Under the Radar

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

00:00:04 ◼   ► I'm Marco Arment.

00:00:05 ◼   ► >> 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 it is an awkward part of the summer for me, and that is because I have now -- I would

00:00:16 ◼   ► say I am through the part of the summer where I have -- I would say I have fully digested

00:00:22 ◼   ► WWDC and what is -- all the new things that are coming and all of the new opportunities

00:00:29 ◼   ► and all of the new things that Apple seems to be pushing or leading or dragging us along

00:00:34 ◼   ► towards.

00:00:37 ◼   ► And then comes the next awkward phase of trying to understand, well, what does that actually

00:00:41 ◼   ► mean for my products?

00:00:43 ◼   ► And so I -- as someone who has many, many products, it can mean a lot of things.

00:00:48 ◼   ► And the first thing I do is I sit down in a notebook and each product gets a page and

00:00:53 ◼   ► I just lay them all out on a table and it's like write down all the things that I could

00:00:57 ◼   ► see possibly doing for every one of my -- the products that I have currently shipped.

00:01:01 ◼   ► And then I have a couple pages of new ideas or things I want to work on.

00:01:06 ◼   ► And then comes the really tough part of deciding what am I actually going to do, both between

00:01:13 ◼   ► now and September, and the ostensible goal of the kind of like first round, be there

00:01:19 ◼   ► on day one, hopefully kind of to be a leader or taking advantage of publicity or press

00:01:25 ◼   ► interests or Apple editorial interest.

00:01:28 ◼   ► There's that side.

00:01:29 ◼   ► And then like some of those things make sense and obvious, like working on my big -- like

00:01:34 ◼   ► my most popular apps make sense to do this stuff for.

00:01:37 ◼   ► But it also kind of forces me to have this soul searching moment when I look at some

00:01:41 ◼   ► of these apps that I have that are out in the store that I haven't worked on in months.

00:01:49 ◼   ► And if anything, like I haven't worked on them since I did the iOS 12 compatibility

00:01:53 ◼   ► updates, if that.

00:01:56 ◼   ► And if those were just mostly just like, you know, open the app in the new version of Xcode,

00:02:01 ◼   ► fix any of the weird warnings that pop up or like deprecation issues, and then like

00:02:06 ◼   ► resubmit it, like not major even updates for some of these apps because they're not the

00:02:11 ◼   ► main part of my business.

00:02:12 ◼   ► They're these apps that I've made.

00:02:14 ◼   ► Many of them are kind of old or they served a different purpose or they kind of were built

00:02:19 ◼   ► in a different app store world.

00:02:25 ◼   ► And I kind of look at them and I'm like, at some point, should I just pull these from

00:02:29 ◼   ► the store?

00:02:30 ◼   ► At some point, should I pull them away?

00:02:33 ◼   ► Or is it better to kind of have this kind of intentional conscious neglect of these

00:02:38 ◼   ► things where they still work in that sense?

00:02:41 ◼   ► It's not like I'm shipping something that crashes on first launch, but it's not getting

00:02:46 ◼   ► any better.

00:02:47 ◼   ► And I find that a really hard question to answer of like, at some point, is it worth

00:02:52 ◼   ► end of lifeing these or is it just continue to neglect them?

00:02:57 ◼   ► Is that okay?

00:02:58 ◼   ► Like both from a business perspective as well as kind of like there's, do I have a more

00:03:01 ◼   ► like sort of obligation to my users?

00:03:05 ◼   ► And it always just puts me in a weird place.

00:03:06 ◼   ► And then when I start to think about end of lifeing, like that is a whole can of worms

00:03:11 ◼   ► in terms of like some of these apps involve user data or sync or backup stuff that I have.

00:03:18 ◼   ► Or like I have an app that involves the download, like where people could purchase audio books.

00:03:26 ◼   ► And I like that particular, like I haven't, the actual purchase side of it is something

00:03:30 ◼   ► that I've de-emphasized and largely kind of reduced in emphasis.

00:03:34 ◼   ► But how long do I have to support those downloads for?

00:03:37 ◼   ► And like those kind of questions are really awkward.

00:03:39 ◼   ► And it's just something that is always a funny part of this summer where I get all excited

00:03:43 ◼   ► initially about all the new stuff.

00:03:45 ◼   ► And then I get really excited about all the new apps that I can make.

00:03:48 ◼   ► And then I sort of like turn to my wife and start talking about all these new things.

00:03:51 ◼   ► And she's like, you're going to make more apps?

00:03:55 ◼   ► We already have, I think, don't you think we have too many already?

00:03:58 ◼   ► So like anyway, that's the situation I find myself in.

00:04:01 ◼   ► And so whatever wisdom or insight you might have, Marco, I would greatly appreciate to

00:04:06 ◼   ► lead me out of this desert of confusion.

00:04:09 ◼   ► - I mean, I know a lot of couples when one of them thinks the other has a collection

00:04:13 ◼   ► of something that is too big, institute a one in, one out policy.

00:04:17 ◼   ► - There you go.

00:04:18 ◼   ► - So it's like, you want to make a new app?

00:04:20 ◼   ► You got to get rid of one of your old apps that you don't use anymore.

00:04:24 ◼   ► - It's just like I have too many shoes.

00:04:25 ◼   ► - Right, exactly, yeah.

00:04:26 ◼   ► So I think it's a tough decision to say like which of these old apps that you don't really

00:04:34 ◼   ► want to work on anymore.

00:04:35 ◼   ► Like how do you end them?

00:04:37 ◼   ► Do you end them at all?

00:04:38 ◼   ► When are you able to end them and not be too hostile towards your customers in the process

00:04:44 ◼   ► of doing so?

00:04:46 ◼   ► And I think like a lot of the customer hostility thing has to do with the functionality and

00:04:51 ◼   ► the business model of the apps.

00:04:52 ◼   ► Like how have you taken their money and for what?

00:04:57 ◼   ► If it's an app that is free, maybe ad supported, I think you can do whatever you want.

00:05:03 ◼   ► That's an easy one, right?

00:05:04 ◼   ► It's like if you haven't taken their money, you can shut it down tomorrow and not feel

00:05:08 ◼   ► bad at all.

00:05:09 ◼   ► You can also leave something in the store forever that doesn't take their money and

00:05:14 ◼   ► may or may not work very well in newer versions of the OS or may or may not have features

00:05:18 ◼   ► that they would expect for a newer version of the OS and stuff like that.

00:05:22 ◼   ► So that, if it's a free app in money, if it's free as in they haven't paid anything,

00:05:30 ◼   ► you can do basically whatever you want.

00:05:33 ◼   ► And the right decision for a lot of it might just be just leave it there until it totally

00:05:36 ◼   ► breaks and then take it down.

00:05:38 ◼   ► But when you've taken their money, if it's either paid up front or if it's some kind

00:05:41 ◼   ► of in-app purchase or subscription based thing, it becomes a little bit different than of

00:05:46 ◼   ► like, do you leave it in the store but make it free for a year and then kill it?

00:05:54 ◼   ► Or do you remove it from sale but keep the back end running for a certain amount of time

00:05:59 ◼   ► to keep the app active?

00:06:01 ◼   ► There's all sorts of options there and it just unfortunately is one of the situations

00:06:04 ◼   ► where it's like the right answer is it depends on the app and the situation.

00:06:08 ◼   ► But I think ultimately, as long as the app functions, if it does what it says it's

00:06:14 ◼   ► going to do, if it works the way people would expect to work, it's totally okay to, for

00:06:21 ◼   ► instance, not support dark mode ever in iOS.

00:06:24 ◼   ► If that app is in maintenance mode and you're mostly going to leave it there and you're

00:06:28 ◼   ► just kind of waiting for it to die, you don't have to do things like that.

00:06:32 ◼   ► Like adopting new features, changing over to the new APIs for 3D touch previewing and

00:06:36 ◼   ► stuff like that.

00:06:37 ◼   ► There's all this new stuff in 13 that you don't really have to do for apps that aren't

00:06:42 ◼   ► under active development.

00:06:43 ◼   ► As long as they haven't broken, it's fine.

00:06:46 ◼   ► And there's also something to be said, even if they have kind of broken, like well, if

00:06:51 ◼   ► they have only broken in minor ways, like if the UI has a couple of glitches here and

00:06:55 ◼   ► there, again if this is an app that is just in minimal maintenance mode that basically

00:07:00 ◼   ► just exists so that its existing customers can continue to use it, that's kind of fine.

00:07:05 ◼   ► It's not the best thing in the world but if it's still serving people in some way and

00:07:10 ◼   ► if the people would be more upset if it was gone than if it just had a UI bug, I'd say

00:07:15 ◼   ► leave it there as long as you can.

00:07:17 ◼   ► But unfortunately then, again, the money issue complicates things so maybe making old apps

00:07:24 ◼   ► free for a while before you totally take them down is probably the right move.

00:07:31 ◼   ► But then things get more complicated as you said when you add user data into the mix.

00:07:35 ◼   ► Like if you are hosting some kind of service, if you're hosting their data in some way,

00:07:40 ◼   ► I feel like you have to run that service for a while after you take the app off the store,

00:07:46 ◼   ► like just to kind of give people a grace period and maybe do one last update to the app that

00:07:51 ◼   ► says like, hey, the servers are going to go away on this date.

00:07:54 ◼   ► It sets some date in the future, maybe like six months or a year out and just say, the

00:07:59 ◼   ► servers are going away on this date and have that be in the app so that when they launch

00:08:03 ◼   ► it, if anybody's still using it, when they launch it, they see that warning and it gives

00:08:06 ◼   ► them some kind of time, maybe provide some kind of export functionality if such a thing

00:08:11 ◼   ► makes sense, if it's important data.

00:08:14 ◼   ► But again, it depends so much on all these different factors.

00:08:20 ◼   ► But I would say, I mean I could totally rationalize this for you either way.

00:08:25 ◼   ► If you want to have as few apps as possible, I can say, yeah, kill them all.

00:08:28 ◼   ► Whatever's not working, kill it.

00:08:29 ◼   ► Whatever you don't want to be working on, just kill them all.

00:08:32 ◼   ► But I could also say, if it's working for people and it's not costing you anything to

00:08:36 ◼   ► keep it up there, leave it up there.

00:08:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think that's like the tension that I find and that I find so hard with this

00:08:42 ◼   ► is I can totally rationalize and have a good argument for either side of what to do with

00:08:49 ◼   ► old apps.

00:08:50 ◼   ► That there is part of it where the beauty of a digital store is that it isn't that the

00:08:58 ◼   ► old apps are taking up space from my new apps or my new opportunities or the apps that I

00:09:03 ◼   ► want people to focus on.

00:09:06 ◼   ► The app store is never full in that sense.

00:09:08 ◼   ► It's not like I have an end cap from Apple that I have three slots and one of those slots

00:09:13 ◼   ► is being taken up by this old app that I don't really work on.

00:09:18 ◼   ► The new popular apps that I'm investing and focusing on mostly, their prominence in the

00:09:25 ◼   ► store is larger, typically, just because they exist in a, the reason they're popular and

00:09:31 ◼   ► successful is they do well with search or they have editorial or word of mouth effects

00:09:37 ◼   ► going on with them.

00:09:39 ◼   ► And so they do well in that regard, but the difficulty is the other ones are just sitting

00:09:45 ◼   ► there and ostensibly in some ways they are just sitting there.

00:09:47 ◼   ► And there's a little bit, even some of the ongoing costs, like I remember I ran into

00:09:52 ◼   ► this a lot with Check the Weather, which is my weather app, which had an ongoing server

00:09:56 ◼   ► cost.

00:09:57 ◼   ► And I let that app, I kept the app running for probably two or three years beyond when

00:10:03 ◼   ► it financially made money if I looked at it just like what its server cost was versus

00:10:09 ◼   ► the income it generated.

00:10:11 ◼   ► And mostly because in the scope of my business, the app was costing me whatever, $1,000 a

00:10:17 ◼   ► year.

00:10:18 ◼   ► And that's not nothing, but at the same time it also generates screwed will and there's

00:10:22 ◼   ► people who use the app and associate me with it.

00:10:24 ◼   ► And maybe that makes them more advantageous to, if I cope with something new, like it's

00:10:30 ◼   ► just a marketing expense at that point.

00:10:32 ◼   ► And it gets really tricky if you look at it that way.

00:10:35 ◼   ► On the other side, it's the, I think you can take, probably the more problematic version

00:10:40 ◼   ► is the distraction effect of like, is it distracting me from either proven opportunities, other

00:10:48 ◼   ► applications that are doing well and have some momentum behind them, and that in some

00:10:53 ◼   ► ways I should be doubling down on, or new opportunities, new things that apps that I

00:10:58 ◼   ► can make, new things that I can try.

00:11:01 ◼   ► Are these other apps kind of just, there's a cognitive load to them, even if I kind of

00:11:05 ◼   ► just accept that I'm ignoring them, that it makes me feel slightly bad when things don't

00:11:11 ◼   ► work quite right.

00:11:12 ◼   ► Or people write in with feature suggestions, like, hey, I love the app, I wish it did X.

00:11:18 ◼   ► And it's the 100th time I've heard, I wish it did X.

00:11:22 ◼   ► But I have no expectation necessarily of building that feature because I'm not going to sit

00:11:28 ◼   ► down and work on an app for a couple of months if it's just, if it's not financially viable

00:11:34 ◼   ► or doesn't hold my interest anymore, or things have just moved on.

00:11:38 ◼   ► And that tension is just so awkward because, and also, probably in some ways, the thing

00:11:44 ◼   ► that really worries me in some ways too is it makes me nervous to launch new apps because

00:11:51 ◼   ► I feel that eventually I'm going to find myself in this position with whatever the new app

00:11:56 ◼   ► is.

00:11:57 ◼   ► And if anything, my business has, I've been able to do this for as long as I have because

00:12:03 ◼   ► I just keep relentlessly making new apps, almost to a fault.

00:12:08 ◼   ► And it's probably good for me in some ways to still have that confidence to just be able

00:12:13 ◼   ► to say, like, you know, I'm just going to keep making things and we'll see what happens.

00:12:17 ◼   ► Like, I don't want to feel like I can't make a new thing because eventually it's going

00:12:21 ◼   ► to be like an albatross around my neck that I'm going to have to deal with later.

00:12:25 ◼   ► So like, it's such a weird balance that I go back and forth where it's like, oh, I could

00:12:29 ◼   ► totally justify it this way.

00:12:30 ◼   ► Or it's like, oh no, that would be, that's a terrible idea.

00:12:32 ◼   ► You should do it the complete opposite direction too.

00:12:35 ◼   ► Hm, all right.

00:12:37 ◼   ► I think I have a conclusion here.

00:12:39 ◼   ► But first, let's talk about our sponsor.

00:12:42 ◼   ► We were brought to you this week by Instabug.

00:12:44 ◼   ► Go to Instabug.com/radar to sign up today and install their SDK.

00:12:48 ◼   ► If you do that today, you'll get a free Instabug t-shirt and a 14-day free trial.

00:12:54 ◼   ► Instabug is an SDK that takes complete care of your beta testing and user feedback process.

00:13:00 ◼   ► It allows you to debug, fix, and improve your app faster and easier.

00:13:05 ◼   ► Instabug takes just a minute to install, giving you seamless two-way communication with users

00:13:10 ◼   ► or testers.

00:13:11 ◼   ► So users will be able to do things like shake their phone to send you feedback.

00:13:15 ◼   ► That includes screenshots that can be annotated and a log of touch events.

00:13:18 ◼   ► You can focus on what you need to fix the problem.

00:13:20 ◼   ► Instabug also includes automatic crash reporting.

00:13:23 ◼   ► Each crash is reported with a complete stack trace and reproduction steps, helping you

00:13:27 ◼   ► fully understand what happened.

00:13:29 ◼   ► And all your crash data can be viewed together with charts, helping you get an overview of

00:13:33 ◼   ► performance at a glance.

00:13:35 ◼   ► Instabug also features in-app chat, so you can easily communicate with your users right

00:13:39 ◼   ► there in the app to get more feedback and let them know what's going on.

00:13:42 ◼   ► You can even run user surveys through this as well.

00:13:45 ◼   ► You can integrate Instabug with all your favorite third-party tools like Jira, Slack, Trello,

00:13:49 ◼   ► GitHub, and more, so you and your team can have all your work together in your favorite

00:13:53 ◼   ► places.

00:13:54 ◼   ► All of this takes just two lines of code to integrate into your app, so see for yourself

00:13:57 ◼   ► right now at Instabug.com/Radar.

00:14:00 ◼   ► You can find out more.

00:14:02 ◼   ► And a special offer for our listeners on this show, if you sign up and install that SDK,

00:14:05 ◼   ► you will get a free Instabug t-shirt along with your 14-day free trial.

00:14:10 ◼   ► Once again, that's Instabug.com/Radar to sign up.

00:14:14 ◼   ► Our thanks to Instabug for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:14:18 ◼   ► So I think I've given what you said a few minutes ago.

00:14:22 ◼   ► I think I've come up with the answer here.

00:14:24 ◼   ► Lay it on me.

00:14:25 ◼   ► What do I do?

00:14:26 ◼   ► You are not only known for, but your business depends on your ability to launch new apps

00:14:34 ◼   ► freely.

00:14:35 ◼   ► And what you need here is to exercise the muscle of getting rid of apps.

00:14:44 ◼   ► Because you said you hesitate to do it, and you feel bad about it.

00:14:48 ◼   ► And what scared me a little bit about drawing this conclusion was when you said that you're

00:14:53 ◼   ► afraid of launching a new app because you're afraid of having to maybe kill it later.

00:14:57 ◼   ► But death is part of life.

00:15:00 ◼   ► That's part of this.

00:15:02 ◼   ► No app that you work on is going to last forever.

00:15:06 ◼   ► Even the successful ones won't be there forever.

00:15:08 ◼   ► At some point, even your most successful apps that seem like they're going to last forever,

00:15:12 ◼   ► you're going to shut them down at some point.

00:15:14 ◼   ► It might be years away, but it's going to happen at some point.

00:15:18 ◼   ► If you can internalize the fact that every one of these apps will die, it's only a

00:15:22 ◼   ► matter of deciding when that death will occur.

00:15:27 ◼   ► You are the reaper.

00:15:28 ◼   ► It's going to happen.

00:15:29 ◼   ► The only question is when.

00:15:31 ◼   ► And so if you can try to internalize that, which I think will become easier with practice,

00:15:37 ◼   ► with killing more apps, then you will get rid of that hesitation you might have to try

00:15:43 ◼   ► something new.

00:15:44 ◼   ► Because that is critical to your business.

00:15:46 ◼   ► Not only to your online brand of like, "Hey, underscore all the apps and make all these

00:15:49 ◼   ► new ones."

00:15:50 ◼   ► But also, your business has depended on that method of success, of trying a lot of new

00:15:57 ◼   ► stuff, and some of it works and some of it doesn't.

00:16:00 ◼   ► You can't impede, like mentally, you can't impede that process.

00:16:06 ◼   ► And it should be paramount.

00:16:07 ◼   ► You should be very scared to ever impede that process.

00:16:10 ◼   ► So anything that threatens to impede that process, you've got to nip it in the bud.

00:16:14 ◼   ► And so that's why I think exercise the muscle of killing apps.

00:16:18 ◼   ► Also because, you know, you mentioned that all these, the apps that you're not going

00:16:22 ◼   ► to really put any more work into, that haven't justified themselves, you mentioned, it sounded

00:16:27 ◼   ► basically like you want them to be gone.

00:16:28 ◼   ► Like, you'd rather they not be in the store.

00:16:30 ◼   ► Like, you know, because I presented earlier the option of like, "Oh, you know, keep

00:16:33 ◼   ► it in the store if it's not hurting anybody."

00:16:35 ◼   ► But it sounds like it hurts you to keep it in the store.

00:16:39 ◼   ► So get rid of it.

00:16:40 ◼   ► Because while it's not hurting anybody, it's also not really benefiting you.

00:16:44 ◼   ► And it isn't really benefiting a lot of people either.

00:16:46 ◼   ► Because if it was benefiting a lot of people, it would be successful.

00:16:50 ◼   ► So like, your unsuccessful or your like, past their prime apps aren't being used that

00:16:56 ◼   ► heavily.

00:16:57 ◼   ► So feel free to get rid of them.

00:16:59 ◼   ► And I don't think you have to worry, like you mentioned also the concern about apps

00:17:06 ◼   ► being a marketing function for you.

00:17:08 ◼   ► You as a person, like have an app like Check the Weather where people associate you with

00:17:13 ◼   ► this app and maybe it will benefit your other apps.

00:17:15 ◼   ► I don't think that happens very much.

00:17:17 ◼   ► I don't think most people know who made the app that they're using on their phone.

00:17:24 ◼   ► It just doesn't happen.

00:17:25 ◼   ► Most people, they just know the name of the app and the icon.

00:17:28 ◼   ► And that's it.

00:17:29 ◼   ► And I don't think, there's a small number of like, core fans that we have that like,

00:17:34 ◼   ► they might know our apps and they might know us.

00:17:36 ◼   ► But it's a fraction of the install base of the apps.

00:17:39 ◼   ► So I don't think you have to worry too much about that either.

00:17:43 ◼   ► As long as you keep making new stuff, you are the underscore that we know and love.

00:17:48 ◼   ► And so like, I don't think you have to worry too much about that branding aspect.

00:17:52 ◼   ► And plus, whenever I was getting ready to leave a job or thinking about leaving a job,

00:17:57 ◼   ► I always thought like, boy, I really, I want to leave but I don't want to like, screw

00:18:04 ◼   ► them.

00:18:05 ◼   ► And I don't like, if I leave, they'll be like, all of a sudden they'll be stuck

00:18:08 ◼   ► with all this work that I did, right?

00:18:11 ◼   ► And it turned out, every time I left, like it was fine.

00:18:14 ◼   ► It was totally fine.

00:18:15 ◼   ► They got along just fine without me.

00:18:17 ◼   ► People picked up the slack, other people were hired, it was fine.

00:18:19 ◼   ► And nothing bad happened, right?

00:18:21 ◼   ► I was overestimating how important it was that I be the one to be there to do this work,

00:18:27 ◼   ► 'cause anybody could have just paid stuff and done it.

00:18:28 ◼   ► I think people have a similar kind of outlook to the apps on their phone.

00:18:33 ◼   ► Like apps, 'cause apps get made and then quickly abandoned all the time.

00:18:40 ◼   ► So I think people kind of look at the apps on their phone as like, well, this is all

00:18:43 ◼   ► just a temporary set of things until they stop working and then I find new ones, right?

00:18:47 ◼   ► So you might not be breaking anybody's heart that badly by shutting down an old app that

00:18:52 ◼   ► not many people are even using anymore.

00:18:55 ◼   ► And for the few people that did, yeah, they'll have a minor annoyance to deal with.

00:19:01 ◼   ► Oh, and now I have to install a new app from somebody else.

00:19:04 ◼   ► Fine.

00:19:05 ◼   ► It isn't, I don't think-- - If they even notice, right?

00:19:07 ◼   ► - Right, if they even-- - From their perspective, the app just keeps

00:19:08 ◼   ► using, they're like, I mean, they obviously, if it involves web services and things, it

00:19:11 ◼   ► could eventually stop working.

00:19:12 ◼   ► But if it doesn't, it just sort of keeps going until they decide to stop using it,

00:19:18 ◼   ► I suppose.

00:19:19 ◼   ► Whether or not-- - I mean, I have so many apps on my phone

00:19:22 ◼   ► that I haven't launched in years.

00:19:26 ◼   ► If I ever launched them.

00:19:27 ◼   ► (laughs) - Sure.

00:19:28 ◼   ► - And then I haven't launched them in years and if they stop working, I might never notice.

00:19:33 ◼   ► And if I do notice, it might take a long time and I wouldn't care at all because I'm

00:19:37 ◼   ► not really launching them, right?

00:19:38 ◼   ► I think you're trying to be very kind and generous to your users of these old maintenance

00:19:49 ◼   ► mode apps.

00:19:50 ◼   ► I don't think you need to be.

00:19:52 ◼   ► I don't think they care that much.

00:19:54 ◼   ► I don't think they are asking you to do that.

00:19:56 ◼   ► This is a self-imposed pressure.

00:19:59 ◼   ► And if it is weighing on you to have these apps out there, which you said it was, then

00:20:05 ◼   ► the best thing you can do for yourself, which is what matters the most here, is get rid

00:20:11 ◼   ► of them.

00:20:12 ◼   ► Shut them down.

00:20:13 ◼   ► And then free up your plate so that you feel like, now I have all these slots in the end

00:20:19 ◼   ► cap of my mind to make new stuff.

00:20:24 ◼   ► 'Cause that's what you need to keep your business going the way you've been running it.

00:20:28 ◼   ► - That is very compelling.

00:20:33 ◼   ► I think it is.

00:20:35 ◼   ► I will say, it is an interesting thing, just as a meta note, I would encourage, when you're

00:20:38 ◼   ► struggling with things like this, to talk about it out loud.

00:20:42 ◼   ► Because I think it is interesting and you're picking up on these things.

00:20:45 ◼   ► I'm saying things that I don't think I would have thought that I thought before you're

00:20:50 ◼   ► forced to turn it into a sentence and say it out loud and actually wrap your arms around

00:20:57 ◼   ► the feeling you're having.

00:20:58 ◼   ► You just kind of like, sometimes you're just anxious and you don't know why.

00:21:02 ◼   ► You don't know why you're anxious until you actually start talking to someone about why

00:21:05 ◼   ► you're anxious.

00:21:06 ◼   ► I think there's something in this too, where it's like, yeah, I think picking up on the

00:21:12 ◼   ► fact that I think the reluctance I might have to launching something new because of the

00:21:19 ◼   ► weight that it will eventually sort of add on is very much a danger that's a problematic,

00:21:30 ◼   ► difficult situation that I need to actively work to fix.

00:21:36 ◼   ► Because otherwise, all I'm doing is tying myself to past things, which is never going

00:21:43 ◼   ► to be a route for success.

00:21:46 ◼   ► That's never going to be, I'm never going to build a, I'm amazed in some ways that my

00:21:51 ◼   ► business has lasted as long as it has, but it's never going to keep going if I'm just

00:21:56 ◼   ► continuing to spend any energy whatsoever on things that aren't kind of moving the business

00:22:03 ◼   ► forward or aren't embracing the future.

00:22:08 ◼   ► But there's an emotional aspect to that that is sometimes tricky, I think both in terms

00:22:12 ◼   ► of the, it's easy to think that the people who reach out to you, it's a weird thing just

00:22:20 ◼   ► to feel like I'm disappointing someone who I've never met, who doesn't know who I am,

00:22:25 ◼   ► for whom I'm just a faceless app developer, if that.

00:22:31 ◼   ► Many people just think I'm Apple.

00:22:33 ◼   ► We all just work for Apple.

00:22:37 ◼   ► This is just part of the iPhone they went down to the Apple store and bought.

00:22:41 ◼   ► I can build that up, and I can make that very personal, and I can make that feel like a

00:22:45 ◼   ► very big deal because from my perspective, it is a big deal.

00:22:49 ◼   ► It's a thing that I made that I put in the store and that someone bought and downloaded

00:22:55 ◼   ► and that allowed me to start a business that supports my family.

00:22:59 ◼   ► That's a very personal thing on my end, but it's entirely asymmetric in that way.

00:23:06 ◼   ► I'm one of thousands of apps, hundreds of apps, whatever it is that they've downloaded,

00:23:12 ◼   ► and maybe there are some people who are passionate, who care a lot about the app, who use it every

00:23:16 ◼   ► day.

00:23:18 ◼   ► At some point, I may disappoint some of those people, but that is ultimately, in some ways,

00:23:25 ◼   ► that's not my problem at a certain point.

00:23:27 ◼   ► If the app that they love is ultimately not sustainable, either in terms of financially

00:23:36 ◼   ► or in terms of my interest, because that's another thing that's also just kind of awkward

00:23:39 ◼   ► in this, is right now, the things that I'm interested in and the things that I get excited

00:23:43 ◼   ► about are health and fitness apps on the Apple Watch.

00:23:48 ◼   ► I have mountains of ideas about Apple Watch-related stuff.

00:23:52 ◼   ► Very few ideas about things on iOS or the iPad or those types of platforms.

00:24:00 ◼   ► They're just not platforms that I'm excited about.

00:24:05 ◼   ► It is interesting to take that amorphous feeling and be like, "It's probably best to just not."

00:24:14 ◼   ► I like the way you say it, though, of "Exercise the muscle of doing it," which is sort of

00:24:18 ◼   ► understanding that it is doing something hard so that it becomes easier in the future.

00:24:26 ◼   ► It's always the funny thing, whenever I started getting into weight training, is that you

00:24:31 ◼   ► are at your...

00:24:32 ◼   ► You have to make yourself...

00:24:33 ◼   ► You have to do the difficult thing, which actually slightly makes you weaker in the

00:24:37 ◼   ► moment, to be able to be stronger in the future.

00:24:41 ◼   ► That is just the cycle of moving forward and getting better.

00:24:46 ◼   ► There is something to just exercising that muscle and being like, "I need to just start

00:24:52 ◼   ► taking some apps off the store."

00:24:54 ◼   ► Probably the reality is once I've done the easy ones, it'll be easier to do the slightly

00:24:59 ◼   ► trickier ones or the slightly more nuanced ones.

00:25:02 ◼   ► As long as I do it in a reasonable way, that depending on...

00:25:05 ◼   ► Like you said, if I do...

00:25:07 ◼   ► One of my apps is a recipe organizer.

00:25:10 ◼   ► It has a backup system related to that, making sure people's recipes are safe.

00:25:17 ◼   ► If I run the couple of servers on Linode that it's hosted on for a year or two years after

00:25:24 ◼   ► whatever, and after it stops being for sale, it's probably fine.

00:25:29 ◼   ► And put a warning in the app and saying, "Hey, the sync service is going away.

00:25:32 ◼   ► The app will still work.

00:25:34 ◼   ► As long as it's going to work, you can export your recipes this way if you need to.

00:25:38 ◼   ► Thank you for being a customer.

00:25:40 ◼   ► I'm sorry it didn't work out."

00:25:42 ◼   ► That's probably fine.

00:25:43 ◼   ► And that's probably...

00:25:44 ◼   ► And honestly, it's more than they need in that sense.

00:25:49 ◼   ► Even if I just did nothing, that would probably be fine.

00:25:53 ◼   ► And I could even be more than fine.

00:25:55 ◼   ► And then that probably would assuage my conscience as well as just be a good thing to do.

00:26:01 ◼   ► But that's probably the right thing to do.

00:26:03 ◼   ► I think you're...

00:26:04 ◼   ► Yeah, I like the way you say that.

00:26:06 ◼   ► Because I feel like you have to be extremely vigilant to defend really core, really important

00:26:15 ◼   ► properties of what you do.

00:26:17 ◼   ► And so in this case, for you, it's very important to be able to have the mental freedom and

00:26:24 ◼   ► motivation and capacity to try to launch new apps.

00:26:29 ◼   ► Because that's what you're really good at.

00:26:31 ◼   ► And your business depends on a rotating stock of hit apps.

00:26:39 ◼   ► And you only get that by being able to try new things.

00:26:43 ◼   ► And for me, a lot of times, the things I would defend that way, which I think probably everybody

00:26:48 ◼   ► should, are things that seem like they might be causing potential burnout.

00:26:53 ◼   ► Or things that might cause RSI or stress issues.

00:26:57 ◼   ► Like I try to nip those in the boat as quickly as possible because that threatens what I

00:27:03 ◼   ► do at a fundamental level.

00:27:04 ◼   ► And so similar here, you have to...

00:27:07 ◼   ► Anything where you start feeling like, "Oh no, this is turning in a way that could be

00:27:11 ◼   ► really toxic for me."

00:27:13 ◼   ► You gotta get rid of that immediately.

00:27:15 ◼   ► And so this is that kind of thing where you can't...

00:27:19 ◼   ► If you see anything that is preventing you or might possibly prevent you from being able

00:27:25 ◼   ► to launch new stuff, you gotta nip in the bud.

00:27:28 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:27:29 ◼   ► And I think there's an element there of just trying to understand what makes you, you.

00:27:36 ◼   ► Like what unique and special thing is about...

00:27:42 ◼   ► What makes your business viable?

00:27:44 ◼   ► What makes you...

00:27:46 ◼   ► How are you specifically and uniquely gifted compared to other people?

00:27:51 ◼   ► - That is the thing that you have to lean in on and try and be very...

00:27:58 ◼   ► Emphasize and do everything you can to amplify that effect.

00:28:03 ◼   ► Because that's all you have.

00:28:05 ◼   ► That's your edge.

00:28:06 ◼   ► That's the thing that you can do that no someone else can't do.

00:28:09 ◼   ► This is the reason that I have 20 apps in the App Store and you have one.

00:28:15 ◼   ► We have a different mentality and we're good at different things.

00:28:18 ◼   ► We're good at taking an app and making it a mile deep and incredibly polished at a way

00:28:23 ◼   ► that I can't get to.

00:28:26 ◼   ► Whereas I can make a good quality, straightforward app and do it dozens of times.

00:28:32 ◼   ► And that's the difference.

00:28:33 ◼   ► And the reality is if you had things that were preventing you from polishing and developing

00:28:38 ◼   ► at that depth, you would probably need to take care of those in the same way that yeah,

00:28:42 ◼   ► I need to make sure that there's nothing that's holding me back from being creative and

00:28:48 ◼   ► prolific because that's the thing that I'm specifically good at.

00:28:52 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:28:53 ◼   ► And a lot of people don't have the introspection to even be able to know what that is.

00:29:00 ◼   ► Because you do, and I think you nailed it for both of us there, I think because you

00:29:03 ◼   ► do, you can be more effective.

00:29:08 ◼   ► That's part of the reason why you've succeeded is because you identified like oh, this is

00:29:11 ◼   ► a thing I can do and you exercise that pattern and you keep doing it and you just keep developing

00:29:16 ◼   ► how well you can do that.

00:29:18 ◼   ► And it's very important to know that about yourself, as you said.

00:29:22 ◼   ► - And then you just need to find a friend who knows you better than yourself who can

00:29:28 ◼   ► tell you about it.

00:29:29 ◼   ► - I really benefit a lot from those people in my life as well.

00:29:33 ◼   ► Of which you are one, so thank you.

00:29:35 ◼   ► - Well thank you, this has been a very helpful 30 minutes.

00:29:38 ◼   ► I really appreciate it.

00:29:39 ◼   ► - Awesome.

00:29:40 ◼   ► Thanks for listening everybody, we'll talk to you in two weeks.

00:29:42 ◼   ► - Bye.

00:29:43 ◼   ► [ Silence ]