When I published the first version of Wake Up, Powered by Rdio®, I had never been employed as a software developer. I had never read a book or taken a course in Objective C. I just wanted to wake up to music and my music was on Rdio. The app was a side project and a learning experience and I was proud of what I had accomplished.
Looking back, it was an amateur effort. It’s obvious now. But although it was imperfect, it was mine.
And it was a tool that I used every night and it worked. At least 95% of the time I was woken up to music. I have never made any money with this app, and I don’t expect to make any in the future. I couldn’t justify spending more time on it. And since I was so close to it, since I had designed and developed the entire thing, I really couldn’t see it being anything else than it already was. Four or five months ago I had decided that the app would be in ‘maintenance mode’ and that I wouldn’t do anything new to it.
Then I got an email from Jenni. Subject line: ‘Love your app’. That sure made me smile. She wanted to know if I’d be interested in her help with some UI work. I was skeptical. Visited her website – wait, she does this for a living? And she’s actually good? I was more skeptical. Plus, I didn’t know if I wanted to put any effort into the app. Worse, I didn’t know if I wanted to work with someone else. I struggled with the idea that someone else could do something better than I could, and that instead of this being my app, it would be our app. It sounds silly to write about now, but I was in emotional turmoil. I can’t say I got past that turmoil quickly, but I decided to at least hear her out. Turns out, she also lives in North Texas. So we met for coffee.
Coffee went well. Actually, coffee went great – I was energized by just starting to work with someone else that is passionate about what she does. We seemed to have similar tastes in design and left the conversation with the idea that she would create a mockup and I could decide to go forward with it at that point. I drove home a little giddy.
About a month later, she sent a mockup. I really liked the design direction, but I wasn’t sold. I was still wrestling with my control issues.
But I like to think of myself as someone who won’t miss an opportunity because of my own insecurities, so I decided to go for it. And for the past two and a half months Jenni and I have been crafting Version 2.0.0 in our spare time – working together to make something better than I could make alone. Jenni is a joy to work with.
This morning, I submitted to the App Store.
As I said before, my first attempt at this app was not a professional work.
But this one is. This one is beautiful and functional and polished and I am proud to say that I took part in bringing it into the world. I can’t wait to share it with everyone.
