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> How do you plan your company around timing? Here’s my current example: 1. For the past 2-3 years I’ve been developing a todo app (Matterlist, formerly Tuska

> How do you plan your company around timing? Here’s my current example: 1. For the past 2-3 years I’ve been developing a todo app (Matterlist, formerly Tuskarr: http://tuskarr.tilda.ws/ http://tuskarr.tilda.ws/, past HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14154378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14154378) to replace Wunderlist because I’ve always been unsatisfied with it. 2. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that they will retire Wunderlist, likely in 2017. 3. I’m convinced that Wunderlist closure will be the biggest marketing opportunity Matterlist will ever have. The moment Microsoft announces the closure, there will be a lot of people in the world who are looking for a Wunderlist alternative, and there will be press people who will be interested in providing their audience with solutions. 4. Hence my decision to focus the website, SEO, ASO, and all marketing efforts in general on a single idea: “wunderlist replacement” / “wunderlist alternative”. 5. The focus will last for a year or so. This should be enough to establish Matterlist as a Wunderlist replacement in terms of SEO and in the minds of the audience. After that, I can begin gradually focusing away from the idea of “wunderlist alternative”. So basically, I’m betting the entire farm on a single timed event outside my control.

ToJans 9y ago
I wouldn't bet the house on a single horse; f.e. what it Microsoft suggests another todo app? One plan isn't enough IMO; you should have at least 5, or even 10? The odds of one plan failing are a lot bigger than the odds of all of them failing. It's all a numbers game IMO. I prefer to throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. One of our more successful blog posts literally took me 2 minutes, while we have others that took over a day and didn't work at all...
- VladimirGolovin 9y ago
  I'm afraid spreading out my semantic eggs across multiple baskets won't work for SEO. SEO is a long game, and it involves slowly building up focused external mentions, so I can't really flip-flop on that. On the other hand, I can freely experiment with paid ads and landing pages (they will be excluded from search), and that's where I can throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks.
BinaryIdiot 9y ago
> For the past 2-3 years I’ve been developing a todo app (Matterlist, formerly Tuskarr: http://tuskarr.tilda.ws/ http://tuskarr.tilda.ws/, past HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14154378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14154378) to replace Wunderlist because I’ve always been unsatisfied with it. Honestly it looks good but it doesn't look to be really any better than anything already out there. Granted I haven't used it yet but judging by your wite's feature list and screenshots it seems like just another, generic ToDo list. I certainly don't want to discourage you; I honestly haven't found a good ToDo list that does exactly what I want it to do either. But it's such a saturated market I'm convinced you either need to have insane publicity or a new, novel way of dealing with lists to be moderately successful. > Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that they will retire Wunderlist, likely in 2017. I wouldn't be so sure Microsoft is going to retire Wunderlist in 2017. The only quote I can find from Microsoft regarding the timeline is: > "incorporated the best of Wunderlist into To-Do." Considering Wunderlist's insane popularity I honestly doubt they will ever completely shut it down...at least in any short term time frame. Sure they shut down Sunrise roughly a year after purchasing it but that simply displayed data from other services better; Wunderlist has its own cloud storage with a huge amount of data. That's not an easy switch for users. I wish you luck but I am highly skeptical on their Wunderlist shut down.
- VladimirGolovin 9y ago
  > Honestly it looks good but it doesn't look to be really any better than anything already out there. Granted I haven't used it yet but judging by your wite's feature list and screenshots it seems like just another, generic ToDo list. Hopefully that's because the temporary site I linked above was created literally in a couple of hours. The production homepage will have at least 50% of its real estate devoted to explaining why Matterlist is unique. There will be a block that explains major problems with existing todo lists and how Matterlist addresses them, and each of these problems will have a dedicated linked article explaining it. We do use some unique approaches to todo lists - for example, our approach to recurring tasks where we separate their definition and recurrences. > I am highly skeptical on their Wunderlist shut down. Maybe you're right, but I can't discount a complete shutdown. I'm planning to launch before the shutdown anyway (mostly because I need to build up SEO anyway), and I'll prepare some strategy / materials / campaings for the actual closure event, should it happen.

ToJans 9y ago

I wouldn't bet the house on a single horse; f.e. what it Microsoft suggests another todo app? One plan isn't enough IMO; you should have at least 5, or even 10? The odds of one plan failing are a lot bigger than the odds of all of them failing. It's all a numbers game IMO. I prefer to throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. One of our more successful blog posts literally took me 2 minutes, while we have others that took over a day and didn't work at all...

VladimirGolovin 9y ago
I'm afraid spreading out my semantic eggs across multiple baskets won't work for SEO. SEO is a long game, and it involves slowly building up focused external mentions, so I can't really flip-flop on that. On the other hand, I can freely experiment with paid ads and landing pages (they will be excluded from search), and that's where I can throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks.

BinaryIdiot 9y ago

> For the past 2-3 years I’ve been developing a todo app (Matterlist, formerly Tuskarr: http://tuskarr.tilda.ws/ http://tuskarr.tilda.ws/, past HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14154378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14154378) to replace Wunderlist because I’ve always been unsatisfied with it. Honestly it looks good but it doesn't look to be really any better than anything already out there. Granted I haven't used it yet but judging by your wite's feature list and screenshots it seems like just another, generic ToDo list. I certainly don't want to discourage you; I honestly haven't found a good ToDo list that does exactly what I want it to do either. But it's such a saturated market I'm convinced you either need to have insane publicity or a new, novel way of dealing with lists to be moderately successful. > Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that they will retire Wunderlist, likely in 2017. I wouldn't be so sure Microsoft is going to retire Wunderlist in 2017. The only quote I can find from Microsoft regarding the timeline is: > "incorporated the best of Wunderlist into To-Do." Considering Wunderlist's insane popularity I honestly doubt they will ever completely shut it down...at least in any short term time frame. Sure they shut down Sunrise roughly a year after purchasing it but that simply displayed data from other services better; Wunderlist has its own cloud storage with a huge amount of data. That's not an easy switch for users. I wish you luck but I am highly skeptical on their Wunderlist shut down.

VladimirGolovin 9y ago
> Honestly it looks good but it doesn't look to be really any better than anything already out there. Granted I haven't used it yet but judging by your wite's feature list and screenshots it seems like just another, generic ToDo list. Hopefully that's because the temporary site I linked above was created literally in a couple of hours. The production homepage will have at least 50% of its real estate devoted to explaining why Matterlist is unique. There will be a block that explains major problems with existing todo lists and how Matterlist addresses them, and each of these problems will have a dedicated linked article explaining it. We do use some unique approaches to todo lists - for example, our approach to recurring tasks where we separate their definition and recurrences. > I am highly skeptical on their Wunderlist shut down. Maybe you're right, but I can't discount a complete shutdown. I'm planning to launch before the shutdown anyway (mostly because I need to build up SEO anyway), and I'll prepare some strategy / materials / campaings for the actual closure event, should it happen.