00:00:00 ◼ ► Welcome to Under the Radar, a show about independent iOS app development. I'm Marco Arment.
00:00:05 ◼ ► And I'm David Smith. Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.
00:00:09 ◼ ► So today we're going to start talking about constraints, and sort of especially self-imposed
00:00:16 ◼ ► constraints. And in some ways this is just like the follow-on to what I just said, where
00:00:29 ◼ ► a podcast called Dithering, which is limited to 15 minutes, sort of no more, no less. And
00:00:35 ◼ ► it reminded me, obviously, of our show, of Under the Radar, and in many ways even moreover of
00:00:42 ◼ ► my previous show, To Under the Radar, which was called Developing Perspective, which is a show
00:00:46 ◼ ► I did for about four years before Under the Radar. And it was never longer than 15 minutes,
00:00:51 ◼ ► so let's get started. And it's one of those things that I've found that limit. Every podcast
00:01:00 ◼ ► I've ever done, other than a few one-off interview shows or things like that, there's always been a
00:01:06 ◼ ► limit. And I'm just used to it now. In my mind, when I'm podcasting, there's always a hard limit.
00:01:10 ◼ ► But it is certainly abnormal in some ways for podcasts, and it is not something that is typical.
00:01:17 ◼ ► But I think the reason why I got started with Developing Perspective with a 15-minute limit,
00:01:21 ◼ ► I think, is instructive just in general for creative endeavors and things that you want
00:01:27 ◼ ► to start and things that you want to make. Because what I've found—and this applies just generally—is
00:01:32 ◼ ► that having constraints of any kind usually increases the quality of the output that you
00:01:39 ◼ ► end up with. And obviously you can constrain for many different things, but in the case of
00:01:45 ◼ ► podcasts, some of the easiest things to do is to constrain the length and to say, "I'm going to
00:01:49 ◼ ► limit myself to Developing Perspective is 15 minutes, Under the Radar is 30 minutes." And it
00:01:56 ◼ ► gives you this tremendous focusing tool and this ability to... There's this hard thing that you
00:02:04 ◼ ► have in your mind that you have to work around. And the process of working around it and getting
00:02:08 ◼ ► good at working around it makes you better. It makes you a better podcast, a better app maker,
00:02:14 ◼ ► better artist, whatever it might be, because that constraint is a useful thing. But I'm curious,
00:02:20 ◼ ► before I get into that too much, Marc, because you were actually—I've never listened to Developing
00:02:23 ◼ ► Perspective as a listener, but I know you did. And I'm curious if you remember your first experience
00:02:29 ◼ ► with that limit and what that meant to you or how that resonated with you when you first came across
00:02:40 ◼ ► that style. I think you hooked me pretty fast. I realized this show is interesting and I want more
00:02:44 ◼ ► of it. But before a listener reaches that point, before you've hooked somebody, before they've
00:02:50 ◼ ► decided they like you and they want to listen to more of you, having a constraint like that,
00:02:55 ◼ ► I think, helps people get in the door more. Because as a podcast listener for a very long
00:03:00 ◼ ► time, way before I made my own app, I had the same problems that many people have, which is
00:03:06 ◼ ► most podcast enthusiasts have more podcasts to listen to than they have time to listen to them.
00:03:13 ◼ ► And many tech shows, especially—because tech shows are what I know, so this is kind of the
00:03:18 ◼ ► role I know—many tech shows are done in kind of a loose conversational manner. That's how
00:03:24 ◼ ► almost everything I do is done. And what that does usually is expand to fill lots of time,
00:03:34 ◼ ► about stuff and want to talk a lot. And so a typical episode of ATP is about two hours long.
00:03:52 ◼ ► if it's going to be an hour and a half or two hours a week, I know that realistically I'm
00:03:57 ◼ ► probably not going to get to that. Because I already have so many long shows I listen to,
00:04:02 ◼ ► I'm probably not going to have enough podcast listening time to add another hour and a half
00:04:06 ◼ ► long show. And that's a very common sentiment among podcast listeners. When something new is
00:04:09 ◼ ► presented to them, it's like, "Well, do I really want to add another hour commitment a week,
00:04:13 ◼ ► basically, of listening? Do I have enough time for that?" And so when you say right up front,
00:04:24 ◼ ► "15 minutes is short." Even 30 minutes is fairly short, but 15 is obviously even more so, right?
00:04:36 ◼ ► I think, encourages people that, "You know what? No, you probably do have time for this.
00:04:49 ◼ ► you can take a risk on us because you know that it's not that big of a time commitment for you."
00:04:55 ◼ ► And a second part of this as a podcast is, like, people often fall behind on podcasts. They might
00:05:01 ◼ ► accumulate multiple episodes that they haven't had time to get to, given, you know, maybe they're on,
00:05:07 ◼ ► maybe it's like winter vacation and they're home all day or they're stuck in their houses during a
00:05:11 ◼ ► month-long quarantine and they don't have a community anymore. Episodes build up for shows
00:05:15 ◼ ► in various times for people. And when each of those episodes that's built up is an hour and a
00:05:21 ◼ ► half long, you're just going to start deleting them. Or you're going to say you're going to get
00:05:25 ◼ ► to them someday and you never will and you'll feel bad and you'll have this podcast debt that you
00:05:30 ◼ ► feel guilty about that you're not getting to. If each of those episodes that has stacked up is only
00:05:35 ◼ ► 15 or 30 minutes long, you know you can plow through them a lot faster. And so you're more
00:05:39 ◼ ► likely then to not feel bad about it and to be able to get through all of them on a long walk or,
00:05:44 ◼ ► you know, while doing your dishes or something, you can plow through a couple here and there.
00:05:49 ◼ ► And that's another thing, short episodes enable people to listen to a complete episode in more
00:05:55 ◼ ► contexts. So like, you know, if you only have 10 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever, if you have like
00:06:02 ◼ ► a short commute or if you have a short task you're doing, you can get through an entire one of those
00:06:06 ◼ ► episodes probably. Whereas you can get through maybe like half of a topic on a tech show, right?
00:06:15 ◼ ► that also is something you want where like you don't wanna like be constantly chopping up what
00:06:19 ◼ ► you're listening to. You wanna like have a complete thing and then be done with it and then you can
00:06:23 ◼ ► move on to, you know, your next thing. And so having a shorter show improves all of those things.
00:06:28 ◼ ► And it isn't what everybody wants. A lot of people, you know, you leave them wanting more and they
00:06:33 ◼ ► want more. Maybe they have time. Maybe they listen to podcasts all day as they work and they burn
00:06:38 ◼ ► through lots of them. But that's probably not most of the audience. Most of the audience has a time
00:06:42 ◼ ► constraint of how much they can listen to per week. And if you're not adding much to that,
00:06:46 ◼ ► that'll help get way more people into the door and it'll help you retain people over time.
00:06:51 ◼ ► - Yeah, and I can say from my experience, like as a maker of only time-constrained podcasts,
00:06:57 ◼ ► like I hear, this is something that I hear very often on the audience side is that, yeah,
00:07:03 ◼ ► like there's something helpful. And I think in some ways there's a sense of it is sort of
00:07:10 ◼ ► intrinsically trying to be respectful of the listener. And I think that as a listener often
00:07:15 ◼ ► you get the feeling that they feel that. That it's the intention of the show becomes about being,
00:07:22 ◼ ► you know, sort of respectful of their time and sort of constraining it such that not that
00:07:27 ◼ ► necessarily like a two-hour tech show has a lot of filler, like, but it has less focus and less
00:07:33 ◼ ► sort of deliverance in it or deliverance is not a word, but deliberation, I guess. It's less
00:07:38 ◼ ► deliberate in this potentially in what it does, or it has maybe it has more banter or it has more
00:07:43 ◼ ► silly sidetracks and sort of little digressions down the side, which are lovely and are part of
00:07:48 ◼ ► what makes the show the show, but are in some ways are less, you know, that they're a trickier thing
00:07:55 ◼ ► in terms of what that actually means for the audience. That if the audience is, if you try,
00:07:58 ◼ ► if you have an idea you want to communicate and you want to communicate it clearly and you have
00:08:03 ◼ ► a time constraint, that will help you to be respectful of your audience's time and really help
00:08:08 ◼ ► sort of communicate that in a sort of a concise, like intentional way that is perhaps rather than
00:08:15 ◼ ► more rather than the kind of more meandering one or approach where you may like you have the benefit
00:08:20 ◼ ► of getting all of the individual's thinking and you might hear them like, you know, give a couple
00:08:25 ◼ ► of different versions of their idea and that helps you increase the richness of that communication,
00:08:31 ◼ ► perhaps, but it's different if you only have 15 minutes to say it, like you really got to
00:08:35 ◼ ► think about it and speak more clearly and help it kind of this is helpful thing. And I think as an
00:08:40 ◼ ► audience person, like that was something that I always would hear is that like they liked that,
00:08:45 ◼ ► that, you know, developing respect for under the radar. There's a sort of, there's this very,
00:08:49 ◼ ► it's respectful of the audience in a way that just honors their time and isn't assuming that I am,
00:08:54 ◼ ► I've, I haven't necessarily, I haven't earned more than 15 minutes of your time, or I haven't earned
00:08:59 ◼ ► more than 30 minutes of your time. And it's easier for me to kind of make my, make sure that I'm
00:09:03 ◼ ► worth it. If all I'm asking for is 15 or 20 minutes rather than, you know, two hours. Yeah,
00:09:12 ◼ ► Oh yeah. And like, you know, my mode of speaking, the way I talk on this show is totally different
00:09:18 ◼ ► than the way I talk on ATP. That because I'm, I'm always aware of the time. I'm always looking,
00:09:23 ◼ ► I'm always keeping an eye on, on that clock in the corner of my screen to see like, all right,
00:09:26 ◼ ► how far are we? And, and I know roughly where we are in the show. I know that right now we're
00:09:32 ◼ ► at about nine and a half minutes. And so, you know, we're going to do the sponsor break somewhere
00:09:35 ◼ ► around 15 minutes. So right now, kind of like two thirds of the way through like the, the initial
00:09:40 ◼ ► pre-sponsor break topic. And I know I have to keep a certain pace to get out my thoughts. And then I
00:09:45 ◼ ► also am very conscious about what I'm talking a lot, making sure I leave enough time for you
00:09:50 ◼ ► to get your thoughts in. So I have to like pull back and stop at a certain point so that I leave
00:09:55 ◼ ► enough time for you. And all of this is totally different than how I do ATP. It's, there's,
00:10:00 ◼ ► there's none of that in ATP because there's no, there's no time constraint on ATP. I can just,
00:10:04 ◼ ► I can talk forever and then John can talk forever and then Casey can talk forever and it's fine.
00:10:12 ◼ ► and it's not to say necessarily that I'm saying that like, this is the best way to do podcasts
00:10:15 ◼ ► and everyone should do it. It's, but it's, I think there is a powerful thing in it. When you put this
00:10:19 ◼ ► constraint on you. And I think too, so that's like on the audience side, but I will say too,
00:10:23 ◼ ► on the creator side, like it is a powerful tool to constrain the length or constrain the content
00:10:29 ◼ ► or the format or whatever you're going to kind of, you constrain a lot of different things.
00:10:32 ◼ ► I think the most powerfully, what that means is that it helps you to start and to feel confident
00:10:39 ◼ ► about actually starting the project. Like developing perspective was 15 minutes because
00:10:45 ◼ ► I wanted to have a podcast. Like at the time I was this big, like I listened to podcasts
00:10:48 ◼ ► constantly. Like I love podcasts, but I never had one. And I was like, I don't know what to do. Do
00:10:56 ◼ ► the sort of the negative, like self doubt things that I had in my mind. And what I ended up on was,
00:11:02 ◼ ► it's like, well, if it's only 15 minutes, like I can say, like, I can speak for 15 minutes about
00:11:07 ◼ ► a topic and I don't feel like I'm going to be waffling. I don't feel like I'm going to be
00:11:12 ◼ ► kind of, I don't have time for digressions or for sort of issues like that. And it was something
00:11:18 ◼ ► that I felt like from a time commitment perspective, I could do that. I wasn't like taking
00:11:22 ◼ ► on two hours a week of work. I was taking on 15 minutes of work a week, which is way less,
00:11:28 ◼ ► way easier. And I mean, the same thing when you and I sort of took on Under the Radar. It's like,
00:11:32 ◼ ► okay, this is twice as long, but it's still only half an hour of recording. It's much less of a
00:11:38 ◼ ► commitment of time and energy and effort. And I think it really helps to both to get started.
00:11:42 ◼ ► And then probably moreover is once the kind of initial excitement phase of starting a new
00:11:48 ◼ ► project kind of wears off, it's like, how likely are you to continue it and sustain it going
00:11:54 ◼ ► forward? And by making it constrained in format or length, it's much easier for us to keep doing this
00:11:59 ◼ ► because it's not a huge investment of our time. And when life gets complicated or our projects
00:12:04 ◼ ► get complicated or whatever is happening in our life, it might be tricky if we were trying to find
00:12:10 ◼ ► two hours to record together, that can get complicated. But if we're just trying to find
00:12:13 ◼ ► half an hour, I can always find half an hour in my schedule. And so it's much easier to do that.
00:12:20 ◼ ► And so from a creator perspective, I think having those constraints to the length of a show has been
00:12:25 ◼ ► really helpful there. And I will say too, it don't feel like too if you ever were starting something
00:12:30 ◼ ► that has a length constraint, that you are forever bound by it in a way that is completely immovable.
00:12:45 ◼ ► and those didn't have the time constraint. And if we ever did an interview on this show,
00:12:49 ◼ ► I know Craig Federici just did a great interview with Federico Vittucci on App Stories. And it's
00:12:56 ◼ ► like, whoever got one of those, if we ever get a call from Apple and they say, "Hey, we want to do
00:13:00 ◼ ► an interview on your show," it might not be 30 minutes long. And the feedback I always got was
00:13:05 ◼ ► like, "That's fine." As long as you respect the core, that's a different show. The people who are
00:13:11 ◼ ► interested in your actual show, your normal show, are probably going to be interested in that. So
00:13:15 ◼ ► don't feel like you are forever bound by those rules. But having those rules is so helpful for
00:13:29 ◼ ► if you need to, or if it's best for the show. My wife does a podcast called Somehow I Manage,
00:13:34 ◼ ► which is a podcast about the TV show The Office. And initially, it's a rewatch show, so one episode
00:13:41 ◼ ► per episode of The Office. And initially, they wanted to keep the podcast the same length or
00:13:47 ◼ ► shorter as the episodes, which are like 22 minutes long. And it turns out 22 minutes is really tight
00:13:53 ◼ ► for two people discussing the ins and outs of a TV episode. And so they tried it as a constraint,
00:13:59 ◼ ► but it just wasn't good for the format. It wasn't good for the content. And so they expanded it a
00:14:03 ◼ ► little bit. They went to like 30 or 35 or 45 minutes, and it's fine. So like the constraints,
00:14:08 ◼ ► you don't have to stick with them forever if they don't work. It's like my whole thing with the
00:14:12 ◼ ► magazine not having a setting screen. I'm not going to have a setting screen. And it turns out
00:14:15 ◼ ► that was a terrible idea, and I needed one, and it was better. So you can start with constraints,
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00:16:05 ◼ ► Michael: So I think what you just said, though, about the magazine is a really useful kind of
00:16:11 ◼ ► like transition point for us, though. Like talking so right, moving on a little bit from talking
00:16:15 ◼ ► about podcasts and to turning this into a bit more about apps. Like there are so many things that you
00:16:24 ◼ ► And I think many of them have the same benefits that constraining the length of a podcast
00:16:29 ◼ ► has. And like your example there of constraining yourself to say that you're not going to have a
00:16:35 ◼ ► setting screen. Like while ultimately, like down the road, that ended up not being necessarily the
00:16:40 ◼ ► right thing for the app, I imagine in the creation of it, it's a very useful tool because it means
00:16:47 ◼ ► that you forced yourself to think like, "How can I structure this so that it doesn't need one?
00:16:51 ◼ ► So that how can I anticipate what choices my user would want and design around that?" Or prevent you
00:16:58 ◼ ► potentially from going down lots of rabbit holes and giving all these kind of like these bifurcations
00:17:03 ◼ ► you can have in your design where it's like, "Well, what if the user wants it to be this way
00:17:07 ◼ ► and this way?" Then you end up building both. Like by saying to yourself, "I'm only going to
00:17:16 ◼ ► You force yourself to make a bunch of choices that maybe aren't in the long term what you want,
00:17:22 ◼ ► you know, the best thing for the longevity of the app, but almost certainly for the creation of it.
00:17:27 ◼ ► Like I suspect the magazine app as it was, was better for not having a setting screen to start
00:17:33 ◼ ► with. Like I feel like that's the kind of thing where these constraints that you put on yourself
00:17:37 ◼ ► can just be these really helpful tools for focusing your mind and kind of giving you something.
00:17:42 ◼ ► Like in some ways I almost kind of think about it like it's hard to push something if you're not on
00:17:50 ◼ ► a solid, like if you don't have something to push against. Like if you just push on one thing but
00:17:55 ◼ ► you have nothing on the other side of you, like you really can't move it nearly as much as you
00:17:59 ◼ ► can if you can push on both sides. Like you need this anchoring to kind of be working against and
00:18:05 ◼ ► that really helps you to move things in real life. But in some ways, if you don't have any
00:18:10 ◼ ► constraints, if you are just like this free and open thing, then you're up in space and you're
00:18:15 ◼ ► trying to push something. Like that doesn't really work. You have nothing to push against. If you
00:18:18 ◼ ► imagine an astronaut floating in space and he's trying to push something away from him, sort of,
00:18:23 ◼ ► but it doesn't work as well. Like you really need to have something behind you that's a limit that
00:18:28 ◼ ► is like, "Okay, this is somewhere that I'm stuck against and I'm working against and I have this
00:18:34 ◼ ► constraint." And whatever that is, in some ways we have a whole list of things we can talk about, but
00:18:40 ◼ ► you need to have something. You need to have some kind of constraint that you're putting on yourself,
00:18:54 ◼ ► like my thing with the magazine, I didn't want a setting screen. Why? Step up a level. I didn't
00:18:58 ◼ ► want a setting screen because I didn't want it to be too complicated. So even after I gave in on the
00:19:03 ◼ ► setting screen thing, I can still try to achieve the goal, the idea of, "Well, don't make it
00:19:11 ◼ ► complicated." So, okay, I needed to have a setting screen after all. It ended up being more complicated
00:19:16 ◼ ► to try not to have one. But the idea of not making it complicated still guided me in the design of
00:19:23 ◼ ► what I had to do to break that constraint and I still kept it very simple and tried to have
00:19:27 ◼ ► very few options, keep everything very clear, keep it mostly not having options, mostly not
00:19:34 ◼ ► having settings, and just have the bare minimum I can get away with. And the similar thing,
00:19:38 ◼ ► like we were saying with podcasts, if you're constraining your length, what you're really
00:19:41 ◼ ► saying is, "I want to make a tight show. I want it to be concise and fast-paced and dense and
00:19:47 ◼ ► respectful of people's time." You can still do that as your guiding principle, even if you have
00:19:53 ◼ ► to change or break your stated time constraint or your time goal. And so the same thing with apps.
00:19:58 ◼ ► Like, if you constrain yourself and you say, "Okay, this is not going to be an app that I slowly work
00:20:05 ◼ ► on as a labor of love that I'm going to pour my entire soul into for six years before anybody
00:20:10 ◼ ► sees it. Instead, I'm going to make a small, simple app. I'm going to do it fairly quickly.
00:20:17 ◼ ► I'm not going to tackle any big, hairy features. I'm just going to make it small and tight and
00:20:23 ◼ ► not a big commitment, not a big investment." That is a very useful guiding goal, and that applies
00:20:29 ◼ ► to so many things. That can apply mostly to your timeline. If you say, "I want to make an app in
00:20:35 ◼ ► the next month. One month from now, I want it to be in the store." So what does that mean? So,
00:20:40 ◼ ► "This week I have to do this. This week I have to be here. This week I have to have reached this goal,"
00:20:45 ◼ ► et cetera. And even that can be a very useful constraint, even if it's a little bit broad or
00:20:57 ◼ ► I think timeline is probably the most powerful constraint for a new project. Having a deadline
00:21:03 ◼ ► focuses the mind and helps you be ruthless in a good way of deciding, "Should I do this feature?
00:21:21 ◼ ► Because there is no one outside of me, there's no external force who's telling me that you have to
00:21:26 ◼ ► ship by this day. That's why in all of my apps, I tend to have this point where I literally will
00:21:32 ◼ ► take a big piece of paper and I write, "No more new features," and then I draw a really terrible
00:21:37 ◼ ► crude picture of a ship, and I stick it to my iMac and I say, "I'm done." I've had to do this with
00:21:44 ◼ ► Calzones, I did this with WatchSmith, and I'll stick it to my computer, and then from that point
00:21:49 ◼ ► on, I'm done. I've hit my time limit, and all I can do is work on screenshots and description and
00:21:57 ◼ ► last bit of testing and stuff like that, but I'm done with features. But I have to impose that on
00:22:02 ◼ ► myself. I have to give myself the constraint and then hold myself accountable to it, because
00:22:07 ◼ ► otherwise it's so natural and easy to be like, "Oh, the app would be better if I did this. Oh,
00:22:11 ◼ ► the app would be better if I did that." But not having any constraint there, you'll just keep
00:22:16 ◼ ► meandering around forever and you'll never actually get anywhere. You very quickly hit a
00:22:21 ◼ ► point that you're getting diminishing returns on the viability of the app, or you're inventing the
00:22:28 ◼ ► features that you think people will want, but in reality, people might not want at all. They might
00:22:33 ◼ ► want something completely different, and you're building this app for this imaginary person who
00:22:36 ◼ ► doesn't exist. Some of the things, though, that you can also think of with constraints. I was trying
00:22:41 ◼ ► to think of what are some of the timeline. So timeline is the biggest one that I can think of.
00:22:50 ◼ ► And so maybe this is to start with, the app only is on the iPhone or is only on the iPad or the Mac
00:22:57 ◼ ► or the watch or whatever it is. You can constrain the number of platforms that you go to, because
00:23:09 ◼ ► now address with, in theory, the same code. And that's a very, the same code has the biggest
00:23:20 ◼ ► There's a lot of asterisk footnotes, those double daggers. There's tremendous caveats around that,
00:23:26 ◼ ► because in theory, you could address the Mac, the iPhone, iPad, tvOS, and the watch, all with
00:23:41 ◼ ► And what you're doing, and while ultimately that might be the case, constraining the number of
00:23:46 ◼ ► platforms you address at the beginning is probably a useful, helpful thing. Because if you launch on
00:23:53 ◼ ► one platform and it's successful, there's almost certainly going to be a desire for it to go to
00:23:58 ◼ ► those other platforms. And then there's a reason for it to go to those other platforms, because
00:24:01 ◼ ► other people have asked for it and your customers want it, rather than just doing this work without
00:24:06 ◼ ► necessarily even knowing that it's going to get there. And another thing you can constrain is the
00:24:10 ◼ ► feature set. You can just say, "These are the features I'm going to start with," which is very
00:24:15 ◼ ► loosely related to timeline. Those two things tend to work in opposition to each other. But
00:24:20 ◼ ► for some people, I could imagine that just the features, thinking of something as a feature
00:24:29 ◼ ► as much control over, like if this is a nights and weekend project, and the time it takes to get
00:24:34 ◼ ► it done is very variable based on your day job and your life more generally, but saying, "I'm only
00:24:40 ◼ ► going to ship with this set of features," that could be a useful constraint you put on yourself.
00:24:53 ◼ ► uses. You can sometimes even just as simple as you could say, "Is this for a professional use,
00:24:59 ◼ ► or is this for a more casual use?" Like when I made a calendar app, you could make that focused
00:25:05 ◼ ► on one or the other, and the features and the direction you take will be different. And if you
00:25:10 ◼ ► try and do both, it's going to be difficult, both from a time perspective and a design perspective.
00:25:16 ◼ ► You could also constrain the languages and the locales that you support. So this is like,
00:25:20 ◼ ► "Do you support localization? How much are you testing right-to-left languages?" and all these
00:25:25 ◼ ► things, which may or may not be important for you and your app, and based on the audience question
00:25:33 ◼ ► And then the last one that came to mind to me was you can constrain the design approach you're
00:25:39 ◼ ► taking to an application. Are you trying to just ship something that looks like native iOS or
00:25:46 ◼ ► native watchOS or whatever that platform might be, or are you trying to do something completely
00:25:51 ◼ ► custom and totally new? They both have value, and they're both useful in different ways,
00:25:57 ◼ ► but if you can constrain that and you say, "I'm not going to subclass UI button in this app,"
00:26:09 ◼ ► you would build things. Or you're never going to subclass UI table view cell, or whatever it is.
00:26:14 ◼ ► You can give yourself a constraint that might be useful to say that you're going to keep it as
00:26:19 ◼ ► simple as possible, to start with at least. Yeah, that kind of thing. The design and UI stuff,
00:26:32 ◼ ► massive cost sink? Anyway, whatever the term is that everyone else who's listening is screaming
00:26:40 ◼ ► at me that I can't remember right now. There is so much potential for massive time loss and
00:26:48 ◼ ► just infinite possible investment in UI customization. And also, you mentioned earlier,
00:26:53 ◼ ► a feature set. A lot of it gets down to, do you want your app to have settings or not? Do you want
00:26:58 ◼ ► it to be opinionated and say, "I'm going to make a podcast app that appeals only to people who want
00:27:05 ◼ ► to stream full-time, and only to people who want to listen and organize in this way, and who only
00:27:11 ◼ ► need this feature X, Y, and Z," stuff like that. You can have that kind of constraint. Or you can
00:27:15 ◼ ► say more broadly, "Do I want my app to be broad appeal or narrow appeal? If I'm making a to-do
00:27:27 ◼ ► needs for to-do apps can potentially configure my app to satisfy their needs? Or do I want to
00:27:33 ◼ ► make something that does something one way and appeal to the people who want it done exactly
00:27:37 ◼ ► that way and possibly nobody else?" Certainly, it's a little bit different with apps versus
00:27:42 ◼ ► podcasts and stuff like that, because apps have updates. So one thing you can do that's a useful
00:27:47 ◼ ► thing is start. Get your version one out there, your minimum viable product, whatever you want
00:27:52 ◼ ► to call it. Get your version one out there that is significantly constrained, and then use the
00:28:06 ◼ ► Yeah. I think, too, the underlining lesson that I think hopefully I'm trying to communicate this
00:28:13 ◼ ► episode is the sense that you just need to be thoughtful upfront about what constraints you
00:28:19 ◼ ► have, honest about them, choose which ones make sense for you. And I think being intentional and
00:28:25 ◼ ► conscious about that is where so much of the value comes. It isn't that a 15-minute podcast or an app
00:28:31 ◼ ► without a feature setting screen is intrinsically better. But if it's the thing that you want to
00:28:36 ◼ ► build and you've made a conscious choice that that's what you're going to build and that's what
00:28:40 ◼ ► you're aiming at, that's where the power comes from. That's where you get this extra speed boost
00:28:47 ◼ ► that lets you be more effective, make a better product, make a better show. Whatever it might be
00:28:52 ◼ ► is because it was a choice that you had and that you're holding yourself to and it guides you along
00:28:57 ◼ ► when you inevitably bump into the things on the side of the path that is always going to happen
00:29:06 ◼ ► Yeah, and it also helps you avoid the things that you might do speculatively, thinking that you will
00:29:12 ◼ ► need to do them. A lot of them you don't need to, right? And so by not even doing a lot of them at
00:29:18 ◼ ► first and just kind of testing the waters without doing a lot of the optional stuff, you'll find out
00:29:23 ◼ ► just from feedback and stuff, you'll find out like which of those should I actually do and which of