🎉 2018 Was Great. 2019 Will Be Better.
Hey there!
Jordan here. It’s been a while since you’ve heard from me.
I just updated the blog with a post describing all of the awesome stuff you can expect to see in 2019.
Here’s a link: https://closet.tools/first-year. You can comment on the post there.
If you don’t want to click the link, you’re in luck! You can read it below 👇.
This is the last you’ll hear from me in 2018, so Happy Holidays! 🎉
Reflecting on 2018
It’s been a while since I (Jordan) have posted on here. What happened?
Well, as with most people, life caught up to me and I had to find a balance. Between the birth of my daughter, another project that I had promised to finish, being a full-time employee, and trying to be a good husband, something had to give.
And yes, the Closet Assistant is (currently) a side-project for me! I hope to change that soon.
I had worked tirelessly on the Closet Assistant for a few months, and it had enough features and stability to step away for a short while. I managed the chat interface to help existing and new customers, but that’s about it.
Created in February. Launched in March.
The Closet Assistant was born out of a simple tool I made for my wife to automatically share her items. It wasn’t nearly as polished as the current assistant. It was still very manual, and not very smart.
February 2018 rolled around and I was looking for a way to use some of the web development skills I had been learning over the last couple of years. I wanted to build something useful. Something that genuinely helped people.
At this time, the original script I wrote to automatically share items was being used by my wife and a few of her friends. They were all making more sales, and it felt great to be able to give that to them.
I decided to turn that script into a product. Something that anyone on Poshmark could use to make more sales, grow their following, and save a bunch of time.
I started out by giving out the original script on the r/Poshmark subreddit. Through that post I was able to get roughly 150 people to try out the script, give me feedback, and give me ideas.
From that feedback, I got to work. I spent the whole month of February, working long nights and early mornings, to ship the first version of the Closet Assistant. It was ugly, but it worked.
From launching, I was able to garner around 10 people to try out the new assistant. I was ecstatic! In fact, to this day, the first customer that signed up is still a customer. Pretty cool.
Helping People (And Growing Pains)
I successfully accomplished my original goal of the Closet Assistant: to genuinely help people. To this day I have saved hundreds of people several thousands of hours of time, and helped them make more money than they would have without the assistant.
That’s something that I take pride in. I love being able to help people at scale.
Early on, I was shipping features left and right. I added the closet organizer (which is what most people hear about first when they come to this website), edit + sharing, smarter CAPTCHA alarms and notifications, and a bunch more.
With that, came bugs, instability and customers leaving. Every once in a while I would break the tool and people would complain. It wasn’t good. I needed a better way to test and push new features.
After I fixed all of the bugs and satisfied everyone is where things slowed down for me. It was late spring, and my daughter would be born soon. There was another big web development project I was working on that needed to be done, so I shifted gears.
Since then, the Closet Assistant has grown (slowly but surely). It definitely would have grown faster if it was the only thing I was working on, but that’s how it goes with side projects.
What to Expect in 2019
Here’s the good stuff.
Not only will there be new features in 2019, but there will be much, much more.
You can keep an eye on the features I’ll be adding on this page.
1. A Proper Google Chrome Extension
The Google Chrome extension version of the Closet Assistant is the most widely used distribution, but it’s arguably the most complicated to set up except for mobile (I’ll get to that, no worries).
Having to download the app, put your browser in developer mode, and drag to install is not intuitive or a secure way of distributing the assistant.
So, in early 2019, I pledge to fix the chrome extension so people can install from the Chrome Web Store instead of downloading it.
2. Fix Signup. Add Profile Page.
As of right now, to sign up for the assistant you have to put in your credit card info for a free-trial. This will be going away in the future. This doesn’t affect current customers as much as it impacts future ones.
But, along with that, I will be adding a profile page on the Closet Tools website that will allow people to manage their credit card, login, settings, and subscription.
This will make it much easier for people to upgrade/downgrade their assistant, and not have to message me to do it manually.
3. Features. Features. Features.
As of right now there are some cool features that no other Poshmark apps have. Things like the closet organizer, and the CAPTCHA alarm, and using it on mobile.
In 2019 I want to add even more exclusive features. Here’s what you can expect to see:
- Return Shares - A way for you to return shares to people who share your stuff.
- Share Counter - This will keep track of your shares throughout the day so you don’t risk getting soft-banned. It will also keep track over time, so you can see how you share over time!
- Analytics - Ever wonder how your closet has grown because of the assistant? How many followers did you get? How many shares did you pump out? How many sales did you make? This will be a panel that allows you to see the impact the assistant has made on your closet.
- More Popup. Less Draggy. - As of right now the assistant is this large purple box that sits in the corner when you open any Poshmark page. This will change in the future. It will likely be a little bubble that you can ‘launch’. This keeps it out of the way when you’re not using it. This will be better for the mobile version as well.
- Automatic Offer To Likers - Just like it says, this would be an interface that allows you to go through all of the items in your closet and offer that item to the people who have liked it at a discount.
- Scheduled Sharing - You’ll be able to set up the assistant to start sharing at a specific time. Say you wanted to start sharing when a party starts, but you have to head out for the evening. Technically you could use the assistant on your phone, but this would allow you to leave while still getting your items shared. Peace of mind.
- Share Limit - This will be a limit that you can set on your closet so you don’t get soft-banned. Simply share until you hit your limit. No more worries.
4. A Mobile App
Instead of having to do the current cumbersome way of launching the assistant on your phone, it would be a dedicated phone app.
With a phone app version of the assistant, you would be able to keep your phone/tablet awake so you can keep sharing. You would be able to get a working CAPTCHA alarm, as well as notifications.
I’m really excited about this, as mobile is one of the ways the Closet Assistant differentiates itself from other Poshmark apps.
5. Community
I would love to start a Poshmark growth and sales community. A place where people can come and learn about growing their closet and making more sales.
I’d like to start a podcast interviewing top sellers on Poshmark. I’d like to create free courses and produce resources for people just getting started. There’s a lot of potential here!
And More
There are so many more things that I would like to do with the assistant. Things like scraping eBay listings to auto-generate Poshmark listings (for those of you who list in both places). A Poshmark auto-listing assistant, a share-group manager… The opportunities are endless!
2018 Was Great. 2019 Will Be Better.
There’s no doubt about it, 2019 will be the year of the Closet Assistant. This post only scratches the surface of the things that I would like to do.
Thank you for joining me on this journey, and I really hope Closet Tools has helped you save time and make more money this year on Poshmark.
Have an awesome Christmas, and a Happy New Year!
Jordan 🎇