Projects Insight No 8. | June 2024

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Released on Thursday July 11th in 2024 by Simon Braun (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

Follow my journey as a digital creator: Learn more about my steady progress, the tools I use to work efficiently, my marketing methods, the business numbers and the sources of inspiration I find.

The Projects Insight Newsletter is free, enjoy reading!

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Disclaimer: * an asterisk is identifying an affiliate link

Look back – June

Last month was quite tough. Doing some travelling, as well as being sick for several days, made it difficult to move the needle. I also got an offer to take care of and to take over another macOS application. Not sure, if I should probably better focus on my existing apps. We will see.—Oh, and now there have been more than 100.000 downloads of all my apps. That’s nice, but hard to grasp.

I decided to remove several recurring sections of the newsletter. It should feel more focused now. I try to be mindful of your reading time.

TOTM – Tool of the month

Tool of the month: Soulver. Showing the app icon of Souver: an calculator with 4 buttons and a pen standing diagonally in front of it.

(Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

It was a more recent discovery for me. I have stumbled across Soulver many times, but this time I gave it a try and found so many great use cases for it. —It is a blast to write down numbers with text for context and do calculations like on a piece of paper, but of course Soulver is calculating for you and because of variables updating the numbers is fun. Believe me, you should try it out, too! It is also available for iPadOS and iOS, but currently I use it solely on my mac. (I know that Apple just announced some similar functionality for its Notes app, but believe me that Soulver is the way to go.)

Soulver 3 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | macOS (iOS/iPadOS) | Paid → Download (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

Projects Overview

ACTIVE

Filmlog – Private Cinema Diary: App icon showing a white "fl" on gray background.

(Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

⬛️ Filmlog (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) – First-class private movie tracker
The best app for a personal overview of your seen and unseen movies and for looking up information on movies, actors and cast members.

Auricula – Interval Ear Trainer: App icon showing two triangle indicators on rainbow colors.

(Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

🟩 Auricula (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) – Interval ear trainer
An interval ear trainer to practice your sense of hearing and to learn the skill to identify intervals.

Next Size – Kids Clothing: App Icon showing a washing label on red background.

(Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

🟥 Next Size (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) – Forecast for children clothing sizes
Children clothes size forecast. It's that easy: Next Size estimates the body height of your kids and tells you which clothing sizes will fit when.

📱App | Since 2024 | iOS, iPadOS and macOS | Freemium
🔗 Website (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | AppStore (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

(Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

🟪 Projects Insight (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) – Follow my journey as a digital creator
Learn more about my steady progress, the tools I use to work efficiently, my marketing methods, the business numbers and the sources of inspiration I find.

✉️ Newsletter | Since 2023 | Free + optional patreons
🔗 Subscribe (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | Posts (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | Patreons (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

PROTOTYPES

🌐 Puinte.org (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)
A community financed effort to create better software for the general public: privacy-friendly, open-source, fully reusable and financed in solidarity.

🌐 Infolge.org (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)
A comprehensive format for following current events, comparing points of view and forming a differentiated opinion

ARCHIVED

📱skunkit (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (2012 – 2015)
The ethical messenger service: an iOS app

Updates

— No updates in June

Marketing

POSTS

— No posts in June

SEARCH ADS – June

I currently use Basic and Advanced Search Ads with mixed results for now and just getting into the many configuration options of the Advanced Search Ads.

Search Ads: Basic/Advanced
🟩 Auricula 10/72 Installs | CPT 0,20€/0.44€
🟥 Next Size 2/1 Installs | CPT 0.21€/0.41€
⬛️ Filmlog – Paused

I decided to pause Search Ads for Filmlog up to the next major release. The current version is not bad, but whenever I use the latest Testflight (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) version, I feel like I do not want to pay for ads for the current Filmlog app.

Publications, Appearances and Testimonials

— No Publications, Appearances and Testimonials in June

Did I miss something? Please let me know: feedback@simonbraun.eu (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

Inspiration and Findings

Bookmarklets for testing your website (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) – Jeremy Keith
I think it is a great idea to check your and other websites regularly. Having bookmarklets for it, definitely helps.

Dynamic Type on the Web (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) – Craig Hockenberry (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)
Never thought about this as a possibility. But sure, great idea and great implementation—as always.

DEDICATED READER'S CHECKLIST

I have to thank you dear reader for your interest in my newsletter. If you are interested in supporting me further please check out the following list:

recommend this newsletter and my apps to your friends
download and test my apps
rate my apps and write reviews on the AppStore
follow me on any social network you like
upvote my apps on Product Hunt

Dedicated readers who would like to support the newsletter and take part in the monthly AMA meetings can become a patron here:

Become patreon (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

Statistics

OVERALL

Downloads – 100,537

🟩 Auricula 81,005
⬛️ Filmlog 19,270
🟥 Next Size 262

Social Media Followers

🙎🏽‍♂️ Personal Mastodon 109 @techumbely@indieweb.social (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)
🙎🏽‍♂️ Personal Instagram 70 @techumbely (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)
⬛️ Filmlog Mastodon 9 @filmlog@indieapps.space (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

Product Hunt

🟩 Auricula 2 Upvotes
🟥 Next Size 2 Upvotes

JUNE

Downloads

🟩 Auricula 290
⬛️ Filmlog 200
🟥 Next Size 32

Sessions (opt-in)

⬛️ Filmlog 3,998
🟩 Auricula 576
🟥 Next Size 21

Crashes

🟥 Next Size 0
🟩 Auricula 11
⬛️ Filmlog 77

Newsletter Members

🟪 Newsletter Patreons 0

Sales (net revenue)

🟩 Auricula 53.74€
⬛️ Filmlog 33.15€
🟥 Next Size 4.51€

Earnings

Apps 91.04€

Expenses

I try to keep costs very low and looking out for growth enablers. Annually recurring costs are converted into monthly expenses. And labour hours are not taken into account as the projects are still a hobby.

MARKETING

Apple Search Ads 66.76€

HOSTING & INTERNET

Hosting 9.41€ – Legacy plan (112€ yearly)
Public work phone 10€ – fraenk (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)*

APPLICATIONS & SERVICES

Apple Developer Program 8.25€ monthly (99.00€ yearly)

GitTower license 5.85€ monthly (70.21€ yearly)

RevenueCat Free plan – used for ‘Next Size’
TelemetryDeck Free plan – 3,605/100,000 monthly signals
appfigures 20.97€ – Monitor (50% blackfriday discount for 12 months)
Mastodon Instance Support 1.19€ (via Patreon)

OTHER COSTS

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Margin

JUNE

Earnings 91.04€
Expenses -122.34€
Loss -31,30€

At the very end you will find, as always, a section of the tools and services that I use. Thank you for reading my newsletter!

Until next month and stay safe,
Simon

If you want to become a testimonial for the newsletter or if you have questions, suggestions or critique, please write me: feedback@simonbraun.eu (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

Simon Braun – Website (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) / Mastodon (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

Want to start your own Newsletter? I recommend to give Steady a try (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)!