Quick summary of the progress so far
In the past three months, I've worked most weekdays on building this app and sharing it with the people who I think could benefit from the learning innovation it provides. It's serving about 6 users every day (in addition to my awesome brother Will, who is my #1 fan), and one of them is still using the app since v1.0, almost 3 months ago! I've made and published 16 short videos for the purpose of demand generation, and I've made countless comments on Reddit replying to people who describe the problem Banyan solves. I've made about $10 so far from paying customers.
As a product, I'm really pleased with the app's progress and trajectory. It has been obvious from quite early on that the app is sticky - the concept achieves what I knew it would achieve: It makes consistency effortless. I've managed to find a handful of people who immediately resonated with the concept and have been avid users. This is my greatest source of ongoing motivation. I have no doubt that enough customers exist for this technology to sustain a compelling business. I want to be the person who designs the leading application of this technology, so that I can shape it into a business that is truly built to serve rather than extract. With every release, I'm getting closer to delivering a product that can realise my vision. This vision is of a world changed by a simple idea: True consistency is effortless. If you want to practice and improve at something every day without fail, it must come from a dedicated supporting system, not from human willpower.
On the business front however, I've made many mistakes, owing I think mainly to my inexperience. This situation is quickly improving though. I've finally brought myself up to date with some of the relevant literature, having read The Lean Startup (Eric Ries) and The Four Steps to the Epiphany (Steve Blank). So, while the commercial results so far have been modest (to say the least), I still have great hopes for the future.
A high-level overview of upcoming plans
What's next for the product
Progressing towards the product vision
I want to make it so that once a person decides that they want to learn a language, all they have to do from that point is to set up the Banyan app. Once that's done, the zero-touch nature of the learning mechanism means that learning and advancement are an inevitability, and with time, they will reach a relatively advanced level without ever having to reserve a dedicated chunk of time in your day for app-based lessons or studying. When people learn languages for real (e.g. as children), they learn them in parallel to their normal day-to-day activities, not in separate blocks of time.
Of course, I don't think building all of this is possible within the next 3 months, however, I do think a significant subset of this can be built in that time frame. In particular, I want the app to start proactively introducing users to new vocabulary aligned with their long-term learning goals, showing them how to use it in context, and helping them start to produce ever more in their target language, as their skills progress.
Product-led growth
I'm a programmer by trade. It should be obvious then, that the marketing and demand generation activities of running a business represent my biggest challenge in this little project. Furthermore, generating demand for such a different type of product requires articulating its value, and I think there's nobody better to do that than existing happy users. I will therefore be investing more of my time in a family of features designed to help the app grow simply by its use. These will include a generous and innovative referral programme, and possibly some form of sharing functionality, although I haven't decided on what form that might take. (I am open to suggestions!)
What's next for distribution
More channel experimentation
Concretely, that means trying out new content platforms and starting to run small experiments with paid adverts. For example, updating the website with blog posts more often 👀 and having a go with Apple Search Ads perhaps.
Better content execution
The product is sticky and useful, as shown by the small cohort of users I found who understand and appreciate this service. If I'm ever going to make back the annual Apple Developer Fee, I'll need to put more into content creation and demand generation. This will perhaps mean I have less time for product work, but that's frankly warranted - I'm an engineer and I love to build, what can I say?