2024 is now in the bag, which means it's been 3 years since I started working on Cakedesk.
Cakedesk has always been a side project for me. While I spend the majority of my time doing client work for Supercake, my web development business, I'm still happy to report that a lot happened for Cakedesk in 2024.
In this post, I will give you a glimpse behind the scenes with some stats (including downloads and sales) and look back at some notable updates that Cakedesk received last year.
The Busiest Year of my Life
2024 was the busiest work year of my life. My web development business was going great but that meant there was a lot of work to do. I logged 60+ hours per week for months in a row in my time tracking tool. I was overwhelmed many times. But I also got a lot from the battle to always stay ahead of deadlines and pushing myself to do more than I thought I was capable of.
Despite the stress, Cakedesk received a lot of love and updates throughout 2024. Combined with the increased user interest, 2024 was Cakedesk's best year so far.
But what does that actually mean? Let's take a look at some stats & numbers!
Stats & Numbers
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Business Hours: According to my time tracking tool, most of Cakedesk's development happened between 9pm and 12am (on average).
This doesn't mean I was working on Cakedesk every day or never at any other time. But since I was always busy during the day with client work, most of Cakedesk's development happened in the evenings.
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13 Updates: In 2024, Cakedesk received 13 updates in total. That's an update every month!
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2600+ Downloads: Cakedesk was downloaded 220+ times per month in 2024. I don't have a good comparison number from the year before because I changed analytics tools around March but I can tell you that Cakedesk had way less downloads in 2023.
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170+ Copies Sold: It's not a large number in absolute terms and far from enough to sustain full time development but it's Cakedesk's best year yet.
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Biggest Country: Most Cakedesk users (by far) are from Germany, my own home country. As I'm looking to support these users specifically, I'm adding more and more features specifically for German users (like support for XRechnungen and invoices for Kleinunternehmer).
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2 New Languages: Still, Cakedesk is used around the world and just last year I added support for Polish and Slovenian upon requests from users.
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48 New Feature Requests: The Cakedesk feature request board was pretty active last year. Users issued nearly 200 votes and posted 65 comments. All of this directly influenced what I chose to work on. 5 big feature requests were completed.
Notable New Features
2024 brought many bug fixes and small improvements but also many new notable features. Check out the Changelog for a complete list!
Invoice Design Customizations Without Code
From the start, Cakedesk supported creating custom invoice templates using HTML & CSS. This appeals to many developers and designers out there but it's just too cumbersome for users who don't know how (or don't want) to code.
Since the start of 2024, users can finally customize the default template's fonts and colors and all built-in templates support uploading a custom logo.
There are still many improvements to be made in the area of design customizations but it's a first step!
Catalog Items
This feature allows users to create invoice items once and then easily insert them into any invoice or proposal. It was the most-requested feature at the time so I was happy to build it.
Improved Overview Screen
Instead of doing a “2024 Wrapped” for Cakedesk, I spent my time improving the Overview Screen for all years; Making its navigation faster, more intuitive and surfacing more information.
QR codes for invoice payments
Invoices created with Cakedesk can now display a QR code that users can scan from their banking apps to make bank transfers faster and with less errors. Another popular feature request.
E-Invoices (XRechnungen)
This was a massive project that kept me busy during most of last year. There's still a lot to do to cover all invoicing use cases via the E-Invoicing feature but the foundation is there.
Electronic Invoicing is relevant to German users where the law requires businesses to be able to issue e-invoices from 2025.
A challenge with this feature is that not many users have used e-invoices in 2024 so I haven't received as much real-world feedback on it as I would have liked. I'm expecting this to change as we get deeper into 2025.
Cakedesk Web Version
2024 was the year I launched a free web version of Cakedesk. It's a super easy and fast way for people to create invoices in the browser.
I thought I would use the browser version to attract new users to Cakedesk but of course the browser version needs promoting as well, otherwise people won't know about it. I made some attempts to share it on Reddit but that just got me banned from a few communities over there.
I hope to revisit the web version at some time in the future!
Experiments with Running Ads
2024 was the first year that I experimented with some paid advertising for Cakedesk. I ran some ads on LinkedIn and on different websites and newsletters. I spent around 2000€ on these experiments of which most did not bring any notable return.
I'll keep trying to find a good channel for paid ads to help with growth.
2025 Here We Come
I'm super excited for Cakedesk's 2025. There are more features on the roadmap than I have time to build but we'll take it one feature at a time.
I don't announce features before they're ready but I can already tell you that the next version is almost complete. Keep your eyes open for a new Cakedesk update coming to your computer soon.
Thank you!
Thanks a lot for using and buying Cakedesk. Thanks for sending in your feature requests, for emailing me your kind feedback, for being patient with me when there is an issue. Sometimes you guys also call me and I get to learn a bit more about your businesses, which is always super interesting.
I hope you all have a great 2025 with lots of success and may you write many project-winning proposals and large invoices using Cakedesk! 🤓