(video by Matthijs Vlot)
In December of 2009, my Studiomates Cameron, Evan, and I launched a simple, designy to-do app called TeuxDeux. We built the app for ourselves, because we couldn’t find a to-do app that was as simple as a piece of paper and calendar-based. Many of our friends started asking us for accounts, so we decided to let anyone use it. For free. What we thought would be just used by a few friends has turned into a loyal following of over 300,000 users. We didn’t see that one coming.
We eventually hired someone to make an iPhone app, which we decided to sell for a one-time cost of $2.99 to make up for some of our expenses.
Our Twitter account and our inbox have been getting passionate user feedback for the past 4 years. It seems like we managed to make something people really, really love. That’s great, but we came to realize that in order for us to put resources into maintaining and improving TeuxDeux, something had to change.
Success is more expensive than we can afford, but we want to keep TeuxDeux around. It has become an essential tool that we use every day. So, we have decided to start charging a subscription fee to use TeuxDeux. We realize that some of you might not be happy to hear that. And, we realize we might lose some users. We want to make sure our die-hard fans that rely on us every day will always be able to count on us to keep the lights on.
We have seen too many startups close shop or get acquired (and shut down their product). We do not want to see any of this happen to TeuxDeux. We love the app too much.
Over the past few months, we have invested in a new TeuxDeux, rebuilt from the ground up by our incredible Studiomate Jonnie Hallman. The decision to charge a small fee gave us the confidence to do this. If you’re a passionate user, you will be incredibly excited about what’s ahead. Sit tight for more details on the new app, but for now, please know, that our decision to move TeuxDeux to a paid model comes from the best of intentions.
We will be offering a free 3-month trial, so you can see if the new version is worth it. If you’re not convinced after 3 months, we’re gonna let you download all of your data, so you won’t lose anything by giving us a chance. Oh, and if you bought the iPhone app, we’re gonna give you a free 6-month trial as thanks.