Hey fellow entrepreneurs,
"Dear Marco Stojanovic,
your app has been approved for the AppStore."
BOOM! I received this mail 3 days ago. 1,5 years ago, I had no money to pay a developer, nor the coding skills to create the app I wanted to build. My only companion at that time was the goal I was committed to: Build an empirically validated habit building app that you would use yourself and make money with it.
You all probably know that inspiration cannot carry you for 1,5 years, right? Right. On the other hand, it helps getting the engine started: I learned to code relatively quickly and managed to somehow cobble together a first, very basic version of an app that could track psychologically relevant habit data.
Coding in 3 Months - eeeeez
Because I always get asked how I learned to code: Here is how. I learned Swift and used xCode to create iOS-Apps. I really stared from zero - to experience in any coding language whatsoever. I learned the basics with three apps (iOS): TapCoding, Learn Swift, Code Swift. They might be outdated by now. I don't know if they are updated for swift 4.2. Then, I did two long courses on udemy, one by devslopes and one by Angela Yu. The latter is the best iOS programming course in the world and only costs like 10 bucks - nobrainer. I always coded along and made all of the example apps myself until they worked. After that, I started my app and if I needed help, I would search stackoverflow or youtube. Helpful youtube channels for me were letsbuildthatapp (basic and advanced stuff) and swiftguy (basic stuff). Add a lot of coffee, tears and wine - et voilá: You are a programmer.
I used the first version of my app for a psychological study. So I combined business (validation for product) and science (study for my phd). I installed the app on the phones of 91 students and they could choose a new study habit they wanted to develop. Some chose to learn for a certain exam, others to write their exam papers or stuff like that. Things, you would need some self-control and motivation to maintain over the long run. You can find the most important results of the study in this thread I did earlier this year. The most important result: It worked. With each habit repetition, the students acted more automatically and thus had less motivational problems during the learning activity. Students told me about As they received and exam papers they handed in 2 months before deadline. Neat...
So I had a dataset with data of 2500 habit repetitions that proved my product actually created value. That was about 10 months ago. Little did I know that the real journey through the desert should just begin. I now had to make a polished version with more features to have a chance to make it into the AppStore. They have a lot of criteria your app has to fulfill in order to make it into the store.
The Desert of Despair is REAL
The app I used for the study had a poor codebase and poor design. I just distributed it via apples the beta-testing program, which has lower minimum standards for admission than the AppStore. I had to start from scratch again. It was one of my toughest phases ever.
I expected to be done with the polished version of the app in about 3 months. I was more advanced as a programmer that at the time I made my first app and I basically already made the app once. Easy, peasy lemon squeezy, right? Well, no...wrong. Difficult, difficult, lemon, difficult.
Building something that needs to appeal to actual users - not people participating in a study in exchange for course credit - is a whole different story. The colors, icons, animation speed, app icon, onboarding, reward system, control elements, navigation etc.etc. all have to be optimized for actual user experience.
I greatly underestimated what I did not know yet about product development and blindly walked into the desert - unprepared. There where weeks I would work on a feature just to delete it entirely a few days later. I coded every day. I made 0$ every day. And I actually did not do anything for my phd thesis that waited to be written. I went hardly to any parties of friends and would rather sit home alone to be able to stress out about the stalling app development process. Don't happy, be worry.
One thought that kept me going was the image of the desert MJ described so well in his books. At that time, I learned that it was real and that probably every entrepreneur that creates something worthwhile will have to go through it at some time. Probably several times during his/her journey.
I think, actually going through the desert makes you really part of the entrepreneurial community. It's tough, but you can share your story with fellow entrepreneurs, as I'm doing right now, and can better understand others that are going through it themselves.
I wish there was this one magic trick that kept me going. But there isn't. What made me endure it, was probably my strong working habit, which is: Go into a café after your morning routine and work. This reinforced my belief in the power of habits when inspiration, motivation and self-control are not at your disposal.
Be prepared for the desert, take it with humbleness and know that you are not the only one.
Back to now. This story reads as though I already passed the desert. Not quite. Grow - Habit Builder is in the AppStore, yes, but having a working product does not make you earn 10k/monthly (which is my goal for this app). The marketing grind is just about to begin. I probably have just arrived at an oasis in the middle of a huge desert that I still need to cross...
I will let you guys know how it's going on another execution thread when I did some marketing and my app is making some more money.
Give and Take
If you want to check it out, you can do so on growhabitbuilder.com or directly on the AppStore. I would love to hear from you guys what you think about it. If you want to help a fellow entrepreneur, you can leave a review on the AppStore - that would be awesome.
I like to share my expertise and like to give back to likeminded entrepreneurs. So if you want a free 20-min habit coaching via skype, google hangouts etc., feel free to contact me. I do this regularly from time to time and don't sell anything. Just to network, talk to interesting people, make a good impact and put my knowledge to use.
Keep up the good work,
Marco
"Dear Marco Stojanovic,
your app has been approved for the AppStore."
BOOM! I received this mail 3 days ago. 1,5 years ago, I had no money to pay a developer, nor the coding skills to create the app I wanted to build. My only companion at that time was the goal I was committed to: Build an empirically validated habit building app that you would use yourself and make money with it.
You all probably know that inspiration cannot carry you for 1,5 years, right? Right. On the other hand, it helps getting the engine started: I learned to code relatively quickly and managed to somehow cobble together a first, very basic version of an app that could track psychologically relevant habit data.
Coding in 3 Months - eeeeez
Because I always get asked how I learned to code: Here is how. I learned Swift and used xCode to create iOS-Apps. I really stared from zero - to experience in any coding language whatsoever. I learned the basics with three apps (iOS): TapCoding, Learn Swift, Code Swift. They might be outdated by now. I don't know if they are updated for swift 4.2. Then, I did two long courses on udemy, one by devslopes and one by Angela Yu. The latter is the best iOS programming course in the world and only costs like 10 bucks - nobrainer. I always coded along and made all of the example apps myself until they worked. After that, I started my app and if I needed help, I would search stackoverflow or youtube. Helpful youtube channels for me were letsbuildthatapp (basic and advanced stuff) and swiftguy (basic stuff). Add a lot of coffee, tears and wine - et voilá: You are a programmer.
I used the first version of my app for a psychological study. So I combined business (validation for product) and science (study for my phd). I installed the app on the phones of 91 students and they could choose a new study habit they wanted to develop. Some chose to learn for a certain exam, others to write their exam papers or stuff like that. Things, you would need some self-control and motivation to maintain over the long run. You can find the most important results of the study in this thread I did earlier this year. The most important result: It worked. With each habit repetition, the students acted more automatically and thus had less motivational problems during the learning activity. Students told me about As they received and exam papers they handed in 2 months before deadline. Neat...
So I had a dataset with data of 2500 habit repetitions that proved my product actually created value. That was about 10 months ago. Little did I know that the real journey through the desert should just begin. I now had to make a polished version with more features to have a chance to make it into the AppStore. They have a lot of criteria your app has to fulfill in order to make it into the store.
The Desert of Despair is REAL
The app I used for the study had a poor codebase and poor design. I just distributed it via apples the beta-testing program, which has lower minimum standards for admission than the AppStore. I had to start from scratch again. It was one of my toughest phases ever.
I expected to be done with the polished version of the app in about 3 months. I was more advanced as a programmer that at the time I made my first app and I basically already made the app once. Easy, peasy lemon squeezy, right? Well, no...wrong. Difficult, difficult, lemon, difficult.
Building something that needs to appeal to actual users - not people participating in a study in exchange for course credit - is a whole different story. The colors, icons, animation speed, app icon, onboarding, reward system, control elements, navigation etc.etc. all have to be optimized for actual user experience.
I greatly underestimated what I did not know yet about product development and blindly walked into the desert - unprepared. There where weeks I would work on a feature just to delete it entirely a few days later. I coded every day. I made 0$ every day. And I actually did not do anything for my phd thesis that waited to be written. I went hardly to any parties of friends and would rather sit home alone to be able to stress out about the stalling app development process. Don't happy, be worry.
One thought that kept me going was the image of the desert MJ described so well in his books. At that time, I learned that it was real and that probably every entrepreneur that creates something worthwhile will have to go through it at some time. Probably several times during his/her journey.
I think, actually going through the desert makes you really part of the entrepreneurial community. It's tough, but you can share your story with fellow entrepreneurs, as I'm doing right now, and can better understand others that are going through it themselves.
I wish there was this one magic trick that kept me going. But there isn't. What made me endure it, was probably my strong working habit, which is: Go into a café after your morning routine and work. This reinforced my belief in the power of habits when inspiration, motivation and self-control are not at your disposal.
Be prepared for the desert, take it with humbleness and know that you are not the only one.
Back to now. This story reads as though I already passed the desert. Not quite. Grow - Habit Builder is in the AppStore, yes, but having a working product does not make you earn 10k/monthly (which is my goal for this app). The marketing grind is just about to begin. I probably have just arrived at an oasis in the middle of a huge desert that I still need to cross...
I will let you guys know how it's going on another execution thread when I did some marketing and my app is making some more money.
Give and Take
If you want to check it out, you can do so on growhabitbuilder.com or directly on the AppStore. I would love to hear from you guys what you think about it. If you want to help a fellow entrepreneur, you can leave a review on the AppStore - that would be awesome.
I like to share my expertise and like to give back to likeminded entrepreneurs. So if you want a free 20-min habit coaching via skype, google hangouts etc., feel free to contact me. I do this regularly from time to time and don't sell anything. Just to network, talk to interesting people, make a good impact and put my knowledge to use.
Keep up the good work,
Marco
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