Dear reader,

Greetings from Joshua Tree, California, where the two-person team behind Readup is in the throes of a company-wide retreat. After feasting with my co-founder's family, we're now at my brother's place in the desert. Things are getting dialed-in. Things are happening.

Product Updates

To get the most out of Readup, it’s important to know how to send articles to Readup from anywhere on the internet. Here’s a demo to show you how long-tapping works on iOS:

Whenever you see an article that you want to read on Readup, just follow these steps:

  • Long-tap the link.
  • Hit “Share”
  • Hit the Readup icon

That’s it! Then you’ll see the article on your starred list on Readup and you can read it whenever you want.

The Numbers

At this point, we have a long enough view to assess the overall impact of several major changes that we recently made to the platform. Here’s how things are looking:

iOS app engagement definitely went up after we launched the new notification system (indicated by the green arrow) but then it appears to plateau. I can’t explain the Chrome spikes (any ideas?!) but overall everything still feels… stuck. So, we’re feeling mostly “meh” about this.

The situation with comments is a slightly rosier picture:

The AOTDs are doing what they should be doing - encouraging conversation. Notifications (green arrow) worked, for sure. And although November is up from October by a noticeable margin, we’re still nowhere near resting on our laurels.

The Big Picture

Change is everywhere, but the long view remains constant. We’re always flying by the seat of our pants, and always one step away from the key to sustainable growth.

Making the internet better is hard, real work. If it was any easier, someone would have done it already. But readers deserve better. And everyone deserves better. So here we gogogo!

With gratitude,

Bill