has managed to form a community of faithful.

The distinctive point that Joan believes has been essential in achieving this is the interface, attractive and visualize the achievements with our habits from colored boxes whose intensity changes.

Without the interface that EveryDay has, we probably wouldn’t be here chatting. My dilemma is that I have to find a balance between having the application that I want to have and the requests made by users who seek to improve it to a point where it is no longer the application that I am looking for.

The adventure and challenges of developing for Apple platforms

Joan tells us that he started developing EveryDay for the App Store on his own, but that he had help from Apple itself. the company discovered the application and contacted the person responsible for it to offer support:

I remember being very shocked when Apple staff contacted me. They told me that EveryDay seemed very interesting to them, and that they would be in Barcelona in case I wanted to meet them. I thought they were trying to sell me ways to add ads to the app, but I was positively shocked to see these people at Apple using devices of all sorts to “pound” and “shred” my product all over the place. They may have been staring at her for hours.

They told me such specific parts of the application and gave me such detailed advice that I thought: But they know all the corners of EveryDay better than me! They guided me to improve the interface implementation and helped me a lot. It still amazes me that they bothered to contact someone like me.

It’s clear that Apple was a great help, but I couldn’t get over the fact that sometimes Apple does just the opposite. The App Store developer’s worst nightmare is Apple making a native iOS app that meets the same needs of various third-party apps. It happened with f.lux and Night Shift, and the most recent example we can mention is Freeform and their canvases where we can put whatever we want. It replaces countless subscription mind mapping and diagramming apps.

What if the same thing happened with EveryDay? What if an iOS update suddenly comes along adding a habit tracking app that does exactly what EveryDay does? Joan confesses to me that she has thought about that possibility.

It’s one of the few things that was holding me back before moving from web development to mobile development. In the App Store you don’t control things like the commission (which now seems adequate to me with 15%) or that Apple suddenly makes no sense by doing what you say. They are not in control.

Now, an Apple habits app would have a different way of monitoring them. For example, what am I doing here if apps like Todoist already have a well-thought-out, high-quality habit tracking tool? In the end, what works is finding a way of doing things that people like, that clicks in their heads. If an Apple habits app ends up absorbing 90% of the public, there would still be room for the remaining 10%.

Having several stores is difficult to regulate. People will go where everyone is, which is the App Store. It would be a lot of work for me to distribute to other stores, I don’t see it as worth it, especially since it’s such a small application.

First day with all habits checked since before the holidays started! Feeling awesome! pic.twitter.com/Z8t0vo8mAp

— Àlex @ Mars 🚀 (@lexrodba) August 24, 2021

Another approach that I propose to Joan is the possibility (according to rumours) that the App Store will no longer be the only application store for iOS and iPadOS. The European Union could force iPhones to accept alternative stores, with more competitive conditions for developers:

In the short term I worry zero. I also have my app on Google Play and I was thinking about Amazon Marketplace, but I was thinking about it because at the time I didn’t have much idea how it all worked. If I had known what I know now, it would probably have been advisable not to do anything for Android: it works worse, they have a different policy… Apple made it clear to me that they were helping me because I was very dedicated to the application I was developing.

Joan responds by saying that she likes to think about the strategy that this scenario would entail, although she makes it clear that her application is “too small” to be affected by the change.

One of the last topics that I have discussed with Joan is that of privacy: EveryDay only collects non-identifying data from the user and for reasons of offering user accounts to be able to synchronize the data. Nothing more. “One of the reasons for the subscription is precisely not having to ask for or trade with the data of my users”comment.

I end by commenting on the future that Joan has planned for EveryDay: improvements to the interface (she might look for a professional to help her choose her colors better), new features… she insists that listening to the user is crucial: “some people criticizes me for spending too much time answering users daily, telling me it’s spending it on support. For me it’s not support work, it’s product work.”

Features that are in mind for the future is the ability to be able to share the color panels of habits, forming support groups and comforts. “It may be useful for people who want to get rid of addictions such as alcohol or tobacco, or couples who are itching to adopt good habits and get rid of bad ones.” Increasing the anonymity of the data is also on the agenda.

You can download and try EveryDay for free from the App Store. It may serve as a good starting point to start improving your daily habits.