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Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

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Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#51

Post by diggan »

criddell wrote: post #38
deze333 wrote: post #29

As an indie developer for the last 10 years my key learning is writing apps for “under privileged” communities. Firstly, it’s a niche. Secondly, people really value your effort and appreciate giving. This creates a nice feeling. I have created my major app, Time Nomad [1], out of pure curiosity. Don’t laugh, scientific minds… I wanted to see how astronomy and astrology coexisted for hundreds of years without all that…

Isn’t a big part of your userbase into new age stuff? If you think of it as nonsense, how do you earnestly try to serve them? Aren’t they asking for features you think are bunk?

> Isn’t a big part of your userbase into new age stuff? If you think of it as nonsense, how do you earnestly try to serve them? Aren’t they asking for features you think are bunk?

A chiropractor uses maps of human bodies to understand where things are, even though they use the information differently than doctors and surgeons, both groups base their understanding on the same facts.

I'm guessing the same can apply in more areas than medicine too.

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#53

Post by criddell »

diggan wrote: post #51
criddell wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t a big part of your userbase into new age stuff? If you think of it as nonsense, how do you earnestly try to serve them? Aren’t they asking for features you think are bunk?

> Isn’t a big part of your userbase into new age stuff? If you think of it as nonsense, how do you earnestly try to serve them? Aren’t they asking for features you think are bunk? A chiropractor uses maps of human bodies to understand where things are, even though they use the information differently than doctors and surgeons, both groups base their understanding on the same facts. I'm guessing the same can apply in…

Absolutely. So if you made a body map and your user base starts asking for you to add chakras or reflexology areas or acupuncture locations and you think that's all a bunch of woo, how do you respond?

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#54

Post by grayprog »

As some who started similarly as an indie developer (albeit mostly for macOS) back in 2005 and still doing it (on the side now), it's a dream and lifestyle that are very desirable for me since (similarly to the OP) I've learned that people made a living this way in the Mac world.

I left a well-paying engineering day job in 2009 while earning only $500/month on my indie apps in the hope of growing the business. The Mac/iOS developer conferences scene was great at that time ( NSConference, anyone) and I made a lot of connections and dev friends with whom I'm in contact still many years later. The dev community is still pretty good and helping.

Marketing apps has become a real hard problem these days, though, because most of the press doesn't care about apps anymore, unless they are from the big corp, or they just focus on Apple's own news and rumours.

Still, it's very fulfilling to see people who use your apps and recommend them.

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#55

Post by justanotheratom »

Thank you for sharing. Can you tell us more about this:

"He told me about a small group of successful indie developers that he was a part of and alluded that maybe once they are looking for more members, I could try applying to join them. Half a year later, I applied and I got in."

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#56

Post by LVB »

manx wrote: post #17

Can anyone recommend good learning material for the non-tech part? I'm good at building stuff, but not on the other parts.

I'll say, this has been the worst part of my little indie dev adventure.

I knew I'd be uncomfortable with a lot of it, but I also didn't realize how flat out bad I am at it. I've spent so much time fiddling with keywords, refreshing splash pages for app stores, making a good landing page, buying ads, adjusting paywalls, etc. But the uptake has been depressingly low. A few people downloaded the app, but not only have I had no paying customers and no reviews, no one has even tried the sync aspect of the app that I built a backend for! I really misjudged how little attention it would get in the app store, and how rapidly they'd bail from it.

My wife and I use the app. I find that code improvements bring some satisfaction even if there is no external ROI, whereas marketing type efforts are just a drag.

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#57

Post by ozim »

I don’t like part where equation is „do your creative thing but not earn much” or „be a drone but earn easy money”.

That’s not true. To thrive in corporate you still have to be creative to navigate all the BS plus you have to do whatever you have to actually do.

Not to downplay solopreneurs as they have their own challenges but still…

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#58

Post by crooked-v »

diggan wrote: post #51
criddell wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t a big part of your userbase into new age stuff? If you think of it as nonsense, how do you earnestly try to serve them? Aren’t they asking for features you think are bunk?

> Isn’t a big part of your userbase into new age stuff? If you think of it as nonsense, how do you earnestly try to serve them? Aren’t they asking for features you think are bunk? A chiropractor uses maps of human bodies to understand where things are, even though they use the information differently than doctors and surgeons, both groups base their understanding on the same facts. I'm guessing the same can apply in…

> both groups base their understanding on the same facts

Chiropractors base their knowledge on secret messages from a ghost [1].

[1]: https://nationalpost.com/health/the-first-chiropractor-was-a...

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#59

Post by diggan »

criddell wrote: post #53
diggan wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn’t a big part of your userbase into new age stuff? If you think of it as nonsense, how do you earnestly try to serve them? Aren’t they asking for features you think are bunk? A chiropractor uses maps of human bodies to understand where things are, even though they use the information differently than doctors and surgeons, both groups base their understanding on the same facts. I'm guessing the same can apply in…

Absolutely. So if you made a body map and your user base starts asking for you to add chakras or reflexology areas or acupuncture locations and you think that's all a bunch of woo, how do you respond?

For reflexology/acupuncture, you could have a section where you highlight typical focus points used in reflexology/acupuncture, without giving any sort of positive acknowledgement for them as treatments.
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