Creator of Pixaki and Full-Time Indie iOS Dev: A Top Dev Interview With Luke Rogers

Pixaki

Can you tell me the ultimate success story of Pixaki? How did it all start and how have you managed great success?

Success is an interesting term because it can be measured in so many ways and it’s always relative. There’s obviously a financial success, but also success in terms of influence within the pixel art community, and success in terms of equipping others to create amazing things. I struggle to think of the app as successful because I know where I want to take it and it feels like I’m just getting started, but looking at where I’ve come from I can see that it has achieved success in a lot of ways.

I started Pixaki because I wanted to make pixel art on my iPad but I didn’t really like the look of any of the other apps that were out there — I’m very fussy when it comes to apps! If I started a project like this now, I’d do a lot more market analysis first and take the time to run the numbers. I’ve learnt a lot about running a business in the last few years, and in hindsight, I don’t think I made life very easy for myself. But a combination of learning these business skills and sheer determination has led me to the point that I’m at now.

Pixaki in action!

What’s the thought-process for building new features for Pixaki, is it ultimately user feedback or do you have a personal backlog of features to implement in the future?

User feedback is driving things a lot at the moment. I have a spreadsheet where I collate all of the requests that come in and order the requested features by popularity, which has become my backlog. There are also features that I’d like to add that maybe aren’t the most requested, but are important for the direction I want to take the product in.

This way of working means that I’m not that quick to implement the latest features in iOS because my customers aren’t requesting them, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing necessarily. I’ve released 3 major updates to Pixaki 3 so far, and I’ve got another 5 planned which should keep me busy for 2018!

For me, it’s all about the people. I love to attend conferences for making new connections and getting different perspectives on things. It’s nice to have people to talk to about the world of app development too.

What’s the process for releasing new features and how do you keep the quality control high on Pixaki?

I have a great group of beta testers. In the early days I was just recruiting anyone I knew with an iPad to help with testing, but over the years as the product has become more established, I’ve managed to recruit some of my most loyal users to help with testing. I’m very grateful for these people — they volunteer their time to help make the app better because they believe in the product and want to see me succeed. It’s really amazing, and they’ve played a huge part in making the app what it is today.

I really enjoy obsessing over details, which helps when trying to make a high-quality product. I don’t want to release anything that I think is only “good enough”, so I’ll happily iterate five or ten times on a particular aspect of the app until I’m happy with it.

I’ve found having long beta testing periods has been useful — Pixaki 3 was in beta for 9 months before release. There’s definitely more I’d like to do in terms of having a process for maintaining the quality, though.

Lots of folks would like to see Pixaki on the Mac, any signs of this happening in the future?

Yes! It’s currently in active development. There’s still quite a way to go, but I’m really excited about the product it’s turning into. I love the Mac, I do nearly all of my work on a Mac and I know a lot of other people do too, so I think it will be really great for people working on large projects and those who just prefer to work on a desktop. I am hoping to release at some point in 2018. (If anyone would like to help with beta testing, please email me at luke@rizer.co).

Pixaki in action on the Mac, credits to Jason Tammemagi.

Where To Go From Here?

And that concludes our Top App Dev Interview with Luke Rogers. Huge thanks to Luke for sharing his journey with the iOS community :]

I hope you enjoyed reading about Luke’s journey with Pixaki and is a clear example of our very few indie iOS developers in the community.

Remaining clear of any distractions is clearly key to Luke’s determination to make a successful product, Pixaki. I hope you can take away some tips and use in your workflow.

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