Second update from the ‘I must be crazy’ guy

Hi everyone, it’s been a huge (and quite surprising!) week, and here’s your next update as you follow the story of a very nervous guy stepping out of full-time employment into the world of becoming an indie developer. 2 days to go until i leave my day job! Very scary, very exciting.

What’s happened this week

Well, my priority this week has been to find freelance work. And, amazingly, I found a freelance contract which looks great. So in the short/medium term, I’m really lucky that this looks like it’ll pay the bills. Very lucky.

We had to make another progress payment on our house this week too. Very exciting to see the concrete foundation finished, but that’s another $55k out of our savings… soon our savings will be exhausted and the money will start increasing on our mortgage. I really should take the time to do the sums, see how long this all means my runway is.

Web app vs iOS app

So I’ve been asking people: iOS app or web app – which should I try? The majority of the feedback I got was that it’d be much easier to make money from a web app. One notable exception was patrick mackenzie who suggested that it’d be good to stick to what i’m more experienced at (iOS apps) given that I already have some traction there. So i’m still making up my mind to be honest… what i’d really love is an idea that allowed me to do both: an iOS app and a web app working together, hand in hand.

What’s next

So the next step is to deliver for my first freelancing gig, make them happy, earn some money from that, and build an ongoing relationship there. That means, right now, late nights doing work for them.

I’m also working with a really great designer on completing a half-made iOS app i’ve been working on for a while. I hope she’ll get back to me tonight with a quote and timeline and we can finish it off. I’m leaning towards making this my last big effort to make money from an iOS app before giving up on iOS and moving to web apps.

Once the freelance work has settled down, and I’ve left my old job (2 days to go!), I really need to started on figuring out what product I want to build, build a landing page for it, and get busy building. Which leads me to my next point:

Ideas

I need ideas for what to build! So far, i’ve only got one:

• Scrum-based project management tool. Everywhere i’ve worked has used jira, and most people dislike it. I think there’s an opportunity to make a tool that’s slick and carve out some customers in this space.

What do you think? Hopefully in future, this list will grow to a few solid ideas and i’ll build landing pages for each, to gauge which gets the most interest, then build it.

Personal

On a more personal note, can I just say that this is really exciting! It feels like i’m no longer trapped, unhappy, railroaded into living a life I was never made for. And i’m really looking forwards to seeing my daughter in the mornings for the first time in a while. I just hope i can make this pay the bills, as it could change me and my family for the better.

I’m really keen to hear from you!

Things i’d love to hear from you about:

• Suggestions for web/ios app ideas i should work on. Can you think of some problem that you’d personally love to see solved, and can imagine people would be willing to pay for?
• News about anyone out there ‘going indie’ themselves
• Mailing lists – i’m going to make a landing page and start collecting emails from interested parties in my upcoming app, and am thinking most people on this mailing list would be interested so – would people have any issues if I sent them updates about whatever i’m working on in addition to this indie-journey newsletter?
• Is there anything at all i can do for you? Below asking for a kidney, please.

Just send me an email if you want to get in touch. Have a great week, and I really hope this information is useful/interesting to someone out there!

Chris

Chris Hulbert

(Comp Sci, Hons - UTS)

Software Developer (Freelancer / Contractor) in Australia.

I have worked at places such as Google, Cochlear, Assembly Payments, News Corp, Fox Sports, NineMSN, FetchTV, Coles, Woolworths, Trust Bank, and Westpac, among others. If you're looking for help developing an iOS app, drop me a line!

Get in touch:
[email protected]
github.com/chrishulbert
linkedin

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