Our Biggest Mistakes and What's Coming Next
We built a task manager inside Telegram and reached 60,000 users in our first year. In this article I want to talk about our plans going forward — and the mistakes we made along the way. Let's start with the mistakes.
The main mistake: we built everything but explained almost nothing.
"If it needs explaining, it doesn't need explaining" sounds great in dramatic screenplays and motivational quote compilations. But if you're launching a new product — write that phrase down, cross it out completely, wipe it with rubbing alcohol, and replace it with a solid, detailed guide. Ideally with visuals. Ideally in multiple languages.
In 2025, making something convenient isn't enough on its own — you also have to show people how to use it. Walk them through it with examples. Explain how to set it up for their specific needs.
What did we do instead? We buried ourselves in development. Documentation came out late. Video tutorials were recorded as an afterthought. Use-case breakdowns sat in the "we really should get to this" pile.
In short, we underestimated how much communication actually matters.
In our next cycle, we're doubling down on education, explanation, and support. It's one of our key growth priorities.
Mistake #2: We underestimated how frictionless Telegram users expect things to be — and that's not a criticism.
Telegram is a massive market: cheap traffic, a low barrier to entry, effortless onboarding. No download, no install, no registration. Hit Start and you're in the product.
But that ease comes at a price: the moment you ask a user to fill something in or provide any extra information upfront, it becomes an impassable obstacle on a sprint track. They leave.
We felt this firsthand. We had exactly one extra button — not a form, not a CAPTCHA, not a login screen. Just a button. And for a lot of users, it was the last thing they ever saw.
What's interesting is that these same people, on the App Store, will happily sit through five onboarding screens, enter an email, create a password, pick a theme color, and confirm they're not a robot. In Telegram, give them one reason to pause at the start and they're gone.
The lesson: the simpler, the better. Fewer screens, higher conversion.
Mistake #3: We were afraid of coming across as pushy.
We're a small team. We're all well-mannered, considerate people, respectful of boundaries, and mildly traumatized by push notifications from meditation apps.
So for a long time we convinced ourselves we were above reminders and notifications. We had a great product — surely it would promote itself.
In practice, extremes don't work. Staying silent is just as much of a mistake as aggressive spam. A simple message letting users know about a new feature — with a short link to read more — isn't annoying. It helps. It keeps the relationship warm, brings people back, and improves retention.
We were actually embarrassed to send users a link to our own channel. What if it felt like too much? What if they thought we were — horror of horrors — advertising ourselves? We're not a sushi delivery service, after all. Anyone who wants the link can find it in our profile.
We're now course-correcting. Smart, well-timed communication isn't the enemy. Like everything else, it's about balance — talking to users like people, without sliding into psychological pressure, but without whispering from the basement either.
Enough self-criticism. What's next?
Here's what we're working on and what's coming for users in the near term.
Custom filters — in development now
Every project currently has three default filters: All, Author, Assignee. Useful, but limited.
We want to give you more control — the ability to build your own filters tailored to your workflow. For example:"All tasks assigned to Artur with a deadline tomorrow"or"Overdue tasks with the word 'bug' in the title."
Filters will be flexible and powerful — combinable parameters, saveable templates, quick switching between filter sets.
They'll also make it possible to create sub-projects within a main project: tag the relevant tasks, set up a filter for that tag, and you've got a clean, compact child project growing out of the main one.
Filters are about both control and focus — and they're a real time-saver once you're managing a full workload rather than a handful of tasks.
We're rolling them out in stages: first in Projects, to test the mechanics and learn how you actually use them. Then we'll expand to Spaces. The end goal is letting you add custom blocks directly to the home screen, alongside All, Today, and Tomorrow — so you can build a dashboard that fits your working style.
Priority two: learning to explain ourselves
As I said earlier, building a great product isn't enough on its own. You have to communicate how to use it.
So our second key focus is a proper, human onboarding system. The plan:
Short videos covering the key use cases
Articles and guides
A dedicated section inside the bot where everything is organized in a logical sequence — so new users can get up to speed comfortably and experienced users can find what they need fast
English-language documentation — because the Telegram audience has long outgrown the Russian-speaking market, and expecting users to read Russian is, at minimum, presumptuous
Priority three: a full web version (including full-screen Telegram mode)
This one's straightforward: without a web version, we simply can't compete seriously in our space. It's a big, essential step.
We know it, and we're already prototyping the interfaces. The results are looking genuinely good — in some areas cleaner and more intuitive than the current design.
We want to ship it as soon as possible, but we're not going to rush. We want to get it right, so it's a real working tool from day one — not just a web-based brochure.
The plan is to build both a standalone web version with a proper layout for comfortable work with tasks, projects, and filters, and a full-screen Telegram mode for users who want to stay inside the messenger without compromising on UX.
Full-screen is just the beginning
Once the full-screen mode is live, a whole range of new task views becomes possible. Things that felt awkward in the bot will finally make sense as a proper working tool.
First up: Kanban. It's non-negotiable — the first comment would inevitably be*"When are you adding boards?"*
Second: table view.
And of course, a calendar — per project and on the home screen.
In short, full-screen isn't just a bigger canvas. It's a launchpad for the kind of visualization that any serious task manager needs.
Calendar integration: Apple, Google, and common sense
A calendar view inside the app is great — but if you already have a calendar you love (and you probably do), you want everything in one place.
So we're planning integration with Apple Calendar and Google Calendar.
We're not trying to outpace the industry. We're coming at it from a different angle: not disrupting your existing habits, but fitting into them with a tool that slots naturally into your daily rhythm.
Sync it up → tasks from the bot show up where you actually look → tasks where your time is. Makes sense, right?
Deeper inside Telegram: tighter integration
Another key goal is strengthening the connection between Telegram and the task manager.
Honestly, for a long time I thought we had this covered. We live inside Telegram, everything works, everything's right there. Then a couple dozen customer development sessions quickly cured me of that feeling.
Turns out, "convenient" doesn't mean "it works" — it means "it works the way you expect." And there's real room for us to grow here.
Thanks to everyone who shared thoughts, pushed back, made suggestions, and pointed out weak spots — that's exactly where the best improvements come from. We've already taken your ideas on board and will soon be showing how Telegram and a task manager can work together more tightly and more intelligently.
Reports — last on the list, far from least important
At some point, you need to see what's actually going on: where things are overdue, how many tasks were opened versus closed, what Artur has actually been doing, and so on.
So reports are on the roadmap.
For the first phase, we'll build a simple file export you can open in Excel, load into Google Sheets, or pull into a BI tool — and slice the data however you like.
After that, we'll go where the data takes us: if most users are satisfied with basic scenarios, we'll add built-in reports directly into the interface.
What's next?
There's a lot in the pipeline — and I haven't covered everything. Some things are still being worked through, some are in the experimental phase, some are still being discussed.
But the main thing I want to say is: we're not standing still. We keep moving, analyzing feedback, improving, rebuilding, and shipping.
Our goal is to build a task manager people actually want to come back to every day.
You — our users — are the main source of our improvements, ideas, and motivation. If you've read this far, consider yourself already part of the team.
Thank you for being with us. The best is still ahead.
Denis, January 2025