> As a side-note, creating external deadlines is also a great way to rally a team
My experience with this is that external deadlines work for teams that are unfocused and whose own motivation is low. However, for a team that is already executing well, an imposition of an external deadline (especially for a reason as poorly-thought-out as "to rally the team"), if it's aggressive enough to see increased throughput, will lead to poor processes, cut corners and burnout.
Perhaps there is an element of rationalization here, where a poor manager, who failed to anticipate at a distance a goal that was then attainable, becomes aware of it once it is closer and in danger of passing by, and has to make huge efforts at re-prioritization and motivation to meet it. In hindsight, the manager rationalizes that the fire drill was a good thing for the company, because obviously, the deadline was achieved! Oh, and look, next week there's a customer coming on-site, wouldn't it be great if this other feature was added in time for that...?
I have not had to build and lead a team yet myself, but the process I would follow, and the advice I would give others, is to choose to work with a focused, motivated team, and reduce the importance given to external deadlines. They should influence the prioritization given to relative projects, but cannot be used to crank the throughput nozzle.
Once you do lead a team, which I'm sure you will do in the future if you're so inclined, It can be a bit harder than you would think! Even a team of all A players can flounder and never produce anything if you're not careful.
For me the thing is that you just have to constantly adapt your plan as things develop. I don't think deadlines are inherently bad. But if you do set deadlines, the team needs to be a part of that process and the goals need to be based on reality rather than just arbitrary. If you have hard external deadlines, then that may dictate the features you can deliver. I find that developers (myself included) appreciate being able to focus on their individual tasks, knowing that the manager is making sure the ship is heading in the right direction.
A-players don't need artificial deadlines because they are already pushing themselves hard to deliver at a solid pace. And if they slow down on something or need to take a more moderate pace for a bit, it is often to manage against their own risk of burnout and once they recover, they are back at it.
Unfortunately, you can run into situation of mixed teams of A-players, B-players and C-players. While the C's should probably be let go, B-players often need deadlines because they are not driving things forward enough on their own (or they would be A-players).
I have not found a good way to solve for this in a manner that doesn't constrain the A-player by the arbitrary deadline as well when they are all working on something together.
Personally, I hate artificial deadlines. I want to do good work and put it out there when it is good enough to go out there (not perfect, just good enough), and not have to rush. Rushing leads to mistakes and overlooking things.
Yes, it irks the good team that there are new "deadlines" being set as if they can't meet the deadlines assigned to them. It is really lowering the team moral when done and should never be done. I was lucky to have an amazing manager for that one doomed project, we were 4-5 months behind timeline yet he said, "I am not going to micromanage you, I trust you that you'll deliver this on time" (he had been assigned halfway into the project), the project had escalated to one level lower than the CEO and the result? The team delivered! Because the team wasn't micro managed!
It doesn't sound like the guy said, "Let us search for an external deadline so that we can rally this team!" Instead, it sounds like a reasonable amount of time ahead he said, "Hey, there's a cool chance to demo this publicly coming up -- let's see if we can get it out there!"
Sure, the guy was in some sense a manager, but this isn't some corporate situation with external motivation as one of the few rewards. It's a small team of people who are into the idea enough to work on it on the side, to begin with. The article presents this as an internally chosen external deadline, and those can often be really useful.
The benefit of external deadlines, for me, isn't so much about motivation, but about prioritization. When you have a lot of stuff you could be doing, deadlines are an effective tool in ensuring you work on what is most important. I don't think they should be the sole or even primary tool for this, but they're pretty helpful.
I worked with Robleh on a memory game using images from Instagram back in the day called InstaMatch. I had made the simple game and published it, and he helped do all the marketing and design to make it quite successful. He was always great to work with and we made decent money until Instagram decided to stop having apps use any part of their name in the title.
In reality though, I'd like to know what the author did for health insurance when he quit his job weeks/months after having a baby. Medical risk is very high during this period.. looks like he is based in Canada (not US), so I guess that answers it.
Even if you quit your job in the US, you're entitled to COBRA coverage for 18 months if your employer had more than 20 employees.
It allows you to continue the health plan you had at your employer, provided you cover the entirety of the cost. With Obamacare, COBRA is not necessarily cheaper now, but it was in the past.
When I left my previous job, I elected COBRA coverage because HSAs weren't available on healthcare.gov. I pay $280 for an HSA plan with a maximum deductible of $6k, dental, and vision in Texas.
It's not cheap, but it's not completely unaffordable either.
In contrast to all the cynicism I see in other comments, this is awesome! Even if it doesn't happen to everyone, I find anyone who can manage to survive building and pursuing their passion to be inspirational. It reminds me that even if the odds aren't good, the journey can most certainly be worth quitting your job.
As I start bootstrapping my own idea off the ground it helps to see stories like this. Being able to stay motivated and optimistic looks to be a helpful component of success.
Why would you quit your job to make an app? I have bootstrapped 3 apps and pushed them to the app store in my own time.
To be fair, every time I do it, it's hard. I have to prepare my family that I'm undertaking something that will take up a lot of my time. It's tough but, they know I love it.
I've done this before. I've failed every time, but quitting the job was more about regaining my freedom to decide how I should be spending my time. It allowed me to wake up and work on something I was excited about instead of hitting snooze 5 times before sitting in traffic for an hour and then being bored as fuck all day at work.
If you can afford it and you know you can get another job if you fail, it's a fine decision and I'd highly recommend it.
Did you ever have trouble with keeping apart intellectual property created for your employer vs. for yourself on your own time? For example, did you use different computers and made sure to never do this at your work place? I'm always worried that this might become a problem if you create apps while still being employed somewhere.
Articles like this always skip the most crucial point.
Author talks about "outreach" and press coverage and such. But how is that done exactly? I realize this might be dependent on the app but there has to be some general principles one can follow.
If I were to launch an app in the app store today, almost NO ONE would know.
How do you get from that - to real influencers writing about your app?
really nice and inspiring.
- how did you reach out to so many customers ?
- i see the UX of your apps are good. did you do them or you got a design agency doing it for you ?
I understand the sport in extracting the most uncharitable interpretation of a thing and distilling it into the most concentrated snark that you can, but amusing as that can be, you harm the community by posting it here.
Snark always gets many upvotes, perhaps because we enjoy the dopamine rush of briefly feeling superior to others. Such comments rise to the top, become emblematic, and pretty soon we're all in the habit of looking for clever ways to put others down instead of learning and asking questions together.
This is an existential risk to HN, since if we lose the open-minded exploratory quality of the threads (never secure to begin with, and always under pressure from stronger forces), successive waves of thoughtful users will exit, putting the community into a fatal feedback loop.
To be fair, most of the money in mobile apps is in helping big companies put out apps to engage their customers and show they're not obsolete dinosaurs.
Come to think of it, pretty much all of the money in startups comes either from making lucrative big companies obsolete or selling software to big companies to assuage their fear of becoming obsolete.
[+] [-] nvader|10 years ago|reply
My experience with this is that external deadlines work for teams that are unfocused and whose own motivation is low. However, for a team that is already executing well, an imposition of an external deadline (especially for a reason as poorly-thought-out as "to rally the team"), if it's aggressive enough to see increased throughput, will lead to poor processes, cut corners and burnout.
Perhaps there is an element of rationalization here, where a poor manager, who failed to anticipate at a distance a goal that was then attainable, becomes aware of it once it is closer and in danger of passing by, and has to make huge efforts at re-prioritization and motivation to meet it. In hindsight, the manager rationalizes that the fire drill was a good thing for the company, because obviously, the deadline was achieved! Oh, and look, next week there's a customer coming on-site, wouldn't it be great if this other feature was added in time for that...?
I have not had to build and lead a team yet myself, but the process I would follow, and the advice I would give others, is to choose to work with a focused, motivated team, and reduce the importance given to external deadlines. They should influence the prioritization given to relative projects, but cannot be used to crank the throughput nozzle.
[+] [-] jakejake|10 years ago|reply
For me the thing is that you just have to constantly adapt your plan as things develop. I don't think deadlines are inherently bad. But if you do set deadlines, the team needs to be a part of that process and the goals need to be based on reality rather than just arbitrary. If you have hard external deadlines, then that may dictate the features you can deliver. I find that developers (myself included) appreciate being able to focus on their individual tasks, knowing that the manager is making sure the ship is heading in the right direction.
[+] [-] shostack|10 years ago|reply
A-players don't need artificial deadlines because they are already pushing themselves hard to deliver at a solid pace. And if they slow down on something or need to take a more moderate pace for a bit, it is often to manage against their own risk of burnout and once they recover, they are back at it.
Unfortunately, you can run into situation of mixed teams of A-players, B-players and C-players. While the C's should probably be let go, B-players often need deadlines because they are not driving things forward enough on their own (or they would be A-players).
I have not found a good way to solve for this in a manner that doesn't constrain the A-player by the arbitrary deadline as well when they are all working on something together.
Personally, I hate artificial deadlines. I want to do good work and put it out there when it is good enough to go out there (not perfect, just good enough), and not have to rush. Rushing leads to mistakes and overlooking things.
[+] [-] thewhitetulip|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kaitai|10 years ago|reply
Sure, the guy was in some sense a manager, but this isn't some corporate situation with external motivation as one of the few rewards. It's a small team of people who are into the idea enough to work on it on the side, to begin with. The article presents this as an internally chosen external deadline, and those can often be really useful.
[+] [-] the_watcher|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshmn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kaitai|10 years ago|reply
* app received press before quitting job
* app started making revenue before quitting job
* author had time to watch the app's trajectory before quitting job
* author diversifies and helps other people make successful apps, across a variety of categories, rather than betting it all on games.
The point of reading success and failure stories is to contrast them as well as feel inspiration or schaudenfreude as indicated.
[+] [-] samuraicode|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robjama|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sadkingbilly|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] craigvn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] apazzolini|10 years ago|reply
It allows you to continue the health plan you had at your employer, provided you cover the entirety of the cost. With Obamacare, COBRA is not necessarily cheaper now, but it was in the past.
When I left my previous job, I elected COBRA coverage because HSAs weren't available on healthcare.gov. I pay $280 for an HSA plan with a maximum deductible of $6k, dental, and vision in Texas.
It's not cheap, but it's not completely unaffordable either.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] artifaxx|10 years ago|reply
As I start bootstrapping my own idea off the ground it helps to see stories like this. Being able to stay motivated and optimistic looks to be a helpful component of success.
[+] [-] allsystemsgo|10 years ago|reply
To be fair, every time I do it, it's hard. I have to prepare my family that I'm undertaking something that will take up a lot of my time. It's tough but, they know I love it.
[+] [-] k33n|10 years ago|reply
If you can afford it and you know you can get another job if you fail, it's a fine decision and I'd highly recommend it.
[+] [-] justusw|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kenzokai|10 years ago|reply
Author talks about "outreach" and press coverage and such. But how is that done exactly? I realize this might be dependent on the app but there has to be some general principles one can follow.
If I were to launch an app in the app store today, almost NO ONE would know.
How do you get from that - to real influencers writing about your app?
[+] [-] asteadman|10 years ago|reply
Some of this advice transfers over to an app, some of not so much.
[+] [-] sriram_iyengar|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fierycatnet|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cdnsteve|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dboreham|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffehobbs|10 years ago|reply
Step 2: Fail at monetizing app
Step 3: Create app development studio
Step 4: Empower others to fail at monetizing apps
[+] [-] dang|10 years ago|reply
I understand the sport in extracting the most uncharitable interpretation of a thing and distilling it into the most concentrated snark that you can, but amusing as that can be, you harm the community by posting it here.
Snark always gets many upvotes, perhaps because we enjoy the dopamine rush of briefly feeling superior to others. Such comments rise to the top, become emblematic, and pretty soon we're all in the habit of looking for clever ways to put others down instead of learning and asking questions together.
This is an existential risk to HN, since if we lose the open-minded exploratory quality of the threads (never secure to begin with, and always under pressure from stronger forces), successive waves of thoughtful users will exit, putting the community into a fatal feedback loop.
[+] [-] nostrademons|10 years ago|reply
Come to think of it, pretty much all of the money in startups comes either from making lucrative big companies obsolete or selling software to big companies to assuage their fear of becoming obsolete.
[+] [-] anpk|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EvanPlaice|10 years ago|reply
Not to feed into this too much. Being cynical adds nothing value to the conversation.
If you're looking to earn 'internet points' by being sarcastic or making jokes at other people's expense, that's what Reddit is for.
[+] [-] will_lam|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pythonlion|10 years ago|reply