'Going Indie'
by Zack Zarrillo
My friend Brian Capps was the Lead iOS Engineer for The New York Times up until last month when he put in his two weeks to go full time with Lickability, his app company. I’m proud of and excited for Brian, who’s leaving a pretty impressive and solid gig for one with broader, yet scarier, horizons. The quote below from Brian stuck out to me:
Six months. That’s how long we’ve given ourselves to make this work. Like with any business, it’s important to determine how to become profitable over a period of time. So, paying me a full-time salary, we’re going to be profitable in six months or I’m going to start looking for a new gig. As much as we’re idealists who would love to toil away on perfecting products, we understand the realities of starting a small business in a volatile industry. I’m confident that we’re going to meet and exceed our goal, but it’s necessary to have a realistic and well-defined metric for success, and profitability within six months is ours.
While PropertyOfZack’s business model is much different than Brian and Lickability’s needs, I relate. I’m excited to see where this goes.