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Posted by justinhappy:


So you would rather lose a reasonably priced, decent service that you like (and the silver plan is reasonable) than subsidize the free users ?

Evernote adapted that approach, and I don't think it's working out too good for them in the long run. But at least, Evernote used to be the single biggest brand in it's field, with many dedicated users who agree to pay the much higher prices to keep access to their service, so the corporation should be able to milk the existing users for years to come.

I don't think Toodledo has nearly that much power. I do agree that the free version is way too generous, but at the same time, it has to be very attractive to attract new users in first place.

I personally think that unless a service has really good brand recognition, having a non-expiring free option with a decent basic set of tools is very important. You want users to rely on your service and naturally grow into wanting to buy extended features. Most people, myself included, would be very hesitant to commit to a service for even a month if we are going to have to pay at the end. It's a lot of work and personal time investment to move dozens or hundreds of tasks to a new platform and do all the necessary tweaks to make it work.

Posted by justinhappy:



2Do doesn’t have a web service, it’s an app. And it’s only available on iOS, Android and Mac OS. Since I use Windows, I need some way to access my tasks on it.

2Do does sync with Toodledo but, as I said, it’s not perfect. My biggest issues are that there’s no background sync, and no task reminder sync. So, at the present time, I use 2Do with iOS Reminders that sync to my Exchange server at work. It’s not perfect but good enough for a quick lookup, and it keeps task reminders in sync between my devices.

If I didn’t need a way to access my tasks on desktop, I’d just use 2Do exclusively and sync via Dropbox.

Posted by justinhappy:


Is your decission to leave Toodledo based on more info than just this sentence from Privacy Policy: "This website uses encryption when sending or receiving information so that it is protect in transit. This website uses encryption to store some (but not all) of your data while it is at rest in our database."? Like reaction from DPO, what actual data is not encrypted at rest? Just asking.

Having used 2Do as my main go-to task manager for the past year or so, I really think they should ... erghm... "emulate" it the best they can.

It has the best way to focus on the work at hand without losing track of future tasks, and by this I mean very intuitive, customizable, and easy to use.

Toodledo accomplishes much of the same (not all, alas) by being somewhat customizable, not too intuitive, and not too easy to use.

Unfortunately there's enough syncing idiosyncrasies between the two, that I have to sync 2Do with Reminders instead of Toodledo.

I do hope that the new owners take time to look at 2Do and appreciate just how close it is to the Toodledo yet so much easier to use for advance task scheduling... with 2Do being a mobile / Mac OS app and Toodledo being primarily a web based service, they are pretty much made for each other.

Posted by boydston01:


There's got to be a selling point, though. Have you seen some of the slick new competition like TickTick ? And Microsoft ToDo is slowly but surely maturing into a pretty powerful system, once they get a Master list functionality they would have to be taken seriously.

If you want to force people to sign up, you need to offer value. I have a sneaky suspicion that the majority of Toodledo customers are long term seasoned users, with relatively little fresh blood. I may be wrong.

The service with all it's powerful functionality is somewhat clunky, with an outdated web interface, requires much effort to set up for efficient use, has barely adequate mobile clients, and no native way to sync with desktop. It does offer a somewhat too generous free plan, but there's a lot of competition out there for subscriptions. If I was a new potential user, how would you persuade me to chose Toodledo over it's competition ?

I've turned on a quite a few people to Toodledo, and many of them use the free version. I sure hope that doesn't go away.

Also, I use the Ultimate ToDo List as my intereface on Android. I sure hope you are working with 3rd party developers to keep those interfaces working.

Brad

Hey Toodledo community,

This is Sam from Toodledo.

Last time we spoke I told you that I’d let you all in on our plans so you can follow along and give feedback as we go.

Well, my friend, here’s update #1.

Future plans
The past month my team and I have dug into the backend of the product, marketing, the community, analytics, and more.

We’ve come to the conclusion that people love the product as is and that adding new features should not the #1 priority at the moment.

So, if you only care about how this update will impact you personally, then you can stop reading here as there are no major product updates right now other than updating the iOS app.

But, if you want to know about changes on design, marketing, and the company, then keep on reading.

Survey
How did we come to this conclusion? By speaking with you all! We did multiple surveys, calls, shared emails, and more.

Hre are some results: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uuxJcDRlCIUvRSvl5IVQF2TmAgGhKl2u/view?usp=sharing

We were amazed at a few things:

1. Lots of active users with accounts over a decade. Monthly user churn was far below other products like Toodledo. People love Toodledo.
2. A lot of people want the iPhone app to be updated - this is a priority of our’s. We’re currently hiring an iOS engineer (here’s the job posting!).
3. Most people don’t want major changes. While I believe users of most products say that yet are often pleased with updates that improve user experience, the responses show there’s an overwhelming attitude of “it works...don’t change!” The majority of changes request were minor.
4. Loads of people want a design update. Nothing major, but more updated and modern.

Design and marketing
The first move for us will be to update the design of the landing page. We looked at the conversion rate of new visitors to registered users and it can easily be improved. We feel that we can update the website to effectively explain the benefits of Toodledo and use a more modern design that’ll attract new users.

Here is a mock up of what the page will look like (the copy is just placeholder): https://imgur.com/a/dO5P8mZ

Also, nearly 99% of Toodledo users signed up organically with very little money spent on advertising or on content marketing. We planned on testing some paid marketing and will launch a blog that shows people how to use Toodledo and become more productive.

Pricing and number of users
I said this in the beginning, but we want Toodledo to be the best damn productivity tool out there. To do that, we need to sustainably (aka profitably) hire a talented team and invest into the product and people building it.

Given the current pricing structure, the only way we can afford this is by either adding new paid users or increasing the price of subscription for new users. A combination of both is most likely the answer.

So you’ll notice on the pricing page we will be running some tests. More likely than not, this won’t be so much of a pricing change, but combining the Gold and Platinum package.

Please note that there is no plan to increase the price of current paying users.

Conclusion

Ok folks, I think that’s everything. We’d love your feedback on the design and anything else. The last thread had ~10 pages of responses, so I wasn’t able to respond to all of them but read every word. So make sure to let us know your opinions in the forum as I read them all.

Talk soon,

Sam

Posted by Sam:

A quick note on sustainability:

Replace free service with a VERY long trial account - 1 year.

This is long-term thinking. It gives current free accounts PLENTY of time so as to mitigate backlash. People are generally reasonable so the biggest problem with transitioning free to paid is the typical "immediacy" of it which does not honor the provider's decision to give it away which enables users to rely on a free service. A crazy long trial will give new users tons of time to develop their use of Toodledo. Your rewards are delayed but slow and steady tends to build a stronger, more sustainable foundation.

Additionally, if you must give something for free, the individual apps could be free while the syncing service is paid.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I've read them all and am documenting some things. We'll have more updates soon on the marketing stuff. After that, we'll be working on product issues and I'll refer back to this.

This is an exciting time for Toodledo! We are about to transition ownership of your favorite productivity tool to a smart group of people who are going to take Toodledo to the next level.

I started Toodledo 14 years ago to manage my own tasks and I never thought it would grow so big and become so popular. I couldn't have done it without a lot of talented collaborators over the years, and all of you guys, our wonderful loyal users. Together, we have built the most powerful productivity tool on the internet.

There are still a lot of ways that Toodledo can grow and improve, but I feel like I personally have taken Toodledo as far as I can take it. Now, it's time for me to step back and let some new talent take it further.

So, without further ado, let me introduce the new team of Ramon, Sam and Anant. Ive been talking with these guys for awhile now, and I have the utmost confidence that they will do a great job. Starting next week, we will begin the transition and start talking about their plans for the future.

I'm still a big Toodledo power user, so Im not disappearing. I'll linger for awhile to make sure that the transition goes smoothly and after that I'll still be using Toodledo and popping up in these forums.