Clearful Journal 3.0.0

Reflecting on the past three years of Clearful Journal, today's 3.0.0 launch, and on reaching the starting line.

Maria and I started building Clearful just over three years ago. As a brand-new developer at the time, coding was slow, with many re-writes as I learned (and re-learned) how to write code that didn’t end up looking like this:

Photo by Olayinka Babalola on Unsplash

In retrospect, we took a bit too long to get the first version out, but we believed (and still believe) that “minimum viable product” (MVP) isn’t the right way to approach consumer mobile. We much prefer the idea of “minimum viable awesome” (MVA) - nailing the core app experience in a way that consumers have come to expect.

1.0.0

Our initial value proposition was centered on design and privacy. We wanted a beautiful, safe place to store our most vulnerable thinking.

Just over two years ago, this simple vision was launched on iOS and Android as version 1.0.0. Growth was slow but steady, and in the nine months that followed we added a ton of additional functionality, with a few notable improvements:

• Dark mode

• Biometric authentication (Touch ID, Face ID, Passcode)

• Daily & weekly journaling streaks

• A new “Today” tab

• Guided journaling improvements & collections

• Enhanced search

• iPad and tablet support

All features were completely free and we were focused on helping our users easily get started with journaling, helping them overcome the intimidation of the blank page with guided prompts and templates, and building a journaling habit that works for them.

2.0.0

Eighteen months ago, we launched 2.0.0 with the addition of an optional paid subscription plan - Clearful Pro!

Pro was vital in allowing us to continue to build and invest in Clearful in a sustainable way without compromising on privacy or the user experience.

We launched a ton of new features alongside Pro in the 2.0.0 release, with some of them below:

• Insights, analytics & charts

• Custom collections of guided journals

• Four beautiful new themes

• Pro templates

• Security lock for extra sensitive journal entries

• Template use history

Since launching Pro, nearly 1000 people have opted to subscribe to unlock these features and support our mission. We have a lot of new Pro features in the pipeline, so we’re excited to improve the Pro experience and continue to earn our customers’ business.

3.0.0

Fast forward to today. Since launching Clearful just over two years ago, Maria and I have constantly been talking about how to enhance our users’ journaling experience in two core ways:

1. Personalization and expression

2. Guided journaling & content recommendations

In the spirit of improving #1, I’m very happy to announce that we’ve completely rebuilt the text editing experience to allow for rich text editing!

Introducing Flow Editor

Flow Editor in Clearful Journal 3.0.0

Flow Editor is one part of our effort to allow our users to make their Clearful journal feel like their own. They’ve told us they want to express themselves and format their entries to reflect their emotions and goals.

They’ve also told us they want to add photos and additional content, directly in the flow of their entries. While photos aren’t launching today, we’re already testing this functionality internally in preparation for launching this feature to our Pro subscribers next month 🎉.

In short, Flow Editor massively improves the capabilities of Clearful now and gives us the freedom to introduce custom “blocks” of content in the future.

We’re so excited about this important milestone.

Onwards

2023 is going to be a fantastic year for our users.

With Flow Editor in the wild, they can fully express themselves as they write, reflect, and grow with their journaling cadence.

With the upcoming photos launch, their journal entries will come alive in a way that text alone could never achieve.

With Mac and web apps coming soon, they will be able to journal any time from any device and can write faster with full keyboard support.

With the many enhancements coming to our (already large, 100% curated) guided journaling content library, the right prompts, questions, and templates will be suggested to our users at the right time, helping them to achieve depth in their writing and reflection that they’ve been asking for.

And with redacted coming later in the year, we think they’ll find that they don’t want to journal anywhere but Clearful.

To our users and subscribers, thank you so much for your support thus far.

We’ve reached the starting line. Let’s go.