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Really good article Gus! Are you looking forward to WWDC 06?

Posted by Lemont Washington at December 25th 2005 11:18 PM

Chock full of good insights - especially since they come from someone who's actually *done* it, lived it, etc. I particularly approve of the cgi-scripted, easily-checkable "am I getting rich or going bust" script - essential stuff.

Thanks, Gus, for sharing this! Cheers, Koan

Posted by Koan Bremner at December 25th 2005 11:38 PM

Posted by Koan Bremner at December 26th 2005 01:04 AM

Unlike the Windows and Linux worlds, the Mac community has a culture of customers paying for independently developed software. It is truly something special that gives Macs everywhere really great software. Indies must continue to provide great value and service to its customers, and Mac users will hopefully continue to endeavor to support the developers with their cash and word-of-mouth advertising.

2006 may be the start of a brave new world with more and more users coming to the Mac platform. In order for this culture to thrive (instead of being diluted), Mac users need to be vocal about the virtues of turning to the indies first, IMHO.

Brent Simmons recently posted an entry on his blog suggesting that we should consider giving the gift of indie software to Mac-using friends and family this Christmas. That is exactly the kind of thing that keeps the culture going (plus, how cool is it to explain to your wife what the "Flying Meat" transaction on the credit card is for?)

Posted by Jonathan Monroe at December 26th 2005 03:09 AM

Truely superb article Gus! Thanks so much for sharing your story. Informational, inspirational, and fun to read.

I would love to hear about the details of your sales database and python script sometime. Not the money numbers, but what database are you using? What else does your script do? Code sharing time? :)

Posted by Jon Trainer at December 26th 2005 05:49 AM

Thanks for the informative post. Long live the indie developer!

Posted by Mike Zornek at December 26th 2005 07:27 AM

hey, gus!! great blog entry... I liked a lot.... I'm thinking in going indie, but not for software development, but for engineering consulting services...

thanks and have fun!

Posted by cesar at December 26th 2005 09:26 AM

Jon-
My scripts are all super custom, so it wouldn't do you any good to have them :) But I'll describe what they do.
The original database I used (and still to some extent) is mysql. I had a script that was run whenever I got an email from esellerate about an order. It just took out the fields I was interested and put it in the database.

The goals script just connected to the database, did some math, and drew red, green, and black images with their height set to whatever the sales were * some odd number.

More recently I've been using sqlite for the customer/sales database. I did this when I wrote my own store.

Posted by Gus Mueller at December 26th 2005 10:04 AM

So are you no longer using eSellerate or are you just using their API's to access your underlying store? I was looking at them from your link last night. I'm working on some software to hopefully go indie next year but want to make it compelling enough first. While working on it I have been investigating sales options and would love to know your opinion of eSellerate and their product offering. Please feel free to shoot me an email if here (or another post) isn't appropriate. Thanks for the great article!!!

Posted by Sean at December 26th 2005 11:31 AM

eSellerate is great, and provides a very valuable service for when you are starting out. I just got to the point where I didn't like how much they were taking out... after a while it tends to really add up.

I still have the eSellerate libs in my apps, for older registration numbers and in case my store goes down... but now I'm using PayPal web payments pro. The take a lot less of a cut.

Posted by Gus Mueller at December 26th 2005 11:35 AM

Great article. We're a really small team too and its good to see what people did either independently or as part of a small team. Thanks Gus, great article

Posted by Ade at December 26th 2005 01:12 PM

A very informative article. Thanks for sharing your experiences. Very helpful to someone like myself who is just starting out.

Posted by Kevin Walzer at December 26th 2005 01:32 PM

Great write up. :)

One of the things I found was that I focused on day to day sales too much and lost the plot. Once I stopped looking at them and focused on weekly/monthly sales things started moving again.

WWPD... that's exactly what we follow as well. Small elements can be seen in each of our applications and even the two new ones we are desigining are focused on the little things to make sure they are true Mac applications.

I guess however I was fortunate, my first app went ape from day 1 even though it was quite a poor application and everything has been moving north from there. A graph of Connoisseur or Netflix Freak on the other hand looks like your overall sales graph.

Great to hear another indie has succeeded though, I look forward to seeing more software from you in the future.

Posted by Mat at December 26th 2005 05:44 PM

Enjoyed the article, Gus. I thought you might like to know that VoodooPad doesn't show up on Apple's Third Party Downloads section. Might want to fill that gap.

Posted by Aaron Pendland at December 26th 2005 07:51 PM

Great article. Informative and interesting. Congratulations on your success to date, and best wishes for your continued prosperity in the new year.

One thing missing from your charts was to cut every income bar by a third to account for Uncle Sam. Another option would be to increase every goal bar by an add'l one third. Between income taxes and double social security payments (self-employed people pay both the employer's and the employee's portion of SS) your Uncle takes at least a third of every paycheck.

Or maybe you've already accounted for that and I just missed it. ;-)

Posted by Phil in Japan at December 26th 2005 08:32 PM

you're now on digg: http://digg.com/programming/Become_an_Independent_Programmer_in_1068_Days

Posted by Mac-arena the Bored Zo at December 27th 2005 04:34 AM

I took next month's sales into consideration:
http://www.bonzoesc.net/images/upload/wwpd.png

Posted by Bryce Kerley at December 27th 2005 07:54 AM

Very nice article. I find you through digg too.

It is very nice to learn from people that have succeed, and I can also say that your tips are very easy, but very effective too.

Thanks for sharing, wish you the best :)

Posted by Nick at December 27th 2005 08:08 AM

Excellent article! I lived the dream for awhile. I had PalmOS products on the market and then decided to start doing custom applications as well. Business was great till 9/11. My mistake was from focusing on getting custom development work from big corporate companies, and not giving my commercial apps the focus they needed. Now I'm writing and working on some new commercial apps. Your article is a great boost of motivation.

Posted by Tim Trimble at December 27th 2005 08:17 AM

Nice read. Does VoodooPad have spellcheck? Just kidding! I'm an indie programmer too, only I don't write Mac apps. Always good to hear another person's story -- much luck to you in the future!

Posted by Doug Clifton at December 27th 2005 08:47 AM

Thanks Gus, this is a very inspirational article. All programmers dream of being independent. I like your advice of not quitting the day job until you've saved six months of your salary.

One thing I wonder about is whether or not you need to have a product people are willing to pay for. If your application is good/popular enough, then wouldn't a sponsorship program like adsense suffice? Offering a free, boiled down version seems like a great compromise.

Posted by Matthew Price at December 27th 2005 08:52 AM

I, too, found you through Digg. Good article. The information you provided will prove quite valueable once I finish my Software Engineering degree. :)

Posted by Chris at December 27th 2005 11:40 AM

Hey Gus,

I always wondered whether RealBASIC was a "serious" programming language/environment. Do you think that Bookends is a "compelling consumer grade application"?

http://www.sonnysoftware.com/

Posted by Marc Bizer at December 27th 2005 09:20 PM

Really nice article. Really like that:
"It's not good enough to write and sell something that people want, it has to be got to be something they'll spend money for as well." :)

Posted by GameProducer at December 28th 2005 05:04 AM

Great article! Thanks for sharing that.

As one of those people that's making a few bucks off of their own software, but not full-time income, it's good to hear experiences like yours.

I posted a link in the ASP & AISIP newsgroups as I'm sure there are a few other people there that will most certainly enjoy your article as much as I did.

Posted by Ryan Smyth at December 28th 2005 05:39 AM

Gus, thanks for sharing all the details! It's a valuable discussion of the approach you've taken, that I hope motivates a few more people to start taking those next steps for themselves.

Posted by Mark Roseman at December 28th 2005 11:27 AM

There is hope - I failed C as well. So embarassing but now I'm filled with inspiration.

Time to toddle off to write that widget - start small :-)

Posted by Damian Halloran at December 28th 2005 08:55 PM

hi there. found you vi www.downloadsquad.com
very interesing read. i'm jus curious, do you think it wouldv'e been easier or harder to do wha yo're doing on the windows circuit?
on the one hand, theres a much larger market to be exploited, on the other hand, i'm guessing there's also a lot more competition?

unfortunately, i don't use a mac, but your app looks very useful:(

Posted by Psych at December 29th 2005 03:34 AM

This is interesting. You should present this as a lecture at industry events, seriously.

Posted by Lorin Rivers at December 29th 2005 05:38 PM

Interesting lessons. In your budgeting, are you including the long-term accumulation that you'll need for retirement?

(and also I'd caution on the wacom tablet/displays -- our research group has one. Cool idea, but the display quality is very poor, and it has problems waking from sleep -- need to cycle power to the display after the powermac wakes up)

Posted by mdhills at December 30th 2005 12:09 AM

Gus, why do you think we don't need another one note taking app?

Posted by andre at January 9th 2006 06:35 AM

Fantastic article mate - loved it all the way through.

The most amazing thing is that noone else seems to have pointed out it was posted on Christmas Day. Now _that_ says something about your office being 12 seconds from the Christmas tree :)

Catch up soon hopefully!

m

Posted by Mike Cannon-Brookes at January 10th 2006 05:20 PM

Realy funny post :)

Posted by Alex Medina at November 10th 2006 09:18 AM

There is a mistake in Lesson #7. You typed: "it has to be got to be something". This is a particularly funny mistake since it is written at the bottom of the page that the text has been edited for typos.

Besides that, I find your text very interesting (your programs should be very good if they're as clear and fun as your text) especially that I'm a still learning programming in college and I am seriously considering becoming an independent programmer. This text really encouraged me to follow this path. I also appreciated the details about money income and expense which helped a lot and the touch of humor.

Posted by Ice at December 9th 2006 09:09 PM

I thank you for your comment.

Posted by Rosie at March 9th 2007 12:53 PM

Thanks! It was very helpful!

Posted by Christopher Humphries at April 27th 2007 09:00 AM

sexy beast

Posted by sara at May 3rd 2007 07:51 PM

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Posted by sara at May 3rd 2007 07:53 PM