Indie Interviews
Can you tell us more about yourself and what led you to become an indie maker
First and foremost, thank you for the interview. It's an honor for me to be a part of it. I've been a big fan of all your work, Khoa, for quite some time ā from your open-source libraries to your apps, so it's very special for me to be a part of this interview series. I'm an iOS developer from Spain, but I've had the opportunity to live in a few different countries. I began my journey in iOS back in the day when the iPhone 4 was released.
From the very beginning, I've consistently had iPhone apps published on my personal account on the App Store. Unfortunately, at the start, most of the apps I had published made very little money, so I've always been working for different companies while pursuing my app development projects. It was around six years ago when I started building the Email Me App, a productivity app designed for emailing yourself your thoughts, ideas, to-dos, links, and more. My goal is to create a best-in-class productivity app.
How did you come up with the idea? How do you generate ideas for your apps or projects, and how do you identify the problems or needs your app can address?
You know, I'm all about keeping everything in one place. Back in the day, if I had something important I didn't want to forget, I'd just shoot myself an email. After a while, I thought ā why not see if there's an app that can do this job faster? Turns out, there weren't any good ones back then.
So, I thought to myself, "Hey, I could probably whip up this app in a couple of hours and call it a day." Fast forward all these years, and I'm still working on it! š
How does your day-to-day app development workflow look like?
For my indie App projects I use a quite standard workflow using Xcode for development and Github as a repository and for tracking issues/feedback. Then I use Xcode Cloud to create the builds and publish them on the App Store. For design I'm currently using Figma. I do support once or twice a day, usually before I start and after I finish my work day.
How do you launch and market your app?
When launching Email Me I did at the very beginning I did a soft launch, not creating much noise. Over the years I've tried launching a few versions on Product Hunt, sometimes being more successful than others.
I've also reached out a few times to the press but I've never had much luck with that. Marketing it's something I'm still working on and trying to get better at. Currently I focus all my marketing efforts on having a good ASO.
What are the future plans for your app?
I have quite a large list of feature requests and improvements that I'm working on implementing to the App. Some of them focus on improving the Mac and the Watch version. Currently the Mac App is just a catalyst version of the iOS App but I'd like to improve it much more to make it feel more at home on a Mac.
Do you have any interesting lessons learned or tips for other indie makers?
I'd say put your work out there and try to get customers. I think having a great product is important and to build something that the users want, you'll have to get users, ask for feedback and keep iterating on it. Then, once you have a product that users find valuable, try to monetize it and bring more customers to it.
Looking back, are there any decisions or actions you regret not taking before or during the development and launch of your apps? Is there anything you would have done differently?
Looking back I'd say I should have tried to create more noise when launching it, and also tried to iterate the product faster. After that, something I regret Is not doing enough marketing, I feel like I'm a builder at core and I love building things either for me or for other people but I'm really bad and I don't enjoy as much telling people about them š.
Are there any other products that you are particularly proud of? Could you share some details about them
Another App I'm proud of is Digital Photo Frame which is an App I built to play slideshow of images and videos either from your Photos Library or from other sources like Google Photos. I get emails from users sharing how they were able to repurpose an old iPad, put it in their parents house and play with the App a continuous slideshow of a shared album and how they benefit from their grandparents feeling connected to their grandkids from very far away. If anyone is interested can read more about it at digitalphotoframeapp.com.
Are there any indie makers or creators whose work you admire and follow closely?
There are so many! I love the iOS community and thanks to Twitter and different conferences I've been able to meet a few of them. I'd say one of the things I love the most about doing iOS App is the community and how there are so many talented people that they've shared their work and learnings to help all of us.
Could you recommend any specific tools or resources that you believe are helpful for other indie makers, especially those just starting out?
I will say that there are few youtube channels that focus on App Marketing. Those have been helpful for me to learn more about that.
Also Iād recommend to follow some accounts of people who have been in the game that have created very successful Apps or SaaS products.
Thanks for reading til the end. Hope you enjoy the interview as much as we did
Indie Interviews by Indie Goodies is all about discovering and showcasing indie makers. We firmly believe that behind every app, there's an inspiring tale of passion, creativity, and perseverance. We're always on the lookout for aspiring indie makers to feature in our series, and if you have any suggestions or recommendations, we'd love to hear from you.
Once again, thank you for joining us on this journey. Your support means the world to us. Until next time, keep supporting indie makers, keep exploring innovative apps, and subscribe to Indie Goodies interviews for more.