A Scrum of One

Just wanted to give a quick status update on how things are going with filewrangler. My plans to work on a dot update we’re thrown under a bus, almost literally. I was recently struck from behind by a bus and had to go to the hospital. I’m recovering well right now, but I can’t say programming has been of such importance to me during my healing time.

Now that I’m feeling more like myself, I have given some thought about how to address certain challenges filewrangler’s unique interface poses to certain renaming needs. I’m starting to hash out how to handle the UI needs and make filewrangler even more useful and valuable to the steadily increasing user base.

I would like to point out that the Mac App Store has provided great support for the future longevity of filewrangler. My competition, one priced higher and one with less history than filewrangler, both seem to be consistently outselling filewrangler. If you enjoy the program and want to support its future growth, I humbly urge you to leave a review on your blog, on the Mac App Store, or just spread the word. I understand the interface is such that some may not want to invest in the learning curve, but I wouldn’t have built it if I didn’t truly think it represents a large, logical step forward in the tools it provides.

I hope you feel the same, and I hope that at $6.99 you find it to be of sufficient value and utility to spread a little grassroots love around the Macintosh user community, wherever your influence may lie.

Lion was officially released, and while it is not an endorsement per-se, I’m happy to see filewrangler’s orange gears used throughout Apple’s promotional materials. They look good on the dark blue backdrop used to demonstrate Launchpad, don’t you think? I attended WWDC this year and was pleased as punch to see filewrangler’s icon in basically every presentation. One session had a slide on screen that suggested developers “Design a beautiful icon”. There, front and center, was the filewrangler icon. Just couldn’t stop smiling that day!

Oddly enough, the new icon also has received at least one hate mail, begging for a return to the original icon. But, let’s try to ride Apple’s coattails for a little while for the time being.

I was most happy to see that in the Mac App Store screenshots for Lion the filewrangler name is legible. As such, I’m trying to draw a bit more attention to the relationship between the icon and the application and the fact that filewrangler is now the lowest priced file renaming utility of the “Big Three” (other two being Rename 8 and Name Mangler).

But, really I just want to lower the price of entry into filewrangler’s way of doing things. So, the new, permanent price is $6.99. My competition runs at $9.99 and (the frankly unbelievable) $19.99. I see how Apple is pricing things, and with Lion at $30 it is hard to justify a utility like mine at $9.99. Hard to say if I will drop the price again, but I will not go any higher than the current $6.99.

So, thank you to everyone who has supported filewrangler over the past year, and I look forward to welcoming lots of new users over the coming months.

I’m very excited to see how much movement filewrangler had on the Top Paid and Top Grossing utility charts at the Mac App Store today. Each day has been a steady increase with each attempt to boost sales proving successful in some fashion. I am really enjoying seeing how I can formulate a plan of attack, implement it, and see the results within 24 hours. It’s a bit like working with fruit fly DNA, where the tinkering produces almost immediate results; the down side is it distracts me from work a little, constantly checking filewrangler’s position on the charts.

But today looks to have been a really great day in sales, if I am reading the charts correctly. I won’t know until tomorrow morning, but I have every reason to believe today was my best day in sales yet… ever… in the history of the program. Support like this helps ensure a future for the program, and I do truly look forward to seeing how this year turns out.

Looks like things are moving along nicely with filewrangler on the new Mac App Store! I don’t want to release specifics, but I can say this: I sold more in two days than I usually do in a week, so in that regard I’m pretty happy.

Learned a lot looking through the store over the past two days, especially with regard to the kinds of things that make a program stand out in those list views. One thing has become painfully clear, the filewrangler icon needs to change. Originally it was made to announce the long-awaited new version as well as to promote its interface changes. That was me, targeting prior users of the software and generally trying to distinguish myself against similar programs.

Now I am thrown in the mix with lots of other utilities that do lots of different things, and getting recognized requires a bit more pizazz. I believe the new screenshot updates I put on the product page last night were a good move; much easier to see what it going on, much easier to understand what a customer will receive with the program and support, and much more clear about how its user interface is distinguished from other utility programs.

But the icon is getting lost in the mix, and I know I can do better. I’ve made some really nice icons in the past, but the concept of filewrangler has just proven elusive to me in how to capture it in icon form, without it being really dry. I think I need to be a bit more conceptual about it, rather than literal.

I find myself constantly checking the “Top Paid Utilities” and “Top Grossing Utilities” and am really pleased with the movement of filewrangler gradually up the list. I was disheartened in the first day to be ranked about #90, but was also happy to be in the top 100 (out of 200). On Friday, I was hovering in the #75 range, with my nearest competitor in the #40 range or so.

Today, another competitor came out of nowhere and was beating me in gross, but I was way ahead in sales (that product cost 2.5X more than filewrangler, so that was pretty easy for him to do). However, now I see that just since this morning I’ve outpaced both competitors in moving along the “Top Grossing” list. The one at the top has come down to about #47, and I’m at #51. So, while the other seems to have dropped just a bit, I’ve moved WAY up and am gaining ground very rapidly. I believe this means that whatever sales the software above that program had that pushed that program DOWN the list, I have made up for in addition to the gap we had already.

I only get sales updates every morning, so I don’t yet know how this chart movement equates to real sales, but I think I could see as many sales today as I did the first two days combined. I know, in a sense, I’m asking a lot out of the public to accept my fairly radical interface for doing file renaming work, so I’m super happy to see it being adopted by the early shoppers.

Of course, the internationalization of the store also has me really thinking hard about what to do with the next dot release. It is very interesting how my plans for the release schedule are already shifting and changing as I watch what happens in the store.

The Mac App Store has fundamentally changed the way I think about marketing my software, how I think about the upgrades I wish to provide, the calendaring of the release schedule for those updates, and is even shifting what I think filewrangler is and can be.

I’m really ecstatic about today’s Mac App Store release, and I’m grateful you spent a moment to investigate the website a bit. I sincerely hope that if you’re on the fence about purchasing filewrangler that you’ll download the manual, give it a once over, and realize that I’m very committed to providing you with excellent support and professional work. filewrangler has been around for many years now, and the new version really distinguishes my vision of what this kind of utility software can be.

This blog has been a chronicle of the development lifecycle of filewrangler 2 over the past year, and will continue to be in an effort to help customers feel connected to the product in which they have invested. I believe you’ll find the posts and reviews on the site to be very honestly written, even when I’m struggling and learning. I believe very fully in being as transparent as possible with my customers; I know how often it can feel that ideas, comments, complaints and such are just funneled into some kind of email black hole. Not so with me, and I encourage a healthy discussion about where we can take filewrangler next.

I’d love to get your feedback, right here in this blog, about the growth direction in which you’d like to see filewrangler develop. My goal is to provide tools that take filewrangler beyond file renaming, and while I have my own concepts about what that means, I’d like to get your unbiased opinions as well.

Welcome to the site, welcome to the blog, and above all else, welcome to filewrangler!

(hey, is that filewrangler’s icon on Apple’s website promoting the Mac App Store? Why yes, I believe it is, on the left side of the laptop screen, next to the words ‘iWork’)