Sebastien Lagree's lawyer sent me a cease and desist two days before my wedding.

The follow-up to my week spent working in Instagram instead of Xcode.

Talk about emotional whiplash.

I ended my last article on a high note (finally getting to meet the creator of Lagree himself), but 18 days later, and 2 days before my wedding, I was hearing from his lawyer.

I, at first, thought it was a phishing scheme. I mean, I’ve been an iOS developer for 11 years, and I have never received an email from “App Store Notices”. Plus, doesn’t this look like spam?!

Also, what kind of formal legal email comes in “Gmail-thread neon purple”?

Unfortunately, it was not spam; It was a cease and desist letter telling me I was infringing on the Lagree trademark by calling my app “Lagree Buddy”.

I was gutted.

Some people in the r/LagreeMethod Reddit warned me that this may happen, but I didn’t believe them. Or I guess I didn’t want to believe them. Call it naivety, but I thought I’d get a pass because my app is a tool to help people with their practice.

It’s a complementary product, not a competing product.

But I totally get it. It’s his right and his trademark to protect, and if I’m not allowed to use it, then so be it. My only wish is that they would’ve just asked me (since we’ve DM’d on Instagram), versus sending a lawyer.

But enough drama. We’re here to document and learn, so moving on!

Speaking of learning … welcome new subscribers from iOS Dev Weekly & Hacker News. I’ll try not to bore you guys, but this was my favorite comment/interaction about my last piece:

Thank you, @nesk_ (whoever you are), for defending my honor while also making me laugh at my own unnatural ability to market my products. aka not even adding a link to the app loll 🤦🏻‍♂️😅

Am I getting sued?

That was the next thought after realizing it wasn’t a phishing scam.

An overreaction? 100%.

But I’m no lawyer, so when you see the words “at risk of termination from the Developer Program”, rational thoughts go right out the window.

Luckily, I remembered a story my friend Jasper once told me. He’s the Head Chef and owner of Rosalynn Supper Club, and when he ran into some hurdles early on, he noted that he kept those issues to himself, only to find out later that his mentors and peers had all dealt with something similar. And everyone told him:

Dude, why didn’t you just reach out and ask me? I went through that exact thing!
I could’ve helped you save so much time and money.

So with that in mind¹, I reached out to my (now) brother-in-law, who has run his own company for several years. And he immediately put me at ease with his own stories and words of advice.

I won’t go into detail about what was shared, but I instantly felt better and rational thoughts began reentering my brain.

But could I fix this in 3 hours?

I had to fix it in 3 hours because wedding festivities were officially set to kick off at dinner. I mentioned I was getting married in 48 hours, right?

So yeah. I had to scramble.

I hurried home, sat down at the dinner table, and maniacally tried to think of new app names. The leader in the clubhouse for a good 15 minutes was “Slow Buddy” until more oxygen reached my brain, and thankfully triggered the thought, “THAT WILL NOT BE INTERPRETED THE WAY YOU THINK IT WILL BE INTERPRETED.”

After an hour or so (naming things is hard), I stuck my feet in the sand and decided on 4 Count. It was brand-agnostic yet specific enough that people in the community would understand immediately.

Next, I had to get this change into the App Store. There were a few places inside the app that still had the old name (like the Settings and App Store Screenshots), but I was short on time, and I was pretty sure Lagree’s legal team didn’t care about that. They just wanted the name changed on the App Store. So I would get to those details another day.

That took another half hour to get a new build ready and submit it to Apple.

My final step was crafting a response to Apple and Lagree’s legal team. I was doing good on time, so I took an extra beat to acknowledge that I understood their position and was already complying, but also to express how disappointed I was in this development.

Especially since I have openly tagged and communicated with Lagree HQ about the app since its launch in March, and they seemed genuinely positive about it. The same with when I took Sebastien’s class and met him in person.

I wanted to say all that because this was a project born out of passion. I’ve been doing Lagree since 2019, and I found a way to use my skills to contribute to it, not take from it. It was important for me to say that even if it didn’t matter.

With all taken care of (and 30 minutes to spare!), it was finally time to get my wedding weekend started.

But what did I forget?

Oh man, so many things.

• I submitted the app on Thursday before dinner.

• It got approved on Friday during the rehearsal dinner.

• I released it instantly without telling any of my users.

• Got married on Saturday.

• Packed for the honeymoon on Sunday.

• Ran to the airplane on Monday because we were the last to board.

• And then got this notification early Tuesday morning:

This warmed my heart.

Well, first, it sent me into another panic, but then it warmed my heart because holy shit, I guess I really did make something that people love! How cool is that?!

But I did have some explaining to do.

Why didn’t I communicate this name change to anyone? I think, subconsciously, I was still feeling ashamed that I got a cease and desist letter. Felt like I was getting in trouble at school, and I didn’t want anyone to know. I was hoping that I could quietly make the change and no one would notice (or care).

But I couldn’t be happier to be wrong. I couldn’t do it quietly, nor should I do it quietly. Also, what the fuck did I have to be ashamed of? It’s not like I tried to unethically circumvent the NBA salary cap.²

I made a good product that people love and that is objectively pretty cool.

So I leaned in and changed all the social handles, bought a new domain name, put up a few stories on IG, and went back to enjoying my honeymoon.

Glass Half-Full

I again want to reiterate that I have no hard feelings toward Sebastien or the Lagree team. I still love the workouts, I still think his class was awesome, and I’m still adding features to my app.

We’re all good!

But honestly? It might’ve worked out for the best. Being forced to rebrand might actually open up the market for me. Because the app is not Lagree-specific. It can be used for Solidcore, Coreology, and really any slow resistance training method. So instead of serving one brand, I can serve an entire fitness category.

Not bad for a cease and desist letter!

1. This is a critical part of the story. Because my younger self would not have asked anyone for help. Not because I didn’t need it, but out of some weird sense of shame. My internal dialogue would’ve escalated “please change the name of your app” into “you’ve dishonored your family.” Makes zero sense, I know. But that’s the mental math I used to do. So, again, I have to say thank you to Jasper for planting this kernel in my head. Good person. Good food. Go eat at Rosalynn Supper Club!

2. Go Lakers.