From idea to the App Store with Joex
Today, my iOS app was approved for distribution on the App Store, marking the official launch of my first native mobile app. Interestingly, the app Joex was completed on February 27th, yet it took me one month to develop and another six months to publish. In this article, I'll share the story behind that delay.
Joex is now on Product Hunt. The idea behind it is very simple yet intuitive. App is targeting people that keep a physical paper journal and do not want to miss a single idea when they are away from it. The app acts as a temporary storage for ideas and provides a simple migration function that lists through each of the captured entries so that user can write them into journal or discard if no longer relevant.
You may think that it is just another note taking app but not really. Joex is designed as an extension and not a foundation for journaling practice. In the best case scenario, you wouldn't use it a single time because you have journal with you at all times so you can write everything down on paper. However, for me, that was not the case so I needed a solution. One that keeps my notes just temporarily on the device they were recorded with.
Joex is just an inbox that user wants to empty as soon as possible so that the only thing that containts the truth is the paper journal. The app does not contribute to information fragmentation but rather helps with centralization. I believe it is a sweet spot between analog and digital journaling experience. If you find yourself having thoughts during your morning run, in the rain or when taking a shower, your water-resistant device and Joex can help you with quickly capturing what you need.
1 month of development followed by 6 months of app being in the App Review process?
So now with a bit more context about the app, let's get into "why" for not having Joex published right away at the end of February when it was finished in version it is currently. TLDR: excuses. App is solving a problem for me so it could do it for many other people as well, wouldn't it? I was having doubts.
There comes Maros, a good friend of mine from college who is also an experienced indie hacker. On the 4th of April, he is one main reason for me purchasing an Apple Developer Program subscription to get the app on Apple's official distribution channel. He even shares an iOS starter template he had just started selling for a couple of houndred bucks for free just to help me implement the missing subscription layer for monetization.
I left motivated and purchased the program membership so that I can start collecting feedback from real users immediatelly. However, there is also other project called edi.eco that was competing for free time in my schedule at that time in the past. It had a priority. I had been building edi for more than a year. It had a single user but this is a story for another time.
In pursuit of something bigger
I got discouraged very easily and found good excuses not to pubish the app. Despite having a promo website live and app nearly ready, I did not go forward for a long time. My mindset was not prepared for it so I decided not to pull the trigger.
Joex very recently, I've connected a couple of dots and noticed a group of principles that guided Joex implementation strategy. This was a pivotal moment when things started to click. I had managed to iterate the app into distribution-ready version in a matter of 4 days maximum. It was really that easy to finish it on the 27th of February, but was it really?