Want to build and launch an app in a month? | Hacker News Reader

Want to build and launch an app in a month?

hn.21times.org

59 pointsryanwaggoner30 comments

I was going to do this last year but lacked inspiration and got distracted.

But this weekend I had some time to spare and so got playing around with some idea, and actually got around to building a quick prototype and trying it out.

I was thinking about taking the spare time I have this month and plowing it into pulling the prototype through. I was in the middle of compiling a lessons learned document when I got your reminder email. So count me in!

(Now to go and cringe at the Java/C++ hybrid mess that is the prototype!)

Super excited to have you on board. Don't forget to email us when you launch to let us know. We'd love to feature you on the homepage.

Backstory: last November 1st we launched this little project featuring some awesome content on building and launching an app, in a daily reminder/motivation email (with progress tracking!) We've had about 1200 developers go through in the last year, and thought we'd just repost it and see if anyone who hasn't seen it finds it useful.

You can read more about it the last time we launched: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1857508

I don't understand the value proposition here. Don't emails, blogs, buzz, articles, documenting the project etc etc etc. just add noise to the process?

It's different for every person, but many of these folks are working on these projects on the side, and a daily value-packed reminder to keep pressing forward can be useful. We've seriously received tons of feedback from the developers who have signed up, telling us that they found it really valuable. YMMV, but give it a shot. Unsubscribing is always just a single click away :)

EDIT: More than 100 people have signed up in the last hour, so I guess someone finds the concept interesting.

Very interesting! Do you think because of a sense of community and 'industry solidarity', or as a function of outright competition. That would be a really compelling distribution to analyse. I guess 'build an app' doesn't necessarily mean 'that monetizes' right, so could be fun! +1 for me :)

Solidarity, and community is almost certainly part of it. When doing an independent side project, the fact that nobody knows the difference makes it easier to let it slide. Just having someone know about your commitment, even if it's a computer, can make a difference. It's someone similar to the difference in success on quitting smoking between people who sign up for a committed quitter group commit program vs those that just do it on their own.

Same here - also it doesn't really explain what level of expertise is expected to achieve the goal.

This is a really bad month for iPhone people: There is an app freeze in December, so all our main projects are in a rush to hit that all the time.

What do you mean by "app freeze"?

Apple stops accepting apps for a while during the holidays.

do you have a link to apple's official anouncement? from which day to which day?

If it is anything like last year:

iTunes Connect will be temporarily shut down from Thursday, December 23 to Tuesday, December 28 for the winter holidays. Access will resume on Wednesday, December 29.

I can survive 5 days.

Also over Thanksgiving weekend.

It's more about the leaderboard freeze.

Getting frozen in that leaderboard over Xmas Eve and Xmas will get you LOTS of sales.

In addition to CHC's comment, they also freeze the leaderboards, which makes early december success a virtual guarantee of very high Xmas revenues.

The idea is good but your implementation has much to be desired IMHO.

Entrepreneurs run on emotion and the idea of changing the world so its a very real problem to be motivated everyday for a long period of time.

Sent you an email.

I'm in: http://teamwork.io/

I did this last year and wasn't really impressed (sorry). What have you improved in the last 12 months?

[Edit] Sorry that came over very negatively. I thought the idea was good and I'd be keen to go again if I knew there were improvements.

The date on all the emails is much higher :)

This is a side project for us, and since some folks found it useful, we thought we'd just post it again. Is there anything in particular that would make it better for you?

Good idea. Last year I joined the Nov one and launched an app. Launched another app couple months later. I'll join this year as well. Good motivation to turn side project ideas into products.

Hi Ryan, I don't understand what this is. Is it a autoresponder with some articles from famous people that we receive regularly?

How does the progress tracking work?

The progress tracking is basically a daily self-assessment on how you're doing towards building and launching an app at the end of the month. You can see your progress in each email as it's been tracked. People seem to find this self-assessment valuable.

Ah I wish I saw this exactly a month ago, I'm on track to launch tonight. I'll still sign up to try self-assessing my past self (or maybe launch another).

FYI: The images or links in the email are broken for me.

We're using Sendgrid and we think it's an issue with them. Support request has been submitted...thanks for the feedback!

Related thread from yesterday: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3180321

Even after reading that page, I have literally no idea what it is.

You should delete that page from the face of the planet and do a new one with more explanation.

HN generally attempts to maintain a more collegial tone than this.

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