Under the Radar

00:00:00 ◼   ► Welcome to Under the Radar, a show about independent iOS app development.

00:00:03 ◼   ► I'm Marco Arment.

00:00:04 ◼   ► And I'm David Smith.

00:00:06 ◼   ► Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.

00:00:10 ◼   ► So today what we wanted to talk about, I'm not really sure what the right term for it

00:00:15 ◼   ► is.

00:00:16 ◼   ► The one that comes into my mind when I was thinking about this topic is transferable

00:00:18 ◼   ► skills.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Or generally it's this feeling that I've been having recently about, and I look at the various

00:00:25 ◼   ► parts of making apps that aren't the actual sitting in Xcode, writing code part.

00:00:33 ◼   ► There's a lot of different skills and techniques and abilities that go into the actual production

00:00:39 ◼   ► of software.

00:00:40 ◼   ► And a lot of them I was noticing that the place that I learned that skill was very distinct

00:00:46 ◼   ► from actual development.

00:00:47 ◼   ► So as an example, recently when I launched Workouts++, I launched with a walkthrough

00:00:55 ◼   ► video, which is this long, 8-10 minute, screen-by-screen walkthrough of the app.

00:01:02 ◼   ► And I also had made a little shorter, 30-second commercial.

00:01:06 ◼   ► And I put these up on YouTube with the hope of trying to just kind of...

00:01:10 ◼   ► If someone's on the fence about the app, especially because it's paid up front, that maybe they'd

00:01:14 ◼   ► watch the video, get a sense of the app, and then decide to make an informed decision.

00:01:19 ◼   ► And I realized that I was able to make these videos with fairly low effort and time, mostly

00:01:27 ◼   ► because in the past I've messed around with making videos of other kinds, whether for

00:01:33 ◼   ► personal projects and that kind of thing, or even if there was a period of time when

00:01:37 ◼   ► I was doing code tutorials on YouTube, I tried that.

00:01:41 ◼   ► There was a few episodes of my old podcast Developing Perspective where I did them kind

00:01:45 ◼   ► of like vlogs, where I sat and looked into the camera and recorded it that way.

00:01:51 ◼   ► And those projects never went anywhere.

00:01:53 ◼   ► They're not part of my business, they're not big and significant in that way.

00:01:56 ◼   ► But by sitting down and doing these things that are on the side, or sort of these orthogonal,

00:02:02 ◼   ► separate projects, what I keep finding time and time again is that I am building these

00:02:08 ◼   ► skills that, down the road, I find, "Huh, interesting.

00:02:12 ◼   ► This is actually something that I need for my main job, so for making these videos or

00:02:16 ◼   ► making app previews now.

00:02:18 ◼   ► I'm comfortable in Final Cut Pro, which is useful to me now, but I did not just sit down

00:02:26 ◼   ► and try and learn it for the actual job I do."

00:02:28 ◼   ► And I find that this sort of pattern of having a rich set of side projects and little hobbies

00:02:34 ◼   ► and things to try from time to time keeps coming back to inform my own work, like my

00:02:40 ◼   ► primary job, again and again.

00:02:42 ◼   ► And so it seemed like something that was worth discussing as an important skill for developing

00:02:48 ◼   ► yourself.

00:02:49 ◼   ► And I think especially it's applicable as an independent developer, where I have to

00:02:52 ◼   ► do so much of this myself.

00:02:55 ◼   ► I'm the one who is writing the code as well as the person who's making the promotional

00:03:00 ◼   ► materials and making the marketing videos and doing all these different things that

00:03:05 ◼   ► maybe if I was at a big startup, there would be a marketing division that may have a creative

00:03:11 ◼   ► audio-visual person who really knows what they're doing and could probably make a better

00:03:15 ◼   ► product than I could.

00:03:16 ◼   ► But that's someone else's job, whereas for me, that's my job.

00:03:20 ◼   ► Yeah, and it also, as indie developers, we need a lot of this stuff to be done ourselves

00:03:27 ◼   ► because we often either don't have the contacts on hand to call to do things like this for

00:03:34 ◼   ► us and/or we can't afford to have other people do it.

00:03:38 ◼   ► Because when you're an indie, any expense that you spend on other people's labor is

00:03:43 ◼   ► a lot of money usually, relative to what you're bringing in.

00:03:46 ◼   ► Like hiring contract workers, hiring services to make you things like videos and designers,

00:03:51 ◼   ► this can be a substantial expense for indies.

00:03:54 ◼   ► And often it is just completely not within the budget, or at least it would be way too

00:04:00 ◼   ► big of a portion of the budget to make it probably not a good idea.

00:04:04 ◼   ► So a lot of times you, as an indie, have to do a lot of this crazy stuff yourself.

00:04:07 ◼   ► You have to be able to whip up a little logo for things sometimes.

00:04:11 ◼   ► You have to, like if the app store asks you for promotional artwork for your app for possible

00:04:17 ◼   ► featuring in the store, you have to design something that fits their requirements, which

00:04:24 ◼   ► change over time and are always slightly different.

00:04:27 ◼   ► So you can't just have a designer make something once and be done forever.

00:04:31 ◼   ► You have to be able to whip stuff together in that way for something that you might have

00:04:36 ◼   ► to get done by tomorrow at noon, or you kind of need to do this right now to have this

00:04:41 ◼   ► opportunity or something like that.

00:04:44 ◼   ► And things like, as you said, videos are another excellent example of if you have an app and

00:04:50 ◼   ► Apple announces, hey, now you can do app previews in the app store.

00:04:54 ◼   ► If you already know the basics of how to cut together a video that looks halfway decent,

00:04:58 ◼   ► that puts you way ahead of so many other people who will never do that, can't do that very

00:05:04 ◼   ► well or just would never even try because they would think it's impossible.

00:05:10 ◼   ► And so to have that kind of transferable skill, as I said, just from side projects, it's

00:05:15 ◼   ► incredibly valuable.

00:05:16 ◼   ► I mean, and as you get older, I think it serves you well to add to that repertoire as much

00:05:24 ◼   ► as you possibly can when you have the chance.

00:05:26 ◼   ► So to do crazy side projects, to try out some new tool or some new medium or something else,

00:05:33 ◼   ► try out new stuff, have little side projects, even if they don't go anywhere themselves,

00:05:38 ◼   ► they will build up those skills in you and you will probably need them at some point

00:05:42 ◼   ► down the road.

00:05:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I feel like too there's this interesting thing with these types of skills

00:05:48 ◼   ► is that in some ways, the older I get, the more I understand that, there is certainly

00:05:54 ◼   ► something to be said for being super, super expert at something, like somebody who can

00:06:01 ◼   ► do one thing extraordinarily well.

00:06:05 ◼   ► There's a value to that both professionally as a society, it's important for some people

00:06:10 ◼   ► to go down that road.

00:06:11 ◼   ► But I know for myself, what I found is that it's probably more applicable and flexible

00:06:20 ◼   ► to try to consciously develop a broad range of skills to apply to different areas of your

00:06:29 ◼   ► work.

00:06:30 ◼   ► And so to be able to do lots of different things, I mean, it's helpful both obviously

00:06:33 ◼   ► in terms of like, if you're trying to get a job, if you're trying to market yourself

00:06:37 ◼   ► as something like it's great if you can do this one thing, and that's exactly what

00:06:40 ◼   ► someone's looking for.

00:06:41 ◼   ► But if you're looking for a job and you can do lots of things pretty well and be a

00:06:46 ◼   ► quick learner of the other stuff, that's probably more attractive to a person.

00:06:50 ◼   ► But it's also just, honestly, I find that it's more fun for me to have this kind of

00:06:54 ◼   ► a skill set and an ability to be able to try so many different things and be able to do

00:07:02 ◼   ► a lot of things basically competently.

00:07:06 ◼   ► Not like, well, the things I can do in Photoshop or in Final Cut are not fancy.

00:07:13 ◼   ► I'm not a graphic designer.

00:07:15 ◼   ► I'm not a videographer or whatever.

00:07:19 ◼   ► But I can do these things to enough of a level that it's fun and it's interesting and

00:07:23 ◼   ► it's competent.

00:07:24 ◼   ► There's not just glaring mistakes and huge problems.

00:07:28 ◼   ► And it's kind of a nice thing to be able to do that.

00:07:31 ◼   ► And I would say I think it's part of what has allowed me to stay interested and excited

00:07:36 ◼   ► in the kind of work that I do.

00:07:38 ◼   ► I've been making iOS apps now for a very long time.

00:07:42 ◼   ► And in many ways, I'm kind of bored with making iOS apps.

00:07:46 ◼   ► But the core mechanics of making iOS apps is not the thing that is nearly as exciting

00:07:52 ◼   ► as all the various other things that go into being self-employed especially.

00:07:58 ◼   ► And it's fun to find these new things to try and pull into your work, to try something

00:08:04 ◼   ► new and keep it fresh and interesting.

00:08:07 ◼   ► That if you don't, I feel like I just get bored.

00:08:10 ◼   ► And then I don't know what else I'd do.

00:08:12 ◼   ► This is certainly the skill that I have the most and would make sense for me to continue

00:08:15 ◼   ► to pursue.

00:08:16 ◼   ► But it's definitely something that I'm glad that I can add this diversity and sort

00:08:21 ◼   ► of vibrancy into my work by looking for little side projects, by looking for little hobbies.

00:08:26 ◼   ► And then in my own work, looking for, huh, what can I take from this experience and put

00:08:32 ◼   ► into my own work?

00:08:34 ◼   ► It also just gives your brain different outlets.

00:08:38 ◼   ► So for different types of work and satisfaction and challenge and creativity, all these different

00:08:46 ◼   ► types of work that we do serve those needs and provide different levels of fulfillment

00:08:51 ◼   ► all differently.

00:08:52 ◼   ► And so for me, I make apps and that satisfies my programmer brain.

00:08:57 ◼   ► I also do podcasts and I edit them fairly creatively.

00:09:02 ◼   ► And sometimes I even write blog posts.

00:09:06 ◼   ► And these are all completely different types of creative or intellectual outlets.

00:09:14 ◼   ► And if I don't do any one of them for a long time, I'm not as satisfied, I'm not

00:09:20 ◼   ► as intellectually satisfied and happy as if I'm satisfying all these different things.

00:09:26 ◼   ► Often and then I'll go in phases where I will get more or less into photography.

00:09:31 ◼   ► And I recently even started doing video attempts.

00:09:35 ◼   ► And this all serves multiple purposes.

00:09:41 ◼   ► As you mentioned, it is nice to have just the break.

00:09:45 ◼   ► But to me it's also nice to be able to develop different parts of your creative and intellectual

00:09:50 ◼   ► mind and then to exercise and satisfy those in different ways.

00:09:55 ◼   ► - And it's also probably just, it's a weird thing to say, but I feel like it's

00:10:02 ◼   ► also a discipline to think of for yourself of looking at our past experiences and trying

00:10:09 ◼   ► to see if there are any things in there that make us better at the job at hand.

00:10:16 ◼   ► So we're like, if I look at my job, it's like I'm trying to make apps, but I can

00:10:20 ◼   ► look at my past experience.

00:10:22 ◼   ► What experiences do I have that would make me distinctly good at this?

00:10:28 ◼   ► And where can I draw that from?

00:10:29 ◼   ► And it may come from things that aren't as obvious or aren't as straightforward.

00:10:38 ◼   ► In some ways I recently have been doing a lot of health and fitness apps.

00:10:41 ◼   ► And some of that I'm drawing from, obviously my own experience, I wouldn't say I'm

00:10:45 ◼   ► a huge person who, I'm like a gym rat who works at all the time, but I've had a fairly

00:10:50 ◼   ► active lifestyle for quite a while.

00:10:53 ◼   ► And it's like I can draw from those experiences to inform and make my products better.

00:10:59 ◼   ► Whereas someone who didn't have that experience, who'd never gone to a gym in their life,

00:11:03 ◼   ► couldn't really do the kind of apps that I do.

00:11:05 ◼   ► And that's just an example of what are the things that we do in our lives that we can

00:11:11 ◼   ► use as an unfair advantage.

00:11:13 ◼   ► Because most of being able to be successful, so often it is predicated on finding this

00:11:19 ◼   ► little bit of leverage that is somewhat unique to us that we can apply in a way that gives

00:11:27 ◼   ► us an unfair advantage over our competitors.

00:11:29 ◼   ► Because if we're just all the same, then I guess it's just completely random who's

00:11:32 ◼   ► going to win.

00:11:33 ◼   ► But if you can find a reason that's just like, here's this thing that I can do, like

00:11:36 ◼   ► I'm the person who has an active lifestyle, who's been making mobile apps for a while.

00:11:42 ◼   ► Apple introduces this new API.

00:11:44 ◼   ► I jump in and dive into it and start using it.

00:11:49 ◼   ► That narrows down the world of people who can do that thing.

00:11:52 ◼   ► And so looking back at our lives and being like, what do we do?

00:11:56 ◼   ► What are we interested in?

00:11:57 ◼   ► What hobbies do we have?

00:11:59 ◼   ► What does that look like?

00:12:01 ◼   ► Is it really, I think, a good bit of a mental discipline of that introspection is probably

00:12:07 ◼   ► a helpful thing to make sure that we're not missing some skill or ability that we

00:12:11 ◼   ► have that we could be leveraging somehow in our work.

00:12:14 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, because the business implications, so there was the intellectual and creative

00:12:20 ◼   ► satisfaction implications of having all these different skills.

00:12:24 ◼   ► That's one thing.

00:12:25 ◼   ► But the business side of this is also incredibly important.

00:12:30 ◼   ► It goes beyond just like, what do I know that other people don't know about making a new

00:12:35 ◼   ► type of app X into like, if you have a bit more broad or varied or specialized perspective

00:12:42 ◼   ► into the world, you will not only have skills that not every other iOS programmer has, but

00:12:48 ◼   ► you will also be able to identify opportunities and identify new markets, new kinds of apps

00:12:54 ◼   ► that can be made or markets that are incredibly underserved or badly served by what's out

00:13:00 ◼   ► there now.

00:13:01 ◼   ► You will see those before the whole rest of the world will ever see them because you'll

00:13:06 ◼   ► already be in that world.

00:13:08 ◼   ► Every time I go to the dentist, I always laugh at how incredibly bad their software looks

00:13:12 ◼   ► on the screen that's in the cleaning rooms.

00:13:16 ◼   ► It's like Windows 95 software.

00:13:18 ◼   ► I'm just like, you know, not a lot of iOS developers are dental hygienists.

00:13:23 ◼   ► And so they don't see this.

00:13:26 ◼   ► This is a totally underserved market.

00:13:29 ◼   ► And if you happen to be an iOS developer who's also a dental hygienist, you would see this

00:13:35 ◼   ► and you might be able to make better software that would help this market.

00:13:39 ◼   ► And that's an area where almost no one's competing.

00:13:42 ◼   ► And so this is like, there's so many different things.

00:13:45 ◼   ► Almost everybody has some need or hobby or skill in their life that is fairly unusual

00:13:52 ◼   ► among other developers.

00:13:55 ◼   ► And you know, use that.

00:13:57 ◼   ► One of the reasons I was able to develop all the overcast audio filtering stuff a couple

00:14:02 ◼   ► years ago is that I've been playing with audio my entire life.

00:14:07 ◼   ► Like I've always been obsessed with audio.

00:14:09 ◼   ► I was doing compression analysis and weird like attempts at horrible hacks and audio

00:14:16 ◼   ► processing since long before I was an iOS developer.

00:14:20 ◼   ► I've just always loved it.

00:14:21 ◼   ► I've always messed with it, I've always done a lot of research about it and known a lot

00:14:26 ◼   ► about it.

00:14:27 ◼   ► And it's just one of these things like that helped me out tremendously.

00:14:30 ◼   ► I could also take a decent picture sometimes.

00:14:33 ◼   ► And so when I made Instapaper and I needed an icon and I had no money to give anybody

00:14:36 ◼   ► else to make me an icon, I just took a pretty good picture of the pages of a book and I

00:14:41 ◼   ► put like a little stupid Photoshop border around it.

00:14:43 ◼   ► And in retrospect, it looked terrible.

00:14:46 ◼   ► But it was good enough for the time.

00:14:48 ◼   ► It was totally fine.

00:14:50 ◼   ► And I didn't have any choice.

00:14:51 ◼   ► I couldn't afford a designer at that time.

00:14:54 ◼   ► So I just did what I could with my existing skills, put it out there and it worked fine.

00:14:59 ◼   ► It was good enough.

00:15:00 ◼   ► And same thing like with screenshots, with a lot of icon design that I do inside the

00:15:05 ◼   ► app.

00:15:06 ◼   ► Like now, I still have my app icon that was designed by a real designer, Louis Mantia,

00:15:12 ◼   ► but all the icons that are in the app, I've designed myself because that's good enough

00:15:19 ◼   ► for my purposes.

00:15:20 ◼   ► I developed that skill to be good enough and it works.

00:15:23 ◼   ► And then I'm able to make new icons, to make adjustments, to change things like colors

00:15:29 ◼   ► and thickness and alignment and everything else, to make little tweaks without having

00:15:35 ◼   ► to go back and forth to a designer and pay a bunch of money because I have this skill

00:15:39 ◼   ► now.

00:15:40 ◼   ► Basically, the smartest thing you can do with these skills is like find ways to rope them

00:15:48 ◼   ► into your business wherever possible.

00:15:50 ◼   ► So that's not to say that you shouldn't have anything that's just randomly fun, but if

00:15:56 ◼   ► you have other skills that could be useful in your business or if you're looking to develop

00:16:00 ◼   ► some kind of visual artistry skill and you happen to make iOS apps, well, you know what?

00:16:04 ◼   ► You have a really great opportunity right there to tie those things together and to

00:16:09 ◼   ► design the stuff in your app using your new found visual artistry skills.

00:16:14 ◼   ► There are lots of opportunities that you will have as a developer to integrate multiple

00:16:18 ◼   ► skills in and I think what we're seeing in this episode is you really should and you

00:16:21 ◼   ► should consider learning different types of skills or experimenting with different types

00:16:26 ◼   ► of things that could benefit your apps.

00:16:30 ◼   ► We are sponsored this week by ZOJO.

00:16:33 ◼   ► Go to ZOJO.COM, that's X-O-J-O dot com, X-O-J-O dot com slash radar to find more and listeners

00:16:41 ◼   ► of this show can get 20% off any license with code radar 20.

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00:16:56 ◼   ► to.

00:16:57 ◼   ► This is another skill that I feel like I should probably develop because it's like this little

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00:18:18 ◼   ► Thank you so much to ZOJO for their support of this show.

00:18:22 ◼   ► So given the benefits that we're kind of extolling about having side projects and having these

00:18:28 ◼   ► things that you do to kind of build a breadth of skills and experiences, something that

00:18:34 ◼   ► does come to mind to me, though, is the difficulty often in starting a new project.

00:18:40 ◼   ► And so one of the things that made sense to wrap this up by kind of talking about that

00:18:45 ◼   ► process of having an idea for a project, a side thing, and then actually making it happen.

00:18:51 ◼   ► And what comes to mind to me is for a long time, I've always been a long time lover of

00:18:56 ◼   ► podcasts.

00:18:57 ◼   ► I've been in podcasts all the time, and it was just like a big part of my day.

00:18:59 ◼   ► And I always had in the back of my mind like, "Oh, man, I should get into that.

00:19:03 ◼   ► I should make a podcast.

00:19:05 ◼   ► I should do something for myself."

00:19:07 ◼   ► And for a long time, I didn't.

00:19:09 ◼   ► And the advice that I actually ended up getting, I think I'm pretty sure this was from back

00:19:12 ◼   ► to work from Erlen Mann, is he was like, "If you have something in your mind that you keep

00:19:18 ◼   ► saying to yourself, 'Oh, one day I'll do this.

00:19:20 ◼   ► One day I'll learn how to do that.

00:19:21 ◼   ► One day I'll kind of go through and build that discipline,' it's like, what you really

00:19:24 ◼   ► need to do is just make a time-bound goal and do that thing on a regular basis for that

00:19:32 ◼   ► time.

00:19:33 ◼   ► And at the end, you can decide, "Is this actually something I like?

00:19:36 ◼   ► Do I enjoy it?

00:19:37 ◼   ► Is this, or am I just sort of having this dream that I'm going to love it and I'll actually

00:19:42 ◼   ► try it and I'll hate it?"

00:19:43 ◼   ► And so for me, I started the podcast I did before Under the Radar, Developing Perspective.

00:19:47 ◼   ► I started it with this terrible Logitech USB headset microphone.

00:19:52 ◼   ► Don't buy into the lie that you need all this equipment or you need all these fancy things

00:19:56 ◼   ► before you can start.

00:19:57 ◼   ► You can almost certainly start with just what you have.

00:20:00 ◼   ► Your smartphone can do almost everything you could ever possibly need for a creative project.

00:20:05 ◼   ► And so just go with that.

00:20:07 ◼   ► And what I just said is, "Okay, I'm going to do an episode every day for, I think I said

00:20:11 ◼   ► about three weeks."

00:20:12 ◼   ► And so I did, which was 15 episodes, 30 minutes, or that was 15 minutes or less.

00:20:17 ◼   ► And so I'm just going to do 15, 15-minute episodes.

00:20:21 ◼   ► And if I can do that, and I get to the end of it, like, I can buy myself a good mic and

00:20:25 ◼   ► so on.

00:20:26 ◼   ► At that point, if I decide that I want to do it.

00:20:28 ◼   ► But I found it was really helpful to look at a project like that and say, "I just need

00:20:33 ◼   ► to commit to it, try it.

00:20:35 ◼   ► And then if I like it, great.

00:20:36 ◼   ► If not, I can move on."

00:20:38 ◼   ► For me, it turned out podcasting was great.

00:20:39 ◼   ► I enjoyed it.

00:20:40 ◼   ► And I did Developing Perspective for three or four years.

00:20:44 ◼   ► And I've been doing Under the Radar for over a year now.

00:20:48 ◼   ► Podcasting is something that has been useful for my career in terms of building a bit of

00:20:53 ◼   ► a brand and a personality online, as well as it's useful in other weird ways.

00:20:58 ◼   ► Like I said, I did a walkthrough video for Workouts++, and it involves a voiceover.

00:21:07 ◼   ► Like you're doing this voiceover work as I show how to use the app.

00:21:11 ◼   ► I did all the voiceover work in one take, mostly because I have done podcasts for so

00:21:17 ◼   ► long that speaking in an uninterrupted, hopefully vaguely coherent way is fairly natural now.

00:21:24 ◼   ► And similarly, having started podcasting, the prospect of doing public speaking was

00:21:29 ◼   ► a lot less scary.

00:21:30 ◼   ► I used to think that was just absolutely terrifying, that I'd be standing up on stage and I just

00:21:36 ◼   ► would have no words and I would just be standing there sort of dumbstruck with nothing to say.

00:21:41 ◼   ► I'm less worried about that now because I've built the muscle and the skill of sitting

00:21:46 ◼   ► down in front of a microphone and just talking for a while.

00:21:51 ◼   ► And I got all that out of actually just deciding that, "Yes, I'm going to try this.

00:21:56 ◼   ► I'm going to try it and I'm going to start it."

00:21:57 ◼   ► And then I did start it, and then it worked out.

00:22:01 ◼   ► And if I'd gotten to the end of that 15 episodes and said, "You know what?

00:22:04 ◼   ► Podcasting is not for me," it's like, "Okay, that's great.

00:22:06 ◼   ► Now I know that for sure," rather than kidding myself about one day maybe, some time, if

00:22:12 ◼   ► I'm lucky, if I have time, when I'm less busy, I'll be able to do it.

00:22:18 ◼   ► That day is never going to come.

00:22:19 ◼   ► And so if it actually isn't important to you, you just need to one day decide, "Yes,

00:22:23 ◼   ► I'm going to do this," make it timed out in short so you're not actually kidding

00:22:26 ◼   ► yourself and saying, "I'm going to do this for a year."

00:22:28 ◼   ► It's like, "No, maybe you'll do it for a couple of weeks."

00:22:32 ◼   ► And if you can do it for that amount of time, maybe you'll want to do it for longer.

00:22:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'd also say that it helps a lot to, not only to develop these skills and to

00:22:46 ◼   ► be creatively satisfied and to find new markets for apps and everything, it also helps to

00:22:54 ◼   ► use what you have when choosing what to build in your apps.

00:22:58 ◼   ► Use the skills that you have, use the experience, the wisdom, the equipment, if that's important,

00:23:04 ◼   ► to use what you have and to choose what to work on based on that.

00:23:07 ◼   ► So for instance, I have now a lot of knowledge about MP3s, audio, podcasting, how to process

00:23:17 ◼   ► audio, how to edit and create podcasts, how to play podcasts.

00:23:22 ◼   ► So I am in a unique position here that most iOS developers are not in to do additional

00:23:28 ◼   ► projects such as the MP3 encoder I'm working on, the chapter tool that I'm working on,

00:23:33 ◼   ► and also possibly down the road, a podcast editor app.

00:23:38 ◼   ► Those are all projects that should be on my roadmap and some of them are, but those are

00:23:44 ◼   ► all things that it would be an interesting idea and probably a good idea for me to leverage

00:23:48 ◼   ► what I have, you said you're wonderful, leverage, word familiar, leverage the knowledge and

00:23:52 ◼   ► experience and code that I have to direct my future efforts.

00:23:58 ◼   ► It wouldn't make as much sense for my next app to be a calendar app because I would have

00:24:05 ◼   ► no advantage over anybody else in making a calendar app.

00:24:10 ◼   ► None of my experience leads to that.

00:24:12 ◼   ► I have no existing code, no existing domain knowledge there.

00:24:16 ◼   ► I would have to basically be relearning everything just like anybody else.

00:24:20 ◼   ► Whereas if I made an audio editor, that's a really big complex thing that you could

00:24:24 ◼   ► charge real money for probably, but most people couldn't just jump into that.

00:24:29 ◼   ► If anyone else wanted to make that, they would have to first spend a while learning what

00:24:34 ◼   ► I already know, building code I've already written, and getting experience I already

00:24:39 ◼   ► have.

00:24:40 ◼   ► So as I'm choosing what to work on next, I have to think about what is a good idea for

00:24:44 ◼   ► me to work on next?

00:24:46 ◼   ► That goes into other things like I know how to market things that are related to podcasts.

00:24:51 ◼   ► I have an audience that cares about such things.

00:24:56 ◼   ► There's some kind of opportunities for integrations between what I already have and a podcast

00:25:01 ◼   ► related thing.

00:25:02 ◼   ► Whereas if I make a calendar app next, I have nothing.

00:25:06 ◼   ► I start from zero.

00:25:08 ◼   ► It really helps to use what you have to help choose what goes into your portfolio at all.

00:25:15 ◼   ► You're really good at this.

00:25:17 ◼   ► Everything you do recently has had a substantial watch and fitness component because you're

00:25:21 ◼   ► really good at watch stuff and fitness stuff.

00:25:25 ◼   ► And seeing that has, in a weird way, I've had to make peace with that.

00:25:34 ◼   ► In my mind, I look at the world with so many different types of development that I could

00:25:40 ◼   ► want to get into.

00:25:42 ◼   ► That there's so many things that I could, like a calendar app.

00:25:45 ◼   ► I have ideas for a calendar app.

00:25:46 ◼   ► I have an idea for almost every app.

00:25:49 ◼   ► I have a massive list of things that someday maybe I'd love to build.

00:25:54 ◼   ► I had taken a little bit of understanding to just look at myself and be like, "You

00:26:00 ◼   ► know what I should do though?

00:26:01 ◼   ► I should make the things that I'm uniquely good at and the things that I have some more

00:26:05 ◼   ► skills and experience at."

00:26:06 ◼   ► Because while it could be interesting and fun to make the other kind of crazy app and

00:26:11 ◼   ► go in that direction, the reality is I'm probably wasting my time if I go in that way.

00:26:18 ◼   ► Whereas if I do something that I have these abilities and skills in, then I'm not.

00:26:24 ◼   ► And it's also in a weird way, when I think about transferable skills, I think about how

00:26:31 ◼   ► in a weird way it's kind of a relief because it takes past failings or things that didn't

00:26:37 ◼   ► really work out and lets you look at them in a more positive light.

00:26:42 ◼   ► So I think about this YouTube video series about teaching people how to make watch apps.

00:26:50 ◼   ► It was this idea that I had.

00:26:51 ◼   ► I'd put it on YouTube and a lot of people would watch it and it would be big and exciting.

00:26:56 ◼   ► This new line of business for me, but a new big thing for me.

00:26:59 ◼   ► And it went nowhere.

00:27:00 ◼   ► Hardly anybody watched them.

00:27:01 ◼   ► It was ostensibly a failure.

00:27:05 ◼   ► But if I can look at it instead from a perspective of, "Take that experience, break it down

00:27:11 ◼   ► into the skills that I learned as a result from that," the learned skills are never

00:27:17 ◼   ► a failure.

00:27:18 ◼   ► The outcomes may have been failed.

00:27:20 ◼   ► They didn't go anywhere and they didn't really do anything.

00:27:23 ◼   ► But the things that I learned in the process of doing it is never wasted if I can find

00:27:28 ◼   ► a place to then put that into my work.

00:27:30 ◼   ► And then now I can look at my work now and say, "Yeah, here's the things that I can

00:27:34 ◼   ► do.

00:27:35 ◼   ► I'm going to make things that focus into that, that use all these abilities that I've

00:27:39 ◼   ► been building up over time, often out of things that didn't work out in the past, and then

00:27:45 ◼   ► apply that into a new way."

00:27:46 ◼   ► And that just increases the odds.

00:27:48 ◼   ► Because ultimately, these are guaranteed ways to be successful.

00:27:52 ◼   ► All we can do is just turn the dial up slightly so that we have a slightly better chance of

00:27:57 ◼   ► being successful.

00:27:58 ◼   ► We have a slightly better chance of making something impressive and awesome.

00:28:02 ◼   ► And this also goes towards diversity of income and resilience of your financial independence

00:28:09 ◼   ► too.

00:28:10 ◼   ► As you develop these other skills that are separate from the raw iOS app development

00:28:16 ◼   ► core skill that you're making your business, you then make it easier not only for you to

00:28:21 ◼   ► have alternate income streams if you get good enough into these things that you can actually

00:28:24 ◼   ► make them side businesses, but also when the next big thing comes along, suppose the next

00:28:30 ◼   ► big thing is some kind of combination of iOS apps, video production, and icon design.

00:28:37 ◼   ► If you already have the pieces necessary, you can jump right into the next thing, the

00:28:42 ◼   ► next kind of thing that comes around faster and better than other people can who are starting

00:28:46 ◼   ► from scratch or who have totally unrelated skills.

00:28:50 ◼   ► All of these things that we've been talking about, about how to basically be like us,

00:28:54 ◼   ► or at least how we'd like to be, these all fit together.

00:28:58 ◼   ► This is all part of one big puzzle here that if you have diverse skills from different

00:29:04 ◼   ► areas that you can bring together to make your iOS apps and possibly also have different

00:29:08 ◼   ► audience growth from them or different revenue growth or revenue diversity from them, that

00:29:12 ◼   ► all fits together into making a successful indie developer.

00:29:15 ◼   ► All right, and with all that said, we are out of time this week.

00:29:19 ◼   ► Thank you very much everybody for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

00:29:22 ◼   ► - Bye.

00:29:23 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]