Year One - Building An Indie Product
It's been 1 full year since that 'Hello World!' commit on Atlist Maps. This is my personal journey to being 1 year into building a product I can call my own.
Although, it didn't just start 1 year ago.
A little bit of history
I was never one to stay in school. I spent most of my college years (2008-2011) running around downtown to all the startup events. The sprouters, meetups and talks, you name it, we were there. Startup culture consumed ~~most~~ all of our time. We even worked out of our bedrooms with makeshift white boards, and post-its covering the walls.
I joined a small Toronto development agency as the first employee, because it aligned with everything I wanted to do. Work with startups! I loved it. Working at an agency is challenging, but it is very rewarding. I was helping others realize their visions through app development and design sprints. Over 7 years, I was part of more than 100 product launches, and still have relationships with some of those clients. What made it difficult, especially as a company, was the never-ending quest to find new technologies that would define the next-step for the web. We were constantly learning and evolving our approach to software development.
Next chapter
I've always had an itch to build my own products, ever since school. If you were around Toronto during 2008-2012, it was a magical time to be an entrepreneur. That entrepreneurial passion is still with me, I also loved my team at the agency. They are still part of my life, I'll touch on that later. I was giving 110% to my clients, it was a struggle to even think about side hustles anymore. Sadly, there was a trend in the industry where there wasn't as much of a need for small expert boutiques. In early 2019, we inevitably closed up shop which was heartbreaking.
After completing my final commitments, I took some time to be alone and to really identify what could be my next steps. After building apps for clients for so long, I kept coming back to building for myself again.
Challenges
Working solo can be tough. Sometimes I get stuck and need to reevaluate a part of code or infrastructure. It's much harder to get a hold of someone to peer review than it is at a company. I'm grateful for all the beautiful people that have given me a couple hours of their time over the year to provide me essential feedback.
Working solo can be daunting. Embracing challenging tasks has allowed me to grow. I've spent many full days deciphering documentation, and pounding my head against the keyboard. Especially now that I don't have a team to lean on. I don't know if it will ever get easier, but the more I embrace it, the less painful it seems to become over time.
It helps tremendously that I have an understanding and empathetic business partner. There's been a couple moments in the last year that I've tried to build overly ambitious features. Steve would be the one to convince me to back up, and try it later.
Partnership
I'm fortunate to be building Atlist Maps with Steve. Steve made a video about how we got started.
Before we even started Atlist, we had been talking about cartography & maps for months prior. He has been a role model and mentor for years, and I'm grateful to work with him now.
Up to this point, I've been responsible for all development. Steve does design, content and marketing.
Mentors & peers
It was crucial to maintian my relationships with colleagues and peers. It's easy to do this with a physical office, but times have changed, and I've been fully remote for roughly 3 years. I've set up recurring monthly calls in my calendar with people I look up to, role models, mentors, and peers. Not restricted to the tech industry either. Anyone I look up to, in any industry I try to get them in the calendar. These check-ins & mentorships are extremely valuable to me. It's not always about business, actually more often it's just about happinness, finance, and life balance. I highly recommend trying to set up a recurring call with the people you admire and look up to. More often than not, those people would love to have a time slot to hang out with you.
Being a solo developer I've put more effort into open source, watching and responding to issues. It helps me think through issues others are having. Doing so has also started new relationships with people using similar technologies.
I also trade time with people I respect. I can leverage those people in areas I know I'm weak in. I also give back and help them solve issues they might need help with. It's difficult to start a formal way to trade time with peers, but knowing your own strengths and weaknesses is a valuable exercise. You can then market your skills and start to trade.
A warning on letting your mentors in on your vision
You may not get the reaction you want by talking to people you look up to. There have been times I've been discouraged when they would say something like "Don't do that!" or "That's a terrible idea." and obnoxiously follow up with "Do this instead.". Please remember that what they say could be their ego talking, and their perspective. Those words can sting, but there's a more subtle reason they react the way they might to your crazy idea. Maybe they were stung in the past similarly.
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” ― Marcus Aurelius
The best you can do is to be fully honest with yourself, research like crazy, and be hard on any idea. It could be difficult, it might not be worth it, but that's something only you must decide.
What's next
Owning my work felt like the next step in my career. Things may change, but for right now I'm excited for the future. Looking back, I'm proud of what we've accomplished up to this point.
Your journey is vastly different than others. For example, this may be Year 1 of building Atlist Maps but it took 10+ years of hard work and learning for me to get here.
Thanks for reading ❤️
Some stats:
- 1,281 signups
- 1,865 maps created
- 14,241 markers added
- 1,070 images uploaded