By Molly Retter in buildinpublic — Sep 2, 2022

Goblin: whimsy & progress 🎉

Tilda is one of our 8 Hype Goblins--think Clippy but instead of a paperclip it is a supportive grandma-esque Goblin

Hi friends!

Things have been picking up a lot since my last update. Here's the nitty gritty for those curious about the numbers.

Build In Public Update

	8/12/22	9/2/22	Growth in 21 Days	Notes
2022 goal
$1k/month in monthly recurring revenue

TRACTION
Paid waitlist sign ups:	19	49	158% increase
Newsletter sign ups:	82	111	35% increase	There's some overlap here with waitlist signups.
Twitter followers:	791	1,197	51% increase	Had a few tweets get popular; feel like I'm starting to find my voice on twitter.
Goblin Cave Community:		16		16 Founding Goblins have signed up for the community
Goblin Users:		29

MONEY
Incoming
Personal cash invested	$1,204.00	$1,204.00
Gross revenue	$90.00	$245.00
Total	$1,294.00	$1,449.00

Outgoing
2022 Total Spent:	$1,122.24	$1,263.33
2022 Total Earned:	$90.00	$245.00
Gross Profit:	-$1,032.24	-$1,018.33

The Beginning

It's been 3 months since I left my full-time job. I started out planning to make an app that would help software teams communicate better, but I soon realized that I wanted to use Goblin for everything from household management to software development to managing my life goals.

I decided to make a consumer-facing version first with the idea of learning how someone likes to work and then applying that to teams later on (e.g. Molly likes to get frequent project updates, maybe you should send her a quick note now that feature is in QA).

80 commits & 3 months later... the Goblin MVP is live for founding goblins! 😌 It's going to be in private beta for a bit while I fix bugs & add community-driven features. Coming soon to a cave near you.
— Molly 🍵 Goblin App (@goblin_tech_) September 2, 2022

It took 70 days to get from the initial code commit to making it live for Founding Goblins yesterday. I thought it was interesting because at some point it became a lot easier to add features quickly because all of the initial "setup" type stuff was done, so a lot of functionality was added in the last couple of weeks (and it was much more fun to code once I reached that point).

Taking a moment to celebrate, then back to coding!

I did it! I made the MVP & community live for founding goblins. It was a bit terrifying to send out the email, especially because I went all in and made it weird and put a lot of my personality into it.

I spent time making it whimsical and fun while thinking that there was a very real chance people would not like it or that it might make my startup less attractive to investors. I'm super relieved that everyone has been supportive and I've received some positive feedback on the whimsy.

Early MVP Feedback: "This site combines a very good idea (a todo list with wise guidance built in--this is such a good idea) with an UI that makes just about every other UI I have ever seen look drab, stale, and passé" -Raffi

I've already received a ton of helpful bug reports/feature requests in the community and I'm excited to let community feedback drive the development of Goblin. It's going to be in "private beta" for at least a few weeks while I clean things up and add some more features, but I'm hoping to start letting people people from the waitlist by the end of September.

I'm hopeful! I have a long way to go to get Goblin where I want it to be, but I'm feeling great about the trajectory of the app/company.