This morning I became a fanboy of Carla White’s company as a result this email:

UPDATE: I did an “unboxing” of this app and discussed my first impressions of the UI design on YouTube: here.

Here is Why

You may remember that a few months ago I reviewed Carla’s book on outsourcing her first iPhone app. The big take away message I got from her book is the importance of having a great DESIGN. But, there is more to why I think this app is going to be successful than that fantastic design.

Visual Design of Vision Board

All you need to do is take a look at the screen and you can see that the design is crisp and simple – perfect for the iPhone. This carries over from the concept with is focused AND it calls back to her other app, Gratitude Journal.

Less experienced designers may have tried to just shoehorn these two apps together. In fact, I own an app that does just that along with about 20 other features. Here, she makes one major feature the focus.

Take-away Message: Hire or focus on the overall DESIGN of your app to be successful.

The Email Promotion

I would never have known about this app if I did not get a well crafted email about it. And now I’m blogging about it – are you starting to see why it might be a good idea to add a mailing list to your marketing efforts?

Take-away Message: Cultivate a following and just do what Carla just did. Use email, Twitter, all of it – and don’t spam anyone (obviously).

Your Niche

Carla’s app feels like an app that would appeal to everyone because of the level of polish it has. But, it is simply a well done app targeted to a specific niche audience of people (who can guess the niche?).

Take-away Message:I really believe that it you try to aim for the whole world you will miss. Find something that your market (and hopefully you) is passionate about and put that into your app.

I’m Buying It Right Now – Check it out here:

http://itunes.com/apps/VisionBoardDelux

(believe it or not I was actually in the market for a vision board)

I will post about the user experience details as I get more familiar with the app.

What take away message are you getting from this app launch?