My semiannual update on the Marco Arment 10-Year Challenge. See Part 1 in the series.

The Red Ace

The Red Ace got a significant update in October: insurance and surrender support, both of which are a major part of counting cards. I also added split view support for iPad, hoping it might boost my search rankings or increase the odds of getting featured in the App Store.

Biggest disappointment from updating the app was the inevitable decline in sales. Starting around 27 December 2016, the current version finally had enough reviews for the App Store to display and sales resumed.

Elmseeds

In 10 months, I’ve produced 20 screencasts. An okay number, but I really need to stick to a once a week schedule. The past two months have been much closer to that with six screencasts produced, only missing weeks around holidays.

I’d love to eventually run sponsorships à la Railscasts. Need to keep producing content on a consistent basis to get there.

One stat I want to track between these updates is number of followers on my @seedsofelm account. Currently at 211. I have other analytics to help gauge the number of video plays, but at this point, I’m more interested in the number of people who opt-in to updates.

Secret

My Elixir and Elm app is nearing launch. I have a lot of eggs in this basket, so a strong launch will go a long way toward keeping up my enthusiasm and monetary ability to pursue it.

User-testing has gone well so far. Every test is still revealing some pretty great insights. I’m looking forward to having some beta customers onboard within a week. They should drive the final changes necessary before the public announcement.