Developing Perspective

00:00:00 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Developing Perspective. Developing Perspective is a podcast discussing

00:00:04 ◼   ► news of note in iOS development, Apple, and the like. I'm your host, David Smith. I'm

00:00:09 ◼   ► an independent iOS developer based in Herner, Virginia. This is show number 69. Today is

00:00:13 ◼   ► Tuesday, July 31st. Developing Perspective is never longer than 15 minutes. So let's

00:00:18 ◼   ► get started. First, I have kind of a fun announcement that I'm, you know, it's been something I've

00:00:24 ◼   ► been working on for a little while and I'm finally able to kind of share now that it's

00:00:27 ◼   ► finally actually coming together, which is probably a good minor dime, side note, is

00:00:32 ◼   ► one of those things that something I've learned as I've started to do more of things publicly

00:00:37 ◼   ► is never promise something until you're very confident you're going to actually be able

00:00:40 ◼   ► to deliver it in a public format. I think this is something I remember, I think

00:00:45 ◼   ► Merlin Mann coined the phrase "expectational debt," and it's a very, very true statement

00:00:50 ◼   ► and a very dangerous thing where you create expectations amongst your audience, your customers,

00:00:55 ◼   ► whatever the context is relevant to you,

00:00:59 ◼   ► and they have this expectation.

00:01:00 ◼   ► And all of a sudden, you have to carry this debt around.

00:01:02 ◼   ► And if you don't meet those expectations

00:01:05 ◼   ► that you've created on yourself, it

00:01:08 ◼   ► has a very negative connotation with your user base.

00:01:11 ◼   ► And what you end up really doing is diminishing the excitement

00:01:15 ◼   ► that your users or customers will

00:01:17 ◼   ► feel when you announce something.

00:01:19 ◼   ► They're like, oh, he's going to do that?

00:01:21 ◼   ► Well, maybe he will.

00:01:22 ◼   ► Maybe he won't.

00:01:23 ◼   ► I'm not really sure.

00:01:25 ◼   ► And so it kind of loses some of that bite.

00:01:27 ◼   ► But I'm excited that I can actually

00:01:29 ◼   ► announce it today because everything

00:01:30 ◼   ► seems to be all up in line.

00:01:32 ◼   ► The first episode should probably be posted tomorrow.

00:01:36 ◼   ► It'll definitely be out this week, just a question

00:01:38 ◼   ► of how long editing takes.

00:01:39 ◼   ► And what I'm excited to announce is a new kind of-- almost

00:01:43 ◼   ► like a sister show to Developing Perspective,

00:01:46 ◼   ► though at least for now I'm just going to be interjecting it

00:01:49 ◼   ► directly into the Developing Perspective feed.

00:01:51 ◼   ► And it's something that I've actually heard a lot of you

00:01:53 ◼   ► ask for.

00:01:54 ◼   ► It's something that I think many people are going to like.

00:01:57 ◼   ► And it extends a little bit what I do here,

00:02:01 ◼   ► and hopefully makes it a bit more interesting,

00:02:03 ◼   ► is I'm going to be starting a series of interviews

00:02:07 ◼   ► with developers who make iOS apps for a living.

00:02:11 ◼   ► And those interviews just talking

00:02:13 ◼   ► both about who they are and what they do,

00:02:17 ◼   ► how they go about their work in terms of what's their workflow,

00:02:21 ◼   ► what's their setup, those kinds of questions.

00:02:23 ◼   ► And then kind of just what are the lessons they've learned to kind of hopefully broaden

00:02:27 ◼   ► it a little bit from just me telling you all the things that I've done wrong, all the mistakes

00:02:32 ◼   ► that I've made, and how those have impacted me.

00:02:36 ◼   ► I can hopefully expand that a little bit and be like, you know, here's an interview with

00:02:40 ◼   ► a couple of other people who have also made mistakes, and here's the things you can learn

00:02:45 ◼   ► from, or here's some ways in which they've succeeded, in which they've really had some

00:02:49 ◼   ► some great success, and you can hopefully learn from that

00:02:51 ◼   ► and replicate it yourself.

00:02:53 ◼   ► So the first one of those, like I said,

00:02:55 ◼   ► will probably be going out this week, just depending

00:02:56 ◼   ► on how the editing goes.

00:02:58 ◼   ► One, of course, side note to that

00:02:59 ◼   ► is it will not be the usual 15-minute format.

00:03:02 ◼   ► Just doing an interview with somebody just doesn't quite

00:03:04 ◼   ► work in the same way to be able to keep it two 15 minutes.

00:03:07 ◼   ► Exactly the length, I'm not entirely sure yet.

00:03:10 ◼   ► But it'll be a little bit longer.

00:03:12 ◼   ► I'll always be very clear at the beginning of the episode

00:03:14 ◼   ► whether it's one of these slightly longer form episodes

00:03:17 ◼   ► or whether it's a traditional 15-minute episode.

00:03:19 ◼   ► So it should be fairly straightforward for you

00:03:21 ◼   ► to keep track of that.

00:03:23 ◼   ► There are going to be-- introduced into the stream

00:03:26 ◼   ► in a semi-random way.

00:03:27 ◼   ► It's not necessarily, at least to start with, something

00:03:29 ◼   ► that I'll be doing on an absolutely regular schedule.

00:03:32 ◼   ► So in that sense, it won't be quite as predictable.

00:03:35 ◼   ► But I'll always let you know, hey, the working title right

00:03:39 ◼   ► now is Developed Perspectives, which may be a little corny,

00:03:43 ◼   ► but we'll see if that sticks.

00:03:45 ◼   ► And so I'll always let you know if it's

00:03:47 ◼   ► going to be one of those.

00:03:48 ◼   ► And if you're in a situation where you just

00:03:50 ◼   ► want to listen to one of the 15 minute episodes,

00:03:52 ◼   ► or that's all you like, and you're not

00:03:53 ◼   ► going to like these by all means, just skip them.

00:03:55 ◼   ► Wait for the next episode to come out,

00:03:57 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:03:59 ◼   ► If it becomes a big thing and people really

00:04:01 ◼   ► don't like them being in the same feed,

00:04:02 ◼   ► I can certainly make a separate feed for it.

00:04:04 ◼   ► But as it's getting off the ground,

00:04:05 ◼   ► that seems the best way to get some response,

00:04:08 ◼   ► get some feedback on how it is.

00:04:10 ◼   ► So anyway, just something to look forward to.

00:04:11 ◼   ► I said the first one should be coming out this week.

00:04:14 ◼   ► And anyway, so I'm going to move on to the actual topic

00:04:17 ◼   ► for today's show.

00:04:19 ◼   ► And it's kind of a funny one, but it's

00:04:20 ◼   ► something that I've been thinking about for a while.

00:04:22 ◼   ► And this seems just as good a time as any to discuss it.

00:04:26 ◼   ► And that is the concept of talking about money.

00:04:32 ◼   ► And talking about money always seems kind of a funny thing,

00:04:35 ◼   ► because you get these very--

00:04:38 ◼   ► most people tend to fall into two categories

00:04:40 ◼   ► with talking about money.

00:04:42 ◼   ► By that I mean like sharing your revenue numbers,

00:04:44 ◼   ► sharing how popular your service is, those types of things.

00:04:47 ◼   ► And some people do it all the time.

00:04:51 ◼   ► And some people are very, very protective about it.

00:04:55 ◼   ► And I'm going to walk through a little bit of where

00:04:57 ◼   ► I fall on this and my policy and the rationale for that.

00:05:02 ◼   ► So generally speaking, I share things about my business

00:05:06 ◼   ► that I feel like are useful and helpful to other developers,

00:05:10 ◼   ► but are not necessarily directly obvious what the revenue

00:05:14 ◼   ► associated with those items is.

00:05:16 ◼   ► And so a classic example of this is I may share, for example,

00:05:19 ◼   ► the download number for my apps.

00:05:20 ◼   ► So since I've been a developer, my apps

00:05:24 ◼   ► have been downloaded about 6 million times,

00:05:27 ◼   ► which is a true statement.

00:05:28 ◼   ► But saying that isn't particularly

00:05:31 ◼   ► correlated to my revenue, because the majority

00:05:33 ◼   ► of those downloads are free from my free audiobooks app

00:05:36 ◼   ► and other things that I've done that are free.

00:05:38 ◼   ► as it is not a direct respect correlation between revenue

00:05:43 ◼   ► i feel comfortable sharing that

00:05:44 ◼   ► in a sense of it it's a good way to perhaps established reputation it's a

00:05:48 ◼   ► good way to perhaps establish

00:05:51 ◼   ► uh... that you know that i am

00:05:53 ◼   ► talking with some experience with some success

00:05:56 ◼   ► uh... you guys be dangerous about that because you know when it comes come off

00:05:59 ◼   ► too much sort of sounding i don't know sort of like the classics like being

00:06:03 ◼   ► condescending or braggart or

00:06:06 ◼   ► those times of those types of things but you know it's fine that we're balance

00:06:09 ◼   ► and maybe i should you say things like that maybe it's

00:06:13 ◼   ► to too far on that

00:06:14 ◼   ► the tricky question uh...

00:06:16 ◼   ► but definitely never share things that are directly related to money

00:06:20 ◼   ► and correct

00:06:20 ◼   ► the reason i say that i'd for me that it i do that

00:06:24 ◼   ► is there's just out there's there's just something magical about money

00:06:29 ◼   ► at least say

00:06:31 ◼   ► you know person acts

00:06:32 ◼   ► makes why not have money

00:06:34 ◼   ► people are far more likely to almost create these immediate snap judgments in

00:06:38 ◼   ► their mind

00:06:39 ◼   ► either

00:06:40 ◼   ► oh my goodness they don't deserve that

00:06:42 ◼   ► or

00:06:43 ◼   ► oh my goodness that's awesome for them i wish i was

00:06:46 ◼   ► i wish i was like them or huh that's more than i made or

00:06:49 ◼   ► not as much as i thought that the making

00:06:52 ◼   ► and it's this very sort of snap

00:06:54 ◼   ► judgment i think that a lot of it's because it's something that everybody

00:06:57 ◼   ► can relate to very tangible way

00:07:01 ◼   ► almost everybody in amila

00:07:03 ◼   ► uh... you sort of had other you know they have a salary

00:07:07 ◼   ► or an understand and have a concept of what a salary is

00:07:10 ◼   ► and so it's very easy to make a direct comparison

00:07:13 ◼   ► from their application from their experience in their career and that you

00:07:16 ◼   ► know their experience to someone else's so you can very easily be like com i

00:07:20 ◼   ► make more than he does or home

00:07:22 ◼   ► i was i made a scene as much as they do

00:07:24 ◼   ► and it's really weird situation and it feels

00:07:28 ◼   ► just kinda weird whenever you start to getting into that

00:07:30 ◼   ► i've heard some people say that they don't share that kind of information

00:07:33 ◼   ► for because they don't want to if they want to have a better position if they

00:07:36 ◼   ► were ever going to be acquired they ever were going to be

00:07:42 ◼   ► it's just sort of have that kind of a buyout situation arise it's good to kind

00:07:45 ◼   ► of have a few

00:07:46 ◼   ► uh... cards close to the best that in the same way as i was saying i think

00:07:49 ◼   ► you can share your user numbers or you can share

00:07:52 ◼   ► download numbers and

00:07:54 ◼   ► you know it allows you to have these sort of proxies

00:07:57 ◼   ► that aren't directly revenue because ultimately revenue

00:08:00 ◼   ► is where the rubber meets the road.

00:08:03 ◼   ► Another reason why sharing things like revenue numbers

00:08:06 ◼   ► isn't particularly helpful is that it is not

00:08:11 ◼   ► directly related to income.

00:08:13 ◼   ► And by that I mean, obviously, your revenue is interesting,

00:08:16 ◼   ► how much money you've made.

00:08:17 ◼   ► But really the reality is how much money

00:08:19 ◼   ► you profit is the only number that is actually significant.

00:08:23 ◼   ► And the classic example for where this can get funny

00:08:26 ◼   ► is a lot of people tend to look at a revenue number

00:08:29 ◼   ► ignore the fact that they are costs associated generating nieces all the

00:08:33 ◼   ► time i think for sites that

00:08:36 ◼   ► published a for example advertising rates

00:08:38 ◼   ► if you take their advertising rate you multiply it by

00:08:41 ◼   ► you know it's like site makes whatever

00:08:43 ◼   ► you two thousand dollars a month in revenue

00:08:46 ◼   ► well in the twenty four thousand dollars a year and you can be like how they make

00:08:49 ◼   ► twenty four thousand dollars a year

00:08:51 ◼   ► that's almost always the and the markets are the mental progression some will

00:08:54 ◼   ► take

00:08:55 ◼   ► They just multiply it out and they make $24,000 a year.

00:08:59 ◼   ► But the reality is they really don't.

00:09:00 ◼   ► They have expenses associated with that,

00:09:03 ◼   ► both hard costs in terms of things like bandwidth,

00:09:05 ◼   ► hosting, all those types of things.

00:09:07 ◼   ► They may have some soft costs in terms

00:09:09 ◼   ► that you can even look at it as their time or opportunity

00:09:12 ◼   ► costs or all kinds of things that are associated with it

00:09:15 ◼   ► that devalue that in terms of what it actually means to them.

00:09:20 ◼   ► And so putting an actual price on something like that

00:09:23 ◼   ► is just always kind of

00:09:25 ◼   ► funny because people tend to latch onto the big number

00:09:28 ◼   ► and ignore what that actually may mean in reality

00:09:31 ◼   ► another part of this is also in terms of just

00:09:35 ◼   ► i was just a little bit of a background thing

00:09:37 ◼   ► there's something funny about it's like i was certainly growing up just like you

00:09:40 ◼   ► just never talk about money

00:09:42 ◼   ► and from whether that's a good thing or not as a as a kid growing up or

00:09:47 ◼   ► or in a marriage or those types of situations is something i want to get

00:09:50 ◼   ► into

00:09:50 ◼   ► but it's something that

00:09:52 ◼   ► there's always kind of a rudeness, at least that I perceive, in talking about money.

00:09:57 ◼   ► And especially when someone asks about how much money someone else is making.

00:10:02 ◼   ► So this is a classic thing where every now and then you'll see it when an app is successful.

00:10:08 ◼   ► And you'll watch an interview with the developers, where this is more typically in a more mainstream

00:10:13 ◼   ► news outlet. And you'll get these very strange, you'll get these kind of awkward questions

00:10:19 ◼   ► where the interview was like, so how much have you made since your app hit number one?

00:10:24 ◼   ► And you kind of get this awkward like, you know, we've done quite well. We're really

00:10:31 ◼   ► pleased with sales and it's great to be rewarded for our efforts.

00:10:34 ◼   ► You're like, oh, but what does that mean in terms of income for you?

00:10:37 ◼   ► It's like, you know, it's good. We're really happy with the way the revenue's gone. You

00:10:41 ◼   ► have these weird like dancing around things. So they'll be like, so can you give us a ballpark?

00:10:45 ◼   ► You know, you're making six figures, seven figures.

00:10:48 ◼   ► What are we looking at here?

00:10:49 ◼   ► And it just feels like nebbie and nosy in a way

00:10:53 ◼   ► that talking about the more abstract concepts

00:10:58 ◼   ► for the success of an app don't feel that way, at least to me,

00:11:01 ◼   ► that it feels less sort of prying and personal

00:11:05 ◼   ► to talk about metrics rather than things like revenue.

00:11:09 ◼   ► And so that's kind of the way I work.

00:11:11 ◼   ► The interesting thing, of course,

00:11:12 ◼   ► is that if you're a careful listener to this podcast

00:11:16 ◼   ► and a careful reader of my blog, you can likely piece together

00:11:19 ◼   ► a fairly good understanding of how much money I make.

00:11:24 ◼   ► In terms of if you piece together

00:11:25 ◼   ► all the hundreds of bits of sort of on their own,

00:11:29 ◼   ► not particularly clear pieces of information

00:11:31 ◼   ► and put them all in one place, you could probably work that out.

00:11:35 ◼   ► But I guess that's just something that's just

00:11:37 ◼   ► the nature of sharing information about yourself

00:11:39 ◼   ► and that you're kind of putting that out there.

00:11:41 ◼   ► the goals not put that out there in a way that is kind of like in a headline

00:11:44 ◼   ► way that

00:11:45 ◼   ► you know if someone wants to do that reverse analysis kind of like uh...

00:11:48 ◼   ► like a horse did you kind of a type person who can sit there

00:11:51 ◼   ► crunch all the numbers and come back you know backfill things like that great

00:11:55 ◼   ► more power to you

00:11:56 ◼   ► but in general it's just something that

00:11:59 ◼   ► i don't think i'll ever share

00:12:00 ◼   ► uh... and that's probably for the best i think it's just it's a fairly

00:12:04 ◼   ► it's a more polite with thing to do i think it's a more appropriate thing to

00:12:07 ◼   ► do

00:12:08 ◼   ► And I don't know necessarily why I thought it warranted an episode.

00:12:12 ◼   ► But it's something that comes up all the time, I feel like,

00:12:15 ◼   ► in our community, where you have these situations where

00:12:20 ◼   ► people ask that question and have to kind of dance around it.

00:12:24 ◼   ► And so I guess if you're a news writer and you're

00:12:26 ◼   ► sort of in the news or the media or the press,

00:12:29 ◼   ► I would certainly encourage you just to not ask those questions.

00:12:32 ◼   ► You can ask-- the best example would be like, instead of doing that,

00:12:35 ◼   ► why don't you ask the question like so?

00:12:37 ◼   ► It's like, how has your app been received?

00:12:41 ◼   ► Leave a nice open question that the developer

00:12:43 ◼   ► can answer in a way that is still interesting, probably,

00:12:45 ◼   ► to your audience, but is not kind of painting them

00:12:48 ◼   ► into this awkward corner where they have to then dance

00:12:50 ◼   ► around you asking them how much money is in your wallet, which

00:12:54 ◼   ► is just kind of rude.

00:12:55 ◼   ► And then as a developer, I would encourage most people to just

00:12:57 ◼   ► not really share it.

00:12:59 ◼   ► I mean, you're in one of these funny things

00:13:01 ◼   ► where a lot of people share dollars for failures

00:13:03 ◼   ► but not for success.

00:13:05 ◼   ► And other than speaking in vague generalities of like, oh, man,

00:13:11 ◼   ► I launched an app to the App Store,

00:13:12 ◼   ► and I barely can make enough money for a beer a week in it.

00:13:17 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:13:18 ◼   ► But generally speaking, I just stay away from it.

00:13:20 ◼   ► It just seems like this really strange third rail

00:13:22 ◼   ► that people create these very quick snap judgments based on.

00:13:26 ◼   ► That's just best to avoid.

00:13:28 ◼   ► So that's just a recommendation.

00:13:29 ◼   ► That's just the way I handle that and talk about it.

00:13:32 ◼   ► But everyone to each their own.

00:13:35 ◼   ► And I know for me, certainly it is sometimes nice.

00:13:38 ◼   ► There's that voyeuristic tendency

00:13:40 ◼   ► that when I see some developer who hit it big and posted,

00:13:44 ◼   ► like, oh, this is how much money I made in a week,

00:13:46 ◼   ► there's definitely this voyeuristic part of me

00:13:48 ◼   ► that's like, ooh, I get to peek under the covers

00:13:51 ◼   ► and see what's in their wallet.

00:13:52 ◼   ► But I always also, at the same time,

00:13:55 ◼   ► feel kind of dirty doing that.

00:13:56 ◼   ► And so in some ways, I wish that those opportunities didn't

00:14:00 ◼   ► present themselves.

00:14:01 ◼   ► Alright, that's it for today's show. As always, if you have questions, comments, concerns,

00:14:06 ◼   ► hit me on Twitter. I'm @_DavidSmith. The Twitter feed for the show is @deafperspective, where

00:14:11 ◼   ► I just post whenever new episodes are launched. And otherwise, I hope you have a good week,

00:14:15 ◼   ► happy coding, and I will talk to you on Thursday. Bye.

00:14:18 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]