If you expect “Yet another iPhone developer made a fortune selling farting app” kind of story, you will be disappointed. Read on if you want something different. Not that I have anything against farting apps and their developers. I really don’t.
What? When?
Actually this day is both behind me and yet to come. It means I already told my employer that I quit, but for various reasons and obligations my contract ends May 31. Until then, I’ll be finishing various projects and in May I’ll be on leave.
It’s not about money, it’s about sending a message
Did I make a fortune selling on App Store? As for now I don’t even make enough to pay my bills. So why did I quit my day job? Let me tell you my little story here.
I wanted to write software since I was a kid (and that was when ZX Spectrum was the king). I owned SHARP MZ700 (have you even heard of it :) ), Commodore 64, Amiga 1200, PC and a Mac. Eventually I became a software developer in a big corporation and I’ve been working there for almost 9 years.
I always liked tactical and economic games. I spend many hours playing them but at the same time I felt that I should start playing a real game instead. It was really bugging me. So about two years ago I registered my one-person company and developed my first app: weight training assistant for Nokia phones called Treneiro. I needed it, used it, liked it, but I sold only a handful of copies.
Few years ago, mainly for personal reasons, I got interested in personal development, time management and similar topics. So when the iPhone and the App Store came out it was natural for me to develop an app that I needed and then try selling it. That’s how Eternity Time Log was born.
As I mentioned, I haven’t made big money selling Eternity. But the feedback I got from costumers was very, very positive and encouraging. As I write this, there are 14 user reviews from 4 countries for the paid version of Eternity on App Store. 13 of them gave Eternity 5 starts for 5 possible and the one with 4 starts is still titled ?Awesome app? :). I also got many ?Love this app!? emails where people say my small app changed their life for a bit better. And that’s hard to ignore. A big THANK YOU here for all these emails and reviews.
So as Joker said in ?The Dark Knight?: it’s not about money, it’s about sending a message.
The message for you, dear reader, is that I’m committed. If you find my app useful, I’m committed to make it even more so in the future. Otherwise, I’ll be out of business. If you find my story interesting, I’m committed to make it more interesting in the future, following my little dream. If you come back to this blog, you’ll see how it unfolds.
The message for me is that there is no going back. I hope I can grow my business and I hope to grow too, in the process. Being creative, providing value, ?making something people want? as Paul Graham describes it, is too important for me to pass over the small opportunity I have right here, right now. I may fail. I’m just a human after all. We will see.
But the whole universe is in crisis!
Well, ?I don’t have to tell you things are bad?. Mr Howard Beale will do it much better :)
Hard to believe this scene was filmed the year I was born and ?hits it? so well again.
For me, the whole ?crisis thing? is politicians game, but our money, if not more, is at stake. So it obviously impacts me and possibly you too. But in hard times people tend to go for real value instead of casual pleasures and this can be an opportunity.
Going the self-employment route is my answer to the situation. I think I can create more value this way than working for a corporation. Because big corporations are like ogres. Why ogres? Because (if you didn’t know that already) ogres are like onions and onions have layers. Onions have layers – ogres have layers – corporations have layers. And it’s hard to give/get value through them. And yes, all three can make you cry ;).
Because of that I don’t think that cubicle job is a good investment of my time and time has a lot of value to me. I’d like to invest it better and help you in pursuing that goal too. That’s for the start and we will see where I’ll go from there.
So here it is, something ends, something new begins
Is this a bad moment? A bad idea? Will I be able to create enough value? Will money follow it? That remains to be seen. I make some money already, I have some savings. I plan to update this blog once a week until I have more time in May. It will contain stories about Eternity development, my small business development and my personal development. English is not my native language, but I hope it will get better too. If you find any errors in my post, it’s perfectly OK to let me know about them.
Contest
If you’ve read that far, a little contest for you :). What ?Network? and ?The Dark Knight? movies have in common? That question turned out to be too vague. So what’s the link between actors Peter Finch (Howard Beale in ?Network?) and Heath Ledger (the Joker in ?The Dark Knight?)? Besides profession of course ;). The first three readers sending good answers get a free copy of Eternity (via promo code – valid only in US App Store, sorry).