The Decision to Go Indie
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I’ve never been a good time waster. Any gap of free time that’s appeared in my life has inevitably been filled with some side project. Studying Film and TV Production at University is how I ended up spending three years of my life learning UI design, and iOS development.
Those skills were means to an end. What I really like doing is making things, and through some varied experimentation, that’s ended up being iOS apps. So I learnt the necessary design and development skills that would allow me to do that.
But even just being able to develop software for iOS is, it turns out, now a valuable skill in itself. So early last year, I started working remotely for a US startup, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from my home across the pond in England.
I really enjoyed the whole startup experience — working with a team of people to create a product, and taking some extended trips to America along the way. But as time went on, I’d spent more and more of my free time working on my own stuff. It became what really excited me. So a month ago, when the startup met the fate that most startups do, and ran out of funding, I had to decide what I wanted to do next. And really, it seemed like there wasn’t really a choice to be made. I was going indie.
But as I started out, I began to doubt myself: Is this the right decision to make? Am I in a good position to be doing this?
By this point, I’d moved to London, and had started working from Google Campus, a 7-story co-working space, located in an area dubbed “Silicon Roundabout”. And it all came down to the realities of finance. I don’t have the responsibility of a family to look after, but I am living in an expensive city. I’m going to be self-funded, so the more money I spend per month, the less time I have left before it all runs out. I started to guilt myself about some of the novelties of living here, like the fact that I can (and have done) walk to Buckingham Palace from where I live. Given that my business’s life only lasts as long as my funds, is this all just too much?
Then I listened to an episode of Release Notes which addressed revenue distribution on the App Store. About half way through, one of the co-hosts, Joe Cieplinski, says this:
“I just wanted to be making a comfortable living. I know that’s a difficult term because a comfortable living for me, here in New York, is maybe different from a comfortable living in San Francisco, where it’s maybe even more expensive, or Iowa where it’s less expensive. Then some people have 5 kids, and some people have other obligations.”
That really resonated with me. He wasn’t guilt-tripping, and saying you should strive to eliminate all personal expenses, but instead pointing out that different people have different circumstances, and that should just be accepted as the situation.
So I tried to accept it, and to stop guilting myself over imperfections. This indie developer thing is what I want to do, and I have the opportunity to do it, so I should.
And actually, there’s a lot of positives to being here. The city itself is an exciting place to live, and it’s built upon legendary history. And working from Google Campus helps to connect me with the right people — I’ve already learnt a lot from the teams behind a number of active startups, across various stages of life. So in all of those ways, this is the perfect place to be.
My funds, given my current expenditure, will last me another 8 months, which I estimate would be more than enough time for me to try at a couple of things. It’s not overwhelming, and it doesn’t put a pin in my opportunity.
So this is where I am — starting again, entirely on my own. The past few weeks have been spent figuring out all the technicalities of starting a company, working out how to organise myself and set up realistic deadlines, and keep on track to start releasing products. Already I feel like I’ve devoured a lot of new information. As I reach new milestones, and learn to handle whole new sets of challenges, I’ll be returning here to continue telling my story.
