Shownotes Transcript
Welcome to under the radar show about independent IOS APP development. I'm mark arment and i'm David smith.
Under the radar is usually not longer than thirty minutes, so let's get started. So if you've listened to under the radar for any amount of time, you probably know that at the end of the episode, very often, the last, like thirty seconds of the episode is us trying to summarize the last thirty minutes of the episode. Kind of a concise way to kind of bring IT all together in a neat bow.
And I was thinking about those recently, and I think ninety nine percent of them will boil down to the phrase be thoughtful, be thought ful about whatever is that words we're discussing that that fundamentally like these. The theme of under the radar is that being thoughtful about the things that you do. And I think being thoughtful has two aspects to IT.
And it's usually around making a decision. And it's like either you're going into a new decision, i'd be thoughtful, be intentional, make your logical choices. And I think on the other side of being fought'st is when you make a decision is looking back at IT and understanding why you made that decision and what was good about IT was not so good and being able to kind of use that to improve yourself and your development in your business and all these things over time.
And the of the theme of today's episode essentially an opportunity that i've recently had to be thankful and introspective looking back at a decision that that I made and sort of trying to understand why I took so long for me to make that decision um and get into the details of IT later. But essentially the decision was for the sort of branching out and not being by myself in my development. I recently hired Stephen hacked to work for reported forming with me to help improve my business.
And this is something that in many ways, with very long time coming. I've been an independent developer for gosh, seventeen years like that, a very long time. I've been doing this largely by myself and certainly in terms of the the actual like the crux part of the business, like i've had helped with various jobs and very as parts of IT.
But it's so Steven is the first time i'm really kind of getting into a different chapter in a different look at that. And I think you there are two aspects of that, that I think looking back at this decision that I think we're holding me back and making IT so that I was difficult. And I think those are the actual interesting parts to talk about here, if you want to, a discussion about the importance of potentially hiring someone in the roles that this is useful for.
We didn't episode a couple ago about roles which I was part of part of this process for me when I was talking through, like what role would I want to tie someone for? But I think more fundamentally, what I ve learned from this experience when i'm thoughtful and tropic tive, is there are two things that we're getting in my way. And in one of them, it's not quite a logical fallacy, but it's ort of in that vain where I was realizing that I was conflicting and combining two different ideas into one idea.
And one of those ideas was vitally important to me. I was vitally important to kind of who I was as person, who I kind of think of myself from an identity perspective. And the other one, turns out, was actually not that important.
And by combining those two things together, I was causing a trouble for myself in the long term. And specifically, what this is mean, like I very deeply value and consider myself an indeed developer like in is sort of what I think of that's my job. I'm an indie developer and that is a big part of my identity.
That is kind of who I am, and i'm very proud of that. And I think that's that the whole this whole show is about us talking about independent development there. The view that is what we do, and that's been very important to me.
And I think for a long time, I value and that, that is something that I think will continue for a very long time. I think that is something very core to who I am in the way that I work and the kind of work that I want to do. And I think for a long time, I was I didn't realize that there were two aspects to that, that I was combining together in my head.
And the first aspect is kind of independent, as in, free, as in like. I have control in the ability to choose my path. I can look at this and decide this is an opportunity I want to do, and I can go forward and do that.
Or if I can see an opportunity, say, no, that doesn't really align with my values, with the way that I want to work with, whatever that is like. I can choose which side of that, though, which of which path i'm going to go down as a business. And I have independence in my ability to choose that. And that was something that I think is vitally important to me. That is the thing fundamentally, that like being in any developer, I think is the most awesome part of this job, like there are some terrible parts of this job that the most awesome, awesome is part of IT is being able to have that choice is being able to not have someone tell you what you need to do or to put you in circumstances where you have to out of compromise yourself for your choices because of your indian environment that you don't have that choice, you don't have that freedom. And like that version of independence is something that I think is very valuable.
But sort of the trap and the thing that I found myself, uh, being stuck in as I also thought of independence as being alone, that sort of that sense of independent from other things, like rather than having dependence on the other people, what are the things and having the sense of independent as in like i'm subsidy just standing on my own and that is an aspect of independence certainly that being you have more freedom to make choices. Um in the first part of that, if I am just by myself because my choices have fewer impacts on other people or other things, they're impacting me in my family, but they are not impacting other people. So I had slightly more freedom.
But I think I was conflicting those two things together and saying that in order to be an indie developer, in order to be truly independent, I needed to be alone. I needed to not have other people who would have integrated into this process. And I think combining those two things together, when one of them, I was so vital to me, meant that for a very long time, I never even really, honestly, was considering whether or not I I could not be alone, whether I could have help, whether I could have people working with me.
And for me, because I was like that, if if I, if I do that, then i'm losing my identity and losing who I am. And that would be problematic. And I think sort of the things that when i've been retroactively tive and thoughtful about this was understanding those are two separate things that are, they are in a relatives, certainly, but they are separate.
And I could say no to you being alone and still be saying yes to the actual part that really valued to me because being alone was not that was not what I signed up for. Not I didn't value the being alone part. I just thought I was was an a vital sentier part.
And I think something that i've sort of the broader lesson there, I think, for me, has been whenever I find myself in a place that there is something that i'm holding valuable that is of changing and guiding my decisions is like make sure that i've boiled that down to the truly essential, vital part of that and not just think that is part of this bigger, broader thing and like, oh, well, this part of IT is extract ably linked to the rest and so I can't get rid of that part like that was the lesson that i've had to learn recently about this was just like, no, make sure that you're really, really off like what actually matters. Don't just assume that everything that goes together, because that has gone together in the past, has to and will necessarily continue to go go together. So I was the first big lesson that sort of that i've learned in here.
And I think the second part of IT that I think is also just has been just as helpful. And this actually related is the sense that accepting help um is not a sign of weakness or fAiling. And I think this applies just generally in life. Um these are that that is just a life lesson that I think we all need to learn that um be exactly accepting help in any area of your life is not a this doesn't mean that you have to failed on your own and that as a result you are now like less of a whatever, less to developed a, less of a businessman, less of to develop you. Whatever that is IT is not a sign of fAiling is in some ways as a reflection on your own maturity and your understanding that in order to be the best version of whatever IT is, you can benefit from other people's experience.
Like there is something just being humble about that and saying as good as I am at some of the parts of what I do, there are people in the world who are Better at them than I am and might benefitting from their expertise, their knowledge, their experience. Doesn't mean that I ve said of failed in some way. Instead, it's just a reflection of if my ultimate goal is to do the best work that I can, to make the best apps, to have the strongest business, whatever that sort of definition of best is going to be.
That is almost certainly going to come as part of expanding the skill set and expertise and experience that is driving towards that. I think something that I was noticing for myself, and I look back at why I took so long for me to try and bring someone to help me with parts of the business that I don't like doing or aren't very strong at. And like in our roll's discussion was one of the things that I wrote down my list of the like sixty four things that I do, and how some of them I was terrible at, but I didn't get help to do them.
And I think in part of IT, I had in the back of my mind the like, oh, no, you can learn to do that job. You can learn to do the thing and you should because if you do, then you will be Better rather than saying it's like no, get help, like have someone else use expert or good and different than you in ways that. Will allow you to be Better and the business to be Better and that that's not a fAiling.
That is just an opportunity for you to grow. Um and so those are the two areas recently that I ve just really start thinking about. Was that sense of it's like making sure that i'm really focused in on what actually matters to me, what is actually the thing that I care about and make sure i'm not attacking on other parts to IT. And then secondary is the understanding of the importance of saying that like taking getting help is Better and is good, rather than being somehow a fAiling or a problem. So in me, or something that I should also try to resist as much as I could.
Yeah, I think IT IT shows quite how powerful the cultural baggage of india, meaning that you are alone. IT shows how strong that is that I took you, in particular, so long to break free of that. Because Normally, if if you'll permit me to fall all over you for minute, one of the greatest things that I get from knowing you and from talking with you is that you are relentlessly analytical and chAllenging of assumptions in ways that a lot of people do not or are are afraid to or wouldn't think of.
And many times throughout the course of being your friend and doing the show, you've ve said something, you've asked a question, or you you've chAllen something that has like, broken my mind, wild open on some issue that I I was just not seeing objectively or was not considering a certain perspective on. I was not considering a certain option for. So this is something mean, I consider one of your greatest strengths is, is that you are able to be very ragged tic and and look at things and asked those questions and analyze and kind of think about or even try things that that a lot of us kind of get stuck in, rotten in and don't try.
And so to have the idea of hiring help for something to have that have even escaped you for this long really shows how powerful that is in like developer culture, especially like around, you know, about this kind of like apple and developer culture that we live in that is such a strong thing. And i'm very, first of all, happy for you that you've found a way to break through that because I think most of us can't. I know I certainly have always had trouble with that.
I have only very rarely hired out certain roles like answering support ticket or something. And I usually eventually back away from IT and take IT on myself. And I also often feel like the thing that i'm bad at, say, making APP store screen shots, making marketing efforts, are things at lec, these things that I I am bad at.
I often would just tell myself, like you're thing I should just get Better at that. Like this is something I need to do for my business and I am bad at IT and I should feel bad about and I I should somehow, you know, get Better at that and and be a different kind of person than I am. yeah.
But I think the one thing to keep in mind is that, like there is no medal, there's no award for having done everything yourself. No one cares. No one is going to commend you for that.
And there's no need police out there who are going to say, hey, you say you were individually hiring this role out there. There's no gain to be had by forcing yourself into a limitation like this. No one else cares about you.
So to some degree, you have to ask, like when you consider yourself india as part of your identity or part of how you kind of sell yourself for the world, who are you performing that for? And to what degree do you need to be some kind of tourist and our idealist in those definitions? And if it's not serving you or your business as well as I could by imposing a certain restriction and I keep in a certain way who who's just for that? What are you do doing that for like there's no award for doing that a certain way.
So and getting back to that, know what india means? I think india is kind of a spectrum. There's like pure indian, the sense that you literally one person does literally everything themselves.
Maybe there's a question like where the money comes from. Like are you corporate funded or you VC funded? Like you can do all these things that yourself is less likely, but you can do all these things yourself.
But like is a question like what ed means, but there's a lot of flex in that definition. You can look at somebody like us. I think we're pretty clearly still indie amazon.
They're pretty clearly not in e. There's a whole bunch in the middle. There's a lot of companies that have like maybe no external funding, maybe no corporate owner, but maybe they have like three or four employees.
Is that an any development shop? Maybe kind of depends on who you ask. Um but then to some degree, what does IT matter? No, I suppose two people are working on something, but they get VC funding.
Is that? And maybe like it's a question margin and people have different definitions, what that means. But again, like I think IT IT is very valuable for us as developers to be able to not get too caught up in the identity politics of what kind of developer you are.
For instance, like know, we say we're in the IOS developers. What if there's a really good reason for us to make an android APP sometime? Should we never do that? Because part our identity is where wireless developers? No, you should do what's right for you and your business in your apps.
That's going to require different things for different apps at different times, and that might change over time. So the less you can get tied up in, this is what I am, this is only what I do, you know, the less you can get up tied up and that the Better for you and your business. Lots of ways in life, as you mentioned, but know not going to be the psychology podcast this episode.
You just in general for your business, it's very, very beneficial for you to not not get too tied up in trying to perform a certain identity for nobody except yourself. We have brought to this episode by century as a developing, you want to solve crashes and performance issues fast before they affect your customers. Not when someone emails, you can complain.
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that what you are saying they were just make me think if I remember reading this thing about, I think, this game developers conference and one of the aspects of that conference was you had to sort of there was an any game section and then there was a non in game section and there was like the definition of which of those sort of sections at the convention way and the definition is, are you a publicly listed company or are you owned by a publicly listed company? And that was the definition, like if if you're not owned by a publicly st company, you are a in india, me develop, you could thousand developers, you could have huge amounts of VC.
Finally, doesn't matter is are you listed somewhere on the stock market? If you are, then you are uh, you you you're not an indicate game, otherwise you are. And and always I have found that so liberating and away where it's like like that's a perfectly value definition and it's like if that's useful for that purpose in that context, like great me know is like for me as I oh well, I have a long way to go before I would cross that line here before my businesses listed on the as dec.
Like I I I don't I don't like they ever do that, but it's like i'm a very far distance um from being there. If I was still be able to you know this set up my APP in the APP side of the conference, if that's the definition and it's when these exact definitions are so they can be so powerful and they can be so useful if they are kind of actually if they if they're serving you like. If you know for me, I think there there have been times in my career wear being in order has been helpful because it's sort of scoped and changed some of the opportunities that I chose to pursue because I didn't want to be i'm not gearing myself up to be purchased by a publicly traded company like that's not my end goal.
If that was, I would have chosen some different paths and done some things in a different way. But like even from that definition of being an india is being staying how to the stock market like there have been choices that I made and it's been useful, but it's also like it's only as so far as is actually helping me because I am like I said, I was finding this. I had had a definition that was too restrictive, that was too focused on the wrong things.
And that was, I think, trying to like it's and it's funy because that makes you feel good to be able to do these things yourself, like it's wonderful to feel competence in a variety of areas like that is absolutely something that I think is is wonderful like that. One of the things about like being being alive, like being able to do learn new skills and to get good at them, like developing. Competence from nothing is super cool, like in in any aspect of my life when ever I ve had the opportunity to you learn a new scale and then feel like I had mastery or at least confidence at IT like that is a good, great feeling.
And I think what's tRicky is like if you're chasing that feeling, you are potentially doing harm to other aspects of your business because of all i'm doing is trying to get good at to ten different things. I am potentially starting to not get as good or not be as of focused in my attention on the parts of my business where I already am an expert, where i've develop spent the last twenty something years as being professional software developer like I have world class expertise that a very specific kind of thing. And that's as cool as IT is for me to learn to make whatever marketing screen shots and feel like I ve ve developed competence and inability and that like that's cool.
But that's not really that's not the business. Like it's going to take me another twenty years to get to kind of like, you know true expertise of that. And in the meantime, all the other aspects of my business are going to be of you falling behind.
And it's like, so that's that attention. And like it's one of those things where it's just important to be to be interested cof about ourselves. So like there's a reason why I valued those skills in me because I didn't enjoy the process of learning them. But just because i'm not you, i'm giving up some parts of what of what being the various roles of the sixty four roles of my business, like giving some of those over to someone else and not focusing my attention on those, that doesn't mean that I won't learn, doesn't mean that I won't grow, doesn't mean that I won't have the opportunity to develop expertise because I love that feeling. That just means there maybe some areas where the process of which I developed that expertise is being a different means and in some way, it's going to come faster.
Like there's definitely of these unna things that i've run into even so far since i've started working with someone is the sense of like it's amazing how quickly you can learn from someone else who knows what they are doing in a particular area because they aren't making every mistake. Like my typical way of learning is to make lots of mistakes, but hopefully only you make them once or twice. And so you're like like running off in the wrong direction.
You bump into something, you turn around and know I am like a room about bouncing around. Try to clean, clean the house. But I just like bashing my head into all the different walls.
It's lovely when you work with someone who has, I guess, bounced their head and into the the walls that you're about to head run into already and they can say, you know when before you get to the world there be like actually maybe this just turn around here and and you let listen listen, basher, head into that in that particular wall and you can just benefit from their experience. It's like, this is not particularly novel concept, but IT was something that I was recently reminded. I was like, oh, I can still learn and I can still grow.
I can still become a Better version of of what who I want to be, but I can do that in a much less painful, painful process by relying on the expertise of other people, rather than feeling like I have to develop all of the scale, like from first principles myself, which is neither thoughts or constructive. And when I say that, that way sounds completely absurd, really, that that's what you were trying to do. But like when I look back at my life, the us, you know, whatever, ten years, that was kind of what I was trying to do.
I was trying to like, develop all the skills for everything from first principles myself just like, yeah, baby, don't do that. Like that's not that's not a wise move. Like learn from other people, find find areas where you can benefit from other people's experience and in doing so, you're not i'm not, you know not less any less of the developer or less of IT a businessin the process by like but hang on, other people benefit like skill like that .
just like wise yeah and and I can see why we get to the point why we fall into this trap so often because as indeed when we start, usually we can't afford to hire other people to do things that we don't want to do. We don't know how to do. We have to do everything ourselves.
Most indian businesses start off like when you're like at home, at night or on the weekends from your full time job. And you have a budget of zero dollars for the thing you're making, and you're going to try to make IT work yourself somehow. And so you you get into the mode of learning everything and doing everything yourself because that's how you start.
But then they could be very difficult to recognize once you've moved past the point where you know what now IT, once the business is succeeding and you're making money, you have to, at some point, start outsource the things that are not your core competencies because it's just a terrible use of your time as you are saying. You look like, do you think mark zuker berg had to learn how to use APP store connect to up at the facebook APP? Like do you think mark OK berg personally makes those screen shots for the facebook APP? Of course not.
It's probably a value of his time. Like do you think tim cook mos es own lawn? Probably not, unless he really likes moving loans for some reason. But even then, it's probably not a great use of his time and energy.
It's it's important to recognize when you as a business owner are kind of wasting time by trying to do something yourself and and are actually costing the business real downside, real opportunity cost by you not working on the thing that usually good at and instead focusing too much on some aspect that could be fairly easily outsource and you can afford to do IT. So there's all sorts of complicity, like how you decide what those things are. But some things are easier than other cities cide.
Like for instance, I used to do my own taxes a long time ago, and once I started know having an india on the side of payroll job, I immediately stop doing that myself. And like, you know this, I don't want to screw anything up and it's getting more complicated now. So i'm gonna ire an account to do my taxes for me.
And IT was the best thing ever did know. I also don't know my own law anymore, because that was also sure not something I enjoyed. You know, there are certain things that, that are easier almost.
But then when you get into indie software business, IT can be tRicky. Like what things do outsource? Like do you outsource again, those marketing needs.
Well, that's marketing is a pretty core thing to an india business. So a lot of people, myself included, I think, would have difficulty outsourcing that. That would be something I don't like.
I think I think I feel less comfortable about that at first. It's something thing I should probably do just for the same reasons you are. But it's something that like I can see why we have such trouble moving on to that. But part of growing up as a person and part of growing up as a business is to be able to recognize those opportunities of like, here's something that I used to tackle myself, and now not only do I not need to tackle IT myself anymore, but I also shouldn't tackle IT myself anymore. You and I think there is .
something to that I can say is from my own experience, I mean, is relatively new into this myself. But over the last few weeks, when this has been something that has been part of my life, that I can say is that you will be surprised as to how beneficial IT can be to the essential part of your work, to focus on the essential part of your work.
And like, what I found is, is this thing of, there is something just peaceful in my mind? Now, knowing that there are certain aspects of what I do, that I think Carrying around in like with me that I don't have to do now, and that allows me more freedom and creativity and excitement about the truly essential parts of what I do that I enjoy, I love. And i'm an expert like coating and doing those kinds of like that, the thought of tackling a big programing job, for example, like a big task that a big feature or something that I want to work on.
It's easier to think about that when I don't have to Carry around these other aspects to me like like this minds like the space in my mind that has been opened by taking these things out of there and giving them to someone else. And that aspect of its like that is just pure it's like this like pure profit, like that is just a wonderful benefit that I don't know if I necessarily appreciated how how much there was a drag on me in the past by having these other little things. And then of them were huge or massive.
And honestly, I would often do less of them that I should have probably because they weren't to prefer activities or things that I really wanted to do. But their weight, like cognitively, was still there. IT was still something that I was Carrying around that if i'm going have to go and check into the hope describe to go, I need to go deal with whatever the writing this marketing description when i'm doing the big update, like, what am I gna put in the what's new?
What am I am going to put into the, like those those tasks were things that almost like I didn't want to finish the future because I knew at the end of the feature i'm gonna to do these things that I don't like doing. Like, but that's not great in this mode of one. Like, you know, like I I don't want to finish because as soon as I finish, I know I have to make screen shots like, no, this, this is a terrible place to be.
This is not like, I should be excited to finish because that that means I can start the next thing. And so like, that is just the purely positive part that I sort of maybe wrapping up around. Thinking of this is like it's easy to get stuck on the um I guess serve them more philosophical or the kind of like the negative feelings around IT potentially or the life of control of these kinds of things. But I can save from experience IT also is tremens benefit to release yourself from those things. And it's like you have this extra speed, this extra freedom.
To pursue things that I don't need to feel like I I just feel more free to to to dive into the they're actual like the coding and the new features and the really sort of like the development part of that, what I do because there are other parts that I now don't have to Carry around with me like I don't know if it's actually awk ful at drew, but I was this vegan collection of this thing about racing. Anything was a racing yachts or something, whether this concept of how they have to be so careful about the smoothness ness of the kill of the bottom, the ship, because any little bit of drag that you is on the bottom of a kill of a ship um can be so problematic in aggregate over time and you won't necessarily know IT until you ve it's like if you sail for a thousand miles and there is actually been like a barneo stuck to the bottom of your ship, it's been slowing you down by a small amount for a long time. I can make a huge difference in aggregate.
And I feel like in some ways that's kind of they have this feeling of like i'm knocking off these little Barnes that aren't massive things. It's not like there's this massive of gaping hole in the bottom. The heel is like, no, it's just a little barnacle. But because it's been there for seventeen years, it's been dragged me down for all that time and like knocking IT off like, oh, wow, that's that's nice.
I'm going faster and Better in the direction and doing the thing that I really am like enjoy doing and that I am excited about in the part of this business that I enjoy, that I continue, hopefully, you to enjoy, and am now able to enjoy more than I did before. So I can encourage anyone to be thoughtful about you. These things like make sure that you understand the essential aspect of what is important to you, be very specific about that, and then, you know, except help, whatever you can, because accepting help is how we get Better.
Wow, this is good stuff. And I just got to be, this is really good stuff about about all the barclays on my ship and in my .
go so body .
I got to do just not come .
off for one at a time. That's all we can do.
Congratulations are knocking off probably a bunch of them all at once with this. And yeah, it's great to hear the story and I really appreciate the perspective. And i'm sure a listeners will too. Thank you, everybody, for listening and will talk to you in two weeks by.