Independence: Recent Episodes
Alice Zhao, Curtis Herbert and Daniel “Jelly” Farrelly
Surviving in the muddy waters of the App Store as an indie isn’t easy. Alice Zhao, Curtis Herbert and Daniel “Jelly” Farrelly explore what it means to them, what they do to make it work, and how to claim your independence.
Curtis has won an Apple Developer Award, so Alice and Curtis give him the ultimate gift: an Independence reunion. They discuss what it’s like to win such a coveted award, what they’ve been doing in the last couple of years, and whether or not any of them are actually still indies.
Curtis had a topic planned, but Alice and Jelly ruined everything. The three talk about their experiences through out the course of Independence, how things have changed, why it’s ending, and ultimately answer the question of whether they still aim to be independent.
If you’re considering doing an app with subscriptions, there’s some things you may want to consider before you make that move, as it’s not necessarily the best answer for every situation. Curtis and Jelly have been using subscriptions for a while, so Alice quizzes them on how things have been going, in the hopes that it’ll give her an answer on whether she should move to using them herself.
After launching a new thing—or an update to a thing—Jelly likes to stop, look back at the process, and evaluate how things went. For him, it involves considering the answers to some key questions, and he decides that it’s worth forcing Alice and Curtis through this process. Together, they discuss recent launches, how they went, and what they feel could have gone better… or worse.
Running a successful business is hard, and with the myriad of decisions that you make, it’s also difficult to do so in an ethical way. Alice, Curtis, and Jelly look back at the decisions they’ve made in trying to run ethical businesses, how they’ve worked out long term, and whether they’ve been the right choices in the long term.
If there’s one thing that’s important when building a business around software, it’s data, but there are also downsides to collecting the data, both for us as business-owners, and for our customers. Alice, Jelly and Curtis talk about their approaches to data collection, and why it’s best to keep privacy in mind when creating software.
It’s sometimes far too easy to get caught up in the idea that when we create something as indies, it’s for other people, but that doesn’t need to be the case. Alice, Curtis and Jelly discuss their own approach to starting new things, and why it’s sometimes worthwhile.
Growing our products and acquiring new users is something that most indies aren’t particularly good at, but it’s a significant factor in achieving success in the App Store. Alice, Curtis and Jelly take a look at their own approaches to growth, why they’ve worked out—or not, as the case may be—and why you would want to be intentional about your growth.
Long time friend of the show, Aleen Simms, joins our trio to talk about her upcoming project, App Launch Map, and how it helps define basic strategies for successfully launching an app on the App Store.
If there’s one thing we rely on as indies, it’s inspiration. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have it, and learning how to feed it and channel it is a core part of what we need to do to survive. Alice, Jelly and Curtis take a look at where they get inspiration from, what they do when it’s not flowing, how they think they could get better at fostering it.
Every year at WWDC, Apple drops a bunch of new things for app developers to work on, and 2019 is no different… in fact, it may be the biggest year we’ve had for a while. Alice, Curtis and Jelly talk about what they tend to take from the developer conference each year, and how to approach integrating the new features into their various apps.
Positive comments sure do feel nice, but should we be doing more with them than just acknowledging their existence? Alice, Curtis and Jelly go over some instances where they’ve received praise for their respective apps, and consider the ways it’s helped them produce a better product.
When it comes to our businesses as indies, the weakest link in the chain is us. Alice, Curtis and Jelly look at each of their businesses to see what they’re already doing (and what they probably still need to do) to pass things on once they’re six feet under.
Often, it can be very tempting to come up with an idea, and just start building it right away. While this can feel like the right path, often it’s actually better in the long-term to spend time thinking about a feature, and figuring out what it is first. Alice, Curtis and Jelly discuss their approaches to planning features, what constraints they place on themselves, and the steps you should be taking before opening Xcode.
Independence is two years old, and our intrepid hosts once again answer questions fielded by listeners. Finally, answers to the important questions, such as their thoughts on growth hacking, tips for getting the most out of WWDC, and what they wanted to be when they grew up.
Accessibility is something that is often overlooked in the tech industry, and the very scope of it can be daunting. Alice certainly feels like she’s dropped the ball on considering the accessibility needs of her users, so she enlists Curtis and Jelly and together they discuss their inspirations, how they approach accessibility in their apps, and where you can find resources on accessibility.
If you have a product that people love, it’s entirely possible that they want ways to show it off. In the lead up to WWDC, Jelly’s merch game is woefully inadequate. He enlists Alice and Curtis to discuss potential ideas for merchandising, and the things you might need to consider if you’re going to sell it online.
When we start down the indie path, we usually have very purposeful ideas for the products we want to build, but many of us don’t think beyond the product onto the company. Alice, Curtis and Jelly give some thought to the visions they have for the future of their respective companies, and why that’s something worth thinking about in the present.
With her time as limited as it is, Alice has been thinking about what her exit from the indie life might look like, hypothetically speaking. Surprisingly, she’s not the only one thinking about it, so our three hosts delve right in to ask the important questions around what products should be when their creators leave them behind.
Alice has started a new job, and Jelly is neck deep in a client contract, which leaves them very little time to get stuff done with their own projects. In an attempt to figure out the best way to achieve balance, our three hosts share their experiences, talk about possible ways of approaching things, and commiserate with each other’s struggles for time.
Part of running a business is dealing with your customer’s expectations, and this is no more evident than in the App Store. Alice, Curtis and Jelly chat about how their users expect everything, including particular language support, new services for syncing, and the dreaded Android version… but are all these expectations worth delivering on?
At some stage, it’s entirely possible that you might end up needing to hire a developer to help you finish your project. Alice is considering going down that path with Gus on the Go, so she looks to Curtis and Jelly for advice on how to prepare, what to look for, and what makes for a good contracting experience.
There’s a lot that goes on when launching a new app: marketing, feedback… and watching the sales chart desperately hoping that things go according to plan. Heidi Helen Pilypas and Ish Shabazz join the show to talk about the recent launch of Capsicum, along with all the excitement and horror that ensued.
There are a lot of benefits to doing what you love as an indie, but there are also many things that you don’t consider when you try to turn your hobby into a career. Alice, Curtis and Jelly look at the things that blindsided them when turning their interests into products, and honestly ask themselves… do they still love what they do?
While they ring in the new year, Alice, Curtis and Jelly look back at 2018, with all its highlights, failures, lessons… and how it differed from everything they’d expected back when it began.
If you’re selling apps, odds are you’re going to go down the freemium route: offering the app for free, but charging for something within the app itself. Of course, this business model comes with a whole bunch of ins and outs that you have to navigate if you want to succeed, so Alice, Curtis and Jelly look at how they’ve managed their apps, what’s worked for them, and what’s failed miserably.
Startups and independents have a lot in common, but they differ in a lot of ways too, and the approach one takes to creating a product doesn’t necessarily serve the other particularly well. Alice, Curtis and Jelly compare their approaches to the typical startup, and figure out what they could potentially apply to their own businesses, and what to avoid at all costs.
We all need connections with other people, and so much about creating a product involves being in touch with the community of people who love it. Alice, Curtis and Jelly look at how fostering a community around their products could be beneficial… and a lot of work.
Change is inevitable, but unless you bring the people using your product along for the ride, you’re going to find that at least some of them are going to get left behind. Alice, Curtis and Jelly take a look at changes they’ve made to their apps, how they’ve approached them in the past, and ways to mitigate problems.
It can be time-consuming and difficult to get good feedback from people, but it can make a world of difference for the finished product. Alice is starting to think about how to approach beta testing with Gus on the Go, so Curtis and Jelly try to share their experiences to help make her job just a little easier.
Software, unlike other products, tends to change and evolve over time: features are added and changed—sometimes removed—and the way an app looks when it first launches can be very different after a few years. Alice, Curtis and Jelly reflect on the changes they’ve made to their apps over time, and how they’ve tried to take their users along for the journey.
As creators, it’s sometimes hard to tell where you end and your product begins. This gets compounded by the fact that customers often confuse you with your work, which can have some significant consequences. Alice, Curtis and Jelly dig deep to determine why it is that they associate their products with their own worth, what the consequences are, and what they do about it.
Introducing your product to new people is difficult, as any app developer can likely tell you, and while there are plenty of typical approaches that everyone tries, they don’t always succeed. Alice, Curtis and Jelly spend time looking at the techniques they’ve used for acquiring users, how they’ve approached it, and what’s worked for them so far.
Failure is an inevitable part of and indie’s journey, but sometimes the looming weight of it is enough to negatively affect the decisions you make. Jelly’s been feeling it a bit of late, so he, Alice and Curtis take a look at what failure looks like for them, and how they deal with it.
There’s a lot of theories out there about how feasible the Android market is for independent apps, and most of it isn’t exactly positive. To help cut through the noise, Russell Ivanovic joins Alice and Curtis to talk about his journey with Pocket Casts, what it’s like walking the line between platforms, and whether it’s even possible to find success with an Android app.
Where do ideas come from? Is every idea worth building into a full-fledged product? Is it better to have many projects, or fewer? Alice, Curtis and Jelly take a long hard look at where their projects were born, the projects they’ve thrown out, and everything in between.
Sometimes it can be really easy to work through a day and then keep it going until late at night, either because we love what we’re doing, or because we’re feeling pressure to succeed. Alice, Curtis and Jelly look at their own tendencies to put in the extra hours, and how it affects their overall balance in the long term.
Every one approaches their day just a little differently. From how you plan your upcoming months (and years) of work, all the way down to managing your day-to-day approach, the way you plan your work is going to affect how you actually do your work. Alice, Curtis and Jelly look at each of their approaches, explain why it works for them, and look at what they’ve learned about how they schedule things over the years.
Even as an indie, you’ll find that you need to make a bunch of decisions around what you do with the money you make: do you reinvest it right back into the business, or do you take the money and run? Alice, Jelly and Curtis look at the individual—and very, very different—approaches they each take, and find that the answer isn’t as easy as just one or the other.
Every app is different, and the approach to marketing that app is different too. From word of mouth, to building communities, our hosts discuss their own experiences with marketing their apps and how it’s changed over time.
Independence is one year old! For the inaugural birthday episode, our intrepid hosts answer your questions. They finally reveal how they optimise for App Store search, the doubts they’ve faced on the road to being an indie, and which of them you want to keep your phone away from prior to finding yourself stranded on a desert island.
There’s nothing scarier than losing control, especially when it comes to the things you’ve worked so hard to achieve. Our three hosts recount some of the times they’ve lost control (or had their hand forced), what they did to recover, and what they managed to learn from the experience.
We all make mistakes, and Curtis is no exception. He recently shipped a bug, which got him thinking about how he, Alice, and Jelly approach the QA aspect of creating and shipping apps, and how to avoid doing so, if at all possible.
Getting from idea to a minimum viable product is difficult, because it’s all about knowing what to ship, and making the right decisions early on. Alice is about to start the journey for the third time, so she asks Curtis and Jelly how their first submissions went, and what they feel like they learned from the process.
As it turns out, Jelly has been thinking a lot about his pricing lately. He really can’t figure it out, so he calls upon Alice and Curtis for answers. What’s the right approach? How do you come up with a sustainable model that works for your market? Is it really alright to experiment with pricing? Our three hosts look at the ins and outs of pricing as an indie, and how to literally value your work.
Avoiding bloat in a long-term project can be difficult, and it could make you wonder whether you should even continue improving a product at all. Curtis is certainly questioning whether he’s reached that point with his app, so he, Alice, and Jelly talk it through to figure out whether spending all of your time on one project is healthy, and when you should just call it a day.
Unfortunately, not every interaction you have as an indie is a positive one. Sometimes our customers run into problems, and their first instinct is to just complain; either via a negative review, an angry email, or a bad mention on social media. Alice, Curtis, and Jelly look at their own experiences and discuss how they deal with the negative stuff, with the hope that there’s something that can be gained from it.
The task list for indies is seemingly never-ending, and requires effort just to stay on top of what needs to be done and when. Our hosts take a look at their systems—or lack thereof—and consider what they need to do to get things done.
There’s a plethora of good things about getting to work from home—the reduced commute time, being able to set your own hours, and the optionality of pants being amongst them—but what about the downsides? Curtis, Alice and Jelly look through the challenges they face with having to work alone and what they do to manage them.
One of the most important assets for any indie is their health: if that fails you, it makes it really difficult to continue with any other part of your work! Our hosts discuss their own approaches to staying fit and healthy, the aspects they struggle with, and what they plan to focus on in the coming year.
As the new year dawns, our hosts look back at the year that was: the ups, the downs, the lessons they learned, and everything in between.
Handing work over to another person is a major step for any business owner, and as indies it can be especially scary. Curtis is potentially looking at doing some outsourcing in the near future, so he, Alice, and Jelly take a look at why offloading work is useful, what the downfalls can be, and whether it’s worth it in the end.
Managing press is an important part of creating products, especially around releases. Alice, Curtis and Jelly discuss speaking with the press, the resources they make available, and what they really need to be doing to improve their respective approaches.
To continue to thrive and grow, every indie needs to spend time learning and staying aware of their industry. Our hosts are no different, and they spend some time going over some of their approaches to learning, to staying on top of their game, and ensuring that they make good decisions.
Making the jump from regular job to independence is not an easy thing. There’s a lot of moving parts that you need to account for! Alice, Curtis and Jelly each recount their experiences of going from full time work to where they are today: what they’ve done right, what they’ve done wrong and the lessons they learned along the way.
No indie is an island; we all have to deal with external influences on our projects, some better than others. From users to Apple and everything in between, our hosts take a look at the things that influence their workflow, how the mitigate the bad ones, and how it’s changed their approach to their work.
Stress comes in many forms, and being an indie comes with a slew of additional sources of potential stress that you might not expect. Our intrepid hosts recount the stresses they’ve experiences during their indie careers, discuss potential ways they manage stress, and pitch possible ideas for avoiding it in the first place.
Getting to know to strangers at conferences and meetups is hard, but an absolutely important part of being an indie; building and developing relationships with others in your community can make a huge difference to your work! Alice, Curtis and Jelly share their own experiences and troubles with networking, building relationships, and breaking the ice.
More often than not, your workspace is a reflection of who you are, and how you get things done. Taking this to heart, our three hosts look at the workspaces they each inhabit during their working hours, and whether those spaces are conducive to actually working.
Customer support is a huge part of any business where you create products. Dealing with problems, handling requests and getting 1-star reviews all comes with the territory, so what is the best way to interact with customers? Alice, Curtis and Jelly examine their own practices to figure out what they’re doing right, and maybe give each other a little help with the process.
As indies, we’re naturally drawn to having projects alongside our regular workload. These can grow into whole new career opportunities, or they can begin to place undue stress on your work life balance, so how do you know what projects are a good fit? Belle, Curtis and Jelly explore their own side projects; both how they’ve started, and how they’ve ended… or are ending, as the case may be.
A lot of thought needs to be put into launching, both with new products and even with updating existing ones. How do you decide what’s worth making noise about, and what steps do you follow to make sure all your potential customers know? Curtis is deep in thought about this topic himself, so he takes Belle and Jelly through a discussion about their typical processes to figure out what works for them, and what doesn’t.
One of the major parts of owning a product is that the buck stops with you in respect to the features you implement, the time spent on maintenance, and what the overall direction is. What plays a role in making those decisions? Do you involve user feedback, and are you transparent about it? Belle, Curtis and Jelly dive into their own practices, taking a hard look at their varied approaches to these questions and more!
When the lines start to blur between work and life, it can be very difficult to make sure that you’re spending enough time renewing your energy so that you’re giving your best to both. Our three intrepid indies look at their own work/life balance, discussing how they fare, what they do to ensure proper separation, and how they feel they could improve.
Money comes and money goes. This ebb and flow is ever more noticeable as an indie, coming with a unique set of concerns that can affect an entire household. Belle, Curtis and Jelly discuss their approaches to managing their finances, accounting for lean times, and handling the stress that accompanies running a business.
Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) is back, and having never been, Belle wants to know what it is that draws Curtis and Jelly back every year. Together, they look at what they like about WWDC, what it’s like in comparison to the independent conferences put on each year, and what they would do to improve it in the future.
What is independence, and why is it something that Belle, Curtis and Jelly aspire to achieve? In their inaugural episode, they discuss what they consider being independent, what the downsides are, and where they are in their journey towards it.