Launch time 🚀 (March Update)
Hi friends,
Thank you from the bottom of my heart 🙏🏻 Why? Without you, I would have most likely given up a long time ago. We now have well over 330 regular newsletter readers (PB fans) which keep me motivated to create the best Bible app ever. You are like 330+ accountability partners 😀. There are also over 200 people testing out the Beta. Crazy right?!
Here’s a massive high five 🙌🏻. Your support means the world to me. Give yourself a pat on the back. Then come and read the rest 👇🏻
The News
Here it is. We just launched PB on the Apple App Store. Ready to Rock & Roll with the ESV version as the first premium Bible.
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Wait — actually, we launched a week and a half ago, but there were issues. Now it’s working though 😅😭
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Here’s a GIF to show you how happy this makes me:
Wow. What a ride hey!? The scary and exciting thing is we are still at the beginning. This reminds me of two illustrations made by Jack Butcher. These simple illustrations tell such an important story
The first is to show how things feel slow and uneventful for a long long time. And then suddenly ↗.
With PB this has been a two+ year journey with many months of no progress especially in between developers. This is what it felt like 👇🏻
The second image illustrates the daily struggles and emotional ups and downs, but if you zoom out to get a better perspective and everything looks more like a straight line.
Cool right?
Anyway
So this version of PB has a few shortcomings. Not all the functionality that was promised in the original Indiegogo pitch is available yet. The important thing is the main functions are there and it works. The rest of the meat will be added depending on the monthly income from the app store. The ESV is just the basic plain version for now. When we have more cash the Intro’s, Notes, and Prefaces of the ESV will also be added.
Updates
The latest update fixed a lot of little bugs:
- The app works 100% fine offline and online now. It feels really cool to use it offline. And it’s fast.
- Width, Colors, and Transparency is remembered and saved across all three drawing tools.
- Saving works 100%. I tried to break the app. I could not.
- The ESV translation is now available in the amount of an $8.99 once-off purchase.
- For premium features, you need to subscribe.
- Over 20 other little updates and bug fixes that you probably would not notice, but it makes the experience better.
The Future (We need your support)
Here’s the thing though. I’m a pretty passionate designer and quite a perfectionist. I have already re-designed the whole app in my head, but we will get to that part at a later stage 🏋🏻♂️😅
The list is long.
There is a ton of refinements, more bugs to be fixed, more translations to buy and add, better and more annotation tools, etc.
This will require at least another $100k. I’ve spent more or less $20k on development at this point.
So how will we raise more money?
Good question. In the app, there are premium subscriptions ($9.99 per month or $59.99 per annum). I know that subscriptions (monthly or annually) feel expensive and are irritating, but PB is priced similarly to well-funded apps that are in the same category — actually cheaper in a lot of cases.
I believe the premium features ad value and are worth the money.
All the subscription proceeds go to PB to make it the highest quality Bible app on the market. The more the subs, the better PB will become.
The other option was to raise funds for equity, but it is a lot of work and PB is an LLC which also complicates things a little (also PB is my baby and I don’t want to share 😂)
PB is an Indie Project and we want to make it better. Much, much better. Please help us by subscribing and supporting further development.
And if you really like the app, tell your friends, tell your uncle, niece, aunt, parents, school, church, and whoever else loves the Bible and owns an iPad.
Oh and please send your suggestions or any bugs you may find and I will add them to the ever-growing list 📃
That’s it (for now).
Love
Erin
