Merlin may be a pain in the ass most of the time, but he’s also a pretty affectionate little buddy in the wee hours of the morning.
Merlin may be a pain in the ass most of the time, but he’s also a pretty affectionate little buddy in the wee hours of the morning.
The first issue of The Atelier Journal, in which I discuss my upcoming iOS app for managing your Buttondown newsletters, goes out tomorrow!
Sign up for it here.
I’ve thought about doing a “side hustle with me” (terrible name, I know) video call or live stream, where we commit to working on our individual projects, can chat with each other about how things are going, and build stuff together.
Interested? Let me know: tally.so/r/mV02Nv
A Love Letter to Personal Projects:
Merlin isn’t feeling all this snow.
As the saying goes, “April blizzards bring May wizards.” 🧙
I am simultaneously:
1) so, so, tired of keeping up with tech b) terrified that I’ll be left behind as I age if I don’t
On Saturday, I mentioned that I’m building a Buttondown client for iOS and shared a survey for feedback.
Yesterday, I put up a landing page where you can subscribe for updates (and beta testing, when it’s ready): atelier.software
I’m doing a bit of market research for my upcoming iOS app for managing Buttondown newsletters!
If you use the service and have two minutes to fill out this form, I’d really appreciate it.
Much as I love Overcast, transcriptions in the Apple Podcast app are a game changer. Not only is it great to read along when listening (I love Readwise Reader for this!), it also makes it really handy to scroll and tap-to-skip the ads that you’ve heard 800 times already. 👍
Wow, hundreds of downloads already since making Thought Detox free.
It just makes sense if the app is accessible to everyone, and move the business model to tip jar/patronage.
Get it here: apps.apple.com/app/apple…
In preparation of moving Thought Detox to a patronage/tipjar business model, the app is now FREE to download from the App Store.
Work through your most private thoughts on your most personal device.
Today at Two Common Cents Club, I talk about cash flow forecasting and the mindset shift it allowed me — giving me permission to experiment quickly and fail fast.
Read the whole thing here, and download the free sheet I use to forecast my cash flows.
Been doing some Sunday experimentation with the Buttondown API. 🙂
When you really enjoy writing but just haven’t felt inspired and so you’re thinking it’d be a good idea to start a new blog/newsletter because this one will be different, you know?
Has anyone ever seen an otherwise-free iOS app offer a “patronage” subscription? No additionally functionality, but rather a sort of recurring tip jar kind of thing?
The target market for my next projects is indie devs; target platform is desktop. Considering a Mac app, but maybe devs would prefer a web app?
Building performant, secure web apps feels like a lot more work, and I don’t like writing/maintaining JavaScript, or storing other people’s data. 🤔
There’s an aside in today’s issue of Two Common Cents Club that I really think I should expand on:
“I firmly believe that chasing 30–40% year-over-year growth necessarily comes at a cost to your customers, your colleagues, and your community.”
I’ll expand on this in future article, but what are your thoughts?
Change my mind.
I’m strongly considering making Thought Detox free (with a tip jar). Maybe randomly show a “Leave a tip” button after you release a thought. 🤔
For the business website I’ve decided that I’m going to archive the blog and, moving forward, rely on the newsletter (which has a web archive with RSS feed) for outgoing comms.
Has anyone else tried this? Any pitfalls or perils I should consider?
Indie devs that are building apps as a side-business thing, what do you struggle with most as far as making progress?
(For me, it’s a toss-up between making the time and building a community.)
Over on Two Common Cents Club, I’ve published a review of Paul Jarvis’ “Company of One” — a book that’s given me a fair bit of food for thoughtt in running my own microbusiness.
Over at Two Common Cents Club, I’ve just added discounts on some of the tools and services I use to help run Dropped Bits, my indie app business—email, newsletters, domains, and web hosting. Aiming to add more soon!
Club Members can access them here: www.twocommoncents.club/member-di…
Well, that’s frustrating.