Issue #40: PastePal by Khoa Pham
PastePal is an iOS clipboard manager that allows users to easily manage and access their clipboard history. It features a simple and intuitive interface with powerful search and organization capabilities.
Today, we're looking at PastePal by Khoa Pham.
Copying and pasting information is tedious and time consuming. PastePal - a universal clipboard manager - simplifies this process by automatically organizing your clipboard and offers a seamless and secure method of pasting content from one source to another.
With PastePal, you can conveniently sort your copied items into collections or filter them by application and content type. Additionally, you have the flexibility to personalize these settings by creating an allowlist of applications, folders, and content types.
PastePal supports a wide range of types, including text, rich text, hex color, emojis, links, images, pdfs, and files.
There's no subscription required to use PastePal. After the initial purchase, you'll get all future updates for free. Plus, PastePal does not collect any data and is fully localized in 20+ languages.
In PastePal, your clippings can be accessed anywhere by using the custom keyboard. You can enable the custom keyboard in your device's settings.
If you like PastePal, be sure to follow them on ProductHunt!
Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves?
My name is Khoa, I'm currently based in Oslo, Norway.
Besides working full-time at a bank, I also make some indie apps to boost productivity. I've always found that building new things is not only a lot of fun, but it's also an awesome learning opportunity. You can visit me at onmyway133 and my projects at Indie Goodies.
How did you come up with the idea?
The idea came from the need to copy and paste code snippets and messages to discuss with multiple stakeholders in a project at work. Although there are hundreds of clipboard managers on the market, none matched my preferences, and since I'm a developer, I decided to make one.
In the initial version, I had a sliding window to the right of the screen, as well as a notes and shortcut manager. However, I later removed them to focus solely on clipboard management. Eventually, people discovered the app, and they started emailing me with suggestions. I've been working on the app since.
💡 Want to see your app featured?
Submit your app or reach out on Twitter 🐦
How did you market the app as an indie developer?
My app is built in public on Twitter.
To be honest, I'm not great at Twitter since my tweets don't get much traction. I've recently started using Reddit more, and I've found that if you find the right subreddit, you will find people who are passionate about new apps and can be harshly honest at the same time.
If you make Mac apps like me, have a look at r/MacApps and r/MacOS to share and explore new apps. Reddit is more like a discussion forum, so don't spam too often.
What’s your app design and development workflow like?
In Notion, I use a Kanban board to organize tickets. I also include information about who provided the feedback - whether it's via Twitter, email, or SMS - so I can update them with the status of the issue. I usually prioritize issues that are frequently requested or that are severe bugs. Thanks to the safety nature of Swift, there are hardly any crashes in the app.
I also have some designer colleagues who often give me advice on how to improve the app - I like simple design and prefer to focus more on the functionality.
Any advice on monetizing your app and improving conversions?
For the initial version of PastePal, I made it a paid app. However, I received a lot of emails asking for trials as people wanted to give it a test drive before purchasing. So, I eventually transitioned it into a freemium model.
My advice is to offer freemium so people can explore the app and you can put your advanced features behind a paywall.
I'd also recommend trying ASO (App Store Optimization) to help you optimize your titles and keywords as it can help your app rank better in the long run. Shipmunk was built just for this purpose - to learn and tweak keywords for my app.
What's your favorite tool in your dev workflow?
For my development workflow:
- I use Xcode as my main development tool
- Figma to play around with prototypes and for managing assets
- Codelime (my app) to store and manage code snippets
What was your launch strategy? How did you drive traffic to your launch?
While some people advise building and launching early, I prefer to release the app when it's built, has some traction online, and is well-tested. So, I usually launch a little late.
You can always re-launch your app alongside a major redesign - like PastePal 2. This helps you get another wave of attention and visibility.
What are the future plans for your app?
Future plans for the app include optimizing it further, and enabling file sync across devices (a frequently requested feature).
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Aryaman Sharda
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