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.

• Sketch
• Independence 22: Feature Creep
• Prototyping: Fake It Till You Make It (WWDC 2014)

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.

• Things
• Trello
• Wunderlist
• Sublime Text
• Bullet Journal

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.

• Independence 10: Networking
• Prototyping: Fake It Till You Make It (WWDC 2014)

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.