It was on the final slide from Bill Gross's fantastic presentation : "Learning from failure: 20 years of entrepreneurial lessons."

We try to follow many of his tips while building Hitpad. They are invaluable.

Earlier today I did my morning routine. First checked emails, then looked at our server dashboard, logs & analytics reports and finally visited the iTunes U.S. AppStore to see where Hitpad is currently ranked. And then it hit me. 

We are a two guys startup based in Tel Aviv, operating on a tiny budget, yet we made it, for the second time, to the iTunes Top News Free iPad Apps list. And who's with us on that list? Apps created by some of the largest media companies in the world - CNN, NYT, USA Today, and by well-funded Silicon Valley start-ups like Flipboard. And behind us - apps from the BBC, NBC, CBS, WSJ, Fox, ABC and others. Wow!

The last time we were on that list was back in May '11 shortly after the release of our first version. That version had provided us great data & fantastic users feedback. We took those learning and spent a few months working on a major redesign of the app in order to create the best product for our users.

During that period of time, our AppStore ranking had dropped of course since we were not focused on maintaining it. Instead, our entire focus was on the execution of the redesign. We did not waste time on anything else and did whatever was neccesary to deliver. For example, Nir had to write some complex iOS frameworks that replaced buggy 3rd party libraries and I had to refresh my memory, learn new technologies and get back to programming after 11 years of not writing code.

Now, we are not an elite Silicon Valley startup that has the luxury of inviting top bloggers to do a 50 minutes video special at our office. We also did not get TechCrunch, AllThingsD, Wired or CNET to write about the new version. We don't have any $ to spend on traffic acquisition or to promote our app on our TV network or on our heavily trafficked web property. For us, it is all about delivering our users a product that addresses a real need they have and trusting that as long as we stick to that, our users will use the product and spread the word. And it worked. Every day since the re-launch, more and more users are downloading, using Hitpad and leaving great reviews.

You may ask yourself - who are these users? 

• They are probably not tech pundits (who often don't like trends) 
• The vast majority of them don't use Twitter. Based on our data, less than 10% of our users have connected their Twitter account to Hitpad. So for them, Twitter is probably not a source they use for getting to know what is going on.
• Most of our users are probably not using a RSS reader as well. So for them, apps that do a great job visualizing social feeds are probably not the best tool to stay current.
• Our users are the moms and pops of the world (located in over 90 countries), who are looking for a quick & easy way to see what's trending in the news today and Hitpad has delivered that experience and addressed that need for them from day one.

My point (which might not be news to you) can sound very simple and obvious but often times difficult to really understand and more important to implement - if you are thinking of building a product, a service or an app, make sure to find that specific niche that you really understand and focus like a laser on delivering a product that addresses users' needs in that niche. Then constantly listen to your users (and less to investors, friends & family or reporters - most likely that non of these folks will use your app more than once or twice) and keep improving the product in order to be the best in that niche. Even if you are based far from where things typically happen in the tech scene, there is a good chance it will pay off.  

For Nir and myself, getting to #6 is a great reward for the hard work we've done in the last few months. But it is not everything. The biggest reward is the way the two of us have made together and the mountains we had to climb to get there. We can't wait to climb a taller mountain as our journey continues.

-jay (@jaym)

Today we are very excited to announce Hitpad 2.0 (download). 

Hitpad version 1.0 was our MVP and the learnings from it as well as users' feedback have taught us what is required from version 2. We've spent the past 4 months redesigning the UI, completely re-writing the iPad app and enhancing our servers to support many new ideas we had on our roadmap as well as addressing the valuable feedback we have received from our users. 

The new version supports the functionality of Hitpad 1.0 and beyond, and its goal is to make it easy for you to stay current and see what's up today in the news and your social networks.

Updated Design

We've refreshed the design, the colors and certain key areas, specifically the topics navigation bar. The goal was to make it easy to view, access and explore the different categories and the topics, in both landscape and portrait modes, and maintaining a consistent user experience across the different channels. 

Channels

 At the top of the app you will find the channels selector. Today we are announcing the Hot Topics and Facebook channels and more will be added soon.

Hot Topics channel displays hot and trending topics in a range of categories (similar to Hitpad version 1).

Facebook channel is a new and innovative way to view your Facebook wall and the Pages you have 'Liked' on Facebook that have been updated recently.

Hitpad's unique dashboard-like visualization makes it easy to quickly find and focus on the interesting content (such as videos, photos and links) and spend less time reading less important posts (such as status updates).

Note that not all the pages you have 'Liked' on Facebook will be displayed. We are only displaying the pages that have recently been updated in order to help you consume the great content on them but make sure you are not overloaded with too much information.

Actions such as Liking a post, Reading comments and Commenting and updating your status are supported as well from within Hitpad.

Editions

We added 3 new editions to the Hot Topics channel: U.K., Canada & Australia which are added to the U.S edition. Each edition has localized Hot-Trending Topics in a range of categories. We will continue to add more countries in the future.

New Personalization & Customization options

Under the Settings menu you will find several new options that will help you configure Hitpad just the way you like it. The new options are:

1. Style - choose a font: Classic, Modern or Traditional (make sure to restart the app to apply your change)
2. Manage columns layout - change order and delete selected columns
3. Video Sort By to control the order in which YouTube videos are displayed

Related Topics

Each one of the Hot-Trending Topics in the Hitpad channel has several related topics, powered by Zemanta, to allow you to discover additional great content.

(Almost) Infinite Scrolling Search Results

As soon as you get near the bottom of a search result column, Hitpad will automatically fetch more and more results. In the Facebook channel the number of results is limited to 1 week of history. 

Search History

Every query you type into the search box gets automatically added to the "History" category. You can clear that category using the "Clear History" settings option.

And all the features that were part previous versions

• Favorites & voting (requires a Hitpad account - use your Facebook or Twitter credentials for that)
• Easy Sharing of items using Facebook, Twitter, Email
• Read Later using Instapaper and ReadItLater

Give the new version a try by downloading from the AppStore. 

We hope you will enjoy the new version and would love to get your feedback (also via twitter: hitpadapp) and learn how we can continue and improve the product.

Enjoy,

Jay (@jaym) & Nir (@nirn)

Co-Founders, Hitpad

• Follow Hitpad on twitter
• Like Hitpad on facebook.com/Hitpad

We have been working hard on the next version of Hitpad which will be released in just a few weeks. It will include many new features, revamped UI and address many of the feedback points we have received from users. We think it is going to be fantastic and we look forward to releasing it and letting you use it.

In the meantime, we have made some improvements to the existing service and earlier today we added two new categories of topics for you to explore: Science and Health as well as split the Sports category into two: American Sports & British Sports. You can access all of the categories them using the Categories control located at the lower left corner.

Stay tuned for more news from us by following us on twitter and liking our Facebook page.

This is our first ever printed banner. It was given to us when we launched Hitpad at Techonomy back in April '11.

It is designed as a movie poster since the event was held at a movie theatre complex and the participating companies' banners were spread around the venue.

Our good friends at Snap.com sent us some pictures of Hitpad running on the demo iPad devices at the Apple store in Old Town Pasadena. I must admit that it looks really nice with red bricks wall. No wonder it is boosting iPad sales. 

And if you don't own and iPad yet and wonder what Hitpad is, you can try it yourself by checking it on demo devices in Apple stores across the US, Europe or Asia. 

We are in the big apple this week. It is hot as hell outside but the beer is keeping us cold.