Independence

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.