Building a ‘Forever App’

Strong relationships last a lifetime, so an app to help build them should too. However, building an app that lasts decades or generations flies in the face of typical app lifecycles used by businesses, which put speed above all else and throw expensive engineers at problems.

Trying to build an app that lasts forever with tactics used by apps that might only last a few years is a bad idea, so I set out to think through my own approach from first principles. This post is about the approach and some of the trade-offs.

The world of relationship management apps is a strange one. Search the App Store and there are seemingly many choices, but observe it over time and you’ll notice they all either switch to focus on business users, or are abandoned. The uncomfortable truth about these apps is they’re difficult to get off the ground in the traditional ways (i.e. venture capital funding).

Independent

Most software companies get investment because it takes a long time to build an app and it’s not generating any money until it launches. Revere has no investors. It was funded directly from my personal savings. There’s nothing wrong with investment but it has strings attached you need to be aware of. Venture capital investors want to 10x their money and it turns out to be really difficult in the personal relationship management space. So after some time they steer the company towards serving businesses, which are easier to sell to and less price sensitive.

An app like Revere must be independent.

Small

A company is like a tree. It can grow to be big and strong, but starts off small and delicate. Put too much weight on a sapling and it will break. Strength in terms of a business is how much money it makes. Weight is how much money it spends.

Revere is still small and must therefore spend small too. Revere has no full-time employees and no offices. We are a small team that works part-time, as-needed. All features are designed by me and built with income from subscriptions. I have a day job as well, further reducing the weight on the Revere sapling. This insures it has a chance to grow strong. One day it will be strong enough to pay me to work on it full-time, but not yet.

A company like Revere must be small to start.

Simple

More functionality means more code and more complexity. More complexity means more people needed to manage it. This puts more weight on the tree. The single most effective way to stay small is keeping complexity low — keeping things simple. This can be done with thoughtful design, using standard components, and a focused set of features.

As a result, some features people want won’t be built, but that’s a necessary trade-off. On the flip-side, there’s a joy in using something simply designed that does one thing well.

Revere must be a simple app.

Subscriptions

As someone with 17 different app subscriptions, I certainly appreciate the pain of adding another. However, subscriptions are the only viable business model for an app like Revere. They are also aligned with you as the user.

With subscriptions, the people paying for the app are the same people using it. Without subscriptions (aka. pay-once apps), the money comes only from new users. This forces the business to spend money and attention on marketing rather than new features.

My goal with Revere is to make the subscription valuable enough that people are happy to pay for it. Thanks to everyone who already does.

Revere must have subscriptions.

Slow

A smaller team has a lower output of work, meaning features take longer to build and rollout. That said, this is only for the time being. As Revere tree grows stronger over time (i.e. has more subscribers), more money can be invested into hours the team can work building new features.

Revere must grow at a sustainable pace.

***

In a world of super apps, mega teams, and million dollar marketing budgets, Revere is taking a path less traveled. Not everyone will be interested, but many will find it a breath of fresh air. Most importantly, it’s aligned with the everyone’s biggest goal: growing their personal relationships for a lifetime. Thanks for your support.