Talanoa

Some users told me:

“It is the future of email.”

Others told me:

“I bought lifetime and stopped using it.”

Both are equally valuable.

Full recap of my week!
https://medium.com/@bettercalljohn/the-truth-hurts-s02e03-48c2c8fb8190?postPublishedType=initial

New build in public update is live 👋

This week:
→ Tried LinkedIn & Reddit ads (complete flop 😅)
→ Finally started growing on X
→ Realized I wasn’t truly talking to my users
→ Learned more from 10 days of calls with paying users than from months of building

Big takeaway:
Your paying users are pure gold. Talk to them constantly.

Full recap:
https://medium.com/@bettercalljohn/speak-to-your-customers-s02e02-20ed08f89920

I just shared a new update on Talanoa after 3 months of building.

No YC.

A lot of shipping.

A new calendar feature that started as "I don't really get why people want this" and ended as "ok, I can't go back now."

A new website, built 100% with Claude, but not in one magical prompt.

The real trick was to stop asking AI to build the whole thing at once.

I built it like I would in Figma:

hero first, then before/after, then each section one by one.

The more context the AI had, the better it got.

That’s probably the biggest lesson from the last few months.

AI is not a replacement for taste.

But it is a crazy accelerator when you already know what you want.

Full story here:
https://medium.com/@bettercalljohn/still-building-in-public-s02e01-504b9a832ef5

We just added calendar booking directly inside compose.

That means you can now write an email and, without leaving your draft:

• insert your booking link

• or pick free time slots from your calendar

• share only the times you want

• let the recipient choose what works

• automatically create the event once booked

This is exactly the kind of feature I want Talanoa to be known for.
Not "more email features."
Not "more productivity hacks."

Just smoother flows that remove friction from everyday communication.

Scheduling a meeting usually turns into:
open your calendar, check availability, copy a link, go back to your email, send options, follow up, repeat.

Now it just happens inside the draft.

Offer a time.
Send.
Get booked.

That’s it.

It may sound like a small release, but to me it feels like a big step toward the product vision:

making email feel less heavy, less fragmented, and much more natural to use.

Talanoa is still early, but every release like this makes it feel more real.

I finally wrote a new build-in-public update after two months of silence.

A lot changed during that time: meeting people who love the vision, getting unexpected visibility, rewriting the product story from scratch, applying to YC, and dealing with a flood of user feedback.

And the craziest part?
Talanoa went from 270 → 690+ users in just a month.

If you’re curious about the whole journey, I wrote everything here:
https://medium.com/@bettercalljohn/i-applied-to-yc-rebuilt-my-product-story-and-watched-growth-take-off-december-update-414af9082c5c

It’s been a productive month for Talanoa. Here’s what I shipped:

🔁 Email forwarding
✍️ Signature management
⌨️ Keyboard shortcuts
🎨 UI cleanup across the board
🔎 Better search engine
🔄 IMAP/SMTP sync performance improvements
🧱 Windows app stability is way better now

One big realization: as more users joined, small UX frustrations became easier to spot and fixing them made a huge difference in retention.

Also, I’m using Loops.so for my onboarding flow and it’s been a game-changer for staying in touch with new users.

Still building solo, still learning.

Next up: on-device AI, better notifications, and alias management.

Would love feedback if you try it → https://talanoa.email

Let’s build.

It finally happened. After 5 months of shipping, tweaking, onboarding early users manually, and questioning everything… someone bought Talanoa. No discount, no nudge — just belief in the product. And wow, it feels amazing.

But I want to say this clearly:
- It didn’t happen on launch day.
- It didn’t happen the first week.
- It took months.

We often see launch = $$$ in this space. But sometimes… launch = silence. And that’s okay. Some projects need time to breathe, grow, iterate, and earn trust.

💡 If you’re not seeing sales yet — keep going. Keep showing up. Keep improving.

That first sale might be waiting just one more week away.

Talanoa is now helping people organize their inboxes by person, not threads. It’s cross-platform, supports Gmail & Outlook, and I’m just getting started.

Thanks for being such a supportive, inspiring community. You all helped make this happen 🙏

Here’s what happened this week building Talanoa (my privacy-first email client built 100% local):

• 🎯 I tested a promoted post on X: $8 for 8,300 impressions, 111 clicks, but 90%+ were on mobile… where my app isn’t available 🤦 Lesson: don’t promote desktop apps to mobile users.

• ✉️ Set up an onboarding email sequence with Loops.so. Such a powerful tool for indie SaaS workflows.

• 💬 Received tons of positive feedback this week and some great new feature ideas.

• 🧠 Learned about BIMI (a way to show your logo next to emails in Gmail & others)

• 📈 Audience still growing slowly on X & Medium

• 🧪 Started refactoring UI to make room for multi-account support — highly requested + I need it myself 😅

Full post (with screenshots, lessons, and more):
https://medium.com/@bettercalljohn/users-are-talking-i-finally-listened-and-it-changed-my-roadmap-week-20-d1f2f8d482c4

Hey Indie Hackers 👋

Here’s what I shipped this week as a solo dev working on Talanoa, a new kind of email client:

• Finally got my Windows build signed and trusted through Azure

  (no more "Windows protected your PC" nightmares 😅)

• Collaborated with a great copywriter on:

  • A reactivation campaign for my waitlist

  • A smooth onboarding email flow

  • A cold outreach sequence for CMOs

• Switched from Cloudflare to Simple Analytics

  and discovered a 34% download rate from desktop users

• Finalizing Flathub packaging for Linux, to support every OS with a clean install/update process

I wrote a full breakdown of the week and shared some numbers here:

👉 https://medium.com/@bettercalljohn/startup-life-one-small-fix-big-trust-downloads-bb6d159819bd

Would love to hear how you’re tackling onboarding, trust, or metrics tracking right now too!

Another solid week building Talanoa in public.

Here’s what happened:

✅ I followed up with everyone from my waitlist — only 30% installed the app so far, so I’m now doing manual follow-ups
✅ Talanoa got added (by someone else!) on AlternativeTo → big spike in traffic and signups
✅ Released a Fedora build + started prepping for Flatpak to hit Flathub next week
✅ Shipped a clean unread badge count (people-only emails, no notification spam)
✅ Finalized tabs for Archive / Sent / Spam / Promotions
✅ Kicked off cold outreach via LinkedIn + Instantly
✅ Received amazing feedback and new feature requests — finally seeing the product come to life with real users

Next week:

• Desktop notifications

• Still waiting on Microsoft to verify my company so I can sign the Windows build

• Shifting more focus on marketing

Full breakdown here:
https://medium.com/@bettercalljohn/i-regret-doing-a-waitlist-week-18-19651752a3b9