4 apps, one weekend • Hacker News Board

Re: 4 apps, one weekend

#21

Post by okal » Wed, Dec 25, 2013, 8:01 PM UTC

This is really inspiring, man. Great work, and good luck. I might do one of these solo hackathons myself, given all the stuff I have floating in my head that never gets to see the light of day. Sort of reminds me of http://hackalone.org - a "hackathon for introverts", which was shared on HN a while back. I normally just end up buying domain names and sitting on them, until I get a notification a year later reminding me of my failure :-) I have a tonne of ideas I get excited about every now and then, some of which I think are good, all (or most of) the knowledge and tools I need to implement them, no pressing financial constraints, and a decent amount of free time. Yet I rarely start any of them, and the ones I do start I do not finish. It's frustrating trying to understand this complete lack of motivation.

PS: I'm a little bothered by how you used "transgendered" in reference to UI design. Some people might find it insulting.

Re: 4 apps, one weekend

#22

Post by mobitar » Wed, Dec 25, 2013, 8:10 PM UTC

okal wrote: post #21

This is really inspiring, man. Great work, and good luck. I might do one of these solo hackathons myself, given all the stuff I have floating in my head that never gets to see the light of day. Sort of reminds me of http://hackalone.org - a "hackathon for introverts", which was shared on HN a while back. I normally just end up buying domain names and sitting on them, until I get a notification a year later reminding…

Haha same with me man. My cycle is 1. come up with an idea 2. buy a domain for said idea 3. repeat step 1

It wasn't until very recently that I made the very obvious discovery of "the only way I'll ever make it is to make it". I discovered that entrepreneurship is not about coming up with ideas, it's about bringing those ideas to life. I wrote about this epiphany here: http://bitar.io/the-entrepreneur/

PS: I'll change that word :)

Re: 4 apps, one weekend

#23

Post by jbeja » Wed, Dec 25, 2013, 8:11 PM UTC

wingerlang wrote: post #15

dhaivatpandya wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he was living on $600/month, that is a pretty small amount.

Does depend on which country he is in.

for example: 600$ is pretty good amount of money at month in Venezuela is even more that the minimum salary.

Re: 4 apps, one weekend

#24

Post by okal » Wed, Dec 25, 2013, 8:21 PM UTC

mobitar wrote: post #22

okal wrote: post #21

This is really inspiring, man. Great work, and good luck. I might do one of these solo hackathons myself, given all the stuff I have floating in my head that never gets to see the light of day. Sort of reminds me of http://hackalone.org - a "hackathon for introverts", which was shared on HN a while back. I normally just end up buying domain names and sitting on them, until I get a notification a year later reminding…

Haha same with me man. My cycle is 1. come up with an idea 2. buy a domain for said idea 3. repeat step 1 It wasn't until very recently that I made the very obvious discovery of "the only way I'll ever make it is to make it". I discovered that entrepreneurship is not about coming up with ideas, it's about bringing those ideas to life. I wrote about this epiphany here: http://bitar.io/the-entrepreneur/ PS: I'll change…

Loved the second article too. A bit like the saying "Writers write." I keep looking for that point when I get lost in my work, a state of flow, and I abandon anything that doesn't take me there. Maybe it's not just about inspiration, or getting into the zone, but just doing it.

Great blog you've got there. Why, oh why, did all you cool kids stop using RSS? :-)

Re: 4 apps, one weekend

#25

Post by elietoubi » Wed, Dec 25, 2013, 8:28 PM UTC

Thanks for sharing ... Definitely inspiring. Just wondering ... how long did the design work took?

Re: 4 apps, one weekend

#26

Post by mobitar » Wed, Dec 25, 2013, 8:29 PM UTC

elietoubi wrote: post #25

Thanks for sharing ... Definitely inspiring. Just wondering ... how long did the design work took?

Design work? There is no design work in iOS 7. The icons were all really simply. Great Words is just a "g" with single fill color, Note 22 is just three lines with a white background, Routines is pretty much just like Note 22 with a different background color, and Do Something is just basic shapes.

Re: 4 apps, one weekend

#27

Post by 1337biz » Wed, Dec 25, 2013, 8:38 PM UTC

trevmckendrick wrote: post #17

mobitar wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good question. Rather than promoting 4 different apps, what I really want to do is throw these 4 fishing rods in the ocean and see what bites. Once I figure out which one I think has the most potential, I really want to spend more time on it, and spend time marketing and promoting.

Agreed. 99% of profitable iOS apps do little to no promotion. Instead, they're found via search or on the top lists. Better to try a bunch of things, as you say, and then invest your time into improving whichever is already working best. This is exactly what I did with my Spanish Bible apps.

I like that perspective. Very different to the often propagated big-launch mantra. Can you share a bit more on what approach you took with the Spanish Bible apps? Thank you!

Re: 4 apps, one weekend

#28

Post by tejaswiy » Wed, Dec 25, 2013, 8:54 PM UTC

mobitar wrote: post #18

jere wrote: post #16

I'm surprised at how useful your four ideas were. Nicely done. Dumb question, but how hard was Do Something? I would figure whatever integration you would need would take a lot longer than 1/4 of a weekend.

Almost every app I've ever done has consisted of retrieving JSON data from some endpoint, parsing it, and throwing it up on a table view. So at this point, using AFNetworking, I can hook up to an API with no effort at all. That was actually the easiest part of the app. The difficult parts were the app related stuff - the transitions, loading, location services, categories, in app purchase, etc.

First up, Congrats. I've tried the app in a weekend thing myself, but never had enough motivation to pull through to the end. Shipping is hard!

As an iOS developer, doing this in a couple of hours is a bit crazy. It'd probably take me a day - day and a half to do.

Re: 4 apps, one weekend

#29

Post by Zaheer » Wed, Dec 25, 2013, 9:19 PM UTC

Great work! My favorite two apps: Great Words & Routines. 2 problems I always have and you've solved em! I only wish I could create iOS apps as fast as you haha.

Re: 4 apps, one weekend

#30

Post by psuter » Wed, Dec 25, 2013, 9:32 PM UTC

1337biz wrote: post #27

trevmckendrick wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. 99% of profitable iOS apps do little to no promotion. Instead, they're found via search or on the top lists. Better to try a bunch of things, as you say, and then invest your time into improving whichever is already working best. This is exactly what I did with my Spanish Bible apps.

I like that perspective. Very different to the often propagated big-launch mantra. Can you share a bit more on what approach you took with the Spanish Bible apps? Thank you!

This was on HN some time ago: http://www.trevormckendrick.com/my-first-year-in-the-app-sto...