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Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

lukaspetr.com

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Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#81

Post by hermitcrab »

cageface wrote: post #80
hermitcrab wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you rely on the Apple app store, you have a single point of failure and have to jump through whatever hoops Apple decides. Which rather calls into question just how "indie" you really are. BTW it is possible to sell Mac apps and not use the Mac app store (I do). But I sell for Windows as well.

Have you found the extra work to also sell on windows to have been justified by the sales on that platform?

Windows is a bigger market. So I think it is more a question of 'is the extra work to sell on Mac justified'.

It is hard to give a precise answer, because:

-I don't know how the sales exactly split between Windows and Mac (my licence covers both), but I have an idea from downloads.

-It is more work to develop cross platform.

-Cross platform development always results in some compromises.

But, on the whole, I am happy that I choose Windows + Mac, rather than just choosing one or the other.

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#82

Post by benoau »

nayuki wrote: post #64
probably_wrong wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you commented in the wrong story

Good observation. That would be for https://blog.koenvh.nl/what-does-this-button-do-cm42u2oi7000... , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42276620 .

Yeah my bad!

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#83

Post by coin »

herval wrote: post #47
auspex wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just be careful of inventions assignments. If you live in the US you probably signed paperwork that says anything you invent or create is property of the company you work for. If you signed one of these and hack on the side… successful business could be owned by your previous company. You can always ask that they release the IP which requires the lawyers to officially sign it over to you. Before you quit your job mak…

that's not exactly how those work (they can claim an invention if it's done during work hours, with company equipment, in the business area of operation. Might differ from state to state, but that's the gist of those contracts

There’s only a few states (CA and few others) where the employer can’t claim IP developed on your own time and equipment. The other states absolutely can.

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#84

Post by deze333 »

jakubmazanec wrote: post #50
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…

App looks great, but astrology is still nonsense, with our without the new age stuff.

There are factors of both reality and imagination in pretty much everything we do, including things like LLMs. What is considered cutting edge today may be considered sheer quackery in the future.

My perception is that there is value in sticking to reality. Who am I to judge the users? They are free to interpret numbers as they wish. Just look at the big data. The numbers are real, yet interpretations and conclusions can be anything - the interpreter is inherently biased and constrained by their own field of view, political and employment context. Not that dissimilar from astrology, in essence.

Why astrology in this case? My interest has always been in the analysis of movement of planetary bodies. I like to see and understand how things move out there in space. There is a beauty in that, for me.

I don’t think I’d pass any space company interview, it’s too elitist. So I thought, hmm astrology…. but why not? I’d get to play with celestial mechanics. And the users can use it for what they wish. After all, in the past, astrologers always were astronomers and mathematicians in the first place. Perhaps there’s a mysticism in the sky that allows to be equally scientific and inspired? This is the case where belief isn’t that important. What’s more important is to be moved by what one does.

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#85

Post by deze333 »

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?

By sticking to truth and reality. There is integrity in showing the numbers (planetary coordinates, segments of time, etc) as they are, they are real phenomenon.

It’s up to the user to devise their own interpretations. I do not do any interpretations, and that’s by choice. Pure calculations.

And what I have discovered is that all “astrologers” are different. Some are into glossy magazine style horoscopes. Others are more interested in a kind of “celestial statistics” — how and when things align, how movements create harmonics, etc. There’s a rich field of mathematical thinking if one wishes for that.

Everybody gets their own piece of cake. I am happy with what I do, they are happy with the toolkit provided. One can’t judge a pocket calculator for how it may be used.

Funky feature requests? Surprisingly not that often. The reason is perhaps the intent behind the app. It doesn’t classify itself as a “crystal ball”, it’s a calculator. So I stick to what is called “classical astrology”, ie something borderline between astronomy, philosophy and mathematics. Pure foundational basics.

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#86

Post by deze333 »

ukuina wrote: post #46
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…

Great-looking website and app. How did you decide on what becomes an IAP and what is core functionality? Why did you disable family-sharing of IAPs (or is that just an Apple quirk on iOS)?

It grew organically.

Initially I made the app as an experiment, just wanted to see how planets rotate and align, and what makes people interested in that. That became the foundation.

Then somebody asked “can I have some extra asteroids and minor bodies added?” This became the first add-on I have introduced.

Each time I can think of an interesting feature, I think “is there enough standalone value to classify it as an add-on?”. The app is organically growing using the methodology of having the core and extensions.

Family sharing? I never really looked into that. I had maybe two requests over the years. It’s just a different kind of user base.

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#87

Post by LVB »

hermitcrab wrote: post #81
cageface wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you found the extra work to also sell on windows to have been justified by the sales on that platform?

Windows is a bigger market. So I think it is more a question of 'is the extra work to sell on Mac justified'. It is hard to give a precise answer, because: -I don't know how the sales exactly split between Windows and Mac (my licence covers both), but I have an idea from downloads. -It is more work to develop cross platform. -Cross platform development always results in some compromises. But, on the whole, I am happy…

What framework did you settle on?

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#88

Post by deze333 »

briandear wrote: post #34
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…

The app itself isn’t something that interests me, but wanted to complement your beautiful home page. Nicely done. You’ve executed it very beautifully. I wish more apps were like yours.

Oh, wow, thank you! I am touched. Since the very beginning I've been using a simple Jekyll template and added some graphics to make it more interesting and appealing. Perhaps the amount of features that the app offers is helping here. Each feature has enough depth to ensure its own slot in the broader narrative.

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#89

Post by kranner »

LVB wrote: post #56
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…

What is the app, if you don't mind sharing?

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#90

Post by deze333 »

aleksiy123 wrote: post #49
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…

How do you find these underserved communities?

From my perspective. Firstly, know yourself. Try to identify directions of knowledge you have a natural attraction towards. This phase takes time. Use the sense of curiosity as opposed to common entrepreneurial logic. What would you do even if unpaid? Do a few small projects, explore different directions before committing to something specific.

By the time you’ve identified and experimented with what makes you tick you will have already built an idea of what people discuss on forums, etc. There will be already existing solutions and incumbent providers. Don't be intimidated by them. Read what users say and how they express themselves within that domain. Very likely incumbent providers are “old style” burdened by legacy patterns. People use them because there’s no alternatives.

If at this stage you do have a genuine feeling that you can do better - supported by product vision (that's important!) - go for it. But it has to be real for you. You’ll need enough passion to last through the first year of development. If you will survive that year the chances are you will have created something genuine and there’s some real IP behind your effort. Users will recognise that.

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