Loneliness. Pressure. Constant decision making. Endless context switching. All the invisible work that isn’t coding. These are the things you learn once you are already into it.
It’s a lot more messy and demanding than it looks, but also more rewarding in ways you don’t expect.
Being independent is the dream of many people. Working on your own product, your own app, for yourself, on your own time. You’re no longer tied to a desk and a regular 9-5, and that feels exciting.
After a few failed attempts to build and release my app while working a full-time job – I quit my job and went freelance. I released my app Nunch this year.
I gained deep respect for anyone who is able to build an app and hold down a full-time job at the same time. This is difficult. But, it becomes a little easier after releasing the app.
you are doing all the work
In a company, you’re a developer, you focus on one area of the product. You work closely with other developers, designers, product owners, and others. As an indie, you are the developer, designer, product owner, and everything else. You are doing all the work.
As a Product Owner, you need to have a clear vision on the features and roadmap. As a designer, you need to think about UI and UX. And then you have to do all the work of developing new features, fixing bugs, and maintaining the code. That’s a lot of work for one person.
Some indie developers hire other developers as freelancers to help on a feature. They hire a designer to create app icons and other artwork. You don’t have to do everything yourself, you can outsource any work you like. But most of the time you will.
working alone
Being independent is lonely, you have no colleagues to talk to, no one to ask questions, no one to bounce ideas off of. But, you can find other indies and join various Slack or Discord chats – there are many.
Another option is to create publicly and share what you are doing on social media. Interact with other developers and it can feel less lonely.
You don’t have to go alone at all if you don’t want to. But it will never be the same as working as part of a team at a company. I know some developers who don’t want to freelance – they prefer working in a team and don’t want to lose that culture.
Doing everything yourself means doing work you may have never done before. Or ever thought you would. Writing code, designing the user interface, and releasing an app – we can do it, but it’s only a small part of the work.
If you want your app (or apps) to be successful and eventually become your full-time job, you have to do more than just release it.
As developers, we think, once we release our app, people will find it and use it. But this is far from the truth. Once your app is out, you need to drive users to your app. This means figuring out marketing. Creating promo materials, writing content, sharing on social media, reaching out to influencers – you can do so much. You have to find what works for your app.
Then there is analytics. You can rely on App Store Connect or add a custom SDK to learn how users interact with your app. Again, this decision is yours.
Then there are paywalls. Also ASO (App Store Optimization). And support – you get to respond to any bug reports or feature requests.
As an indie, your users become your team, your investors, your stakeholders all at once. Your entire business depends on people using what you’ve created. This means listening to them even when it is uncomfortable.
Some people will send thoughtful responses. Some will report bugs you didn’t know existed. Will leave some amazing reviews that will make your week. And some people will leave a one star review because your app is not free.
It’s polite. You don’t have a product owner protecting you, or a customer support team filtering things out. Everything comes straight to you – praise, criticism and disappointment. You need to decide what to act on, what to ignore, and what suits your vision for the app.
You owe your users a good experience. This is why your app survives. You have to earn their trust, keep improving and keep performing. That relationship becomes a big part of independent life.
As an indie, you’re trading hours between building new features, fixing bugs, supporting your users, marketing, and just staying sane. The hardest part isn’t the work – it’s choosing what to work on. Time is the most precious resource you have.
Will you be fixing that annoying bug you’ve been trying to figure out for weeks or working on that exciting new feature. Or you may have to work on marketing and paywall optimization. You have to learn to set priorities. There is no right or wrong decision, but every decision you make shapes your progress.
Freedom from the routine 9-5 is what developers typically want when going indie, among other things. Choosing when to work, how to work, and what to work on is exciting.
You can choose to stay up later and work a few hours from your local coffee shop. You can do almost anything.
I still choose to work 9-5 because my husband works those hours and then we finish work at the same time. But I can go to the gym in the afternoon. There is less crowd here. Sometimes I take a break and play Silksong or go outside for a walk. Because I can and it gives me a good mental break.
I’ve been in situations where I’ve been coding something for 8 hours a day in full focus mode for a few days. A few days later I find myself staring at Xcode with no idea what I’m working on anymore. In a company you rarely spend your entire day in focused work. You get interrupted in meetings and other things. You cannot work in full focus mode for a long time.
Now I take a break to do some other work. I’ll check my analytics or read a bookmarked article on marketing. I’ll see if I can customize my paywall or brainstorm features.
Every day isn’t the same, but most days I’m still just writing code. You find your rhythm.
We have to mention AI.
Vibe coding is a thing now and people are creating apps faster than ever. Some without any prior programming experience. There are people who use AI only to create things and never write a single line of code. There are people who use AI for certain use cases. There are some who do not use it at all.
Everything I said above is still true whether you use AI or not. But, AI can definitely help speed things up. I use AI for a few things. This helped me many times to fix some bugs and decode strange Xcode errors. This is great for composing text and simplifying user-facing copy.
I see it as having a fellow junior colleague I can talk to and give me different perspectives. There are days when it’s really bad and I waste my time. There are days when this is helpful. It’s great for some tasks but I use it sparingly. This is especially bad with new APIs.
I like writing code so I don’t want to skip that part.
Before I end, I want to share some resources that have helped me on this journey.
Mateo’s Astro is a great tool for app store optimization and figuring out your app store keywords. Once you get the hang of things, it’s easy to use. He also wrote some short books to help you learn more about keyword optimization and I think you should definitely read them. They are free!
Antoine has a great Going Indie course and a free podcast where you can learn more about being indie from other indies.
Paul wrote a book called Everything But the Code, which I highly recommend. It’s self-explanatory, but he says It’s designed to provide you with everything you need to go from Xcode to the App Store – from coming up with great ideas, to launch strategy, to driving success.
Adam has an amazing YouTube channel where he shares his indie journey and how he works on his apps. This is a treasure.
This is not an exhaustive list, but is worth mentioning.
I know I’ve said many times that you have to do everything yourself. This is true. You know this, but you still get surprised by things you never thought about. And I haven’t even talked about the bureaucracy of running your own company and dealing with taxes.
Being indie sounds exciting but it may not be for everyone.
It’s lonely and requires you to be a jack of all trades. You are a developer and designer. You are the product owner and the marketing department. You are everything. If you like working in a team – this may not be for you.
This is also uncertain. You depend on your app performing well, and you don’t know what will happen tomorrow. You need to make sure that you bring in new users and keep current users happy. You have to constantly stay on top of things.
I enjoy everything about indie life. Building and releasing an app yourself, then figuring out marketing, paywalls, and ASO strategies. It’s exciting and you learn a lot. You make mistakes and learn something else. This is a journey.
please feel free to contact X (Twitter) Or Mastodon if you have any questions, comments or feedback.
Thank you for reading!
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