5 years in the App Store
On September 16th, 2015, I launched the first version of 1Blocker on the App Store. Today marks the five-year milestone 🎂 for us. I’m very proud of our team and incredibly thankful to our users for their support for the past five years. We wouldn’t be here today without you.
It all started in 2015 when Apple introduced a new ability for app developers to build content blockers for Safari on iOS 9. Back then, Apple wasn’t advertising the iPhone’s privacy features so much and content blockers on iOS were a bit controversial because they could block ads, which were often the main source of income for websites. Today is a different world, though. People care about their privacy and the issue is even recognized by governments, so new regulations have been implemented, such as GDPR and CCPA, which are intended to enhance privacy and personal data protection.
To celebrate 1Blocker’s five-year birthday, we are offering our Premium service at a discounted price for one week. We rarely do sales, so go get 1Blocker Premium while it’s on sale:
- Yearly $9.99, reg. $14.99 (33% off)
- Monthly $2.49, reg. $2.99 (17% off)
- Lifetime $32.99, reg. $38.99 ($6 off)
Premium can be shared between your iOS and Mac devices — no need to pay twice on each platform. There’s also a free trial for the annual plan, so you can try all the features for two weeks before paying.
Here are a few facts from our journey of building 1Blocker:
We are independent and bootstrapped
1Blocker has been profitable since the very beginning, and we never took an investment from outside parties. Over the years, we’ve received multiple acquisition offers, including one from Eyeo, the company that runs Adblock Plus. We declined all of them.
Being independent is very important for us because it lets us build a product that is guided by our vision and the feedback from our users rather than investors. We can focus on building the best possible product that we love using ourselves.
Appearance in multiple Apple keynotes
Every time Apple includes 1Blocker’s logo or name in one of their keynotes, it makes my day and reassures me that we’re on the right track.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when, for the first time, Apple mentioned 1Blocker in their WWDC16 keynote. Then, we appeared in the keynote once more at WWDC20.
I’m writing this not to brag but to inspire other indie developers and small teams that you can do it too if you put a lot of effort into it.
Our team is very small and fully remote
I built the first version of 1Blocker for iOS during a summer break at my grandparent’s house after attending WWDC15 on a student scholarship from Apple. Later, my brother and partner, Rinat, joined me and he built the Mac version and other important features like iCloud sync. Rinat left 1Blocker and works at Apple now.
There are currently three people in our team and we have no office in any country. If you contacted us via email or Twitter or received a response to your App Store review, you probably already know our friendly Alex. He handles all requests and communications with our customers. Recently, we also hired another developer to speed up development of new features and help us maintain 1Blocker across multiple platforms.
From the very beginning, I always wanted to build an entirely remote team. Since our communication is mostly asynchronous (although we do calls sometimes to sync and stay on the same page), we can work from anywhere in the world with a fast internet connection.
Of course, like in anything, there are advantages and disadvantages of remote work. But if you ask me, would I set up my new company remote? I’d say, yes, I’d do it again. The freedom of being location-independent that each member of our team enjoys is worth it. As long as you get the work done, it doesn’t matter when or where you work. We prioritize deep work (flow) and work when we’re at peak performance. Some like to work early in the mornings, while others are more productive late at night.
I’ve been fortunate to hire strong, self-motivated people, who manage their own time and make their own work.
We’re always adapting to the market
Building a business is hard. Making a living from the App Store is very hard.
Working on 1Blocker has always been a challenge. There are technical difficulties and then there are also difficulties with running a small sustainable business for the past five years.
1Blocker is in the same market as many large competitors who often have big budgets and dozens or hundreds of employees. It can be stressful at times to continue working on 1Blocker. I must admit we almost died twice but managed to get through the dark times. After the switch to subscriptions, things are a bit better now as recurring payments provide us a healthy stream of revenue, so we can continue development and maintenance of the app.
What’s next?
I didn’t know what to expect when I launched 1Blocker five years ago. 1Blocker has changed a lot since its first release, and it’s hard to imagine what things might look like on our 10th anniversary.
We are grateful and happy to say it just keeps getting better. We’re as excited as ever about the journey 🚀
Thank you
To everyone who has ever been a customer, reported a bug, made a suggestion, left an App Store review, or sent us a friendly email or tweet, thank you for supporting 1Blocker and our efforts. We wouldn’t be here without you! 💜
