Pre-launch update
This week is going to be the shortest update in the past 6 months, because it's past midnight and I'm still in the race to make the deadline 😄
It looks like everything is on track, so April 1st is still the date to look forward to!
I also reduced the price to just $30 from the previous $49 I had planned.
The thinking behind this decision is this is my first paid product and I don't have a sizeable audience to launch to, so a medium-scale price like $49 or higher might scare people who see Lotus for the first time. When Lotus becomes more mature, stable and polished, I will probably increase it back up.
Now, in other news.
Billing
Last week I wrote down my options for selling Lotus outside Mac App Store. Paddle and FastSpring were clearly the best options, but at that time I couldn't sign up to Paddle, because I had to wait for a manual review of my application. So I started integrating with FastSpring.
Turns out there was a glitch in Paddle's systems, which caused this huge delay for them to get back to me, they just didn't see my signup request. Paddle reached out and they set me up with an account quickly.
However, I'll still stay with FastSpring, at least for now, for three reasons.
- I already wrote a server tailored to FastSpring for generation of license keys and integrating them with their checkout flow.
- Paddle doesn't support custom license keys out of the box. They have built-in support only for license keys generated with their native Mac SDK, which is not an option for me, since Lotus is powered by Electron.
- I have 3 days left.
So, to use Paddle I'd have to rewrite the billing server and also take care of sending out emails with license keys to customers, while FastSpring does that automatically.
Even though Paddle is a more modern alternative, I'll stay with FastSpring for the nearest future.
The only thing left for me here is to generate terms of service and privacy policy, which are required to get approved with FastSpring to start charging actual money.
New app icon and a website
First, check out the new app icon for Lotus!
Every piece is animated, including the glow below the flower and stars in the sky. Animation of stars is really subtle, look closer!
Lotus is also getting a new website! Current mini-website has served me well for half a year, but as I was adding a new logo, I realized it didn't fit well. So I decided to give the landing page a small refresh, which actually ended up a full-blown redesign.
I'm happy with the result and how well home, pricing and newsletter pages fit with each other. It remains simple, but packs a lot more information inside.
I know you can only see a header section in that screenshot, but let's just save it for the launch day for you to see the whole thing live 🙂
What's left
I started cutting scope aggressively, so some things like periodic reminders to buy a license during a free trial aren't even there. I thought that I'd show these reminders after 14 days anyway, so I will have 2 weeks to build that. Getting real!
Here's a launch to-do list I have right now:
- Terms of service and privacy policy
- Customize FastSpring UI and emails to match Lotus design
- Onboarding flow in the app
- Publish a changelog (optional)
Oh, and of course there are some last-minute bugs to fix, no release can go forward without those.
Launch
I promised 30% discount last week and I want to let you know that the discount will be applied by default, no coupons needed.
I'm planning to do a silent launch exclusively for you, my readers, and after a few days I'll disable the discount and announce a launch publicly.
I didn't plan on posting on Product Hunt or Hacker News yet, but I'll look into that after April 1st. Any tips here are much appreciated!
Once again, thank you for following along and hopefully we'll have something to celebrate in the next newsletter!
– Vadim.