Under the Radar

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

00:00:04 ◼   ► I'm Mark O'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 we're recording this on March 18th, 2020, right in the middle of the COVID-19 coronavirus

00:00:15 ◼   ► epidemic.

00:00:17 ◼   ► And so, and this is, you know, we talked last episode about, we speculated that WVDC would

00:00:23 ◼   ► be canceled.

00:00:25 ◼   ► It has been officially since then.

00:00:28 ◼   ► And we actually don't have much more to say about that this week because we don't actually

00:00:32 ◼   ► have any really new information about what Apple's doing instead.

00:00:36 ◼   ► It's going to be some kind of online-only program.

00:00:38 ◼   ► They made some, you know, some optimistic quotes in their press release about how this

00:00:42 ◼   ► is going to be great.

00:00:43 ◼   ► And it might be, and we'll see.

00:00:44 ◼   ► We'll see what happens there.

00:00:45 ◼   ► But we're not really going to talk about that this week because we don't have any new information

00:00:49 ◼   ► really.

00:00:51 ◼   ► This week we wanted to talk about the ongoing effect of the COVID-19 epidemic and how the

00:00:57 ◼   ► entire world is basically shutting down.

00:01:00 ◼   ► And what that means for us as developers, as, you know, self-employed business people,

00:01:08 ◼   ► how that might affect the market for our apps, how that might affect decisions we make about

00:01:13 ◼   ► launching updates or, you know, maybe holding some stuff back for a little while.

00:01:18 ◼   ► Maybe certain things might be, you know, wise from a PR perspective to just not do for a

00:01:23 ◼   ► while because they might be in poor taste or whatever else.

00:01:27 ◼   ► And just kind of how to deal with this as people.

00:01:31 ◼   ► Because this is something that I don't think, I mean, you know, we're both old enough now.

00:01:38 ◼   ► We remember things like September 11th, certain major natural disasters that have hit.

00:01:45 ◼   ► I've never seen anything like this.

00:01:48 ◼   ► Have you?

00:01:49 ◼   ► No.

00:01:50 ◼   ► I mean, certainly not to this scale where I feel like there's, like the nature of most

00:01:56 ◼   ► natural disasters is that they impact a particular geography, you know, in a way that is probably

00:02:04 ◼   ► more profound than the impact of this in the sense of, you know, when a hurricane comes

00:02:10 ◼   ► through or a tornado or an earthquake, like there's a very localized, very intense effect.

00:02:16 ◼   ► I've never really experienced something like this where it is so pervasive that it's like

00:02:21 ◼   ► it affects everyone all over the world to some degree.

00:02:25 ◼   ► And that, I think, is such a different thing.

00:02:30 ◼   ► And then, I mean, I've certainly never seen a situation like this where, you know, like

00:02:33 ◼   ► all the restaurants are closed and, you know, everyone's sort of instructed to just stay

00:02:38 ◼   ► at home and you sort of do your best.

00:02:41 ◼   ► And you're in this kind of this weird holding pattern where it's unclear for how long it'll

00:02:49 ◼   ► be.

00:02:50 ◼   ► Because I think, too, that the uncertainty of that is definitely something that I feel

00:02:53 ◼   ► like is fairly unprecedented, where, you know, like the more annual sort of things that force

00:03:00 ◼   ► people to stay home, like say, imagine a big blizzard is coming through.

00:03:04 ◼   ► You have a reasonable expectation that like, okay, the blizzard is going to happen on a

00:03:08 ◼   ► Monday, maybe, you know, none of the roads are plowed for a few days, and then, oh, you

00:03:12 ◼   ► know, the major roads are plowed.

00:03:14 ◼   ► And then like, after three or four days, everyone can kind of get out of their house and get

00:03:18 ◼   ► back to, you know, sort of get back to normal life.

00:03:22 ◼   ► And you kind of have that timeline and that expectation in your mind about what this will

00:03:26 ◼   ► look like.

00:03:27 ◼   ► And even for the biggest storms we've had, like there was one year, you know, I live

00:03:31 ◼   ► in the DC area, and we had this one year where we had, I think it was snowmageddon and the

00:03:35 ◼   ► snowpocalypse, whatever the local weather people called it, where we had, you know, these two

00:03:39 ◼   ► big two foot of snow storms in a row.

00:03:41 ◼   ► We're not really very equipped for that.

00:03:43 ◼   ► And so we had this big, like, I think for maybe, maybe for about 10 days, I couldn't

00:03:48 ◼   ► leave my house, just because like the road that I was on was just completely impassable.

00:03:54 ◼   ► And like that was, but it had the, you know, you always have in your mind, it's like,

00:03:57 ◼   ► well, eventually, the snow will melt, and eventually the plows will come.

00:04:02 ◼   ► And once they do, everything will kind of go back to normal.

00:04:04 ◼   ► But what's really weird here is it's like, well, we're kind of all staying home, and

00:04:09 ◼   ► we're all doing our best.

00:04:11 ◼   ► And we have no idea if this is weeks, if this is months, if this is going to be, you know,

00:04:17 ◼   ► the reality going forward for the next year, like, is this going to come in waves where

00:04:22 ◼   ► we come and we, you know, sort of, we have periods like where we're supposed to stay

00:04:26 ◼   ► home where periods were supposed to go out, like that uncertainty is just so unprecedented.

00:04:31 ◼   ► And I think this adds such a dynamic to any kind of decision making you might want to

00:04:36 ◼   ► make right now.

00:04:38 ◼   ► Yeah, I think, you know, we've, we've been lucky in that during our lifetimes, for

00:04:43 ◼   ► the most part, in most places in the world, or at least, you know, places, places that

00:04:47 ◼   ► we have lived, you know, the US and Europe, that we haven't had like major wars, or

00:04:53 ◼   ► major famines or major illnesses.

00:04:55 ◼   ► And so this, you know, really, we've been very fortunate in, you know, when you look

00:05:00 ◼   ► at history, this has been a pretty calm, stable time.

00:05:04 ◼   ► And so when you look at what we have to do now is we have to adapt to some, you know,

00:05:09 ◼   ► temporary but significant instability.

00:05:13 ◼   ► And, you know, we don't, we've never really had to prepare for things like this.

00:05:18 ◼   ► We've never really had to say like, you know what, what if the world just doesn't

00:05:22 ◼   ► really want to be happy or excited about new things or be using new apps for a year?

00:05:28 ◼   ► Like that might happen.

00:05:30 ◼   ► We don't know.

00:05:31 ◼   ► And we've never really had to face that during our careers before.

00:05:36 ◼   ► You know, like I think September 11th is the closest that we've come to something like

00:05:40 ◼   ► that.

00:05:41 ◼   ► But we were, like I was in college, you were too, right?

00:05:44 ◼   ► - I was in high school, or just finished high school, I guess.

00:05:47 ◼   ► - Right, so like we were a little young for it to affect our professional lives.

00:05:51 ◼   ► You know, it certainly affected us personally, but you know, we weren't like operating businesses

00:05:57 ◼   ► at that time and making that kind of decision.

00:05:59 ◼   ► But in the aftermath of that, a lot of product releases were delayed, a lot of like concerts

00:06:07 ◼   ► and sporting events and stuff were canceled or delayed because like nobody was in the

00:06:12 ◼   ► mood to have fun and celebrate, basically.

00:06:14 ◼   ► And I think we're seeing a lot of that now.

00:06:18 ◼   ► Not to the same degree of like, of mourning and sadness.

00:06:23 ◼   ► And I don't think that aspect of this will be anywhere near as strong as it was for September

00:06:28 ◼   ► 11th.

00:06:29 ◼   ► But I think that we have to have some similar concerns and considerations of like, you know,

00:06:35 ◼   ► is this a good time to do frivolous fun things?

00:06:38 ◼   ► Is this a good time to like release a new app or things like that?

00:06:43 ◼   ► Or should we kind of hold off and wait?

00:06:46 ◼   ► And you can kind of make arguments both ways.

00:06:48 ◼   ► You can say, well, you know, this, people need some happiness right now because everyone's

00:06:53 ◼   ► stuck in their houses under, you know, self-quarantine or social distancing policies or things like

00:06:58 ◼   ► that.

00:06:59 ◼   ► You know, we kind of need stuff to make us happy and to give us things to do that we

00:07:04 ◼   ► can do in our house.

00:07:06 ◼   ► On the other hand, you don't want to appear that you're capitalizing on a pretty big worldwide

00:07:12 ◼   ► problem and for many people a tragedy.

00:07:15 ◼   ► You know, so I don't know, what's your thought, what's your thinking on this?

00:07:19 ◼   ► I mean, I think too there's this fundamental question of like, is this something that we

00:07:25 ◼   ► expect to be short-lived or sort of pervasive and ongoing in the long term?

00:07:32 ◼   ► Because the more that it is something that is long term and a sort of just like this

00:07:39 ◼   ► is the reality for months from now, the more I sort of tend towards the like, we just kind

00:07:46 ◼   ► of, we have to kind of keep calm and carry on like at a little bit of it.

00:07:51 ◼   ► We keep moving forward because being on hold for just sort of indefinitely, indefinitely

00:07:57 ◼   ► is just not realistic or not productive necessarily, that it isn't, to your point, it's like, it's

00:08:04 ◼   ► somewhat, it's, while it's certainly, you know, it's a tragic thing for many people,

00:08:07 ◼   ► it is, there is less of that sense of that it's, you know, that doing things other than

00:08:14 ◼   ► just like worrying about this sort of this faceless fear in the world, that, like, I

00:08:20 ◼   ► don't, that's not productive either.

00:08:22 ◼   ► Like being able to move forward, being able to keep doing things, you know, and continuing

00:08:27 ◼   ► to do our jobs is certainly something that I think is like important both in the sense

00:08:33 ◼   ► of establishing a sense of normalcy or about just like not being frozen and being like

00:08:42 ◼   ► stuck.

00:08:43 ◼   ► And like, I find it certainly, it's been a tricky time to feel focused on work and

00:08:49 ◼   ► being motivated and encouraged to do work, but there is certainly a benefit and a positive

00:08:58 ◼   ► impact on doing the things that we do normally, even if like having one area of our life that

00:09:03 ◼   ► is somewhat more normal, or at least somewhat more like in our control, doing things that

00:09:08 ◼   ► we can control.

00:09:11 ◼   ► But like the timing side of it is just so mind bending.

00:09:13 ◼   ► I mean, like, this is crazy for me, because, I mean, I think I've mentioned a few times

00:09:17 ◼   ► on the show, like I am in the late stages of preparing to launch like my next sort of

00:09:23 ◼   ► major app.

00:09:25 ◼   ► My current, like my plan originally was, I think, to launch April 7th, which is in just

00:09:31 ◼   ► the broad, right around three weeks from now, at this point.

00:09:35 ◼   ► And like the app is pretty much there.

00:09:37 ◼   ► Like I'm in the like bug fix and like getting it ready phase.

00:09:43 ◼   ► But it feels really weird to be going into that point with like this strange sense of

00:09:48 ◼   ► like, A, is this a good idea from a business perspective?

00:09:52 ◼   ► Like is anyone going to pay any attention to a new app?

00:09:56 ◼   ► You know, when the news is every, it's like every day there is like level one news in

00:10:02 ◼   ► the news.

00:10:03 ◼   ► There's tremendous distraction.

00:10:05 ◼   ► There's tremendous sort of upheaval and unease.

00:10:09 ◼   ► And so from that perspective, like the marketing side, like, is it good?

00:10:12 ◼   ► I mean, it's like as a recording, Apple just launched a bunch of new products.

00:10:17 ◼   ► And it's going to be in some ways, it's like, it's a funny, I'm sure they've had to deal

00:10:20 ◼   ► with the same question of like, is this, are we going to get any amount of the normal publicity

00:10:25 ◼   ► or marketing attention that we normally would because there's such a high level of distraction.

00:10:29 ◼   ► And then on the business side, like, are people going to be willing to spend, you know, spend

00:10:34 ◼   ► money like, or is it a period where people are going to be much more reluctant to, you

00:10:41 ◼   ► know, serve any non essential purchase is like, it's much more likely to be put off

00:10:46 ◼   ► and delayed.

00:10:48 ◼   ► Just as you would kind of expect and is likely prudent in a period of uncertainty, you know,

00:10:53 ◼   ► is this something where, you know, you want you kind of want to you want to not necessarily

00:10:56 ◼   ► be indulging in confectionary when like, you aren't clear, you know, it's unclear as to

00:11:02 ◼   ► how long you're going to need to do things.

00:11:05 ◼   ► And certainly, I think, you know, the tech industry is probably one of the industries

00:11:09 ◼   ► that is best equipped to weather this financially.

00:11:12 ◼   ► But I mean, I got my heart goes out to all the people who have more service jobs or restaurant

00:11:17 ◼   ► or those types of positions where, like, if people aren't going out, you're just stuck

00:11:23 ◼   ► and your job just disappears until people go out again.

00:11:26 ◼   ► So like, from a business perspective, launching something or being like doing something kind

00:11:31 ◼   ► of like big work feels really weird.

00:11:36 ◼   ► And it's really doubly so because these things take time.

00:11:40 ◼   ► And so you have to kind of predict into the future and be like, well, in April, is it

00:11:44 ◼   ► going to be a totally different world?

00:11:46 ◼   ► Like today, this, you know, we're recording on a Wednesday, like, this Wednesday versus

00:11:50 ◼   ► last Wednesday feels like night and day different, like the whole world has completely turned

00:11:56 ◼   ► itself around in a week.

00:11:59 ◼   ► So like in two weeks, it could have like done a double backflip.

00:12:03 ◼   ► And like, we could be back where we are, it could be incredibly worse, like, who knows,

00:12:06 ◼   ► who knows?

00:12:07 ◼   ► So like trying to plan ahead of that and sort of like do any kind of release planning feels

00:12:11 ◼   ► like completely like impossible.

00:12:14 ◼   ► Yeah, and I think to the degree, the degree of which this affects you is going to vary

00:12:23 ◼   ► greatly based on the types of apps or services that you do.

00:12:29 ◼   ► You know, like I just ran overcast numbers and usually, like, I was fearing this could

00:12:35 ◼   ► be pretty bad for overcast because typically, the usage, my daily usage of like daily active

00:12:42 ◼   ► users, you can clearly see weekends and holidays.

00:12:45 ◼   ► You can very clearly see like a typically a Sunday has something like a 18% drop from

00:12:54 ◼   ► like a Tuesday.

00:12:56 ◼   ► Like the average weekend is, you know, roughly, you know, almost 20% less activity than the

00:13:03 ◼   ► weekdays because so many people listen to podcasts on their way to work or during work

00:13:08 ◼   ► or during their weekday routines and then the weekends they're doing other things or

00:13:12 ◼   ► whatever.

00:13:13 ◼   ► So I was afraid very much this could be really bad for overcast.

00:13:16 ◼   ► But it turns out so far, it's been about a 7% reduction, which is less than I would have

00:13:23 ◼   ► guessed.

00:13:24 ◼   ► Like, so my usage is down about 7% across the board.

00:13:27 ◼   ► But, you know, an average weekend brings it down 18%.

00:13:31 ◼   ► So that's actually, this actually is looking like it's going to be okay for overcast.

00:13:37 ◼   ► But things could be radically different.

00:13:39 ◼   ► You know, it's like, as you said, like, you know, for certain types of businesses, you

00:13:43 ◼   ► know, if you work at a restaurant or in travel or hospitality, this is really, really bad.

00:13:50 ◼   ► And I think globally, like the economic impact of, you know, just quite, if you think about

00:13:56 ◼   ► quite how much of the economy, quite how many jobs are directly related to things like restaurants

00:14:03 ◼   ► and travel and hospitality that are all going to be devastated by this.

00:14:08 ◼   ► That's a bad scene for a lot of people and for the economy.

00:14:11 ◼   ► And I think that is going to affect everyone for a long time.

00:14:16 ◼   ► The economic impact of this is going to be felt for a while.

00:14:18 ◼   ► You know, we've already seen the stock market doing very poorly right now.

00:14:22 ◼   ► And that also, that affects everybody too.

00:14:24 ◼   ► Like, you know, a lot of people who have their retirement savings, you know, tied up in index

00:14:28 ◼   ► funds and stuff like that, like those are all just down right now.

00:14:31 ◼   ► And anytime you have any kind of like global depression or recession, it kind of puts everyone

00:14:36 ◼   ► in a bit of a funk because a lot of people lose a lot of money.

00:14:41 ◼   ► And for a lot of people, that could mean like delaying retirement or, you know, not putting

00:14:45 ◼   ► off non-essential purchases, as you said, you know, stuff like that.

00:14:48 ◼   ► And so, yeah, when you're releasing an app into this, you have to be aware of that.

00:14:52 ◼   ► But fortunately, I think most of us release apps that are less impacted by these kind

00:15:00 ◼   ► of things directly.

00:15:01 ◼   ► You know, obviously this depends on your app.

00:15:03 ◼   ► But because most apps are very low cost or free and supported with ads or something else,

00:15:11 ◼   ► I think we're actually going to be mostly okay on the business side for most types of

00:15:16 ◼   ► apps.

00:15:17 ◼   ► Again, this is all hedging with a lot of mosts and maybes.

00:15:19 ◼   ► But, you know, I think overall app makers will be okay.

00:15:23 ◼   ► It's the rest of the economy that we have to worry about and try to support as best

00:15:26 ◼   ► as we can because it's going to be decimated.

00:15:30 ◼   ► So many industries are going to be destroyed by this.

00:15:33 ◼   ► You know, I guarantee you, like everyone listening, like some restaurant you like is going to

00:15:39 ◼   ► go out of business because of this.

00:15:40 ◼   ► Some people you know are going to really be hurting financially because of this.

00:15:44 ◼   ► Like this is going to impact everybody.

00:15:46 ◼   ► So be mindful of that, be sensitive to that.

00:15:50 ◼   ► But I do think that we are fortunate.

00:15:53 ◼   ► We are very fortunate in a number of ways.

00:15:54 ◼   ► But we are fortunate in that the app business will be mostly okay after this beyond the

00:16:00 ◼   ► impact of just whatever would happen if the stock market went down normally.

00:16:05 ◼   ► So maybe getting a new job, hiring might be a problem.

00:16:09 ◼   ► Advertising is going to become a little bit challenging because typically when budgets

00:16:13 ◼   ► start getting cut, advertising gets cut first because it's considered like a non-essential

00:16:18 ◼   ► expenditure.

00:16:19 ◼   ► So that could affect a lot of us.

00:16:22 ◼   ► But I don't think it's going to be fatal to any of our businesses.

00:16:25 ◼   ► I think it's just going to be like a bit of a down year for most of us.

00:16:28 ◼   ► But we'll be okay.

00:16:29 ◼   ► It's the rest of the economy we have to worry about.

00:16:31 ◼   ► Well, and I think it speaks to in the same way that I think just broadly in the economy.

00:16:36 ◼   ► Like when things get difficult, the more marginal your sort of subsistence is, the far more

00:16:45 ◼   ► vulnerable you are to this kind of a downturn, this kind of a situation.

00:16:49 ◼   ► And I think that applies broadly to the economy that the people for whom they're in a financial

00:16:53 ◼   ► situation that is more marginal, that it's much more month to month that they're sort

00:16:59 ◼   ► of operating in.

00:17:00 ◼   ► Like a downturn like this is really problematic and difficult and dangerous for them.

00:17:05 ◼   ► And in the same way on a business perspective, I got to imagine it's like if your business

00:17:08 ◼   ► is one that can't just sort of absorb a 10 or 15 percent drop in revenue or in usage

00:17:19 ◼   ► or whatever that metric is for you, if that difference in margin sort of puts you in the

00:17:25 ◼   ► red and knocks you out, then this downturn could be fatal and could be problematic in

00:17:31 ◼   ► that way for your business.

00:17:33 ◼   ► I've already seen in my own, so for the apps that I have that use third party advertising,

00:17:39 ◼   ► so I use AdSense for most of this, so essentially Google's big auction-based advertising system

00:17:45 ◼   ► that pulls in from lots and lots of different industries and pulls in lots of things, I've

00:17:49 ◼   ► already seen a 20 to 30 percent drop in the advertising rates that I get in my apps.

00:17:54 ◼   ► Oh, wow.

00:17:55 ◼   ► And this is one of those things that I think that's a just into your point, it's a general

00:18:00 ◼   ► reflection on the constraint of businesses' budgets, that if you are going into a period

00:18:08 ◼   ► of uncertainty or you're having a difficult time, advertising is an easy thing to turn

00:18:15 ◼   ► up and to turn down because it's not that core essential like making payroll or building

00:18:20 ◼   ► your product or whatever it is, expense.

00:18:22 ◼   ► You can just pour money into this thing or take money out of it.

00:18:26 ◼   ► And so I definitely see that, I mean it's the comedy of I usually see the, there's lots

00:18:30 ◼   ► of things that I can see in the data having done this for so many years where my advertising

00:18:35 ◼   ► rates always fall at the end, like the day after the end of a financial quarter.

00:18:40 ◼   ► So there's certain periods where it's just like the next day it drops off and it's because

00:18:45 ◼   ► presumably someone had a budget that they had their quarterly budget and they went in

00:18:50 ◼   ► at the beginning of Q1 and put in their advertising money to spend and it's like spread out over

00:18:54 ◼   ► the quarter and then they'll go and put in their money for the next day but it doesn't

00:19:00 ◼   ► necessarily happen right away.

00:19:01 ◼   ► And I'll see these, the first year it happened it was terrifying where suddenly I had April

00:19:05 ◼   ► 1st and my revenue is down 30% for one day and then it picks itself back up and it's

00:19:11 ◼   ► fine but you can see these weird tendrils of the actual effects in these businesses

00:19:18 ◼   ► who are doing the advertising kind of average out into these things and I'm definitely seeing

00:19:23 ◼   ► that already.

00:19:24 ◼   ► And I'm just anecdotally, I'm hearing from other fellow indie developers that it's definitely

00:19:29 ◼   ► a rough time.

00:19:30 ◼   ► That a lot of this is down, it isn't collapsing at least at this point but it's definitely

00:19:36 ◼   ► like, there's that little part, that top part, the more, hopefully you have a core part of

00:19:46 ◼   ► your business that is stable but there's the nice part, the part that grows or the like

00:19:53 ◼   ► that little, there's this non-core part of your business that can potentially just like

00:19:57 ◼   ► disappear.

00:19:59 ◼   ► And I'm definitely seeing that myself and so it's like I think at this point I'm not

00:20:03 ◼   ► worried in terms of like I think my core business is fine and I've been, it's like the whole

00:20:08 ◼   ► point in many ways, it's like being prudent when you're having the good times so that

00:20:12 ◼   ► when things are not good you're alright but I could definitely see there's gonna be a

00:20:17 ◼   ► lot of small businesses even in our app development world where if they were just making it that

00:20:25 ◼   ► now they're just not making it as a result of these kind of downturns in advertising

00:20:31 ◼   ► or user purchasing or related things.

00:20:34 ◼   ► - Speaking of advertising, there's no good way to make this segue, I'm just gonna go

00:20:38 ◼   ► now for it.

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00:22:13 ◼   ► Our thanks to Linode for hosting all of our stuff and supporting this show and Relay FM.

00:22:19 ◼   ► So I wanted to talk a little bit more about building Slack into the system, I don't mean

00:22:23 ◼   ► the chat tool, I mean like a rope, building Slack into the system.

00:22:30 ◼   ► You mentioned if your margins are super slim then a sudden 20 or 30% drop in revenue could

00:22:37 ◼   ► be fatal for your business.

00:22:39 ◼   ► There's a lot of businesses where this is kind of inevitable, this is just kind of part

00:22:43 ◼   ► of those businesses that their margins just aren't that big.

00:22:47 ◼   ► We are lucky as software developers in that most of our businesses don't work that way.

00:22:51 ◼   ► Most of our businesses are pretty low cost and I think this is one of the great lessons

00:22:57 ◼   ► that I want to leave people with besides, I mean we could do all sorts of things.

00:23:01 ◼   ► We could talk about working from home, we could talk about avoiding the likely depression

00:23:06 ◼   ► that might result from this, the emotional depression that might result from being all

00:23:09 ◼   ► cooped up like this for a long time.

00:23:12 ◼   ► We aren't really experts in that kind of thing and lots of people are talking about working

00:23:15 ◼   ► from home.

00:23:16 ◼   ► So I want to focus on like leaving Slack in your business for the rest of this episode.

00:23:21 ◼   ► This is one of the many times when it pays to have kept your costs low, it pays to develop

00:23:28 ◼   ► skills or to arrange your business in such a way that you have very low overhead because

00:23:34 ◼   ► stuff like this happens.

00:23:35 ◼   ► Ever since the App Store launched, I had Instapaper there on day two or three and I've been in

00:23:43 ◼   ► the App Store with something every day since then.

00:23:48 ◼   ► The entire time I have treated the App Store like this is a fad that could collapse and

00:23:53 ◼   ► go away at any moment.

00:23:57 ◼   ► The entire time I've kept my costs much lower than my income, like as a percentage of the

00:24:02 ◼   ► income.

00:24:03 ◼   ► Even when I've been running a lot of very expensive servers back when they used to cost

00:24:06 ◼   ► money before Linode.

00:24:10 ◼   ► Ever since I've been running servers, usually that's my biggest cost.

00:24:15 ◼   ► I don't hire a staff because that can be a way bigger cost than servers.

00:24:20 ◼   ► So I try not to hire a staff and I use inexpensive infrastructure.

00:24:24 ◼   ► So I don't use AWS for almost anything.

00:24:26 ◼   ► I use S3 for large storage of things like images and uploads and backups, but that's

00:24:34 ◼   ► about it.

00:24:36 ◼   ► And otherwise, I'm using VPSs.

00:24:39 ◼   ► I'm using inexpensive commodity VPSs.

00:24:42 ◼   ► And I've been at Linode for all of Overcast.

00:24:44 ◼   ► Before Overcast, I was doing big servers, but now I don't need those.

00:24:48 ◼   ► Now VPSs are powerful enough.

00:24:50 ◼   ► You can keep your costs really low if you use commodity infrastructure like Linode or

00:24:56 ◼   ► other similar services like DigitalOcean and all these other places that have VPSs.

00:25:00 ◼   ► You can keep your costs really low by doing that.

00:25:04 ◼   ► And if you can do almost all the work yourself, or all the work yourself, you don't really

00:25:09 ◼   ► need a full-time staff.

00:25:10 ◼   ► Or you can just use contract labor for the very, very few.

00:25:14 ◼   ► If you wanted to maybe contract somebody to answer your support emails, but it wasn't

00:25:19 ◼   ► enough for a full-time job, you could do something like that.

00:25:22 ◼   ► And then otherwise, you're doing everything yourself.

00:25:25 ◼   ► There's a huge advantage to that, because if your revenue goes down 30%, but it's just

00:25:30 ◼   ► you, and you've been keeping your overhead low that entire time, not only are you likely

00:25:35 ◼   ► to still be in the black, but even if you're in the red for a couple of months, you've

00:25:41 ◼   ► been building savings, I hope, for that entire time.

00:25:44 ◼   ► And so you can take a couple of months of down months if you know that it's going to

00:25:49 ◼   ► turn around.

00:25:50 ◼   ► Or you can also have ways you can cut your expenses.

00:25:53 ◼   ► If you're on all this commodity hardware, if your usage goes down, chances are your server

00:25:56 ◼   ► needs are going to go down too.

00:25:58 ◼   ► And so you can maybe cut some of those servers out.

00:26:01 ◼   ► There is such an advantage to keeping your costs very, very low and leaving yourself

00:26:04 ◼   ► a big margin.

00:26:05 ◼   ► And this is one of the things that most businesses that rely on a staff can't do that very easily.

00:26:13 ◼   ► But we as independent developers generally can.

00:26:17 ◼   ► And there's never, in the same way that people are looking at the best time to start saving

00:26:24 ◼   ► for retirement is 20 years ago, and the second best time is today, the best time to build

00:26:30 ◼   ► a low margin business and to keep a lot of slack in the system and to build in ways for

00:26:35 ◼   ► you to maybe be able to survive without touching your servers for a week or things like that,

00:26:41 ◼   ► the best time for all that is now.

00:26:44 ◼   ► And I think too, it's the, I mean, honestly, what I like about trying to have a low overhead,

00:26:52 ◼   ► a sort of a, like, when things are going good, a high margin business is it is a lot less

00:26:58 ◼   ► stressful to me that I like that there are just fewer moving parts.

00:27:03 ◼   ► I'm not like I have that that slack is like peace of mind in a lot of ways that it's

00:27:12 ◼   ► lovely, it's what a privileged position to be able to go into my advertising rates dashboard

00:27:18 ◼   ► and be like, "Huh, advertising rates are down 20%."

00:27:21 ◼   ► Oh well, that's unfortunate, but it's not like, "Oh my goodness, that's the end

00:27:26 ◼   ► of the world."

00:27:27 ◼   ► And it's like because my business is structured such that it doesn't need, it's like I'm

00:27:34 ◼   ► not operating at that high level.

00:27:36 ◼   ► And in order to do that, the reality too is you have to be saying no to potential opportunities.

00:27:42 ◼   ► Like, I've definitely been in the, like, you're in the question of like, if I had,

00:27:47 ◼   ► you know, if I, in the periods where you have extra margin, you could take that margin and

00:27:52 ◼   ► you can turn it into like things, you could spend it on advertising and buy search ads,

00:27:57 ◼   ► you could hire more developers and expand out to new platforms, like you can keep spreading

00:28:01 ◼   ► yourself and, you know, reinvent, in some ways you could say like, "Well, you're

00:28:05 ◼   ► reinvesting those resources into your business and that's like helping it grow."

00:28:09 ◼   ► And like, that's all true, but I definitely, I think you and I, I think are very much in

00:28:13 ◼   ► the mindset that like, it's much, there's a tremendous amount of peace of mind of not

00:28:19 ◼   ► pushing your business to its edge on an ongoing basis.

00:28:24 ◼   ► That instead, like, just enjoy that, like if things are going good, like great, enjoy

00:28:28 ◼   ► that, and don't necessarily feel like you have to make them better and better.

00:28:32 ◼   ► Like and this is one of the things that I think I enjoy about, my goal is not to have

00:28:36 ◼   ► just like this massive, you know, like what they call it, a unicorn company or I'm sure

00:28:42 ◼   ► this there's a VC term for like, you know, the business that just like grows massively

00:28:47 ◼   ► and becomes like this, you know, hundreds of millions or billions of dollar business

00:28:50 ◼   ► and it's this whole big, like industry defining thing.

00:28:52 ◼   ► It's like, that's not my goal.

00:28:54 ◼   ► My goal is to do work that I enjoy and, you know, have a comfortable, you know, sort of

00:29:00 ◼   ► standard of living and managing your costs and managing yourself puts you in a position

00:29:05 ◼   ► to have that when things are good and to probably sustain that when things are like they are

00:29:11 ◼   ► right now and aren't so good.

00:29:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, best wishes everybody.

00:29:18 ◼   ► Stay safe, please follow all the, you know, modern recommendations that are up to date

00:29:22 ◼   ► from, you know, various, you know, CDC and WHO and everything, you know, try to stay

00:29:27 ◼   ► at home and try to be safe and try to take care of people around you who need it because

00:29:31 ◼   ► this is gonna put a huge strain, it already is, and it will continue to put a huge strain

00:29:36 ◼   ► on a lot of people's lives and a lot of people's budgets and we are lucky that we are okay.

00:29:41 ◼   ► Take care of the people who aren't.

00:29:42 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:29:43 ◼   ► - Thanks for listening and we'll talk to you in two weeks.

00:29:45 ◼   ► - Bye.

00:29:46 ◼   ► Thank you.