We went from 4.5 stars to 4 stars, but we’re still soaring!
Not so long ago (read: September 2016), at 4.5 stars, we were the highest rated email app on both Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Then we took a bold decision — we went from being free to paid.
We had close to a million active users, 4.5 stars rating on both the stores, ‘Top developer’ badge from Google, a lot of love from the press and users across the globe. All this sure gave us a sense of satisfaction and pride, but we would’ve died by the end of 2016.
Let me tell you The Newton Story — how we took a tough decision and stood by it, even when the odds were against us.
Situation Room — What we went through while taking the tough call
In June 2016, when we were discussing the monetization model, one thing scared us — how will our users react? What will happen to our store ratings? How bad will our Twitter feed be? Oh! What about support tickets?
We told ourselves — “we’ll die anyway, why not make an honest attempt at building a business?”
However, fear was not an option for us. We had the runway to last 6 months. Maybe, a little more than that. We told ourselves — “we’ll die anyway, why not make an honest attempt at building a business?” We gathered courage and started preparing for the ‘toughest phase’ of our life, with the belief that there is nothing wrong in expecting people to pay, as we just made a good product, and it has a price.
People don’t have the habit of paying for email, let alone pay a subscription. We were completely aware of this and hoped it would change, at least in the third-party space. Turned out, we were just ahead of the curve with other email apps following suit.
The D-day (Sept 14. 2016)
When the day arrived, our support mailbox was overflowing with hate emails, #RIP CloudMagic is all we got to see on Twitter, and two thousand one-stars in a single day (on Play Store alone.) We had anticipated some hate. But, this was an overwhelming nightmare!
Users demanded that we roll back the update. We stood our ground, hoping that the storm will pass. But, it continued for weeks — every single day, our team had to go through the hate emails, tweets, and reviews. We kept fighting.
The only positive way we could look at the situation was, people gave a shit, they cared. We’ve impacted many lives with our honest effort to fix email. How many in the world can say that?
The Mob Mentality
There were a few users who understood what we were trying to achieve and supported us. But, a lot of people wanted us to fail. They even predicted our date of demise. Everyone in the tech industry felt sad when Mailbox announced their shutdown. I wonder, what their reaction would have been if Mailbox asked them to pay.
Twitter trolls lasted for a few weeks. Some people even created fake accounts to recommend rival email apps, and at times, they even tried spoiling the positive tweets from the actual users. We banned and reported these ‘fake users.’
Emails were manageable, but the hate continued on the app stores. App store reviews became a place to troll us. Some users exploited the review system on iOS and Mac — they left a negative review with every version. We kept complaining to Apple. They helped us get some reviews down. But, the negative reviews never stopped. In most cases, a review cannot be traced back to a person. So they just went berserk and continued to leave bad comments. Looking at one user, others started doing the same. The mob mentality crept in. Maybe, they thought if everyone leaves a one-star we might roll back the update.
Sometimes, App Store reviews won’t tell you the real story
To be honest, thousands of negative reviews caused us to question our decision. It was depressing. We had to disable the daily review email to the team. Only a select few were receiving them. Did we screw it up?
No, we did not. Within a few days, a lot of users started subscribing. Money started flowing in. Sales were good. But, the app store reviews won’t tell you the real story. We lost many potential customers who might have decided not to try our app after reading these reviews. It made us wonder, is the App Store review system stopping developers from taking bold decisions?
What doesn’t kill you, simply makes you stronger
Now, we are just above 4 stars. When you have 150K+ ratings, trust me, it takes a lot of one-stars to drop 0.5 stars overall. Most of the one-stars were not for the quality of the product but as a reaction to the newly introduced subscription model. It hurts, a lot. Now, with more paid customers leaving positive reviews, the scene on all the stores is getting better. And most importantly, business is good. We are here to stay.
Today, our team believes that we can face anything and survive.
Looking back, those couple of months were the toughest in our lives. We could’ve easily given up. Our belief in the product gave us the strength to fight. Today, our team believes that we can face anything and survive.
