Pants optional.
Surviving in the muddy waters of the App Store as an indie isn’t easy. Alice Zhao, Curtis Herbert and Daniel “Jelly” Farrelly explore what it means to them, what they do to make it work, and how to claim your independence.
Published 4 December 2018 • 27 minutes, 7 seconds
Startups and independents have a lot in common, but they differ in a lot of ways too, and the approach one takes to creating a product doesn’t necessarily serve the other particularly well. Alice, Curtis and Jelly compare their approaches to the typical startup, and figure out what they could potentially apply to their own businesses, and what to avoid at all costs.
Published 20 November 2018 • 35 minutes, 11 seconds
We all need connections with other people, and so much about creating a product involves being in touch with the community of people who love it. Alice, Curtis and Jelly look at how fostering a community around their products could be beneficial… and a lot of work.
Published 6 November 2018 • 31 minutes, 4 seconds
Change is inevitable, but unless you bring the people using your product along for the ride, you’re going to find that at least some of them are going to get left behind. Alice, Curtis and Jelly take a look at changes they’ve made to their apps, how they’ve approached them in the past, and ways to mitigate problems.
Alice is the co-creator of Gus on the Go, a series of language learning apps for young kids. She focuses on developing educational content, business development and devising a marketing strategy on an indie budget.
In a former life (i.e. pre-kids), Alice and her husband used to run a fun food photography blog: eataduckimust.com. These days, they dream of raising their boys to be globe-trotting polyglots… but will also just settle for them becoming adventurous eaters.
Curtis Herbert is an independent iOS app creator, writer, speaker, and Apple enthusiast. These days he spends most of his time working on Slopes, a tracking app for skiers and snowboarders.
Curtis spends his free time snowboarding, gaming, and enjoying life in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
The creator of GIFwrapped, Jelly spends his days as an independent developer, moonlighting as a freelancer where it suits his whims.
When he’s not working on code, Jelly spends his time illustrating, building Lego, thinking about a future controlled by robots, or occasionally unpacking the dishwasher.