Our first ever podcast ad is up! You can hear it on Software Social Pod here.

This is also the first time we’ve ever offered a permanent discount. It’s part of our growth and retention plan… but before now, our billing system didn’t even have the capability. (Thanks to Cannon, Pedro, and Thomas who took time away from the Rails upgrade project to get this done!)

Here’s the text of the ad:

When you’re bootstrapping on the side, every free moment counts. But do you really know how you’re spending those moments? Which days you’re most productive? If your product have time sinks that just don’t pay?

Here’s one way to find out: Noko is a time tracker designed to help you learn from the time you track.

And Noko makes it frictionless to give yourself good data, too — you can even log time directly from your Github commit messages.

Try Noko today and save 15% off every plan, forever. Visit Nokotime.com/SocialPod to start making your time work for you.

Initial impression: Ohh, it’s fun to hear something I wrote become a real advertisement. Michele did an awesome job reading it, too!

Destination: A good ad campaign is targeted and leads to a targeted landing page. Basically, the crispier the better. So Thomas and I whipped up a quick landing page with shorter, targeted copy for entrepreneurs and startups, and a simplified call to action button that assumes the single user plan. The discount code is automatic, so the listeners don’t have to do anything.

Changes I would make… well, the #1 thing is spelling out the name. We’ve never tested if people can guess the spelling from the sound of “Noko”! Our old name, “Freckle,” was super easy because it was a plain English word. I’ll also be thinking about stronger ways to work PDF into such a short ad. “Do you know where your time is going” isn’t a crispy, core pain.

Goals: I don’t expect to see an influx of signups or anything… my goal is to start getting the word out there, to get people to recognize our name, to play with the way we sell Noko to developers especially, who are our best word of mouth generators. It’s a relatively inexpensive thing to try, and could have long-lasting effects.

It’s wild to look back at my posts from late Feb and March 2020 and notice that I… had all these explanations for breathlessness and “colds” and we both actually had coronavirus. Thomas and I were both sick on and off for 3 months. I had a daily fever and breathlessness for just under 100 days. Because it was punctuated by fake-out periods of two to five days where all symptoms receded, it took until late March to recognize that we, in fact, absolutely had coronavirus.

My sense of smell still hasn’t recovered.

But overall, I’m fine.

Finally in the space to do some number crunching… and here’s the good news:

Our trial to retained customer since Jan 1, 2021 is 49%!

We’ve added fewer new customers this year so far (I’ve done literally zero marketing), but that’s such a positive sign.

For the last 3 months YoY, our net volume is up almost 1%, and spend per customer is up 11%.

Are the actual numbers making me happy? No. But are we nevertheless in a much better place? Absolutely.