The Inside Scoop: April 2021
👋 Friends.
Oh my. This is really hard, and we don’t even have an MVP yet 😅😪
Since moving on to our new developers (which have been a revelation since my previous developer was a no show) things have gone a bit down (a lot) 📉 after an extremely good start. What happened?
Early March for two weeks our developers went quiet. I assumed they were busy working on the app heads down pumping that keyboard. I emailed (a few times) and got no reply.
Finally (fed up 😡), I followed the head nacho on Twitter and replied to one of his tweets. I was sarcastic (which is not right or how I want to act — it was not honoring), but I was stressed out and a bit emotional, because this guy is not replying to emails (probably very busy — I guessed), but has time to tweet 3 times a day?
Meanwhile, I’m becoming very impatient since wasting three months with my first developer and taking six months to finish the crowdfunding campaign before that. It felt like we will never get this product to market.
My developer replied immediately. I’m not going to show the email here, but I made a quick summary:
- He took a full-time job as a developer for a new startup.
- After that, for two weeks, he tried to keep his agency going and finish the app, but the rest of the team left as well.
- He then tried to finish the app himself, but the work at the new startup was overwhelming.
- He still feels he could finish it, but also at the same time is struggling to acclimatize to the new job.
- P.S. The email was very sincere and I could see he wanted to fix this but was struggling with life and family (for which I have massive respect as a family man and dad of three).
After the email, I reacted rather than responding (I’m very emotional at this point). It was Thursday before my sister’s wedding weekend, so I made the suggestion to think about it over the weekend as I’m too emotional right now (I never make good decisions when emotional or desperate) 🙄
On Monday after a refreshing wedding weekend, I had two options which I wrote to him about:
Option 1: Since the app is 30% done is it at all possible for him to finish it in a reasonable time? Like less than 3 months?
Option 2: Find a new developer who can continue doing the work.
We went with option 1. Why?
Developer (let’s call him developer) felt he could still finish in two to three months.
Finding another developer with that wide range of talent and getting him/her up to speed at the same price point would prove to be very hard! So I went with what felt like the easier, but the right option. (I’m stressed though because you know what they say).
Easy choices — hard life, hard choices — easy life
For the future, I still need to find another developer to work on the app full time, but in the meantime, I trust developer will finish the MVP or as he likes to call it MDP (Minimum Delightful Product).
Branding
Since I’m very passionate about work and being productive (and design) I have been tinkering with the logo and branding of Pencil Bible for the last month.
I just can’t find the right logo and I promised myself I will only outsource it once the app looks like it will actually work.
I’m focused on colors now and how they affect user's choices. I obviously want people to click on the iOS logo and the branding to portray a certain “VIBE”.
I read this incredible article on colors here:
Right at the end, they have this color emotion guide which you may have seen a few times on the internet.
Now I’m even more confused on what color scheme to use? Is Pencil Bible going to be fun orange or trusting blue? Do we signify growth and nature (green) or calm and neutral (grey techy vibes)?
Currently, we are red witch evokes youthful, bold, and passionate emotions. My thoughts though are lingering towards purple which stands for wealth, luxury, creativity, wisdom, and imagination.
My worry is — will this color branding appeal to older people who want to journal, study and make notes in their Bible?
What do you think? More on this next month. This is hard 😱
I hope April is a blast and remember I have no idea what I’m doing 😅
P.S. If you like this then subscribe to my newsletter about building Pencil Bible in the open @ www.erinwalker.me 😱🏁🛠
