Building In Public
As an indie dev or creator, how much time do you spend making, vs talking about what you’re making?
Okay, if you’re an indie developer or a creator and that’s your side business —I know, super specific, but that’s who I’m writing for— how much time do you spend making vs talking about what you’re making?
Don’t tell me, just write down a split on a piece of paper or something. 50-50? 80-20? 35-65?
Now think about the last product, service, or feature that you launched. How did that go?
For me, talking about what I’m making has had two interesting effects.
Per for iPhone
Per is the easiest, fastest way to compare price while you shop. It makes shopping decisions easy with its built-in unit converter and calculator, quickly showing you how much you’re getting for your money.
First, it drums up some interest. That’s probably expected; when I launched Thought Detox, I talked about it ahead of time. I shared an interview I had with Anil Dash about digital self-care tools on his Function podcast, featuring the original web version of the app. I emailed the press, and got a launch announcement in iMore, a tech blog focusing on the Apple ecosystem. I launched on Product Hunt to over a hundred upvotes.
Each of these directly impacted sales.
But the second effect of talking about what I was making was that it keeps me moving forward towards shipping. It’s become fun to share designs or little code snippets, whereas it used to be terrifying. Talking about estimated launch dates keeps me on track because I feel accountable to those kind folks that are cheering me on.
I’m still not great about sharing on social as I go, but I’m trying harder with Cheqin, my upcoming personal finance app. It’s barely even a fully formed idea (I’m writing up a high-level product brief this week), but I’m working on building a bit of a brand personality (creator and creation each have positive vibes, but behind the scenes take entertaining little pot shots at each other).
I need to do more of this as I make progress on the app. I’m checking out Buffer as a way to schedule out posts, and I’m looking into ways to build some interest on Reddit.
I’ll report back on how it’s going in a future article!