Welcome to my indie dev journey!
Hey, I’m Mikaela 🦄 I’m an independent iOS developer working on making my own apps profitable, and doing some freelance on the side.
Every month, I plan on publishing a journal / retrospective like this one to share how things are going with my business.
The Goal
I’ve quit my job and gone full indie developer, well kinda. I left my job with the goal to be a full time indie developer, meaning that I can make an app and it will be profitable enough to live off the proceeds. I am also still doing some part time freelance work as well, so this cuts into my “full indie time,” but it does make money that allows me to stay independent longer.
I have a few ongoing freelance projects. I won’t mention any of them in depth, and they won’t be the main topic of these posts, but they take up my time throughout the month.
Freelance
I currently have 2 freelance clients. Client A is one that I’ve had for several years and is an ongoing project at an hourly rate. This project is planned to finish up in the end of Q2.
Client B is new, where I’m doing a productized service model, which is a monthly flat fee. Client B I’m subcontracting most of the work, but I still do sync meetings with them, and am working on getting everything up and running this month.
These two clients have taken a majority of my time this month, along with figuring out my own time management / travel.
Organization
The majority of the month I spent organizing and figuring out what I want to focus on throughout the year.
I’ve laid out which apps I want to make and a rough timeline for each of them. I have one “big idea” that I think will take several months to make, and then several smaller ideas that could be accomplished in a weekend.
The big idea is for an app called Fruitful. You can sign up now to be the first to hear about the beta test when it’s available. https://getfruitful.app I didn’t work on this at all in January, but I plan to change that in February. The idea itself I’ll announce once I build a little more of it.
The smaller apps I’ll also announce or do a full build in public like I did with Spatial Effects, and make it like a small sprint.
Spatial Effects
This is the new visionOS app I made this month. The Vision Pro was announced for preorder on January 19, 2024 and then available February 2nd. I started building this app on Sunday January 29, and finished it Thursday February 1. It was approved by the App Store in the afternoon of February 2nd which means I made it for Day 1 of the Vision Pro! 🎉
I made a particle emitter playground. It allows you to see preset particle emitters, and customize different properties of the particle and emitter with live updates in your environment. I called the app Spatial Effects for release. Download Spatial Effects here.
I originally set out to build the whole app in a single day, but of course that was a little ambitious. The entire thread on my social media follows my journey making the app! (It’s the same on all platforms, choose your favorite, Mastodon, Threads, Twitter, Instagram).
I had the basis of the app done in the first day, but refining the particle emitters took another day. In-app purchases took a day, and then finally screenshots and App Store Connect stuff took the last bit.
This app was super fun to make, but in such a short amount of time, was very stressful. At one point I felt like giving up, but I’m glad I didn’t so that I could have an app for Day 1 of the Vision Pro release.
Fruitful
No progress was made on this app, but I’ve already planned the launch day, and because of this, I’m working backwards and planning what I need done at what time.
I already bought https://getfruitful.app which is a signup page to collect emails for when the beta test is announced.
The idea itself isn’t announced yet, but I hope with the progress in February, I’ll be able to announce it!
This is me saying right now, I need (want) to make enough progress to share the idea with you all without feeling like someone is going to swoop in and make the app before I can, because that would make me sad.
The likelihood of that is low, but I have had it happen before. Until I share the full idea, I’ll share the frameworks I’ll be using to make the app, like the Vapor backend.
It’ll be an iOS only app to begin with, and later I’ll optimize it for iPadOS, and hopefully (eventually) macOS. The backend will be a completely custom API written in Vapor.
Lessons Learned
This month felt very chaotic. I would be super productive one day, and accomplish nothing the next.
Making a small list of the things I want to accomplish each day does help, but now I need to stick to that list and not get distracted.
This journey is going to be fun and have its ups and downs, but I’m ready for this wild ride!