The first version of Vehla felt simple on paper: a menu-bar app, a global hotkey, a command palette, and a set of useful AI actions. The hard part was making that flow feel reliable across real Mac apps.
The first crash
At 11 a.m. someone reported that Vehla wouldn't launch cleanly from the DMG. The bug turned out to be in how we resolved the app path during installation. It was the kind of issue that only appears once software leaves your own machine.
The thread we didn't expect
We expected users to judge the app on the model. They judged it first on whether the hotkey felt instant, whether Accessibility permissions were clear, and whether the palette disappeared exactly when they expected it to.
What we underestimated
- Support volume. 1% of trial signups will email you in the first week. We answered each one ourselves; it took five hours a day for the first ten days.
- Refund requests. Less than expected — under 2% of conversions — and almost always because of an actual technical issue we could fix.
- Press coverage. We didn't pitch any outlets. Three covered us anyway. The ones we pitched ignored us.
What we got right
The two-Mac license. Almost nobody complained about it. The 7-day trial. Nobody asked for longer. The $29.99 price felt right then, feels right now. We resisted every urge to add a subscription tier and we're glad.