Startup life: one small fix = Big trust + Downloads [week 19]

This week felt like a mix of battles, wins, and small but meaningful progress.

🧩 The story (for newcomers)

I’m building Talanoa, a new kind Slack-like but for emails client designed to reduce noise instead of chasing Inbox Zero.

It’s a project I’ve been building in public for the last 19 weeks, documenting every win, failure, and lesson along the way.

✅ Windows: finally signed, finally trusted

I finally got Microsoft Azure to approve my certificate so I can sign the Windows version of Talanoa.

No more terrifying blue warning screen when launching the app. 🎉

It took me three evenings to get everything working properly from a GitHub Action and honestly, it felt like I was the only human on earth trying to do this. Debugging code signing flows in 2025 should not feel like black magic, but here we are.

✍️ Emails: met a great copywriter

I had the chance to collaborate with an awesome copywriter I met on X.
His name is Walter (https://x.com/walt_low) a very good guy, very smart and made an awesome work for Talanoa.

He helped me craft 3 key email flows:

• A re-engagement campaign for waitlist users
• A welcome/onboarding sequence to guide new users through their first steps in Talanoa
• A cold outreach sequence aimed at C-level profiles

Really happy with the work it gives the product more soul and structure.

📊 Analytics: small traffic, solid conversion

I finally ditched Cloudflare’s free analytics (a bit too barebones) and switched to Simple Analytics. Much better.

Right now I’m getting around 40 visits per day, 60% from desktop.

That’s roughly 24 people per day able to download the app, and I’m averaging 8 downloads daily — which gives me about a 34% conversion rate.

I don’t have strong benchmarks yet, but that feels pretty encouraging.

Next step: I want to improve the mobile landing experience so I don’t lose mobile visitors. Things like sending the download link by email to follow up later could help.

🐧 Linux: Flathub, finally

This week I’m wrapping up all the Linux builds on Flathub. It matters to me that Talanoa is available to everyone, no matter what OS they prefer with a clean install and update experience.

Once that’s fully automated, I’ll be able to shift more focus back to product and onboarding.

Thanks for reading and if you’re working on your own tools, launches, or automations this week, I feel you!

If you haven’t tried Talanoa yet, the app is now available for everyone. Give it a spin:

👉 https://talanoa.email

👉 Website: Talanoa.email

🐦 Follow me on X: @BetterCallJ0hn and @talanoa_

💬 Let’s connect: I’d love to hear your thoughts & feedback!