Why Indie Developers Go Insane

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Jeff Vogel wrote this incredibly awesome post about sanity and development within small (indie) companies. He particularly focused on gaming but its applicable across the board:

The Internet exists to crap all over everything. And Flappy Bird is simple, silly, derivative, and casual-friendly, so it was sure to bring the self-styled Defenders of Gaming out of the woodwork.

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Dong Nguyen quit. A fortune coming through the door, and he walked away. As I write this, Flappy Bird has been removed from app stores.

Think about this. I mean you, personally. Think about what it would take to make you run from a gold mine like this. Really. Think about why someone would do this.

This is not about money.

If you’ve experienced any time as a public figure, especially one that is mainly hated on, it makes a lot of sense.

Dong Nguyen is a young guy. He wrote a game for fun, put it out there, and found himself at the target end of a massive wave of attention, much of it negative. I can’t stress enough how insanely terrifying this can be, and he wasn’t ready.

There’s a reason most companies put other people in charge of answering customer questions, not the people that wrote the app. Customers, frankly, forget that there are people on the other end of that line. They forget that while they may not like the decisions made, there is a person on the other end who did like the decision and worked his or her butt off to make it work as well as they possibly can.

I incurred this wrath when we launched powerOne version 4. Some of the emails were scathing, hateful pieces of junk that really didn’t deserve a response. They were completely disrespectful of the company and product, assuming we didn’t give a crap about our customers and were pissing on them on purpose. They were also disrespectful to me personally since I wrote the app. In my case I was lucky as I understood that these customers were upset with change, period, and were upset because a product they loved was changed [1].

Yes, it was on a much smaller scale than Flappy Birds’ “feedback.” But it didn’t make the vitriol hurt any less.

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[1] I was able to adjust the app and satisfy those who didn’t like the changes.

via David Smith

Competing For Consumer Dollars

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Fascinating comment from Arnold Waldstein in relation to a Fred Wilson blog post regarding conflict and the perception of conflict:

Marketplaces are all about competition for consumers’ dollars. In new segments it’s all about creating a market and consumer behavior. More generalized segments, you end up both slicing off pieces of the incumbent and doing end runs.

Interesting thought that leaves me thinking today. Here’s my take-away: when doing something new, I can’t just think about the new thing and the customers I’m serving — the job to be done — but I also must think about what I am pulling customers away from and the job they hired that product or service to do. While I’ve been thinking about this issue, I haven’t quite thought about it that succinctly.

 

Networks and Hierarchies

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Traditionally everything was done as a hierarchy. Decisions were pushed down from the top. What has happened in the 21st century, though, is that networks are displacing hierarchies. Fred Wilson brought this up in a blog post today and I thought it worth remembering.

Networks are replacing hierachies as we enter the information era.

I also like what William Mougayar said in a comment to the post:

I’m going to take a shot at defending this claim “Networks are replacing hierarchies as we enter the information era.” People are mis-interpreting it, because of the word “replacing”.

Maybe it’s a long shot to say “replacing” now. But Networks are emerging in parallel to existing systems. They may not be replacing them, but they are growing alongside these incumbents, and gradually taking a bigger share, such they will become more dominant over time. Networks are emerging in new areas that didn’t exist before.

So, Networks are making hierarchies less relevant, as we enter the information era.

My questions: How far can we push this? Can all systems and software be network-driven instead of hierarchical? Is the usage network or the software itself? What does network-driven software look like and can it be done for non-open source solutions? Does a focus on the network give that company an advantage over the hierarchically-oriented company? Are there places where hierarchy still wins? Can systems be both at the same time and, if so, how does an organization decide how much of each and when?

Building Community Through Mobile

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I used to do a lot of presentations and panels, but not lately. Until the last two weeks. Tonight I’m on a panel at Puppet Labs about Building Community Through Mobile.

As the page says:

Hear from our panelists on how social media content, advertising and design factor into the growth of mobile communities. Learn how communities have come to the forefront of business development, customer retention, customer research and other operational functions. Find out what the future looks like as communities dominate our conversations.

Click here for details. I know I’m looking forward to it and hope to see you there.

Build Businesses, Not Apps

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I’ve spent the past five years attempting to understand the changes to the software industry brought on by the iPhone and the app store. Most importantly, I’ve been asking the fundamental question of how we, as software developers, transition into this new era.

Last Monday at Mobile Portland I was able to give this presentation. It’s an expanded version of the one I gave at CocoaSlopes last fall, which was not available on video. I am introduced around the 7:15 mark, if you’d like to skip ahead.

Please enjoy and, if you’d like to follow along with a copy of the slides, please download them here.

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All images were found via Google search images. Attributions are on a slide at the end of the deck. In addition, sources for all data and quotes are available on individual slides via the links in the lower, right corner.