How to build and launch your next app in 30 days

Key Takeaways

as an indie developer time and energy are your most important resources and must be heavily managed but if they harm your progress you need to stop working on your app and take care of your personal life immediately nothing is as important in this video to helping you launch your next app then these five steps i want to be an indie developer more than i've ever wanted anything i want this channel my blogs my content and my products to be a road map of how to become an any developer or how not to become an indie developer when it's all said and done in five or ten years i want everyone to be able to look back at my content and say okay this is how to become an nd developer or don't do what that guy did on may 1st 2022 i began a journey to build and launch a complete desktop application in just 30 days 30 days later time the was launched and became available for all mac os users so you clicked on this video you're curious about building an app in 30 days let me give you a detailed breakdown of how i did it so you can too take the best of my experience and take note of all my mistakes when you finish watching this you have a few new tips tricks and methodologies to help you build and launch your next app in just 30 days so disclaimer this is technology guys there's always a different way there's always a better way there's always a worse way there's always an opinion about this this is just my experience this is just my story i want to share it with you because i think it is valuable i learned a lot throughout this time period and i think that what i learned can be useful for you on your journey as well let's get into it in this video we'll discuss why i built it who i built it for how i built it technology used marketing and community mistakes wins emotions and then at the end i'll answer the question was it worth it for each topic i'll rate my performance from one to five to bluntly address how well or poorly i believe i did and then i'll offer you a key takeaway to help you build your next app in 30 days and avoid all the mistakes i made along the way so first things first what did i build in the background here you can see i have a timer running with this circle here timeva is a simple productivity timer to help you manage your digital work the cool thing about timeville is that it's super customizable while being an extremely simple app i'm using it right now to time box myself filming this youtube video so that i don't use up too much time and then i stay aware of how much time i'm using i'm gonna go ahead and let this run throughout the video and you can see how much time it it took me to film i'm gonna give myself two to three 30 minute blocks to film this youtube content and then i'll go into editing mode and work with what i have if you haven't heard of time boxing it's ultra useful productivity technique and i'll link something down below to help you out there why i built it before i start a new project i always ask why i turned the answers to this question into something i like to call pillars your pillars form the core experience of your product you can think of your pillars as guiding principles for development i'll show you my principles for time though right here so i give myself a five out of five here i knew exactly why i was building time the go ahead and pause the video to look at my pillars here if you need to the key takeaway here is before you start working on your application know why you're working on your application turn these reasons into pillars they'll guide you throughout every difficult decision who i built it for i'm gonna let you in on a little secret i consider it a major advantage of mine i always build for myself so why is this important this means that i am an actual user of the product i'm trying to create so i'm intimately familiar with the problem if you know the problem very well it's much easier to find and create solutions i built time but for myself other engineers editors creators and other digital doers that know that time management is a key to success so i give myself a three out of five here i knew exactly who my target audience was the problem is that i didn't validate that they wanted the product i was creating this is probably my second biggest mistake building this application in 30 days the key takeaway here is after you know why you're building your product know who you're building it for and make sure they want what you're building if you're just building an app to practice don't worry about this so much just build your app get the practice in and move on to the next thing how i built it this is the most important section of the video without these five actions i would not have been able to build timevla in 30 days as you read these remember that success is more about what you don't do than what you do success is about filtering out all your options until you have one or two clear-cut great decisions how i built my app in 30 days can be boiled down to these five actions relentlessly trim features to the bare bone until you have a true mvp mvp stands for minimum viable product it means that your app is just what you need to launch and nothing else use technologies you know and only try new things if the return on investment for your time is very very clear don't write tests be the tests this one is super controversial anyone who's built a product at large scale is going to comment on this and say that is wrong but when you're in a time crunch you have to make sacrifices i used timeva every time i made an update to it when you're writing tests you're more or less writing code twice actually using your app can give you a huge advantage every time you release something new to find bugs and fix them right away don't take it easy this is difficult to do but ninety percent of the time i kept the gas pedal on even when i was feeling depressed and low which we'll get to in the emotions section it's difficult to express how important consistency is weekly reflections every week i looked at where i was and where i needed to be consistent reflection will move you in the right direction faster notice how this video is kind of a reflection in itself so what's my rating for this section i give myself a 5 out of 5 because well i shipped the app in 30 days i made the right sacrifices at the right time and i stayed focused the takeaway here to help you build your next app in 30 days trim features to the bone use tech you know be the tests be consistent and reflect often nothing is as important in this video to helping you launch your next app than these five steps technology used the tech you use doesn't matter i know that might come as a shock as a dev focus channel but it really doesn't matter what's important is your tech selection process what does that mean it means how you select your tech is more important than the tech you use why did you choose this technology over that technology my tech selection process is very simple speed over everything i'll throw a list of the technologies i used and we can go into them more if you're interested i'm sure i'll create more content around some of these items in the future you can also see additional tech details in my previous vlogs i did film the entire journey of building time though what's my rating here i gave myself a 5 out of 5. if you want to ship something with a deadline speed must be your top priority and the takeaway is the same if you have a deadline and you want to ship something you must prioritize speed over everything you must make sacrifices you must use tech that's quick easy and simple to use don't try to learn something new while you're trying to ship under a deadline it will backfire on you marketing and community so like many engineer first product builders this was my weak spot for tumble i created a marketing strategy where i would build in public and share my progress i would share my progress to twitter instagram indie hackers and youtube overall my top-level marketing strategy was fine but my planning and execution was extremely poor specifically i underestimated the time commitment it would take to film edit and release youtube content while trying to build an entire application in just 30 days but this almost killed my project i'm super glad that i pushed through and created 10 plus detailed uh authentic asmre type devlogs that were all 20 minutes plus in length but like i mentioned this almost killed my project if i had to do it again i would not try to start a new channel while building an application in such a tight deadline i give myself a two out of five here um it would be a one but i did successfully launch a new youtube channel which i'm really happy about and obviously i'm filming for right now the takeaway here when you're working on your app in 30 days is don't try and launch a new marketing channel that you know nothing about and that you need to spend significant time learning create a marketing plan and stick to it if you don't know how much time something's going to take you probably shouldn't do it unless you need to mistakes mistakes are hard learned lessons that i believe the indie developer that i want to become would not make each mistake is important to call out because it cost me significant time and energy as an any developer time and energy are your most important resources and must be heavily managed my top five mistakes were misjudging the time and energy costs it would take to start edit film and release youtube content lack of a concrete marketing plan to share my progress lack of a concrete product launch plan letting my personal life affect my focus and wasting time doubting myself and as i mentioned before not validating my audience wanted to use the solution i was building so i gave myself a three out of five here because my mistakes didn't kill my deadline but they did cause significant unnecessary pain the takeaway is understanding that things cost time and the cost of trying something new is significant because you don't know how much time it will take focus your time and energy to the most important things that you know don't let your personal life affect your work if you need to handle something in your personal life take care of that first lastly create concrete marketing plans and stick to them wins so winds are actions that i believe the indie developer i want to become would take my top five wins were successfully shipping the app in 30 days of course trimming features to the bone and using technology that i knew really well launching a dev focus youtube channel hello and creating an application that i love using and lastly thinking long term while acting in the present this is important because you have to think ahead especially when you're reflecting to figure out what you need to do to be where you want to be and then you need to shift your mindset to acting in the moment so that you can get there so ratings here no complaints i'm giving myself a 5 out of 5. i was able to launch time vote in just 30 days the key takeaway here is to generate wins you need to align your actions with your pillars your actions should line up with the reasons that you're building this application emotions it might be weird to see an emotion section here but i think it's super important and underrated if you arrive at your goal and you feel like 24 7 did you really arrive i think how you arrive at your goal is just as important as arriving so without diving into the deep details of my personal life the general emotional flow i went through throughout this journey was the beginning and end were really great i was excited to start and i was excited to finish but in the middle there was a lot of turmoil and emotional instability due to the app and due to other things going on in my life the most important thing to note here is that i'm going to reset this all right started another 30 minute block there the most important thing to note here is that my habits of getting up and just putting the work in pushed me through the good and the bad times again the importance of consistency cannot be understated i give myself a three out of five rating here because i definitely could have managed my personal life better throughout this time period the key takeaway here is emotional ups and downs are normal but if they harm your progress you need to stop working on your app and take care of your personal life immediately in general life is about prioritizing and your emotional state is more important than your app was it worth it i think a great way to determine if something is worth it is to think ahead to the future in one three five or ten years will i remember this will i remember building time the in 30 days definitely i think building an app in 30 days is a great way to ship a product put it out there and see what people think it prevents you from over committing to something that people might not want it also forces you to adhere to specific rules and principles that you have to set up for yourself i think the whole experience of trying to do this is well worth it and i think any engineer that wants to stand out on their own should try to build an application in 30 days when you finish you'll look back and realize holy crap i just built that in 30 days take my successes and my failures and start building your next app in just 30 days if you're hesitant this is your sign to just jump in and get started and if you made it this far and you appreciate the journey definitely like and subscribe i've got a lot more dev content coming your way if you want more details about the technology i use some of the processes i use the habits i set up anything at all feel free to comment below and i can create more content like that for you i look forward to connecting with you in another video i'll see you in the next one [Music] you