Issue #81 - Buliding in the open
Happy Monday, everyone!
We made it to Issue #81! Thank you to everyone who read last week’s issue ❤️
Deep Dish Swift is the best pizza themed iOS and Swift conference being held in Chicago May 5th to May 7th in 2024. The conference brings togethe Swift and iOS developers of all experience levels and backgrounds in an inclusive environment to share knowledge and experience from a diverse set of speakers. There are talks and a live podcast recording specific for indie development and also two full days of Swift and iOS talks!
Building In The Open
Last week I announced a new form to fill out on at the Look At Me page 👀 This new form allows indie developers to share with me new apps they are building in the open. I realized that, after I sent last week’s issue, that I should talk a little more about what building in the open means and the value that it provides.
Building in the open can be beneficial in a few different ways! The first is generating buzz and excitment. People love seeing seeing sneak peeks. People want it because they can’t have it yet. This could make for an exicting release day when your audience can finally become users! The second is getting early customer feedback. This feedback could be from sharing screenshots of what you’re working on, asking questions about how a feature could be used, and by releasing beta versions for users to install. All of these can help make sure you are building your product in the right direction. The third, but probably not last, is holding yourself accountable. I like to share what I’m consistenly share what I’m working on because it helps keeps me focused. The little bit of social pressure to keep the posting updates helps me keep building and wanting to release my product.
There are many ways to share what you’re building. Below are a few of my favorites 😊
1. Blog Posts
One of my favorite blog series about building in the open is one from Michael Tigas. Michael has a series called Launching an Indie App. Michael went into a lot of detail about his journey creating Focused Work. It’s truely remarkable the amount of information that Michael recorded and shared. It’s an inspiring read!
By the way, Michael release a new app this week called Ochi and you should definitely go check it out! Ochi blocks websites and apps so you can be more productive on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Create timed filters that help you stay focused and spend your time wisely.
2. Twitter Threads
Twitter threads are probably my favorite way to consume “build in the open” updates! It’s fun to back through the thread history and see where the product started.
However, I do wish Twitter had a way to get notified when threads have been updated 😔 But since the don’t, I manually keep track of my own threads I’m interested in and I’ll periodically check on them.
One of my favorite threads right now is this one by Samuel Coe 👇 It’s an RPG game + fitness tracker and I’m so excited for this to be released!
Very early prototype screen as I put some pieces together. I’m aiming to experiment with melding 16-bit RPG with modern mobile UI. pic.twitter.com/M0I4WJ7dgs
— Samuel Coe (@thesamcoe) January 11, 2022
3. Tweet Teases
Sometimes a full Twitter thread isn’t always needed. Dan Gauthier is a great example of that! He has been giving periodic updates on this countdown app Up Ahead. Dan’s attention to style, detail, and animations are great for teasing on Twitter. He has a huge line of people wanting to downloads is app when it gets released. The anticipation builds more and more with tweet 😉
I've decided to heal the world by making a countdown app.
— Dan Gauthier (@danielmgauthier) July 16, 2021
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Extremely WIP. Hoping to have a very early beta out soon-ish — let me know if you want in! pic.twitter.com/oAi8fx99HJ
4. YouTube
This one (I would assume) requires a little more effort than tweeting or blog post writing but it can provide some crazy value! Sean Allen is an iOS development content creator giving news, tutorials, courses. He also has a YouTube playlist called What I’m Working ON. Sean has been talking about the newest app he’s building, called Creator View, and it’s been really fun to watch it’s development!
And that is all for my build in the open issue! I will pick back up with spotlighting more indie developers next week 💪
Until then, keep building and keep sharing ☺️
Newly Released and Updated Indie Apps
Here are some newly released and newly updated apps from this past week! If you would like to possibly see your app in this list, please submit your app to the look at me form 👀
Thank you to everybody who made it to this footer! You either spent the time to read or took the effort to scroll 😊
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