The decision to focus on Captions instead of another app we were developing was crucial. Once we launched new features, the growth of Captions became exponential, highlighting how small decisions can lead to vastly different outcomes.

Our first project was built in one weekend, quickly gained traction with 600 users per minute without marketing, and I almost deleted the Captions app due to its $10,000 monthly cost, but instead designed a paywall to see if users would pay for it, allowing us to keep it running without incurring costs.

The captions app was built in two days and immediately took off, demonstrating the importance of product-market fit.

Captions accidentally ignored their most successful product for 1.5 years, yet it still grew to 500K users without updates or support.

When we started Captions, we focused on creating captions for videos, addressing a gap in the market for accessibility solutions.

After launching the paywall, I forgot about the Captions app, but later discovered it was generating over $500,000 in revenue with no employees working on it, and users were retaining it without any support.

After realizing our initial product wasn't meeting user needs, we pivoted to focus on photo sharing, leading us to develop a new app called Flock.

In building a startup, the small decisions often have a greater impact than the big ones. For example, the choice to keep Captions as a paid app helped filter our user base to those who truly valued the service and provided us with valuable feedback.

Our first idea was to create an app that digitized catalogs, which we called Tote, but it faced challenges in development and approval.