Freedom! Now what?
“I quit!”
Ok, it didn’t exactly go down like that, and no, it wasn’t “take this job and shove it” either, but I actually did it. I left a great job that I enjoyed, and now I’m officially self employed. What hell am I thinking!?
There really wasn’t any single trigger - this is something I’ve been wanting to do for years. Decades, even, in a way. There was always something in the way. Insurance. Savings. Debt. Fear. Little by little, we chipped away at those things, paid off our debts, and built up some savings. And to be completely transparent, we had some help along the way - I’m incredibly grateful to have had a series of good paying jobs, and support from friends and family!
I’ve been building my own apps now for six years, starting with a little To-Do app that I built in 1 week, and pushed through the AppStore review process in another week. 7 apps in total, all built in the early mornings (my alarm goes off at 5 AM!), evenings, weekends, and the occasional ‘working vacation day’. Doing this for six years while maintaining a full time job has weighed on me, and while I haven’t been burned out by any means, the limited time that I have to spend on my apps and my business means that I haven’t been able to grow things as much as I’d have liked to.
The last few years, the income has represented around 10% of my salary, which is something I’m quite proud of, but far from being able to sustain us. It is a platform which I think I can grow, however, if given the time and resources. So here we are.
So what now?
Well, for the first few months, I’m going to be spending the majority of my time on growing the business, which means both continuing to build my apps, but also spending far more time on marketing than I have in the past. I will also be preparing for WWDC in the first week of June — I won’t be going to California (I quit my job, after all!), but this will be the first time that I’m able to immerse myself in the event remotely, and that is exciting! But to prepare, I have a few things I need to finish…
The first order of business is to get Signals for HomeKit integrated with AppDivvy, which is a key part of my marketing plan - this will give me more flexibility in how I can sell the Signals Plus and Signals Automate packages, and allow me to create partnerships with Content Creators, with whom I will share the profits of any sales. I have a few interested parties already, and about two weeks of work before things should be ready to start moving forward. The first TestFlight build is currently uploading as I write this! (note while editing - the upload failed. Need to figure that out!)
The second order of business is getting a TestFlight build of Bills to Budget out that includes support for CloudKit Sharing. I started playing around with the Sharing integration of the CloudKit+CoreData feature a few months ago as a distraction, and was surprised to find how easy it was to get started — I was not surprised, however, at all of the fiddly little details you need to worry about to get it shippable! There’s a lot to do here still, but I think getting it into TestFlight-able conditions is doable in a week or two — beyond that, I expect this TestFlight to run for a few months, to fully test it, and to get it in front of some press, and potential AppDivvy partners. This is a feature I’ve been wanting for a looong time, and I’m hoping others will love it (and pay for it), too!
And then what!?
As I said, my apps currently pull in around 10% of my (former) salary, which is great, but does not pay the bills. I’m certainly under no illusion that I will be able to make up that difference in just a few months, so by the end of Summer, I plan to start taking on freelance work. Ideally, I’ll split my time roughly evenly between contract work and building my own products, if possible, but we’ll see what the future brings here. Rates are yet to be determined, but if you, or anyone you know needs some help from someone with ~6 years of independent iOS app development, and over 20 years of Java Enterprise development, I might just be your man!
The goal over time is to grow my own products, while weaning any dependency off of contract work, but I’m currently open to the idea of picking up contract work on occasion for either monetary needs, or to keep some variety in my work - we’ll see where that takes me.
Wish me luck!
So while this isn’t a new journey I’m embarking on, it’s certainly the next step, and is a big change. I plan on doing some occasional writing while I’m at it — hopefully 1 or 2 times per month, but I know I have a tendency to let the gap between blog posts grow, so no commitments! I’ll do that here for now, but we’ll see how that goes.
And in related news, please buy my apps 🤪! You can find info on the sorts of things I’m working on here:
Signals for HomeKit - Communication at Home, without all the shouting!
Bills to Budget - Get your bills and spending budgets under control!
Follow the Sun for HomeKit - Just the right light. Just when you need it.
Bonus! The Bills to Budget Plus Lifetime Package is currently on sale for over 50% off through AppDivvy!
Wish me luck!