The Mobile Startup: Episode 5: Some thoughts about tech, and work.

Knowing that You're Bad!

I think that if you have never thought of yourself as a bad engineer before, then you are probably a Bad engineer!

Diverse Experiences in Tech as a programmer

Over my 10 last jobs, over the course of 14 years, no two of them were even remotely similar. The amount of variation in terms of field, company size, culture, personalities, skill sets, and process is really high. I think it made me a lot stronger in general. Nothing like going through a few rounds of lay-offs to understand why certain things happen in business.

The Unique Feeling of Visceral Mastery

Experiencing extreme effortless mastery in person doesn't compare to reading about it or watching an internet video. It can really change you forever.

PARTNERING UP: Always beneficial

I found that partnering up brings a lot of value, serving as a constant critical feedback loop and a cross-benefit relationship. If you can't get a real person, use a rubber duck. Its the "Dummy Developer" concept which can also bring you value by pulling value out of yourself. Just dont get caught talking to it out loud about systems design... 😂

THEORY OFF / ON: being Naive on demand!

This bit is about being able to be naive on demand for 30 minutes, and then being theoretical again for 30 minutes. The reason? Promote action and feedback ahead of over-analysis, for the sake of balance and speed. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

DEVELOPER TOOLBOX: Building generic components.

The reason humanity has reached such great levels of scientific advancement is because each person who contributes, does so based on years of proven discoveries made by people before them. So as a developer I'm trying to keep this in mind. In order to keep getting more productive, I want to build on top of previous discoveries that are tried and tested. Those can be others' or my own.

The Mobile Startup: Episode 4 - Obsessed about social media and vlogging

So much new information

I got obsessed about Social Media Marketing, ever since discovering Gary Vaynerchuk and his YouTube shows: Ask Gary Vee and DailyVee.  I bought and read his latest books:  Jab Jab Jab, Right Hook, and "Ask Gary Vee", and I am completely convinced that a social media presence is no longer optional.  "Every company is a media company now" - Gary Vee.  

Basically, there has been a platform shift, where millions of people are now on TV creating content.  And If you are not creating content, then you are out of the game. 

So here we go.  I will just talk about exactly what's on my mind.  And I feel I have a lot to share with the world, based on my experiences with business so far, and after 12 years in the Tech field as an engineer. 

The Mobile Startup: Episode 3 - New Relaxation App into an extremely overcrowded space.

I have just released "Relax Utopia": A new iOS app for relaxation, yoga and meditation, featuring scenic photography, music and nature sounds. There are no ads and no purchases.  You can get the app here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/relax-utopia-sleepy-sound-gallery/id1223240574?mt=8

The plan is:  to get as many users as possible, and get at the core essence of solving a very common consumer problem.   I also believe that while every other competitor is nickel-and-diming everyone on in-app purchases, I can figure out a better way to monetize the whole thing much later on in the cycle.  This app is going to remain free for a long time.  
Most importantly: this app is made on a reusable, generic platform, which can be used to quickly make similar apps in the future.  Currently, the bottleneck is by far marketing and distribution. 

I will mainly be looking for ways to customize it to what the majority of people want most.   Enjoy!

From the iTunes description:
This app is the ultimate nature relaxation experience for the iPad or iPhone. A Lush, Seamless flow of gorgeous landscapes and chill sounds to fill your senses. Everything happens automatically. Just lay back, relax, doze off, or simply leave this on your table, to get lost in Utopia. Use this for your yoga workout or meditation, relax after work, as you are going to sleep, or as an animated picture frame.

FREE for a limited time. Get it while you can. 
No Annoying Ads!
No Purchases! 

Please tell your friends, and tell me what you think about the app: RelaxUtopiaApp@gmail.com

Features:
- Brightness slider allows you to reduce brightness and the blue color in images, to help you sleep easier. 
- Over 30 relaxing, high quality sounds. 
- Over 300 nature images faded into one seamless slideshow. 
- 5 classical piano masterpieces by Frederic Chopin. 
- Save any image to your library.
- Share any image to Facebook.
- Auto mode - scrolls the image slideshow slowly. Images fade into each other in one continuous flow. 
- Animation mode - animates each individual image separately
- All Sounds Mode - Plays 2 random sound effects at a time until cancelled. 
- Collapse and fade out all buttons, so only the nature remains. 
- Control music volume separately from sound effects. 
- Landscape or Portrait modes. 

Creativity, Noise, and Learning how to Learn

Creativity in Business

I think that right now, creativity is the number one trait to have in business. Of course: hard work and hard skills are always going to be important. But creativity is what's gonna allow you to
cut through the noise. And right now, noise is most abundant. And people think of creativity as: painting, art, music, and it is, but it's also pronounced in less obvious ways, such as: thinking of
problems in ways that are not ordinary or not intuitive.

Learning how to Learn and what to search for

Just by elimination, there should always be the best way to buy something, or to do something, or to advertise, etc.  So how do you go about finding the right way to do something?  I think that knowing what to search for has become a very important skill.  And also, defining a process on how you learn. Information has become commoditized. It's free. Wikipedia has something like 4.5 billion pages on it. And skills are getting cheaper too. Because there's sites like ELance, where the competition is very still. So, the more unknowns you can deal with, the higher you would be paid.

The Importance of Social media

I recently started dwelling on how important social media has really become lately.
In the last 5 to 7 years, we got all these new companies: social networks, they are distilling their own versions, their own recipies for how ideas are shared and attention is held. And it's a gradual transition on each of these versions, and because it's gradual, although constant, it can catch you off-guard, like it caught me off-guard.

I've been in the industry since 2005. I've had 10 different technology jobs. But I somehow got blindsighted, and probably my focus was not on it, but I did not stay on top of all the social media. People also have a tendency to maybe stereotype social networks, just like any other medium: just skepticism, like "somebody posting pictures
of their cat. That's all it is". But no: it's a very serious thing. Social media is pretty much the basis of all communication going froward, and that's not going to change.

Essentially there`s been a platform shift. So we got all these people on TV now, because
the phone is the TV. And because of that, that's effectively 100,000 times more
people on TV than before. So the attention of people is the most prized
resource that there is. And because of that, we are seeing things
like Snapchat cutting length down to 10. Twitter cutting length down to 140. And things getting deleted automatically. It's because we are being saturated with noise. So this is gonna be a fun ride. I'm very curious to see where we go next.

Cheers!

Taking Social Media Seriously

The term "Social Media" could be stereotyped by some as "Posting pictures of your cat on Facebook".  But it's so much more than that.  

- Fact: Your business now has a 1 degree of separation from the most influential people in the world.  So the way I see it, if you can make a huge impression and engineer the engagement, then you're in the door.

- Social Media is not just entertainment.  It's the basis of all communication as we know it.  And it's constantly evolving.

- Attention has become the most valued resource, because there are now hundreds of millions of people who can rapidly produce high quality content.  The content to attention ratio is skewing exponentially, further compounded by previously accumulated content.  The amount of web pages (including all forms of media) has got to be in the hundreds of trillions by now (if you include every page that historically got traffic, on every popular website).

- People are improving with their techniques on all social networks.  Therefore, those will always get saturated, and new ones will emerge.

- Because of the point above, i predict that the Long Tail content model is going to suffer from continuous dilution going forward.   The Hot Trend content model will be superior, but is obviously more competitive than ever before, as everyone is jumping on the bandwagon.

- Social media is the best way to get attention: on your brand, on yourself, on your message.   This is because everybody has a phone in their pocket that is tied to every social network effortlessly.  You can now produce videos right on your phone, then throw them onto 10 platforms, all in half an hour.  If your video is truly special, you will reach millions of people.

- We are seeing multiple versions emerge of how communication between people and businesses should work.  And we are just getting started.

- Social media is changing people's habits and lifestyles.  It's disrupting consumer behavior in ways that are hard to analyze.  This is because, each person is a unique snowflake, and the number of use cases is extremely high, to be able to analyze reliably.

The Mobile Startup: Episode 2 - Strategy

The Purpose of Strategy

Let’s discuss business strategy and how it applies to a startup with very little capital. 

I feel that defining a strategy for what I'm doing, and how, makes it easier to keep going in my new startup, because it gives me comfort and a set of boundaries to stay within.  I am currently still working full time, so time is very precious, and eliminating unnecessary scope seems very beneficial, so that I am only focused on the core functionality. 

There are so many unknowns when you’re starting something new.  You will always have more questions than answers.  You may want to do everything at once, and have huge plans, but you’re limited by time and manpower.  This is especially true when you have a full time job.  You really have to learn to be comfortable with uncertainty, and at the same time be ready to invest 2 years or more of hard work, before seeing any kind of traction. 

Since I work a 40 hour work week, i have chosen a highly opinionated strategy where a lot of things are eliminated right off the bat, so they will not distract me from the core of what I want to create and achieve. 

"Doing a startup is like building an airplane while attempting to take off, and at the same time decide where you want to fly to".   - Unknown

"Running a business is like eating glass while standing at the edge of a cliff".  - Elon Musk

My Specific Strategy

My chosen strategy partly involves the following 10 points:

1. Making very simple apps (one page only, or only one optimized, targeted task).  This eliminates any critical mass-based social ideas that require a lot of users to be viable.  So we are talking about simple tools (at least on the surface), or apps that provide simple entertainment or utility.  

2. A strict time limit of a maximum of 80 hours per project, with a preferred of 40 hours.  If the project is exceeding this time frame, that means, we need to cut some features.  The rationale for this is, in completing the project sooner and releasing it, we will gain insights about the market, and prevent unnecessary effort, focusing our ongoing effort in the correct direction. 

3. The Agile manifesto is something I want to strongly abide by.  As many changes as needed to get results, as late in the process as needed.  Collaboration over process.  Working, production quality software at all times. 

http://agilemanifesto.org/

4. Continuously building on top of previous code, coming up with a Library of code that can be used for the future. 

5. Single purpose apps that must do 1 thing extremely well.  Any additional features, would take second priority to getting the key feature right. 

6. Focusing on all my strengths.  I wanted to do something that puts me in the strongest position possible, where I can utilize all of my previous experience and skills for the most part, only gradually learning new things.  I want to be utilizing my strengths 80% of the time, and learning new tech the remaining 20%.     Ask yourself:  "Does Michael Jordan mow his own lawn?" - he's probably highly capable of doing so, but it's not the best use of his time.   I will also only get involved in areas where I have interest in.  Otherwise i wouldn’t enjoy it. 

7. Have at-least one differentiator.  Although i like Long-tail ideas as well, I prefer that every idea has at-least a single differentiating factor that makes it special and unique, even if that differentiator is a limitation.  (Example: Twitter and the 140 character limit.  Snapchat, and the inability to view previous snaps.  These are not the only limitations that define these products, but they're part of it. ). 

8. Periodic zoom-out to re-assess your direction, with at least one other person.  Sometimes I need to pause what I'm doing and reflect on all the things that I have.  I would rank these things, and put together a list of the strongest five.  Then I'd figure out how to use them together.   For me these were (from stronger to weaker): 1. A well versed technology background as well as prior experience implementing new ideas from scratch. 2. Music knowledge and experience (theory and performance).   3. Strong desire to succeed in the tech field in order to have multiple streams of revenue from the global market.  4. Appreciation for great software design, quality, efficiency and code re-use.    5. Numerous hobbies and interests, which can be used as a springboard for many different apps. 

9. A heavy focus on marketing, benchmarking against the top names in the competition.  Seeking out cheap forms of marketing which are not mainstream yet, and thus undervalued and cheap to buy. 

10. The MVP-first approach (Minimal Viable Product).  The first version is always considered a proof of concept, and not a final production grade system.  Which corners to cut is determined on a case by case basis.  I can not, for example, just make a blanket statement that "None of my apps would have a server side component, and be completely only Client Side".  That would be too restrictive.  Most likely, the deadline for each project would dictate the corners which would be cut, combined with the pragmatic assessment of the remaining product's benefits with those corners having been cut. 

What I learned from some of my previous part time projects

- JamCat: Lack of focus on the key feature can result in your app not being adopted, and having poor retention rates.  Adding too many features which are not thought through properly results in users never coming back, because they are not getting the benefit out of your tool. 

http://www.jamcatapp.com/

- Transpose: Even a simple text only app can be useful to people, as long as it solves a real problem.  I myself had a problem that I needed solved when I played in a band.  That was:  to be able to move entire chord progressions with notes in them, with only 1 press.   So definitely other people had this problem too.   This project was a good validation for my line of reasoning at the time.  That is:  You don’t need award winning UI to create real value for people. 

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/song-transpose/id1041703038?mt=8

- Meow Pix: Relaxing Cat Slideshow with Music. The "Relaxation App" is an extremely saturated market.  So far, after 1 week after go-live, the organic traffic from the App store has been non-existant. People are simply not finding the app by it's name and keywords.  I consider the marketing material in the app store to be strong enough, and now focus needs to be put on promotions and creative advertising approaches (preferably free). 

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/meow-pix/id1205087427?mt=8

All 3 projects require significantly more marketing effort and further in-depth analysis to fully understand, and I'm definitely not there yet on all of them.

Next products on the roadmap

- Nature Landscapes.  (Another relaxation app focused on nature and sound effects. A seamless, lush experience where the user just dozes off, and nothing is needed on their part.  This can also be used as an animated picture frame)

- Guitar Chord method.  (I am not impressed with all the Guitar Chord resoures on the app store.  I can make something much cheaper, and much more useful in an 80 hour iteration.  This is next on the list, and it will be exciting). 

- Toddler interactive "Flash Cards".  (Since I have a 2.5 year old who I can use to test my app on, I want to apply any existing tech I have to the Toddler learning use case, after having watched my son play many games, I can see what it is that kids of his age are looking for). 

- Scientific calculators, formulas for various use cases. 

- Product Information in multiple business areas.  This is a long-tail business model. 

These are only some of the areas I'll be getting into.  I hope to have released a total of 10 apps by the end of this year. 

Stay tuned for the next episode where we will get into the more technical details of building an app from scratch, and my general approaches to software development.