ForumsNewsA Message From Jake
A Message From Jake
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Jake Toodledo Founder |
As some of the long time members of Toodledo may remember, I am the founder of Toodledo. In fact, it still says so over there next to my name :)
I grew and nurtured Toodledo from a baby into a teenager over 14 years. This was a very productive and rewarding period of my life. I learned a ton about web development, business, customer satisfaction, design and technology. I would not trade it for anything. I love Toodledo. A few years ago I sold Toodledo because I wanted to work on other things. I also wanted to simplify my life. Managing an 8 person company for more than a decade and being responsible for thousands of user's daily productivity was a lot of weight on my shoulders. I sold Toodledo to a team that had big plans for pushing it forwards in ways that I could not have done myself. I still believe that they could have executed on these plans, but "business reasons" got in the way, and I don't fault them for this. Business is business and Toodledo is a business, even if I treated it like a child. So, unfortunately, Toodledo was neglected for the past 3 years, but guess what? It's still the best to-do list around! I should know, it's almost exactly as I left it :) and I continue to actively use Toodledo to this day. When I heard that Toodledo had been resold to Hasnain, David and Pamela I was excited but also a little nervous (feelings that other loyal Toodledo users may share). I recently connected with the new owners and have had two good calls and several emails where we discussed all sorts of things about Toodledo: it's history, my experience and vision, their background and plans, our philosophies about running a business and treating customers, technical challenges, etc. We share a lot in common and are in alignment on pretty much everything that we talked about, which makes me feel really good. We are both product focused and customer driven with the aim of making the best task manager that helps people be productive and achieve their goals. The new owners want to run Toodledo as a sustainable long-term business and I can already see that they are making positive changes and earning back the trust that has been lost over the preceding 3 years. As a test *wink*, I created a support ticket for a bug that I found. I created this ticket on a Friday and they answered it within 24 hours, on Saturday and they fixed the bug on Sunday. I never fixed bugs on weekends, so already they are doing better than me! I acknowledge that I may have gotten special treatment, but I view this as a very good sign about their dedication to the product and customer experience. Toodledo is a big, complex machine, so it is going to take time for David and Pamela (the technical side of the triumvirate) to wrap their heads around everything. So, I think we should all give them some time to get their bearings. In the meantime, I have made myself available to them for advice, should they want it. I am especially looking forwards to the rebuilt native mobile app. This was a project that I started, but left incomplete, so I very much want to see it finished. And I think this is absolutely a good thing for them to prioritize. I am very optimistic about this new chapter in Toodledo's development and Im going to wait patiently, but eagerly, for improvements. Good luck David, Pamela and Hasnain! |
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LSF_2 |
Fingers crossed for the rebirth of this great product.
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Ummagumma |
Great to hear from you Jake, we've exchanged many messages on this board over the years that I've been an avid Toodledo fan.
Still am, however I had to move on. Sorry if I am blunt, but I do want the service to survive and succeed. This is 2021 and Toodledo is, in many ways, stuck years behind. The "old" new team did a wonderful job nearly running the project into the ground, despite warnings from many dedicated longtime users. Jacking up the prices way above the competition while selling a niche product with relatively little name recognition in a saturated market was one major mistake. Trying to rewrite the product from ground up (at least that's the impression they gave) instead of incrementally fixing things that are in the most dire need of fixing was another. Toodledo needs a web interface facelift to make it more appealing to new users (those of us who's used it since mid 2000s don't mind the old nostalgic interface). And it needs a workable, full featured mobile app with background sync and reminders. These are the topmost missing features. Then there are things like natural language input, hyperlinks, calendar view, integration with other services etc. Attracting a couple dozen old users who switched to other products wouldn't be very hard. Attracting thousands of new users who are comparing it with Todoist, Clickup, Asana etc... now that's a hard sell. Hopefully the new team has a plan. From my end, wishing them (and you) all the best. That's a lot of work. |
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SnowLeopard |
JAKE!!! We've missed you. I've been a user since the very early days. This spring, I finally gave up my account and moved to RTM. But, after 2 weeks of mind-chaos using their system, I came back to Toodledo under a new moniker. Anyway, I was rewarded with the news of the new owners and am SO excited for them and for the customers. Toodledo is the best in breed and, in this user's opinion, not much needs changing except maybe a new mobile app (although mine works fine on my iOS devices and always has). Thank you for reaching out to the new owners and providing them with your invaluable insights. And thank you for communicating your thoughts to your grateful fans.
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greginfla_ |
how do we know this is really Jake..... or did the new owners kidnap his account? has anyone seen Jake recently? I am worried; should we notified the local authorities?
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SyneRyder |
Posted by Ummagumma:
Toodledo needs a web interface facelift to make it more appealing to new users (those of us who's used it since mid 2000s don't mind the old nostalgic interface). Have you tried the tasks.toodledo.com interface? There was a whole UI redesign created (I think while Jake was still around), but it's optional because some preferred the ancient design. You can switch between them at any time by using different URLs. Or did you mean a newer redesign than the tasks.toodledo.com one? And it needs a workable, full featured mobile app with background sync and reminders.... If you're on Android, Ultimate To-Do List synchronizes with Toodledo and does both background sync and reminders. It even does location based reminders and smartwatch integration (eg my watch buzzes when I'm get to the shops, reminding what I meant to buy). And it's ridiculously underpriced, $5 for unlimited use is way too cheap for an app I use every single day & is critical to my workflow. Definitely worth supporting them: https://todolist.co/download.html |
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Laurence_1573215849 |
If you're on Android, the Toodledo app is still good enough. No problems at least for me so far.
+1 on the tasks.toodledo.com site. Albeit it can be a bit slow some times but it's acceptable given that there are steps that are much faster (like opening notes and editing tasks titles) |
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Ummagumma |
tasks.toodledo.com is great if you’re a seasoned user. And they even have now basic natural language processing. The problem is when you have potential users who never used the service before and are evaluating it vs other task managers. The “new” interface still looks confusing, and, honestly, somewhat dated.
But the biggest issue is, the majority of users who are evaluating Toodledo vs other services won’t even consider it if they have to use a web interface. In 2021, a full featured mobile client is a must. If you look at the most recommended task management apps, Toodledo is either not mentioned at all, or is somewhere down the list as an “also ran”. Yet it is currently one of the most expensive offerings. To get most features and attachments, you need to spend $60 per year if paid annually. (And I don’t think they even sync to mobile). Compare with Todoist, Ticktick, or the free ClickUp plan. The service is overpriced and not well known, somewhat archaic, and is simply not attractive to new users. This is what needs to be fixed. Just my two cents, and sorry for being blunt. I really do want them to succeed. |
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M |
Jake, I’m happy you’re still interested in this really amazing system that you created and, if you’ve been here since you sold to the previous owners and I badmouthed you on these forums for “bailing“ on us … I apologize (but the last group REALLY screwed up!).
I hope the new group is as dedicated as you always were to the product and its users. |
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aleding |
JAKE!!! Hope things are going well with you and yours - especially in these crazy times...
As you can see, you are sorely missed but mirroring your optimism, I along with many remain hopeful. Well actually, I would say that I remain cautiously optimistic. As I said 3y ago at the first sale, actions speak loudest of all so we shall see --- Fingers crossed and all that. All the best to you Jake and take care... |
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Roberto Ramos |
I had abandoned Toodledo about 3 years ago, but I've always missed it.
For me, it still the best, but obviously need a lot of improvements to do. To show my support for the new team, I made a Plus Subscription. Good luck, people. Cheers. |
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Peter Scott |
As a user since before 2009, I've stuck with Toodledo because nothing else offers as dense and complete an interface to task management. I need to deal with searches that return hundreds of tasks, be able to navigate around them to do operations in bulk speedily with the keyboard shortcuts, and see dozens of them on the screen at a time with all their attributes in customizable columns to be able to manage complex lists of subtasks. Every other tool I've looked at that had the right task attributes had caught the "user friendly" bug and showed only a few tasks at a time, with few attributes and nothing like the flexibility. But hey, they had bouncy bubble gum UIs.
Thanks for keeping Toodledo the best way for people like me to get serious work done. Of course there are improvements I want, but they're not about putting some chic facade on it for people whose todo lists would fit on a whiteboard. |
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pbenda |
I'll resub--I did get frustrated with the previous owners, and felt it was on it's way down so I felt exposed. I am using Todoist, but don't like it as much!
Thanks for these informative posts/updates. |
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dave.jordan |
Posted by Peter Scott:
As a user since before 2009, I've stuck with Toodledo because nothing else offers as dense and complete an interface to task management. I need to deal with searches that return hundreds of tasks, be able to navigate around them to do operations in bulk speedily with the keyboard shortcuts, and see dozens of them on the screen at a time with all their attributes in customizable columns to be able to manage complex lists of subtasks. Every other tool I've looked at that had the right task attributes had caught the "user friendly" bug and showed only a few tasks at a time, with few attributes and nothing like the flexibility. But hey, they had bouncy bubble gum UIs. Thanks for keeping Toodledo the best way for people like me to get serious work done. Of course there are improvements I want, but they're not about putting some chic facade on it for people whose todo lists would fit on a whiteboard. This is exactly why I've stuck with Toodledo for 15 years and why I'm nervous with every comment about "antiquated" interfaces and every new ownership/management change that might succumb to the temptation to turn it into just another Todoist or Asana clone. Overpriced? Not on your life. My Toodledo subscription is worth every penny for the power and flexibility it offers. The Search tool is unparalleled, I live and die by my Saved Searches, and the subtle but important functional differences between Tags, Contexts, Folders, and Goals are critical for my work. No other tool or app comes close (and I've done an extensive search each time I got scared that Toodledo was about to "jump the shark"). |
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NewLifetimePlus2019Aug |
Posted: Oct 16, 2021
Score: 6
Reference
You can go back and read my previous messages -- most of them are still true.
I'm still using TD after ten years or more, a couple of yeas after the beginning of Jake's vision. My history may not show that because I've had to cancel old accounts and open new ones a few times. Thankfully, the export-import function allows me to pull my data onto my local hard drive and then upload it to a new account when opened. So... a very small portion of my tasks and notes are many years old. Even older than TD because I think a few notes were pulled off a Palm Pilot years ago, saved on a Windows machine, and then uploaded to TD. I even have a few email notes from around 1998 or so. Back to the point -- TD is still the best task management and calendaring app that I have been able to find, and I've tried all of those that have been mentioned in this forum as alternatives. The original version of TD worked for me, and the upgrades have just been icing on the cake. Many demanding users have asked for all kinds of obscure and esoteric features, many of which I'd probably never use. Those demands just make it more difficult for the developers with little likelihood of significant new revenue for TD. I hope that the new folks keep a classic version of Toodledo running somewhere for folks like me. Yeah -- we need to have updates and enhancements to the mobile (iOS) version because Apple is a moving target. But try to keep everything simple, guys. It's hard to improve on perfection, and you'll just drive yourselves crazy trying. So glad that Jake is back. Never heard how much he pocketed from selling ToodleDo, but if he invested that wisely and has seen it grow, maybe he'll contribute back some of that (or invest in the new operation) to keep things going smoothly. Hope so. Meanwhile, I will be here until your last cloud server stops running. As long as the classic features are working and I can use TD on my iOS devices (iPads), it will be my primary digital organization tool. -- KB in SDCA This message was edited Oct 16, 2021. |
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