Indie Devstock 2016 Conference Highlights

LIVE Podcast – Joe Cieplinski, Tammy Coron, Greg Heo, Jaime Lopez Jr and Tim Mitra

At the end of the first day, members of the three podcasts: Release Notes, Roundabout Creative Chaos and More Than Just Code, gathered to record a special live podcast:

Joe Cieplinsky, Tim Mitra, Jaime Lopez Jr, Tammy Coron & Greg Heo

Hosted by Greg Heo, the discussion focused on a couple of questions from the MTJC fans. The speakers discussed whether refactoring old projects was necessary or to be avoided. They discussed Sticker Packs in the Messages framework in iOS 10. Joe Cieplinski was asked about his own recently published sticker pack, Leo Collection.

Digging deeper Tammy and Joe discussed the challenges of diversity in tech conferences. They spoke about their efforts to be inclusive, as well as, the challenges of attending conferences for parents.

As a special surprise Tammy Coron was asked the 13 questions from her own Inside the Chaotic Studios, which she puts her own show’s guests through. The crowd had thinned but those that stayed had the treat of seeing the podcasters in IRL as Greg would say. The episode is published on the More Than Just Code website.

Staying Indie – Curtis Herbert

Another great talk was given by Curtis Herbert, successful independent developer and creator of the Slopes app. Slopes combines two of Curtis’ favorite things: snowboarding and development. In this talk, he examines the history of the App Store, the perceived problems and what Indies can do about them.

The App Store has been in existence for 8 years now and the market has certainly matured. There has been an ongoing discussion along the the same theme: does Apple need to “fix” the problems for indies to succeed, or is that not their problem?

There are a lot of challenges indies face with the App Store: no paid upgrades, no trials, and no customer info, weak App Store discovery, and that customers expect apps to be free.

Curtis maintained we need to challenge the belief that the issues we face are Apple’s fault: that’s simply baggage that is holding us back. Curtis said we need to unpack that baggage and realize that the market is the true enemy, not Apple.

As a success story, Curtis shared his experience with his app, Slopes, where he was able to move with the market and adapt his pricing strategy over time:

• Paid app. He first introduced the app in 2013, as a paid app for $3.99.
• In-app purchase. When Slopes 2 was introduced, he included a free trial scheme that provided the full experience for one day, with an in-app purchase to upgrade to the full app afterwards.
• Subscriptions. Later, Curtis added subscriptions to the app for recurring revenue.

Curtis gave some other great tips, such as how to encourage users to leave ratings and reviews. This is important, because unfortunately reviews suffer from a negativity bias. One tactic that Curtis has tried is to add a view that appears explaining that he’s just “one guy working hard”. He also has tried less obtrusive dialogs that can be scrolled past and even offered stickers. Snow boarders love stickers!

Curtis argued that as an indie developer, sometimes you have to force yourself to step away from development, and spend some time working on the business of your apps. Like eating your vegetables, it may not be enjoyable but is vital to the overall health of the app.

If you’re an indie developer trying to make a living, this is definitely a video you want to check out.

Mindful Developers With A Champion Heart – Francie Van Wirkus

Francie Van Wirkus is an ironman competitor, agile coach and co-host of the Agile Bettys podcast. Her talk was about the importance of mindfulness.

Francie related the story of the 1995 ironman competition where the incumbent champion, Paula Newby Frazier, was expected to win. However she miscalculated the conditions of the race environment, wasn’t focused and living in the moment, and ended up collapsing in the race. She did finish but only with encouragement from her supporters.

We are surrounded by a lot of noise in daily life. This can distract from what need to focus on right now. In this talk, Francie argued that we should avoid asking “what if?” as the what-ifs can block our progress. Instead, living in the moment gives us greater clarity, fosters creativity and aids in problem solving.

We consider ourselves to be experts in technology. We should be able to put the technology away from time to time. How can we be experts, in fact, if we can’t put it away?

One of her favorite excuses is “I don’t have time to learn to swim. I’m too busy drowning.” She suggests that we start with 5 minutes away from our devices. We need to stop thrashing ourselves with life and work on our relationships with others. Work on mindfulness and seek out or become epic people.

Other Great Talks

By all accounts, every talk was great and inspiring. This article has covered some of the standouts, but you should definitely check out the rest of the talks, available with the Remote Access Pass:

• Greg Heo spoke about Cross Platform Swift.
• Janie Clayton who spoke about the challenges of mental health vs and work environment.
• Ellen Shapiro spoke about being a part-time indie because sometimes you need a steady income.
• Michelle Titolo gave an awesome talk about the history or tools, from the knife to the computer.
• Ben DiFrancesco gave a tech talk about creating a compiler to convert a contrived language into Swift code.
• Angela Scott spoke about sometimes needing to get lost before you can find your way.
• Mohammad Azam gave a second talk on the new hotness; Messages extensions and sticker packs.

Venue – Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center

Before we wrap up, I just wanted to note that the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center is spectacular. It contains three enormous green houses with 9 acres of lush indoor gardens and tropical plants, amazing waterfalls, and even a riverboat ride!

The resort sits on 57 acres and has 700,000 square feet of convention space. Regular tech conference attendees stated that any other conference would be hard pressed to top this choice of venue.

The Gaylord is so large that guests are each given a map. During the stay at the conference every attendee delighted in getting lost going from place to place. The adventure of the stay was certainly a highlight of the conference. “We wanted to make sure you got your 10,000 steps,” says Angela Scott.