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. My main goal is to work full time on my own apps, once my freelance projects end.
I have a few ongoing 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 have 2 freelance clients. Client A, I’ve had for several years and is an ongoing project at an hourly rate. We’re scheduled to finish the project by the end of Q2 this year.
Client B is new where I’ve been trying a productized service model. I charge a flat amount per month. I planned on subcontracting the development work, but I’ve now gone through three people who haven’t been able to work on the project due to various reasons, so I’m thinking this may change and instead I’d work on it myself.
The upside of this is that I keep all the profit, as opposed to making a margin, but the downside is that now I need to manage my time better, and allocate more time for this project.
Overall these projects have still taken a majority of my time this month. Which doesn’t help me towards my indie goals, but both of these are scheduled to wrap up at the end of Q2.
I love working with both of these clients too, so this isn’t really a bad thing, just a part of the process. (Which is that I need to work on my time management skills).
Travel
I started traveling this month, and living my best digital nomad life. This means I had to balance travel, crappy WiFi, and working while resisting the urge to go snowboarding every day.
Throughout the month I moved to three different locations. I try to be a travel minimalist; living out of a single carry-on and backpack. (And a snowboard bag)
DM me if you want more posts about my travels, outside of these retrospectives.
Traveling was super fun and exciting, but it makes it very difficult to have any routine and manage my time.
Fruitful
My indie app Fruitful had some progress, but only a little.
I started a Sign in with Apple tutorial for Vapor. This is going to be an iOS app, communicating to a Vapor backend. It’ll use Sign in With Apple as the only authentication. I started reading through this tutorial by Kodeco, but it was written before async await was adopted. Typically I code along with the stater project, but because the code is slightly outdated, I’m going to read through the tutorial, and then look at the final project, and finally then convert it to async await. This tutorial was the first thing I wanted to start with because I haven’t fully decided how I want the screens to look and how the app should flow.
For now I’m only talking about the technologies in Fruitful, but once I build a little more, I’ll be announcing the whole idea and writing about it more in-depth.
I don’t want someone to make the app quicker than I can; that would make me sad. The likelihood is low, but it’s happened to me before.
To be the first to hear about Fruitful sign up at https://getfruitful.app
Time Management / Focus
This month again has been sporadic, and it makes me feel like these retros aren’t really about my apps (because I haven’t had much time for them yet). I hope it’s still helpful to see my journey and struggles.
DM me on any social media if you want me to talk about something specific in my retros. I’m hoping April is going to be the month where I finish Fruitful and actually start talking about it.
Lessons Learned
I need to have a plan each month, about what I want to accomplish or at the least have a weekly plan.
I don’t have too many interruptions throughout the month, because I’m mostly just working on my own (outside of client work). I think the thing that is slowing me down, is partially procrastination and feeling like I need to make the “perfect” app to start, and adjusting to travel and work at the same time.
Nothing needs to be perfect, and I need to keep repeating this to myself.
With traveling to difference places constantly, it’s very difficult to make any kind of routine. In times where I “don’t get enough done,” I need to remind myself that I’m also traveling chaotically and that is by choice. Constant travel is a lot of work too, but that’s also a more personal goal so naturally it’s going to affect my work.
Goals for Next Month
Make the UI Flow for Fruitful
While I did start with a Vapor tutorial, after some reflection, I need to actually think about how I want this app to work and then think about the backend. Otherwise, I get caught into too much of an engineering mindset. Where I worry about the tech behind the app, as opposed to the user experience.
This is the only goal because I only have about 7 to 10 days in March that I have dedicated to work, due to personal travel plans.
See ya in the next one! đź‘‹Â