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My girlfriend and I have been living together for four years, mostly in small, tight spaces, like our former “Trendyloin” apartment in downtown San Francisco, which we were renting at the time for almost half our total income. We recently moved north of the city where we hoped our money would go a bit further. As my girlfriend took a new job, I sat back down at my computer and began to design new app ideas. Having tried and failed on multiple occasions—first with a family organizer, then several games, a Christian dating app (yes, it’s true), a fitness dating app (no joke), and most recently a travel app—I was starting to notice a trend: the apps may have been good ideas and some even well made, but that’s all they were. They had no real daily use value, and therefore, nobody used them.
What I needed was to come up with something more real-life, more relevant and closer to home. I needed an idea that solved a personal, as well as universal, problem that most importantly could be done from an iPhone. I immediately thought of my relationship with my girlfriend. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, but the truth is my relationship is great. However, even great relationships come with their challenges, many of which are as trivial as tending to the laundry pile occupying the bedroom floor, or the stack of dishes soaking in the kitchen sink. Usually both would build up until one of us broke under the pressure (or stench) and cleaned them up. Micro-resentment ensued. Most of our friends are in relationships or married at this point, so I figured we couldn’t be the only ones with these small but compounding issues. I asked around and learned that this hunch of mine was correct—even my mom and stepdad, who’ve been married for 20 plus years, are still facing the same kinds of nagging issues.
The next step was to check the App Store for the competition. There’s no sense in building something if it already exists, unless you can dramatically improve on it. After my brief competitive analysis, I did find other couples apps. Some were based on the cute premise of keeping a couple’s journal and tracking each others’ whereabouts, which is fine, but also something I would never use. Others that were more productivity-focused were all lacking what I needed. Nothing was really that useful, so I decided to pursue the idea of improving my relationship by focusing on the small, day-to-day challenges of being in one.
After six weeks of conceptualizing, designing, and coding, and another four weeks of testing with my incredibly patient girlfriend, friends, and family, I unveiled Merge—a shared to-do-list app for couples living together. Merge provides one simple interface for a couple to communicate and collaborate on things that need to get done: create tasks and assign them to your significant other or yourself; track the progress of those tasks until they get done. Live life!
I released Merge on the App Store in the last week of August and the following weekend submitted it to Product Hunt, the premiere website for early adopters and discovering new products. Hundreds of products are submitted to them on a daily basis, and although I had had apps featured in the past, I wasn’t expecting anything. To my astonishment, I woke up on Monday morning to find Merge was the most up-voted and commented-on product of the day. I immediately dove into the feedback and responded as quickly as I could. I was most surprised by the gleeful rejoice of certain people that such a product had been built, and was equally as grateful for the sharp, constructive feedback I was getting, like how the user interface needed some work. Based on the amount of signups that followed, I’ve learned that there is a need for Merge. I’m a long way off from proving business viability, but this kernel of concept validity is certainly an exciting start.
If you think a shared to-do list could be useful in your relationship, I encourage you to try Merge. It is free to download here.
For more in-depth reviews and feedback, please check it out on Product Hunt here.
Want to see Merge on Android? Please let me know by emailing me.
Steven Rueter
Creator of Merge
Founder, Kindred, Inc.
[email protected]
What I needed was to come up with something more real-life, more relevant and closer to home. I needed an idea that solved a personal, as well as universal, problem that most importantly could be done from an iPhone. I immediately thought of my relationship with my girlfriend. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, but the truth is my relationship is great. However, even great relationships come with their challenges, many of which are as trivial as tending to the laundry pile occupying the bedroom floor, or the stack of dishes soaking in the kitchen sink. Usually both would build up until one of us broke under the pressure (or stench) and cleaned them up. Micro-resentment ensued. Most of our friends are in relationships or married at this point, so I figured we couldn’t be the only ones with these small but compounding issues. I asked around and learned that this hunch of mine was correct—even my mom and stepdad, who’ve been married for 20 plus years, are still facing the same kinds of nagging issues.
The next step was to check the App Store for the competition. There’s no sense in building something if it already exists, unless you can dramatically improve on it. After my brief competitive analysis, I did find other couples apps. Some were based on the cute premise of keeping a couple’s journal and tracking each others’ whereabouts, which is fine, but also something I would never use. Others that were more productivity-focused were all lacking what I needed. Nothing was really that useful, so I decided to pursue the idea of improving my relationship by focusing on the small, day-to-day challenges of being in one.
After six weeks of conceptualizing, designing, and coding, and another four weeks of testing with my incredibly patient girlfriend, friends, and family, I unveiled Merge—a shared to-do-list app for couples living together. Merge provides one simple interface for a couple to communicate and collaborate on things that need to get done: create tasks and assign them to your significant other or yourself; track the progress of those tasks until they get done. Live life!
I released Merge on the App Store in the last week of August and the following weekend submitted it to Product Hunt, the premiere website for early adopters and discovering new products. Hundreds of products are submitted to them on a daily basis, and although I had had apps featured in the past, I wasn’t expecting anything. To my astonishment, I woke up on Monday morning to find Merge was the most up-voted and commented-on product of the day. I immediately dove into the feedback and responded as quickly as I could. I was most surprised by the gleeful rejoice of certain people that such a product had been built, and was equally as grateful for the sharp, constructive feedback I was getting, like how the user interface needed some work. Based on the amount of signups that followed, I’ve learned that there is a need for Merge. I’m a long way off from proving business viability, but this kernel of concept validity is certainly an exciting start.
If you think a shared to-do list could be useful in your relationship, I encourage you to try Merge. It is free to download here.
For more in-depth reviews and feedback, please check it out on Product Hunt here.
Want to see Merge on Android? Please let me know by emailing me.
Steven Rueter
Creator of Merge
Founder, Kindred, Inc.
[email protected]
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