S5E76
· 31:12
I'm in the brewery today, and oh, hey. It's Matt from Money Lab. It's been a long time, actually. It's been, like, 7 days since I've recorded a podcast. But, man, I, went on a trip to Portland and drank a lot and just, yeah, recovering.
Matt Giovanisci:Today was like I was super tired, but once I started working, started to perk up a little bit. But, yeah. So what am I talking about today? It's pretty simple episode, I think, but I've mentioned this on previous episodes. Cat's out of the bag.
Matt Giovanisci:I am launching an app. That that is the secret project. Why, and how did it come about? Well, I had no intention of making an app, but I had a proposition from an app developer who had who I'd who I'd known for many years and, you know, because he had created, I think, like, 2 or maybe possibly even 3 different pool apps and was kind of like he just kinda came to me and was like, hey. I I really wanna work on this, and I would I I have an idea.
Matt Giovanisci:Why don't we take this app, and let's rebrand it and restructure it under the Swim University brand, and work on it together as opposed to just him working on it by himself with and he had, like, a small, like, group of people that he trains using the app. And, I was like, yeah. That's a yeah. Okay. Let's do that because we decided to just partner and go, alright.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, let's like, he already had the the bones of the app done. And so, this started back in, I wanna say god. It could have been, like, July of 2023 when he asked when he asked me, and I put some initial funding into it just to get it started. And it took you know, we're launching it in April. So, yeah, it took a long time, app development.
Matt Giovanisci:Now I will say that the the development was taking a very long time. I they had had a designer working on it, and, my developer was working on it as well. And I think there were some other people working on it. And then finally, it had gotten to a point where I was like, this is taking longer than I expected. What can I do to help?
Matt Giovanisci:What can I do to push this along? Because we're now heading in the pool season, and it's not coming together the way that I expected it to. So in the beginning, the reason why I funded it was, like, because I didn't wanna I didn't think I could bring value to the app personally. I was like, oh, I you know, I have other things that I'm doing. I had the wedding that was going on, and I was like, I just don't have the time to dedicate myself to building this other product.
Matt Giovanisci:And he knew a lot of professionals, and I'm like, I'm just maybe not the right person. And I've I've developed, you know, web apps and and WordPress plugins, but I've never done an iPhone app. So, anyway, like, there was a a ton of work was done, a ton of designs were done, and I kept looking at them thinking, okay. Yeah. The we got something here.
Matt Giovanisci:It just doesn't fit the swim universe. It doesn't have the swim university brand to it. I don't know. It just didn't feel like it was really fitting. And I finally decided that I would try to design, and and help the project move along.
Matt Giovanisci:Because at the time, I was using Adobe XD, and I had some, like, preliminary designs or, like, preliminary ideas. They weren't very good, I'll be honest. And the problem with Adobe XD is, apparently, it's being, it's being decommissioned or whatever, and so I needed to move to a different platform. That platform was Figma. And when as soon as I started working in Figma, I was like, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:I understand this. You know what? Let me try and design the app knowing where the app is currently. Like, so I I wasn't going to change anything that was like, I wasn't gonna add any features or design things that weren't there. I was gonna take what was there and just sort of, like, give it my interpretation of, like, what the Swim University brand represents.
Matt Giovanisci:And I started learning about, you know, app development and app design, UX, UI, all that kinda stuff, which I've I learned for web. I just didn't learn I just didn't know you know, and trends change and what have you, so I ended up getting really inspired. I don't remember when this was, but there was just a day where I was like, oh, I'm gonna try, you know, just to and I didn't tell anybody I was gonna do it. I was just like, I'm just gonna try to do this because maybe because I know the audience. I know what the app needs, I know where what the app can do currently, but I think we could remove a lot of features and sort of drip them out over time.
Matt Giovanisci:And I don't think it needed to be very complicated for at least for version 1. So I took a crack at it, and it, like, you know, I took spent all day, and I was so fucking pumped. I was like, okay. I know how this is gonna go. This is gonna be so awesome, blah blah blah.
Matt Giovanisci:I sent it to my developer, and he was like, this is great. I can work with this. This is like, okay. Now things are moving. And so I think before, it was a lot of, like, with a with a different designer, I guess on a more professional level too, there were a lot of options, like design options, like, we could do this, we could do that.
Matt Giovanisci:And there just needed to be somebody who could just make a decision and go, this is what we're doing. You know? And the reason we're do and here's the reason we're doing it because, again, I know my audience. I also happen to be decent at design. And so I was like, I think I'm the right person for this job now that I understand.
Matt Giovanisci:But I there I needed to stand on the shoulders of giants in order to get where the app is today. So flash forward however many months, we are about to launch the app as I'm recording this, and it is very, very early bird stages. It's it's it is the functionality is incredibly basic, but I have probably the next 5 years of, of feature improvements already in my head exactly how we're gonna do it. And yeah. So that's the that's the news.
Matt Giovanisci:So I've I've talked about this on other episodes, I think. But I have now. We also so so branding the app was it went through a couple of iterations. So we have had The Pool Care Handbook, which is our book. I've had that book since, like, 2015.
Matt Giovanisci:I've just had this book forever. And it was based on the hot tub handbook. That that was the original that was the first product ever made. It's called the hot tub handbook because it's kind of alliteration. It's not really, but, you know, it kinda feels that way.
Matt Giovanisci:And then I made the book was then called The Art of Pool Care. That was the book that I wrote for the pool side of things. And then we thought that that was a little confusing, and we switched it to just match the the hot tub one, so we called it the pool care handbook. And so from there, when we made the video course, I thought, well, let's not, like, people understand this. Let's not be crazy.
Matt Giovanisci:Let's just call it the pool care video course. Just like and and and that's mainly because my audience is a bit older, and I just wanted to be very clear on what it was. Right? Just, like, I didn't wanna be fancy with the name, and I think I learned my lesson from the art of pool care. And with the art of pool care, I was trying to be very art of motorcycle maintenance.
Matt Giovanisci:I was trying to make it this, like, zen type of pool care book. And it's people loved it, but, like, then people didn't love it. They were like, this is like, just get to the fucking pool care. It's like, alright, buddy. I'm thinking of 1 person.
Matt Giovanisci:So I so when it came time to do the app, we were just gonna call it, initially, Swim University. It was just a Swim University app, right, where, we were gonna, it's basically like a an app where you can enter in your test results from from either your from any one of your test kits, and it will spit out exactly what to add to your pool and when. It's very simple. And so that's at least v one. That's all it does right now.
Matt Giovanisci:And it keeps track of all of your tests and, you know, blah blah blah. You know, at some point, it's gonna be ridiculous, but that's what it is right now. And so the so the idea was to call it some university and then add in hot tubs, and you can you can test the hot tub, you could test the pool, you can add multiple pools, you can add multiple hot tubs, all this stuff. And when I was designing it, I kept running into this, like, oh, man, this is really confusing. Like, I know this is for pool and hot tub, but when it comes to, like, if we're gonna be in the app store, no one's searching for Swim University.
Matt Giovanisci:I mean, I'm sure people are, but it's very few and far between. And if we wanna rank for something, for pool care or something, or pool maintenance, or pool tracking, or who knows? Because there are other apps that do this. We're not we're certainly not the first. But I am I am aiming to be the best, obviously.
Matt Giovanisci:So I thought, well, let's not call it Swim University because I don't think anyone's gonna be searching for that. The app can be made by us, and then staff, my wife, Borat, was like, just call it pool care. And I went, oh, well, hold on. So we found out that that name is available. And so the app is called pool care, but I'm naming it the pool care app.
Matt Giovanisci:So now we have 3 very different products that have now completed what I'm considering our flagship suite. We have the pool care handbook, we have the pool care video course, and now we have the pool care app. All 3 serve a very different purpose. In fact, it's very likely that somebody would buy all 3. And what's nice about the app is it will be a subscription.
Matt Giovanisci:So this this sort of, like, finally rounds out the subscription. And the reason we decided to make it that, we were at first, it was gonna just be a one time fee, which is what it was before. And that makes things very easy and cut and dry. However, it doesn't really allow us to fund improvements, because I'm just gonna have to constantly sell this app. And then what's the point of making improvements if people are just buying it once?
Matt Giovanisci:So so my justification for making the subscription is, 1, I wanted some type of subscription product. 2, I thought the only subscription product to me that makes sense is not an education product, but an actual tool, a tool that you use every single week. And so we decided to make it a freemium app where you get a a handful of tests for free. And then if you wanna keep using the app, then you pay either a monthly subscription or an annual subscription, and we're talking very low price. And as we keep and then that will allow us to continue to add features to the product, and there is a ton of features.
Matt Giovanisci:Like I said, I have just I have a massive bank. And honestly, it doesn't even require, feedback because I already know what people are I mean, I've again, like, I know this audience so well that it's just like, I know what you guys need. I know that all of these other apps can be very confusing. And so I hope that with my design skills, with my true understanding of the audience, with my you know I don't know. I just think I can I can make something that's truly one of a kind?
Matt Giovanisci:And, obviously, we have the brand, and we have the audience to sort of back it up and get a lot of people using it. So feedback will come, but, again, I already know alright. This is the next feature. This is the next feature. I got the app.
Matt Giovanisci:I got the road map. Okay. So that's essentially the gist of the app. And it's and, again, v one, very, very simple. You hit a button, you, you know, you create your little pool profile, very few questions to start.
Matt Giovanisci:You create a little profile. It you can only add one pool, so it's very simple, and you hit a button to test your water. It tells you how to do it. There's a few ways that you can test your water. There's actually 3, And we show you how to do that.
Matt Giovanisci:And then all you do is once you get those results, you just enter them in. Very simple. And then the next screen, it tells you here's what you need to add, Here's how long to wait, and then here's your next in the ad. And then just and then you can check those things off that you did them and complete. And you've taken care of your pool, at least chemistry wise, for the week.
Matt Giovanisci:And that's the app. Now the reason I am giving so much information here is because I wanna use this episode to help myself. We are launching this app. I am recording this mid April. We are launching it, so tech today is Wednesday.
Matt Giovanisci:We are launching it Friday, which is, I think we're I think we're launching it Friday. Now that I'm I'm like, are we? Hold on. Probably should know this. Yeah.
Matt Giovanisci:It's like I thought it was 15th. No. So it is yeah. We're launching it Friday, so we have 2 days. Now it's ready to go, but there's a few things that we need to do, and I'm actually the bottleneck here, which is crazy because I I I helped push the bottleneck through because we the design was the bottleneck, and then I came in and was like, alright.
Matt Giovanisci:Let's let let me design this and push it forward. And now when it comes time to submitting to Apple, there are a few roadblocks. One of the roadblocks is that we wanna we wanna we wanna bring in some education. I mean, we are an education company. So we were gonna start with about, you know, 2 to 4 pieces of, like, micro content that's app native.
Matt Giovanisci:So this is only content that you would find in the app. It is exclusive to the app. So I was working on that, and I hit a few roadblocks, time, vacation, so now I'm like, I have basically so I created one piece of content, submitted that today. Tomorrow, I have to create at least one. More more ideally, 3 tomorrow.
Matt Giovanisci:And, basically, what it is is a short form square video and a and some text to go along with it. And it's really just like help docs. The other thing that I need to do in order to submit to Apple, so this has to be ready, is I have to design the marketing screens, the ones that you see when you go to download the app. I've never done these screens before, but I have some templates, and I have to make multiple dimensions. And so I am I have to do that, and I was planning on doing that, like, super last minute.
Matt Giovanisci:And then finally, I have to write a description for the app. Now I've actually already written the description. I wrote I wrote the description back in, like, September, But the description, I used chat gpt, and I was trying to get it done. And the app has changed, And so I need to rewrite that description, but I don't just wanna use chat gpt to write a flowery description. What I wanna do is I wanna write the description by talking out the description, Hence, all the buildup of what the app does.
Matt Giovanisci:Now, so I'm going to dictate this very long not very long, not like a sales page long, but I'm gonna dictate a description for the app. I'm going to try and make it so that I am only speaking. I'm not talking about the app itself. I am talking about what the app does for the user, for the pool owner, and how it benefits them, like, how it improves their lives, not and we have a tracker that does blank and we show you x, and it's like, who fucking cares? I what people care about is, how is this gonna make my life better?
Matt Giovanisci:How am I gonna get somebody to say, hell yes. I will download this. So that is what I'm gonna do. And then I'm gonna take that audio, transcribe it, throw it in the chat chat g p t and clean it up. And I may not even throw it in the chat g p t.
Matt Giovanisci:I may just clean it up myself. We'll see how well I could dictate it. Okay. Sorry about that. Alright.
Matt Giovanisci:So here we go. Let's think. We made an opening line. I was thinking something like have a pool pro in your pocket. The but see, that is that's some bullshit because, you know, that's like that's really talking about us.
Matt Giovanisci:It's not really talking about them. You know, it could be like never second guess your pool water chemistry ever again. No need to do complicated math. No need to be unsure if your pool water is safe to swim in, because now you have a professional in your pocket. You have a tool that tells you exactly what to do with your water chemistry and when.
Matt Giovanisci:No more guesswork, no more frustration, and no more confusing water chemistry. This is by far the easiest app you'll ever use, and not and most apps for pool care are made by the chemical companies. Their mission is to sell you chemicals. Our mission is to save you money and to make pool care as simple as possible. All you have to do is test the water, enter your results, and the app will tell you exactly what chemicals you need to add and when to add them without trying to sell you things you don't need.
Matt Giovanisci:We give you multiple options for chemicals, whether you wanna buy a commercial store bought brand or you wanna buy a generic off the shelf, possibly even something you can find in your house already. You don't need to worry about your pool anymore because this app has your back. If you have a question, it's in there. If you are if you're frustrated and you just need to know what chemicals to add, this app will help you. We've been developing this app for so many years, and we're finally ready to let every to make sure that this app is in every pool owner's pocket.
Matt Giovanisci:Because without it, you have to rely on the stores. You have to rely on the Internet. You have to rely on untrusted sources. You don't know whether they're trying to sell you chemicals or not. We guarantee there is no chemical sales here.
Matt Giovanisci:Become your own pool guy. You can fire your pool guy with this app. Save some money. Make pool care simple. The Pool Care app by Swim University.
Matt Giovanisci:Download it today. Alright. That's fine. I will definitely need to clean it up. I think I said things multiple times.
Matt Giovanisci:But right now, I don't wanna list the features because there's really only one feature, which is enter your test results, get get your results, or enter your test results, get exactly what you need. In the future, there will be plenty of other things to help you with your pool, but for now, that's it. So as the app grows, we will constantly change the description and add to the description. And I think if I keep it simple and I think the if I had to pick a main, like, a main message, You know, we could, like, we could make the argument that, like, we're the you know, we're not trying to sell you chemicals. You pay for the app.
Matt Giovanisci:That's how that's the that's the product. You got the product. You're not like yes. People want recommendations, but we're not also, all the other apps for the most part, try to sell you something that make money off the back end. The reason that we are not gonna do that is because of the partnership that I have with a developer.
Matt Giovanisci:It just makes it it clouds things up a little bit from a business perspective. And I think, okay. Let's use that to our advantage then. Because that is certainly or could perhaps be like a good moneymaker for the app, but then we just end up like everybody else. We're, you know, recommending products, and then who gets the like, how do we split those commissions?
Matt Giovanisci:How do I you know, I could track that stuff, but it just makes it much harder. It's another affiliate program to manage. No. Thank you. I'd much rather be like, you know what?
Matt Giovanisci:We'll give you the shopping list. You can buy whatever you want, and we'll tell you, you know, within the app where to go. And, really, the app serves a purpose that the course and the book can't do, which is it is the tool that we want you to have. Because now that you know how to take care of a pool, even if the app is not going to teach you pool care. It is simply an app that's going to help you complete those tasks.
Matt Giovanisci:It's it's you know, that's that's essentially what it is. And the biggest problem that our customers have is like, okay. Great. Like, I know what I have to do. Right?
Matt Giovanisci:But there's, like, the you know, I have to build a maintenance calendar. Like, okay. I gotta do this every week. But, like, who the fuck was that organized as a person to know, like, alright. I'm gonna you know, for example, like, I talk about the pond a lot.
Matt Giovanisci:My ponds, I have an Asana task where I have a list of things that I do. I don't know if those things are right. I've never taken a course to tell me if those things are right. I'm guessing constantly. This, you know, if there was a pond care app that was basically that was built off the back of a proven system that was like, hey.
Matt Giovanisci:This is based on the pool care handbook. This is based on the pool care video course. This is based on Swim University's pool care system, and all we're doing is saying, okay. Like, you don't need to have a maintenance calendar. Everything's on your phone now.
Matt Giovanisci:So the app is a supplement to the book, and it's a supplement to the course. You take the course, and you you know, you know what you have to know, and you can always refer back to it. You get the book so that you have a reference guide at your fingertips. The app will have some reference, but it's not gonna be as intense as the book is. The app will have a light, a super super light version of that.
Matt Giovanisci:You know, it will have your basics and then that's it. And it's mostly gonna be in the chemistry department. And so could you get away with just using the app? A 100%. But if you want the full package, you get all 3.
Matt Giovanisci:Now there's no way to just buy all 3 in one swoop, but we're gonna be working on something like that. So alright. That's it. Like I said, cats out of the bag. That's what I've been working on.
Matt Giovanisci:Why I've been keeping it a secret? I don't know. Maybe it's for podcast retention. I don't know. Maybe because I didn't know when it was gonna be launched, and I didn't wanna be talking about this product that we were building and then not having a, early state.
Matt Giovanisci:And I just would have been, you know, talking some bullshit for however long. So, yeah, I'm gonna take this description, spin it up, and then Friday, we're gonna launch, and hopefully, all goes well. But, we're gonna you know, it's gonna be slow. It's gonna be a very soft launch. And then, you know, hopefully, if we get some positive feedback, and we're just gonna start cranking on it.
Matt Giovanisci:We're gonna hit that road map hard. So, yeah, that's it. Alright. So if you have any questions or you have any ideas, shoot me an email, matt@moneylab.co. Bye.
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