Today we’d like to introduce you to Dana Gillespie.
Dana , please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I created My Moontime app for myself because I needed it. I started in 2012 creating this app as I needed a way to track both my menstrual cycle and the moon cycle, as well as the energy potential of the both of them combined – so I could go about my day with more awareness and understanding of myself. Otherwise I tried to track my cycle with other apps and by hand and I would always loose track and show up to work pms-ing and during a full moon and they would surprisingly be the worst days ever. Having this app has helped me know what’s coming ahead and plan accordingly and take better care of myself.
It’s been a long learning journey with this app, and the only thing that has kept me going is the constant messages I receive from females who use the app and love it – telling me how much this app means to them and that they need it. There is nothing quite like this app out there, and its partly because I have such a deep and unique understanding of female energy, health and wellness. As a long time meditation and energy work practitioner – focusing in on female energy – it’s given me the awareness to go deeper into into this app and what will help females the most.
Right now – we are updating My Moontime app to meet the new IOS system and also making it available for Droid. I’m also getting ready to launch a little site for females to enjoy simple daily female mediations and tools to help them create more space, ease, wellness and joy in their lives. Female bodies are very difference from male bodies and it’s time to dive deeper into this awareness so females can understand and enjoy themselves more. www.easydailytools.com aims to help females understand their selves a little more and learn simple tools to help them experience more joy and ease. It works really well with My Moontime app as well.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I created My Moontime out of a deep need for this app and that need is what has kept me going with this app. I don’t have a background in tech. I just dove in and I continue to learn as I go. So it’s been a long journey with many many plot twists. So many times I thought I was going this way, and then I ended up going another way. But that’s ok – that’s like. It’s all a learning experience.
The app didn’t originally get set up with the ad space I could edit – so it created financial issues for the app and why I’ve struggled with it for so long.
And because I launched a holistic period tracker app way ahead of the public awareness of needing an app like this – it takes time for people to realize they want and need this app. But now we have the most amazing females who love and support this app. Seriously – My Moontime app users are some of the most incredible females in the world. I’m in awe of them!
Please tell us about My Moontime.
My Moontime is a holistic period tracker app. I am the creator of the app. Right now, I do everything. From the conception and design of social media – it’s all me. I have been in the health and wellness world since I was little and continue to be to this day today.
Creating a holistic period tracker app is something that I personally needed. I’m also a long time meditation and energy work practitioner. So I have a deeper awareness of the female body on an energetic level – more so than most. I was written up in Lisa Lister’s book ‘Witch’ as saying I was a witch – but that was more tongue and cheek at the time. I don’t care for labels – but if anything – I consider myself a mystic.
I created and designed My Moontime myself, and also paid for it to be programmed from my earnings working at a restaurant. I had a shoestring budget for this app and really didn’t have a budget for PR & Marketing. Being written up in HuffingPost, Nylon Magazine and Marie Clare to name a few – has been so validating. And watching all these amazing females around the world gather and tell all their friends to download and use My Moontime because they love it – it’s so wonderful. 26,000+ downloads worldwide with little to no PR & marketing – that’s impressive. It’s rare that apps actually end up making money. Only a small percentage do. And for My Moontime to be still going on at this point – it’s fantastic!
I’m most proud of the love users have for this app. And the messages I receive from users telling me how much this app means to them. I created this app before most anyone really understood this concept and now everyone is finally getting into it. And there’s nothing quite out there like it. Others can try to do similar apps – but it would be obvious at this point they are copying My Moontime app and they don’t have the deep understanding of the female body and energetic mechanics like I do. And that is always felt within a company and system at some point and leads to limitations and failings.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If I had to start over – there’s not much I could have done differently aside from a couple basic app functions. We’re updating the app right now to meet the new IOS system – which needed to happen last year. I’ve been very selective about who I wanted to work with on this as I’ve been concerned about quality so it’s taken me a long time. But I learned a lot in that time frame about this app, the user base and what’s most important to me. So we’re finally updating the IOS and also having it made into Android as well.
There wasn’t a ton of app developers or programmers at that time, and the ones out there I met wanted crazy large sums of money. I also didn’t have much money for this app. I spent 6 months of my life introducing myself to everyone as “Hi – I’m Dana Michelle Gillespie. Do you know an app developer or programmer you can recommend?!” I was very fortunate in the end to have the Modbad Media program this app for me. They did an amazing job!
I remember clearly going to see the Dalai Lama years ago with my girlfriend Erica Cornwall and us discussing this app while waiting to go in to see him. She was instinctively passionate about charging users to access this app. And in hindsight – she was right. But I wanted to have the app be free so everyone could access this information and have the ad space give the app the revenue it needed to continue on.
If I could have done anything differently – I would have put more emphasis on having ad space in the app that I could access myself to edit. And also make sure there was an email capture at the beginning. Freemium and subscription-based apps were not really common when we programmed this app. Thank goodness they are now as that’s what My Moontime is moving over to be coming in the near future so it’s a more sustainable model.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.mymoontime.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @My_Moontime
- Facebook: @MyMoontime
- Twitter: @My_Moontime
Image Credit:
@moonshadowphotography
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