When I first started building these apps, keeping everything local was really just about keeping things simple. I didn’t want to build a bunch of backend infrastructure if I didn’t need it.
Once you add accounts, now you’re dealing with passwords, resets, people forgetting which email they used, login issues, and support tickets because someone can’t get into the app. All of that becomes part of the product too.
But as I got further into building The One Win, My Tiny Journal, and My Tiny Mood, I realized there was another reason I liked the local-first model better.
A lot of the information people put into these apps is personal. A journal entry is personal. If I’m checking in on whether I’m anxious, frustrated, happy, or just having a bad day, I don’t really see why that needs to sit in a company database. Same with what I’m trying to accomplish that day or the things I want to remember.
I started asking myself why any of that needs to leave the phone in the first place.
And on top of that, why should you have to pay $5 or $10 every month just so somebody can keep storing it for you?
That started to shape how I think about these products. If there’s no real reason for the data to leave your phone, I’d rather keep it there.
There’s something a little old school about it. When I was younger, you bought software, installed it, and it was yours. I’m not saying we need to go back to CDs and serial numbers, but I do think we lost something when every piece of software started trying to turn itself into a permanent monthly bill.
I’m also not against subscriptions. That would be hypocritical because Discipline Rewards (D/R) has one.
The difference is that D/R actually needs a backend. We have accountability partners, squads, shared commitments, reporting, and we are working on D/R Studio, where coaches will be able to publish plans to clients. People are interacting with other people, so the data has to move somewhere. There’s real infrastructure behind the product and ongoing value being delivered.
I’m Going Now, my app that lets you share where you’re headed so others can add what they need, also uses a backend.
So for me, the question isn’t whether subscriptions are good or bad. It’s whether the product actually justifies one.
I think subscriptions are overused because recurring revenue is attractive. I understand why companies want it. But if I’m building a simple utility that tracks one daily goal, or a journal that mostly lives on your phone, I have a harder time convincing myself that I should charge somebody every month forever.
Right now My Tiny Mood and The One Win are $9.99. My Tiny Journal is $19.99. You buy them and you own them.
Maybe at some point I release a major new version and there’s another purchase. I’m not opposed to that. I just don’t think the default answer has to be another subscription.
Part of that is also because of what I’m trying to build as a company. I’m not trying to build an empire or feed a hundred-person organization. Right now it’s me. I’m building consumer products and utilities that I want to be useful, look good, and feel complete.
If one of them gets real market share, great. I’d love that.
But I’m not starting with the question, “How do I extract the most lifetime value from this user?” I’m starting with, “What should this product cost, and what would feel fair if I were the one buying it?”
Privacy is part of that too, although I’m realistic about how much people actually care about privacy.
I heard someone say once that people will trade privacy for convenience, and I think that’s mostly true. GPS is probably the easiest example. We give up our location all day because turn-by-turn directions are incredibly useful.
So I don’t think you can build a mediocre app, stamp “private” on it, and expect people to care.
The app still has to be good. It has to look good. It has to feel comfortable. The price has to make sense. At the end of the day, none of this matters if the app is ugly or annoying to use.
I probably care more than the average user about making sure the private stuff stays private, but I don’t want privacy to be the excuse for a worse product.
Of course, doing it that way creates problems too.
The biggest one is that I have very little idea what people are doing once they download these apps.
I don’t know how often they open them. I don’t know if they tried the app for two days and deleted it. I don’t know where they got stuck. I don’t know which feature they love and which one nobody touches.
That would be incredibly useful information to have as a product builder.
I’m basically choosing not to have it.
I’m okay with that more than I expected to be. If someone is using a journal or a mood app, I don’t really need to watch what they’re doing in order to feel good about the product.
The part that actually worries me more is backup, because I know somebody is eventually going to lose a phone.
If somebody uses My Tiny Journal for three years, loses that phone, and then realizes they never backed anything up, that’s the kind of thing I’d hate to hear about.
So naturally, I over-engineered the backup options.
You can export files. You can create backups. You can use Apple or Google backup options. I’ve looked at OneDrive support. There are reminders because I know at some point somebody is still going to ignore all of it and then lose a phone.
That’s the other side of owning your data. You also own some of the responsibility for protecting it.
Ads are similar for me. I’m not against ads either.
I actually love relevant ads. If you know what I’m interested in and show me something useful, I’ll watch ads all day.
What I hate is being shown ads for things that have nothing to do with my life or interests. If the product isn’t relevant to me or anyone in my family, the ad just feels like wasted space.
I’m using ads in I’m Going Now. There’s one Google ad placement at the top that helps with monetization. I also use house ads to promote my own products, and we have space for partner placements.
That works fine in that product.
I don’t think it works in a journal. If I’m sitting down to write about something personal, I don’t want an ad wedged into the experience. Same thing with a mood check-in. If I’m opening the app to think about how I’m feeling, the last thing I want is an ad popping up and potentially changing my mood before I even answer the question.
Context matters.
The other part of this is complexity.
I probably need to admit that I’m not especially disciplined about MVPs.
I over-engineer.
Discipline Rewards is probably the best example. Before we had really proven product-market fit, I had already built habit tracking, goals, squads, accountability partners, reports, coach tools, and a ChatGPT integration. I believe we added Copilot too. We’re also working on D/R Studio.
That is not the classic “launch the smallest thing possible and learn” playbook.
But at some point I also thought, worst case, I built myself a really good habit tracker. I was already tracking this stuff manually anyway.
My Tiny Journal went through the same thing. It could have just been a basic journal with a text box and a calendar. Instead, I added themes, photo frames, visual customization, different ways of presenting entries, and a bunch of other things because I wanted version one to feel polished.
So when I say I like simple products, I don’t mean stripped-down products.
The concepts are simple.
My Tiny Journal is basically a notebook. The One Win is one goal or one meaningful win for the day. My Tiny Mood is a quick check-in with yourself. Discipline Rewards is about making commitments and following through.
None of those things need to feel like enterprise software.
That doesn’t mean the product has to be boring or shallow. I actually want the opposite. I want the thing to look good, feel premium, and have enough depth that somebody enjoys using it.
I just don’t want complexity that creates friction without giving something back.
If an app doesn’t need a login, I don’t want to make you create one. If the data doesn’t need to leave your phone, I don’t want to send it somewhere just because I can. If the business doesn’t need a subscription, I don’t want to force one because recurring revenue looks better on a spreadsheet.
Software companies have gotten very good at maximizing revenue per customer. That’s not automatically a bad thing. Businesses need to make money.
But the thing that makes the most money for the company isn’t always the thing I’d want as the customer.
Sometimes the better answer is just a smaller product that does what it said it would do.
You buy it once. It works. Your data stays with you. You use it when you need it.
I think there’s still room for more software like that.