Subversed

We never meant to build an app.

We meant to survive a long-distance relationship. The app was an accident, a very happy, very kinky accident.

Welcome to Subversed. I'm Meghan, and alongside my co-founder Rob, we built SubTasks for us first, and somehow ended up building it for all of you. This newsletter is where we get to be a little more human about that. Origin stories, things we're learning, conversations with people in the community, and whatever else feels worth sharing.

Since this is our inaugural issue, we figured we'd start at the beginning. The SubTasks Origin Story.

So here's how a long-distance heartbreak accidentally became a kink app.

I moved away from Rob about two years into our relationship. An opportunity came up that I couldn't turn down, and we made the painful decision to try long distance across an ocean. By then, we had already been exploring BDSM in our relationship for a while, we read some books, and did the in-person kind of learning as we went along. However, once I moved away, we had to get creative. Especially because of the terrible time zone difference; Rob would send me tasks through texts, things I would need to accomplish or do throughout the day by the time he woke up on the other side of the world. These were some fun things (mark a part of your body), some serious ones (do a 5 minute meditation) and some romantic ones (write me a love letter).

This worked, and kept us close.

The problem was the tools, we tried other apps to keep track of all these different tasks, and we didn't like any. The limitations were obvious, it missed some of the fun parts of our dynamics, or it would just not work the way we expected it to. So Rob being the developer he is, and me being the designer I am, we decided to build something simple for us.

Working on something together was also such a driving force keeping us close. Rob would code some stuff, I would review it and give him design and user oriented ideas. We had so much fun working on our little kinky love product, because this was just like our relationship, kinky, loving, fun and amazing.

We worked hard on it and eventually it reached the point where we decided, why not put it out there for other people to use? We honestly didn't expect much, but we launched it on the Google Play Store. And then real life got in the way, I was building a new life across an ocean and Rob was busy with his job, we didn't touch it for almost a year.

Rob was visiting me in Europe and we were out for sushi when a question popped into my head.

"What about the app?" I asked.

Rob cocked his head. "The app? Oh, you mean SubTasks?"

"Yeah," I said. "What if we started working on that again?"

"I mean, it never caught on, right?"

"How do you know? Do you have, like, stats and stuff that track it?"

"I mean, I do, but...hmmm. Okay, hang on."

Rob pulled his phone out and started furiously tapping.

"Holy shit," he said through a mouthful of dragon roll.

"What?!"

"Yeah, people are using it! And check this out:"

He showed me his phone. It was the email he had set up for the app, and inside were scores of emails from real users, sharing feedback, making feature requests, and reporting bugs.

A few of the most recent ones made me wince. "Are you guys still working on the app??" one of the subject lines read.

Turns out, even in its half-finished state, with no Apple App Store version and riddled with bugs, our little app had grown a very small but dedicated user base; and they were begging us to come back and work on it.

That was the night we realized we had something very special. So we decided to pour all our love, time and dedication to make this real.

Since then we've shipped over a hundred features, a full iOS app, a Discord where people actually hang out, and a whole Task Kit economy. There's more coming, and we're nowhere near done.

And we get to build all of it for you kinky lovers out there. Even the solo ones, because the best lover you can ever be is the one for yourself.

One more thing before I go, we also want to hear from you. Reach out through our Reddit, Discord, FetLife or social media, and tell us how this app has been helping you personally and in your relationship. We want to highlight people's stories as well, because we find that real stories are a heck of a lot more interesting than anything out there.

Come say hi

Subversed is the newsletter from SubTasks  ·  subtasksapp.com

MayeTone LLC  ·  1123 Locust St, Ste 347, St Louis, MO 63101
Questions? hello@subtasksapp.com

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