It has been over an year since I wrote a post on the blog. A lot has happened in one year. I have left my job at Perleybrook Labs as of December 2015, & started my own gig as an Indie Developer since the 1st day of this year. Things have never been better.
Its 30th June, I have officially completed second quarter of my gig. I have published 3 apps to the Appstore. Falcon for MacOS, its iOS companion Falcon Notes & a small app called Exporter for MacOS. In case you want to check them out they are showcased here (http://star-lord.me). In the latest WWDC Apple renamed OS X to MacOS. Funny story about Falcon. I was not sure what to name the app, so as a pun I named it Falcon, since it was my first (Han ) Solo project (I hope you are a Star Wars fan) :D. Working on your own is a thing I think everyone should try atleast once. It feels like tech era's survival edition. But, there is no greater joy than watching people use & love the product you put time & effort into. So its totally worth it.
In other news I got a Netflix subscription a few months ago, and I have been addicted to it ever since. I have completed around 45 seasons from various TV series till date, just from Netflix. I run Netflix videos in background while working, kind of like white noise, helps me out to work for longer intervals. Sometimes it is a big distraction though. Since I started working as an Indie, I have learned about self discipline a lot, to maintain my schedule & keep up with the deadlines, so this distraction too shall pass.
Let's see what else. I have been learning a lot of new stuff - designing, marketing & building web apps. I have been watching more movies with friends than before; socialising more now. I still take part in programming competitions, but the frequency is quite less. Building an actual product for real life tech market, beats competing in programming contests. Sometimes I get too bored to do any work for a couple of days, and take long breaks from coding. I guess this is a downside of being an Indie, a lone wolf. I never thought I would say this but working in a team beats being an Indie sometimes.
But I must say leaving Perleybrook Labs has been the toughest decision I ever made, & took a lot of shit for it from most relatives, parents were fine with it though. Working from home with a decent pay-check is considered kind of "Living the Dream", and I agree. But the success & a few failures I had building stuff back then, have never given me any rush. Building stuff was always a rush, not shipping any of it was the buzz killer. So I decided to take some risks, and start my own gig this year. And having shipped 3 products in 6 months, which are doing well, & have taught me so much while designing, building & marketing them, that I am positive it was the perfect decision. And yeah I also made some new techie friends while building those products, while being an introvert. How cool is that.
Do what you love, love what you do.