Monthly Archives: May 2026

Planning My Next App: A Week Ahead

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Last Updated on May 28, 2026 by Don Espe

This will be short, but I wanted to share it for accountability.

My last couple of apps were never overly successful. I have plans to help that along a bit, but it is about time to start a new app and go from there. I hope to at least start on one by next Monday. I don’t know what it will be, yet. But I should be able to come up with something over the next few days and start the process.

Part of the process will be coming up with the idea along with seeing if the idea is likely to succeed. Then there will be a bit of research and planning before actually starting the process of writing the code. By Monday I should be at that part. How long it takes to start coding from there is unknown at this point. Ideally it will be somewhat quickly, but it doesn’t make sense to rush it too much. There has to be time taken to give it the best chance for success.

From there, it will be figuring out what features need to happen before it is released and what features can wait for a later release. The goal is to release it relatively quickly in order to get feedback from users and the go from there. You can’t make money on an app until you release it to the public. And right now, getting some money matters in order to keep things afloat.

So, that’s my brief accountability post and plan for the next week or so.

An app lesson failure…

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Last Updated on May 26, 2026 by Don Espe

I have had at least a couple of popular apps that I attempted to improve greatly. The improvements were well done and useful, but I released them as separate apps. I think that cost me because I lost any of the original traffic that the original apps had and I haven’t been able to direct that traffic to the new apps. It also meant starting over with reviews and other metrics that tend to draw in new users.

So, if given the chance again I would probably replace the original version with the new version and hope for the best. I’m sure it would upset some users, but in both cases I worked hard to keep the original functionality in place while adding new features.

So, if you have an app that is successful and you want to upgrade it, take the time to think through how you want to release the new version. If the original functions stay in tact it might be better to simply update the old app to the new version instead of creating a stand alone app.

So, lesson learned and money lost. But, here we are.

It’s been a while…

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Last Updated on May 23, 2026 by Don Espe

Well, I guess I have yet to post anything this year. Well, so much for following through with better marketing.

Since it’s been a while, I thought I’d at least put a few words in here to say how things are going. I’ve been updating apps throughout the year, but nothing super major. I was a bit disappointed in my latest release. I like the app and I use it daily, but it hasn’t really found an audience. So, alas it seems like it will end as a commercial failure. But, at least it is an app that I find useful.

I have been doing a video blog daily on Instagram. I’ve covered a lot of topics – many of them political. If you followed the news at all you would know Minnesota has been featured prominently over the last several months (huh, it’s been over 6 months now???). So, that has occupied a lot of my thoughts. I have started to bring my focus back to my apps, though and hopefully I’ll come up with a new project somewhat soon.

If you want to see the Instagram posts, here is the link: instagram.com/duckyplanet

Well, that wasn’t much but at least it’s something. I hope all is going well for everyone and hopefully I’ll keep up with this better than I have been.