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The Cushion Journal
Building an app from idea to launch
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Hiring a Team of Freelancers
Hiring a Team of Freelancers
This past month, I did something I never thought I’d do — I hired people. From the very beginning, I always saw myself building Cushion as…
Jonnie Hallman
Mar 23
Taking a Real Break From Work
Last night, I landed at Laguardia after a week-long vacation in Southern California. For my wife and I, this was our first real vacation…
Jonnie Hallman
Feb 24
Slack as a Notification Center
Slack as a Notification Center
Slack is commonly used as a chat tool for teams, but for the past year and a half, I’ve used Slack as a notification center for Cushion…
Jonnie Hallman
Feb 7
Document Your Features
Document Your Features
Recently, I discovered that a specific feature in Cushion was causing confusion for almost everyone who used it. This feature was…
Jonnie Hallman
Jan 31
300
300
Yesterday was a big milestone for Cushion. Roughly six months after officially launching, Cushion has reached 300 paying customers. I think…
Jonnie Hallman
Jan 26
Vacations
Vacations
These past few days, I’ve been working on a feature for Cushion that’s been on my to-do list for over a year now — vacations (or holidays…
Jonnie Hallman
Jan 26
Offering Discounts
Offering Discounts
Recently, I’ve been partnering with freelancing communities and conferences in an attempt to get Cushion in front of more freelancers. I…
Jonnie Hallman
Jan 20
Waves of Traffic
This weekend, Cushion’s expenses page made its way to the top of Hacker News, claiming the #1 spot for the day. I knew something was up…
Jonnie Hallman
Jan 12
Less Blogging, More Journaling
Reading through this journal recently, I realized that it has slowly transitioned from daily thoughts into well-considered blog posts. I’m…
Jonnie Hallman
Jan 9
Retention Through Useful Features
Retention Through Useful Features
I recently introduced a major new feature in Cushion — weekly summaries.
Jonnie Hallman
Dec 14, 2015
The Onboarding Checklist
The Onboarding Checklist
When I started building Cushion, I was very stubborn and opinionated about apps without ever being in a situation where I had to make a…
Jonnie Hallman
Oct 10, 2015
Spreading the Word
Spreading the Word
After working on Cushion for over a year and a half, I’ve gotten the sense that I reached the limit of my personal “network”.
Jonnie Hallman
Sep 16, 2015
From Beta to Launch — The Subdomain
From Beta to Launch — The Subdomain
In the last post, I focused on the redesign of the sign up process.
Jonnie Hallman
Aug 28, 2015
From Beta to Launch — Sign up
From Beta to Launch — Sign up
I originally intended for the “From Beta to Launch” post to be a single post, but I quickly realized that I have so much more to say.
Jonnie Hallman
Aug 28, 2015
From Beta to Launch — Messaging
From Beta to Launch — Messaging
In the previous post, I wrote a bit about transitioning Cushion from the beta into launch mode, and I think it’s worthwhile go into more…
Jonnie Hallman
Aug 28, 2015
Launch
I launched Cushion last week! After a year and a half, I finally did it, and if any sentence deserves an exclamation point, it’s that one …
Jonnie Hallman
Aug 28, 2015
Authenticating with 3rd Party Services
Authenticating with 3rd Party Services
I’ll be honest — authentication is not an exciting topic.
Jonnie Hallman
Aug 28, 2015
Intro to Integrations
Intro to Integrations
Several weeks into building Cushion, I started thinking about integrations.
Jonnie Hallman
Aug 28, 2015
Inspiration vs Imitation
Inspiration vs Imitation
This week, a friend pointed me to a website. He didn’t say anything about the website — he just left me with the link.
Jonnie Hallman
Aug 28, 2015
The Emotional Rollercoaster
In the past, I’ve written mostly about Cushion progress, but little about the emotional side of building an app.
Jonnie Hallman
Aug 28, 2015
Designing Project Blocks
Designing Project Blocks
Back in December, I wrote about the initial concept of “project blocks”.
Jonnie Hallman
Aug 28, 2015
Everything in Increments
If you’ve built anything of scale before, you know that it’s best to build in increments.
Jonnie Hallman
Aug 28, 2015
Deleting Your Account
Deleting Your Account
This weekend, I wrapped up a “feature” that’s been at the top of my list for a while — deleting your account.
Jonnie Hallman
Aug 28, 2015
Designing the Subscription Page
Designing the Subscription Page
After months of thinking about “killer features”, I arrived at the realization that there were still a few launch prerequisites I hadn’t…
Jonnie Hallman
Aug 28, 2015
Rewriting the Timeline
Rewriting the Timeline
Back in December, I went down the long list of to-dos for Cushion and thought I’d tackle one I’ve wanted for a while now — project blocks.
Jonnie Hallman
Aug 28, 2015
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