Create Fun Things

My name is Samer Abousalbi. I'm the founder of a cool startup @Capparsa. I love to build things.

[createfunthings]

Why you should let your mind wander

The other day I was standing in line for coffee and like I’ve been working on doing, I did not pull my phone out of my pocket. I simply stood there and let my mind wander. In those few minutes, I actually had a great ‘aha’ moment about a problem I was dealing with in my code for the past few weeks. I was so happy, I couldn’t wait to grab my coffee and run back to my computer to start coding up the solution.

After I finally solved a problem that was stopping my progress the past few weeks, I had the realization that if I had done what I always did— pull my phone out and flip mindlessly through Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/Flipboard— then I would have never had that aha moment. It may have either never come, or it may have come way later.

Here’s the part where I write about how we live in an amazing time, and how we’re more connected than ever, etc etc. Rather than repeat all that, I’ll skip ahead: Put your freaking phone down every now and then, and let yourself be bored. The tech will still be there when you come back to it.

Being bored lets your mind entertain itself. How does it do that? Well, it flips through its own data and its own feeds of information and begins drawing lines and connecting dots. Before you know it, it figured something out and the proverbial lightbulb goes off. We’ve all had those moments—the “shower” moments.

The reason we have shower moments is because we’re not filling our brain with more information when we’re showering. We’re just on auto-pilot, which lets our brain wander and index.

Give yourself more of those moments. In the land of entrepreneurship, those aha moments can turn into billion dollar ideas. Or at the very least they can get you unstuck from problems. There’s plenty of other time for catching up on news. Here’s three tips from my experience on how to let your mind wander:

3 Easy Ways to Add More Mind Wandering To Your Life

1. Don’t use your phone at all when waiting in lines. Keep it in your pocket/bag!

2. Don’t use your phone at a stop light. Seriously, it’s like 30-60 seconds of sitting. Just sit and watch the traffic, or let your mind wander, or enjoy your music. At the very least pay attention to when the light turns green.

3. View waiting around as a positive thing. It’s an opportunity to be bored, not a punishment. People watch, write a blog post in your head, think up new things, meditate, focus on your breathing, come up with jokes, plan a difficult conversation you were putting off… there’s so many things you can do without needing to pick up your phone.

Bonus 4. For those runners/exercisers out there, I challenge you to leave your headphones & music at home. I actually began running without music two months ago, and I've loved it. I’m running faster, enjoying the experience more, and the barrier between me deciding to run and running has never been lower. (no playlists to peck at & perfect). This is an amazing time to think and be away from tech!

Some of people’s best ideas come when they aren’t trying to think on anything. Give yourself those opportunities. It really could change your life.

Enjoyed reading this? You should follow me here or on Twitter @samerabousalbi for the latest updates!

[createfunthings]

Making mistakes means making decisions

One of my favorite blogs I read, Daring Fireball, mentioned a quote from Steve Jobs at WWDC back in 1997. Jobs said:

Some mistakes will be made along the way. That’s good. Because at least some decisions are being made along the way. We’ll find the mistakes, we’ll fix them!

This quote couldn’t have come at a better time in my life. Two weeks ago, we were set to launch our major product. However, I made a mistake with the launch of our product, and I had to temporarily pull it from the App Store while we get a fix out. I was so busy testing the ‘engine’ of the app, that I forgot to test the actual app itself. A few hours into the soft launch, I started receiving emails that the updated app wasn’t opening anymore for people—it would crash on launch. I initially had no idea what was going on, since the app opened just fine for me.

Rather than risk a major launch of a broken product, my team and I decided to temporarily pull the app entirely (since Apple won’t let you roll back an update, unfortunately) and work on fixes. I was eventually able to identify what happened thanks to some of the best customers on Earth, and now an update is waiting for review. We’ll launch again, only delayed a week or so, and now with a much stronger version of the app.

Mistakes are going to happen. They’re inevitable in business and in life. Making a mistake is usually preceded by taking a risk. Which ultimately means that we are making decisions. We are acting. We are doing, not just planning.

There are people in my life that I feel are in a constant state of planning. "I’ll start to work out next week." "I’ll eat better after I have this dessert." "I’ll quit my job I hate and find one I love in a few weeks." It’s endless. The future somehow holds all the answers, even though we need to live in the now.

Why not exercise right now? Why not skip the dessert and feel healthy right now? Why not search for your next job right now, instead of promising yourself you’ll do it later? There’s a better life out there, if only you go for it. Those decisions can sometimes result in mistakes, but at least it means you made a decision. You aren’t just living your life in permanent stasis. Most importantly, you're learning and adapting all the time.

The week was disappointing from one point of view (we failed our customers with a faulty software update) but from another view it was a success. I connected with a lot of customers, many of whom were really patient, helpful and understanding once I explained what happened. I spent an entire day bug hunting and fixing. I created a new process for us to use any time we submit an update to help us avoid this in the future. We are now a better, stronger company. That would have never happened without this mistake.

Don't be afraid of mistakes. They pay off, no matter what the result. You either learn, or you get your reward. Either way, you're moving forward.

[createfunthings]

Running Without Music

Yesterday I went running without music and the experience was pretty awesome. Recently, I talked to someone who said he started running without music and my first thought was wow, that's crazy--how is that even possible? That was weeks ago. The thought apparently stuck in my mind and yesterday I again questioned do people really run without music? Is this a thing?

I looked it up, and found hundreds of blog posts and articles about people who run without music--and the benefits they of it. I was convinced. Yesterday I only had to do a 3 mile run so I figured it'd be easy enough to complete without my headphones.

The first benefit came pre-run: I didn't worry at all about setting the correct playlist, or what song was going to come up next. I spend way too much time pre-run making sure all the songs are there, and in the right order (if I'm not on shuffle), and recently making sure that my Apple Watch was synced with my iPhone to have the latest playlist.

This time I was able to decide it was time for a run and simply head out the door. I set my Watch to an outdoor run and was on my way. I love reducing the barrier even more between me being at home and me getting outside and beginning my run. 

Immediately after a few steps, I knew I was going to love it. I loved listening to my feet hitting the pavement, and the sounds of summer all around--the cicadas playing their loud summer songs, and the cars rushing by on the nearby road. I ran by some lakes near where I live, and listened to the fountains spraying water. I could hear the wind rush through the trees, and other people walking and having conversations with one another.

It was a connected experience. I wasn't in a bubble of loud music and sounds, pounding my brain and numbing my thoughts. It was just me and the run. This became a meditative experience for me. I love the idea of meditation, but I always struggle to sit still and silence my mind and be present in the moment. I struggle to connect with my body and listen to it. When I'm running, I come closest to that--I have nothing more important then my body and my breathing. 

Now, without the music to distract me, I felt totally connected. I listened to my breath pulling in and pushing out air. I knew when I was pushing too hard and could tone it down so I wouldn't stop, and I knew when I wasn't pushing hard enough.

Running without music was a great experience. I’ve challenged myself to run the entire rest of the week without my headphones, and see how I feel then! 

[austinkleon]

The Life Of A Project from Steal Like An Artist

Sticking this here because I don’t think I have it anywhere else on my site (even though it’s all over the internet).

By the way, Maureen’s stuff is awesome and you should read it. Her newsletter rules, too.

[createfunthings]

Yup. This.

[createfunthings]

My daily productivity, in graph form.

[createfunthings]

The cities we keep in our Weather app

I was talking with a friend earlier today, and realized that she (like many of my friends) keeps cities in her Weather app that she longingly looks at if/when the weather in her current city sucks.

Which got me thinking--do more people do this? I have Seattle, NYC and LA as cities in my weather app because a few of my friends live in each of those cities, and also because they're places I might one day live in. Austin and Houston are because I visit those cities often enough to want to know what the 7 day is.

I have other friends keep cities they've been to in their weather app as a kind of pseudo-travel log. Others I've talked to just like to know it's warm somewhere out there during the winter months here.

So I'm curious..do you keep other cities in your weather app? And why?

[createfunthings]

Wearables & Payments

I was having a great discussion earlier with my friend & co-founder of Capparsa (Omar) and he asked a great question: Are payments the "killer app" of wearables? In other words, is using your watch or wrist band or ring-pop to pay going to be the reason that people want to buy them?

It's a very interesting question and one that I think the answer is a resounding yes. The problems right now with a lot of wearables, in my opinion, are that they:

Are marketed towards gadget nerds

Don't really do anything all that useful

Are making people focus on health and fitness when I think that's a whole separate market than things like the Apple Watch.

When the Apple Watch finally arrives, I really do believe what will make owning one so compelling is the ability to use it to do things like checkout at retail locations, enter into ticketed events like concerts and movies, and board a plane. 

Right now the most personal piece of technology we own is our phone. It's almost always with us, we'd rarely if ever lend it out to someone else, and with the TouchID on the latest iPhones, it's so personal that only our fingerprints unlock it (1). We personalize them to an extreme, we put all our data and content on them, and a phone number is way more strongly tied to an individual than say an email address. (You can easily have multiple email addresses, if not an infinite number of them, but it's considerably harder to have multiple phone numbers).

So a phone is a very personal piece of technology, and wearables (like the Apple Watch) are the next extension to that. A watch is something that literally wrapped around your wrist and won't leave there until you're asleep and you need to charge it. Just like your phone, you'd rarely if ever lend it to someone. You will personalize it, not just with the outer bands and faces, but also with all the apps and data you let it access. It will also read your heart rate, and presumably one day other biometric data.

Your watch becomes the technology identifier for you as a human. That's where I see Apple going that other companies do not see yet. Others are viewing wearables as a gadget that can do a couple of cool things, or parlor tricks, but I think Apple is positioning itself as a personal technology company, not just a tech company. The difference is subtle but huge. They are not in the business of producing tech for the sake of it--they're in the business of making you feel ownership and identify with your devices. Some people treat their iPhones like their children, and I think the Apple Watch is the next extension of that.

So we get back to payments and ticketing, and other identification forms. I recently heard in a great Podcast (Around the Coin) that one day he foresees us being able to wave our wrist on a door entry way, and it will open for us. Imagine this at lounges in hotels, airports, and other VIP areas. Or imagine having a line where you can wave your NFC watch to verify your ticket at a baseball game vs. a line where you have a paper printed ticket, and it's backed up and taking forever. You create an experience where the individual *is* the form of identification-- no additional paper or barcode needed.

That's why I think payments will be the killer app of the wearable market. 

(1): Yes, you can also unlock it with a passcode, but once you set TouchID, you pretty much always use that rather than tap out your code.

[createfunthings]

I recently read the (short) book Rework by Jason Fried and it really got me excited for what I'm working on. I feel very much aligned with a lot of what he wrote in the book--that you don't need to kill yourself to start a company, you can work remotely, you can keep a small team, and you can do it all without raising capital.

I'm seeing the value of not raising money when wanting to start a project, and instead finding any way you can to self-fund. If you get the sales strategy down early, and can reproduce it and scale it, then you're on your way to growing the company organically. I'm aware this doesn't work with every type of business, but with software and how relatively easy it is to ship code these days, it seems like it's the only way to go.

I'm lucky enough to be sitting on several products already in the App Store, some of which have been downloaded tens of thousands of times, and are all received positively. I recently began getting emails from numerous users of my TimeTag app that all reference how long they've been users--in some cases, since its launch in 2010!

It's quite amazing to really think about that for a moment: People have been using the same app for over four years. Think about what apps have existed on your iOS devices longer than a month or a year. It's great that people love my time sheet app as much as they do, and I'm happy to have kept up with it through the years--even as a full time student, and then working full time this past year.

Now I have the very wonderful opportunity to take some time to code it full time again and launch its syncing service, and then enter into the b2b space with it. I see a demand for it in the enterprise space (professional contractors, software shops, law firms, accounting firms, etc) and I'm eager to take a stab at marketing it to them. A lot of my users are people in this space, but they use it independent of their business because they like it so much. I see a real opportunity to take an app-only approach to time sheet management and take advantage of a lot of device-specific things, like TouchID to secure records, and geolocation to give you reminders if your timer is still running outside of a "geofence".

In either case, it's an exciting time. I'm lucky to live in a world where you can code from your home, on your personal computer, and press a button and have people world-wide see and use (and hopefully appreciate) your creation. It's fun to create things.

[createfunthings]

TimeTag Syncing for iOS: Nearly there

At the beginning of the month, I gave myself the timeline to finish TimeTag syncing by the end of October. It seems that was a good estimate, since everything seems to be wrapping up on the project.

As of yesterday, the app now supports creating an account, logging in, syncing, and dealing with a few fringe cases like logging out and back in, etc. 

Syncing is now mostly stable (after countless hours of coding and testing) which is really exciting. Push notifications are operational too. Just about the coolest thing is having TimeTag open on my iPhone and iPad, hitting "start" on my iPhone, and having the timer start on my iPad. Every update to one of the apps "just works" on the other. 

What's funny is that a lot of people think this is just how things should work. In the age of iCloud, Dropbox and other cloud services, a lot of consumers (myself included) want all your devices to show the same data. We're always on the move, so if you start something on your iPhone, you want to continue it on your iPad. The new Continuity features of Yosemite really reinforce this as well.

However, the reality is that this type of 'magic' is INCREDIBLY complex to integrate--especially for databases (not documents). Documents are pretty straight forward to keep in sync, but databases bring up a lot of issues. You have to manage individual pieces of data, online/offline updates, relationships, and much more.

As such, TimeTag syncing has been something I wanted to code for years but never got the chance to sit down and code straight through. Until this past month. And now that it's nearly done, it's really rewarding to see it working as well as it is...

I'm excited to send this update to Apple soon. The next major step will be to code the Mac app version, so that someone can truly keep their records in sync across all their devices.

[createfunthings]

Syncing for TimeTag and Capparsa's apps

Syncing for TimeTag has been a long requested feature--and something I have wanted myself for the past four years.

I've written before about why syncing is such a challenge...and it still remains a challenge today. Tons of other developers of apps have written about why it was so difficult to make their apps sync with one another. Unfortunately, while the complexity hasn't gone down, the requirement for apps to sync has gone up.

People are on the go, and own way more devices than they did in the past. They want everything to be "as they left it", and without having to put too much thought into it. I agree with this--I'm upset when I have an app that I love that works in a silo from other copies of it.

So I finally sat down and got to work: I was determined to come up with a good syncing formula for TimeTag for the iPhone, iPad and Mac.

The database isn’t too complicated--in fact it’s pretty simple. It has time records, tags and categories. It always seemed like it should be easy enough to sync, but there were always tons of issues that popped up. Issues like:

Which record would win in the event of a conflict?

What happens if the user’s network is down?

How do you associate all the right records with tags, and the right tags with categories? (What happens if a tag is deleted, or a category changes color?) 

How do you deal with deleting objects, and not allowing zombies to come back? (infinitely re-generating items)

Things like that were always an issue. The very first attempts used a kind of looping algorithm that Compositions uses today. It goes something like this:

Pull down everything from the Internet

Get everything from the local database

Loop through all the online documents, and check for a matching local one. Figure out what’s updated, or if the local document is missing, and if it is missing, figure out why (like maybe it was deleted?)

Loop through all the offline documents, and check for matching online ones. If there is no matching online one, figure out if we need to upload it (or maybe it should be deleted?)

Loop through any conflicted documents that raised as a result of those two loops and do some final cleanup

As you can see, it’s a real mess. It works, but wow it’s buggy and prone to error. Today it’s pretty stable, but it wasn’t without months of work and a few upset customers letting me know a document was lost.

So that was the approach I wanted to take with TimeTag, but big surprise, it proved really prone to error. I was getting infinitely duplicating time records, tags that wouldn’t upset but instead create new copies of themselves, and zombie records (after deleting them, they’d re-appear everywhere due to how deleting/syncing works).

I needed a new way to do it. I still liked the idea of comparing local to online, and taking action on that, but I needed a much cleaner way to do it. Then the idea hit me: Why not create a wrapper object?

Since every record has what I call a “universal ID” that is supposed to be the same across every single device (and the cloud), I could use this as the way to match up records of any type--whether it’s a time record, tag or category.

I created a wrapper class, and did the following:

Go online and pull down all the online objects of type X, and stick them in a newly created wrapper of X

Pull the local copies of objects of type X, and attach them to the matching wrapper of X if it exists already (or create a new copy if it didn’t)

Iterate through wrappers of X

When I iterate through wrappers of X, one of three things can be true:

Both the online and local X objects are there

Just the online version is there

Just the local version is there

If 1) is true, then I need to check edited dates and sync status markers, and update both as appropriate. If 2) is true, then I need to update or create the local version If 3) is true, then I need to create the online version

This proved to be a very reproducible algorithm. Once I got it working with categories, i was able to get it working with tags and then with records. Even better, as I began to reproduce the code, I was able to make it more generic and refactor a lot more of the code.

What I have now is a really cool syncing engine that uses Parse as a backend. It will update properly, login a new user and get everything just fine, and stay in sync with one another. It uses a model of “last in wins”, so whoever edited last will win out. Not always ideal, but it keeps the syncing model clean, and as long as users are aware of it, it should cover almost all cases/scenarios. As time goes on, I’ll definitely work on making it more robust to deal with conflicts.

What to do about deleted objects? Well, what I decided was the the best way to know something was deleted was to actually not delete it--but instead mark it as deleted. Then every now and then I can do a cleanup of old deleted records so that they don’t sit around taking up space for no reason. The benefit though is that you can now check if a record is deleted (because it says: Deleted) and remove it from devices. This makes it totally unambiguous that the user intended to delete a record, so you won’t ever incorrectly remove something that shouldn’t have been removed...and you won’t get re-created objects!

That’s all the detail I have for now. I need to get back to testing and implementing. I hope to have TimeTag sync shipping this month--first for iPhone and iPad, and then for Macs. Stay tuned for more updates!

[createfunthings]

I'm making progress on updating my apps. I've been focused on TimeTag (as I believe I wrote in my previous post). I've been learning Swift by converting existing view controllers written in Objective-c to Swift. That's actually proved to be the most helpful way to learn. I literally snap the windows to the left and right of my screen so I can see them side by side, and then start coding the new version.

I'm hoping to have the TimeTag largely done by the end of this week. I'm still following the Pomodoro technique and love it. I've been getting at least 11 "pomodoros" done per day (which is what my app has set by default). Next week I'll raise it to 12, and I'll keep adding 1 per day until I hit what I find to be my limit.

Speaking of limits, I've been running still--which I find to be so important when working from home and starting a company. It's critical to keep your head clear and to keep your body healthy. I find that running at the end of the day is a great way to finish up work, and separate out work-me from home-me.

Well, for now, I'm watching American Horror Story since it's now Fall and nearing October...and I love watching scary stuff near Halloween.

[createfunthings]

Pomodoro fun

Yesterday I started (for the second time in my life) the Pomodoro technique for working, and so far really enjoy it. It's a good way to add a little bit of structure to my work, especially now that I'm working from home most of the day. I know that Twitter and my email will still be there in ~20-25 minutes, so I can wait to check on it. In fact, I'm finding that now I'm done with all my 'free time' apps in about 30 seconds once every 25 minutes, and then want to get back to work.

I also find that chunking your day into 25 minute work sessions makes the time fly--and it produces a steady stream of output all day long. 

I'm currently focused on updating TimeTag for iOS 8. I made the decision to only support iOS 8 for it, since I have a history of making TimeTag always follow along with the latest iOS releases. Why? Well, I want to make sure its as stable as possible, and there's no better way to do that than to make it keep-in-step with the latest OS. It reduces testing needs, it lets the app use all the latest technologies and APIs, and it makes sure that only the latest and fastest devices are running the app. (Fastest except for the 4S, which is now miserably old in comparison to the new chips...)

This also helps solve a really annoying issue that I'm having with rotations in the app. Apparently using the new size classes aren't 100% backwards compatible for certain rotations...so rather than hack together a solution, I'd honestly rather deliver the best app for those who have iOS 8. And at the end of the day, the only device I'm orphaning is the 4. 

Other than that, Compositions update for iOS went live and the update count has been really strong the past few days!

For now, I'm sitting around waiting on my iPhone 6 to come in and working. Every time I hear a truck, my heart skips.

[createfunthings]

This week so far has been fairly productive, although not as much as I would have liked. I've been learning Swift which is taking me a bit longer to get used to. I was one of those few Objective-C fans that really loved the language, so having to change over to Swift has been an exercise in learning to let go.

Swift is great though--it's super powerful, very modern, and feels fast to write. It's just different, and all my muscle memory is betraying me. I'm eager for the Ray W tutorial book to release so that I can really dig into the code and start to get a better handle on the language.

Other than learning a new computer language, I've been still planning the product management toolset. The more I think about it, the more I want to do it. I want to write out a basic plan for features today, and figure out where to draw the "1.0" line at. 

I also finished a book on Kickstarter, which was interesting. It'd be fun to have a successful Kickstarter project but it's definitely not "free money". There's so much work that goes into getting noticed, and then getting funded...and then fulfilling all the rewards and of course the project itself. If anything, it seems more stressful to me than raising money the traditional way. (However, it certainly seems like more fun).

I've also been reading the book Four Steps to the Epiphany which is super interesting. It's basically how every startup has their roadmap all wrong, and that in fact they should start with problems being solved, not a product they're building. I love that. Ultimately that's why people buy what you build: because it solves a problem for them. If it doesn't, why would they want to try/do something new, or spend their money?

Well, today's goals are to keep learning Swift, plan out the version 1.0 features of my product management app, and to read more in my Four Steps book.

[createfunthings]

Customers might not always know best

Here’s an all too common scenario.

A customer will email a company and say something along the lines of: “Hey, I like your app/product/service, but I’d like it so much more if it does this super awesome feature that is very important to me.”

Often, you read an email like that to mean something like: “Hey, build this feature, otherwise I’m going to find another app/product/service and use them instead!!”

So what do you want to do? The natural want is to go out and build it as soon as possible, of course! This customer is paying you money (hopefully) and the customer always knows best, right?

Well, no. And I’ve come to discover that this is why they don’t know best.

It’s not that you don’t want to build products that your customers want…you definitely do. If you aren’t building something to solve problems, then yes, people will eventually leave you and go to a competitor.

However, more often than not, these customers are asking for a feature that’s really only important to them. So, I suggest, wait on it. Or dig deeper. Why do they want this feature? What are they really asking for? Is it really the described feature, or is it because of some problem you can solve in another way? (Sometimes the feature actually already exists, but they can’t find it…which could signal a failure of your UI).

The problem with immediately jumping in and building what they requested is that it very dangerously assumes that individual customers know what’s best for all your OTHER customers.

Example:

You run an app that generates reports…like let’s say a time sheet app.

Customer Bob emails you and wants you to build a new exporting format for his business, because that’s how he runs his business—it has to always be in a particular format. But what if Bob is the ONLY business that works with that format? You would have spent the engineering and design resources to build that feature, test it and ship it…only for Bob to be happy, and for thousands of other customers to look at this new export format and say: “Huh?” [Or maybe you just have it as an ‘option’…but now you’ve added complexity to your app needlessly. People need to decide what type of export format they want, when in reality they just want to export it].

So what can you do about it?

As I mentioned, I think there’s real value in sitting on suggestions (at least for a few days). Maybe more emails will roll in and more people will suggest the same or similar thing. What I do is actually put every suggestion into my Wunderlist app, in a special list for requests. As more requests come in, I’ll add notes to the ones I see repeating. Even then I’ll evaluate it—does it fit? How do I make it work, given the scope of the product? Does it make sense for what I believe in? [Because honestly, sometimes you just never want to build that feature or fulfill that request, because it’s just not what you’re about].

So, all the times that people say “it’s about saying no more than saying yes”…what I really think they’re saying is that be smarter about what you say yes to. Maybe you get 50 great suggestions, and you DO need to say yes to them. But more often than not (at least in my experience), you’ll get 50 suggestions, and only 5 are really worth doing.

Sit on ideas a few days. Dig deeper. Know your values and core product mission. Your customers (both present and future) will appreciate it!

[createfunthings]

Today I had a very good friend in town, so I didn't get too much work done--but hey, that's not a bad thing. Some of my best ideas and insights came when I wasn't even looking for them! Also, in the last several years of my life, I've come to learn that taking time off is as important as working a lot--especially when that time is spent with a close friend. Having friends supporting you and encouraging you is what building a startup is all about.

I developed my product building idea a bit more, and think I have an idea on how to roll it out in stages. Stage 1 will be an iOS app (iPhone/iPad) using a Parse backend so that I can rapidly build it and get it out there. I have a very good friend who can help me with designs, and maybe get some help on the development side--although I think I can handle most of it.

So in stage 1, my thinking is that the app will be a paid app (no recurring) and will offer a few key features that I'm most excited about. Then as I build it out (and test the market, and see its reaction to this tool) I can convert over the app to a monthly sub (and comp those who bought the app out-right with several free months, or maybe a lifetime of free for being an early adopter?)

I have yet to really talk about the idea fully but in short it's an app/service that will ultimately let a product manager do their work faster and easier. It solves a few key problems I felt in this last year as the chief product officer in my company:

Way too many tools/web apps to do 1 thing (Asana, Dropbox, Box, Pivotal Tracker, etc)

Lists are really bad at communicating needs. It's unclear what is an incremental update, what's a huge idea, and what's just a bug/complaint (as an example)

Submit ideas that are graded against your company's/ products core values

Ultimately I see this as a tool for people to build stronger products--those that match their values, and always make sense to add. Feature creep is a very bad thing. It's easy to say yes to things. It's way harder to know what not to build. Having to always answer questions like "Does this fit into one of these values?" can help reduce saying yes, by always putting it in people's face.

Anyway, other than that, today was another great victory because I ran 10 miles non-stop (at a 9:37 pace), which is the best run I've had in years. Next week's long run will be 12 miles!

I won't be posting on the weekend, but will be back on Monday.

[createfunthings]

Today was my rest day for running (btw, I'm training for a marathon. I thought you should know) so I got to wake up a little bit later, rather than my (new) usual 6am wake up time. 

That got me into my morning a bit less forcefully, so I took my time with setting up for the day and digging into work. I worked on Compositions for Mac, and got a few bug fixes in. I am waiting on a new icon for it though, to replace the terrible square notebook that it is right now. Once I get the icon figured out though, I'll be sending in the update! That'll match up the iOS version (coming soon--it's in review!) with the Mac version.

I met with my business partner today and talked about StatGeek, the basketball analytics startup I'm a part of. We've recently started ramping up again and it's exciting stuff. We have a great product that people really like, so I'm eager to build it out some more and grow our audience.

In the afternoon I worked on some business ideas. I think I'm onto something exciting, which would be a tool to help product managers. It's funny, I always come back to wanting to build better tools than what's in the market, and I think there's a real opportunity to build a product that helps you build products. I am in the early research phase, but from what I can tell, there are real problems that I can solve. A lot of the apps I've made come from solving a problem, and 9/10 times it turns out it is solving someone else's problem too. 

I also decided that I want to charge for more of my apps. I had a good conversation with a friend, and he brought up some good points regarding free apps these days. 

It's way harder to gain ranks in the free ranks than it is on the paid

If you have a high quality product, then be courageous and charge for it. I've had a few paid apps on the App Store for some time now, and the ones that have good reviews sell pretty well. People will trade their few dollars for something that adds value to their life.

It keeps a lot of the junk reviews off your app--for people who typically just spam download it and then don't like it, or don't get it, and then leave a 1 star review.

I know there are a lot of benefits to the freemium model, but I'm not sure that's true for non-games. For tools that are used by professionals, I think it's not a huge ask to charge up front. It's certainly harder to convince people to send you a few bucks, but that's not insurmountable--especially if you have the reviews, blog posts that talk about your app favorably, and a history of lots of updates.

Once iOS 8 hits, I think Compositions for iOS will go back to being paid. It will give me an opportunity to earn money off it, which means I'm way more likely to keep adding features...which is better for my users. 

Lots to think about! I will probably write more soon about my product management tool idea. I'm all for talking about things. 

[createfunthings]

September 10th, 2014

Today I spent a good portion of the day preparing the Compositions update and sending it for review. I had to generate screenshots for the iPhone 6, the iPhone 6+, the 3.5 inch iPhone and the 4 inch iPhone, and finally for the iPad. So many screenshots. After all that, I sent it in, fixed a few more bugs, and now it’s waiting for review. An update that I started working on over a year ago is finally in the queue! 

I also met with a business partner of mine, in another startup that I’m a part of. We met three engineering interns that will be joining our business for the next nine months to help us code out our backend. A week ago we met three other interns (the iOS team) that will be helping us make and improve our apps. 

Since I’ve been waking up at 6 am every day to go running this week, I’ve had to adjust to what it’s like to be awake so early in the morning. I really enjoy it. The time spent running outside while it’s still dark out, and having the sun come up, and all the cars fill the road — it’s truly a meditative, peaceful time. A lot of ideas come out while I’m running, or nothing at all. In fact, sometimes it’s best to just go out there, run, and listen to music. 

The one thing I need to adjust to is figuring out how to stay awake all day long. I desperately need a place to work that isn’t my place. It can be very draining to spend all day in one place. Coffee shops are a welcome distraction but it’s hard to work there all day—every time I need to use the restroom, I feel that I need to pack up. I don’t want to be away for 30-45 seconds and have my computer stolen. No thanks.

I also want to start to think about what my next project will be. It’s fun to think about building a watch app. Some of my apps would work well as a watch app, and with others it doesn’t make any sense. Maybe there’s an app that’s purely on the watch— no iPhone really required? I’m not sure how it works yet. I’ll need to do research.

I really didn’t want to sign off this blog post by saying that I want to write more every day, and have this blog be updated regularly with my progress as an entrepreneur….so I won’t.