The One-Woman Dev Team Diaries #200
Celebrating five years since StoryGraph's first spike and 200 issues! 🥳
Five Year Spike Anniversary
Five years ago, on this day, this tweet went live:
…and my life would never be the same again. 😅
You can read about what it was like at that time across issues #55, #56, and #57.
If you signed up to StoryGraph during the June 16-18 2020 influx, where we went from 1k-20k registered users (4.2m today!), hit “Reply” to let me know! I’d love to know your favourite thing about StoryGraph and your biggest hope for it across the next five years! ☺️
Until It’s Live
“Oh! You’ve taken away reading challenges?” 🤔
That was the first thing I said when Yeji showed me the proposed new profile page design.
But, I said to myself, I can’t let my inclinations get in the way. Let’s put this in front of users and see what they think.
Over one hundred thousand people saw the prototype and only two people commented on the missing challenges.
“Okay, so most people won’t care about them being gone,” I thought.
Nope! It’s been the biggest complaint so far, so we’re putting them back. 😅
It does make sense though — both as part of painting a holistic picture of a reader and for challenge discoverability.
I know there’s no substitute to actually using something live, but I was surprised by the feedback discrepancy.
Funny how things like that happen! 😆
Since Last Time
Some product updates:
More of the new mobile profile page design was implemented:
All of our in-app notifications have a corresponding push notification and a setting to toggle them.
Most of the software the app runs on has been updated to the latest versions.
I’ve re-started my work on fully automating the Giveaways setup and publishing process.
As part of our efforts to have the app be super fast everywhere all of the time, Rob and I are considering…moving away from distributed infrastructure back to what we had before… 👀
Bonding With Becky
My friend, Becky Searls, has been staying with me for a few days. We’ve been having a great time!
Becky used to be a languages teacher, but transitioned into being a personal trainer four years ago. She’s since started Build with Becky and I beta tested the programme for its first year. It was fantastic!
I really recommend it if you want to get into strength training but don’t know where to start — whether in a gym or at home — or if, like me, you’re experienced at lifting but need some variety in your programming! 💪🏾
including a tennis session with my coach this morning!
Issue 200
Wow, 200 issues!
Thank you for reading, whether this is your first issue or you’ve read all 200.
I’m really proud of myself for never missing an issue since I started, though Buttondown has really tried to test me. 😫
If you enjoy reading this newsletter and want to support me, please consider taking out a monthly “Pay-What-You-Want” Supporter Subscription (min $5/month) to The One-Woman Dev Team Diaries. (If you prefer an annual option, there’s a link in the email footer.)
This newsletter will always be free, though I was considering starting a private Discord and/or providing some other content to my paid supporters some time this year. However, given my product woes, this has to take a back seat for now.
Alternatively, I recently caught up on a friend’s newsletter, and she had a link to buy her a coffee if you wanted to support. I thought that was a lovely idea and I bought her one!
So, if you’d like to sponsor a future oat flat white or dirty chai then that would also be very much appreciated! 🙏🏾
In the meantime, this trip down memory lane from issue #100 still stands up!
What I'm reading
The last time I read a Stephen King book was October of last year! Time to kick off my slow chronological read again, with The Eyes of the Dragon.
Have a great week,
Nadia
P.S. Thank you, Tammer. It looks like you’ve fixed the Gmail emoji issue for me! 🤗