An Empty Trough

This post describes Empty's current metrics and how we plan to navigate through the Trough of Sorrow.

For starters, here are our current daily downloads since our March 12 launch:

We got 451 downloads on day 1, hovered between 80-150 the following week, and recently stabilized at around 30 downloads per day over the past 6 days.

Since Empty is a $0.99 paid app you can understand our revenue as about 80% of this number thanks to the Apple Tax.

The trough of sorrow

Paul Graham coined the term "Trough of Sorrow" to describe the challenges that all products face after the novelty of a launch wears off (usually quickly).

All TOS articles show this chart, so catch up quick if you haven't seen it yet:

The chart offers hope and reminds you (like any good How I Built This episode) that all you have to do is not quit and your success is guaranteed.

But here's what I find most challenging about fighting through the trough:

Why the trough sucks

For me personally, the trough sucks for two main reasons:

1. There is now a number to look at every day

2. Growth is a totally different skill from product

Looking at the number

Having this metric constantly available makes me yearn for the good old TestFlight days. The days when we could tease the app and have 20 people beg to get in. When launch day was ahead of us and we could secretly hope - like every builder does - that Empty would be so good we could just coast afterward and it would magically grow itself.

Growth and distribution is a different beast

On Tuesday I sent cold emails to pop science doctors and fasting influencers to ask if they would test our app and consider a paid plug.

Yesterday I posted a TikTok, selected the voiceover named "Jenny," and paid to promote it.

Every day or two I try to post at least 1 Empty related tweet to @raffichill, @emptyfasting, or both.

Tonight I am pretending to write a blog post in the name of transparency when all I truly care about is how many of this post's likes and views funnel into downloads.

I am objectively bad at these things relative to what I most enjoy doing (designing UIs, scoping projects, soliciting feedback for prototypes on Twitter).

But these are the tasks that I will either have to get good at or pay someone to do, and the kicker is that all of the other stuff remains just as necessary:

If we want the product to improve we still have to do our time in XCode and Figma. We just get to do it with a fresh sense of guilt: knowing that in this moment we're choosing creature comforts over other tasks that might actually move that stupid number.

The reward is worth it

Now that I've gotten all that off my chest I'll add a bit about why I'm so excited to battle through the trough:

1. The numbers look promising

2. The notch on my belt

The numbers

Don't get it twisted. By numbers I mean money.

Empty is being run by 2 people (me + Rafael) and has 0 hosting costs as it runs entirely locally.

If we can climb our way back up to a stable 70 or 80 downloads per day and assume the price of Empty lands at $2.99 while we progress there, that's a pretty decent incentive to keep maintaining the app (in addition to our pride and the opportunity to make users happy of course).

The notch

I look forward to many Troughs of Sorrow in my future as I continue to build and launch products.

It certainly can't hurt to practice some new skills along the way (if not to become a great marketer myself then to get just a bit better and develop a stronger appreciation for the craft).

But even more importantly than any specific skill is the confidence you get from doing something for the first time. Even if the variables shift around a bit, having that notch will make the next TOS feel less intimidating.

I know this is true from my experience teaming up with internet strangers to build apps: the first time I did it I had literally no idea what would happen and was paranoid asf. I am now less so, and the same will be true for growth.

That's all

If you got this far (or even half this far) I genuinely appreciate you, and I wish you all the best with your troughs. You can't avoid them, so try to pick projects you won't give up on. 🙃