Like, literally madness. Therefore, I decided to utilize this repo to post answers for the Indie Dev questions 😂
Hi! My name is Emin Grbo, and i live in Oslo, Norway. I moved here from Kragujevac, Serbia.
1) Introduce yourself. Education? Background? Main job? Interests outside of tech? Interests inside of tech?
Oh well, pull up a chair, Chris, because I have stories to tell. But I do not want to write a novella here or spend too much of anyone's time. So let me try and pull this out in several points, and if you or anyone else is interested in specifics, feel free to reach out 🙌
So:
- After high school had no idea what to do. I never was interested in education in general or had a direction in my life.
- I found one college that has no math (I am very good at it and at the same time despise it), so I went there. It's called Singidunum, and the specific program was "Business Informatics."
- it was expensive, but my dad was just fast-forwarded to early retirement and, as luck would have it, increased his income by a fair amount, enabling me to go there. (but only just)
- 1 year in, that extra income disappeared, and we were at a point where it wasn't too expensive for me to go there unless we figured something out.
- I knew my parents could get in debt, so I got to workin', getting any job that I could find and only going to college to attend exams.
- after a few odd jobs, I became a Flash Developer, focusing on animation
- 1 year later, I snagged a job in DDB(marketing agency), moving to print and billboard design
- 2 years later, I was fired due to The big economic crisis
- I started freelance design, where I was able to make x3 times my monthly salary (ch-ching)
- I did this until 2018 when I started learning iOS development.
- In 2019 got a job in a company in Serbia called Telego
- 2020 got a job in TIDAL just as Corona was getting started.
- In 2020 moved to Oslo and started interacting online
- I met an awesome group of iOS people, one of them being a delusional person thinking 🐯 would beat 🐮 in the Black&White game, but other than that, awesome guy.
- That same awesome guy asked me to be interviewed for this newsletter.
- You are reading this
Actually no! I had no idea that this was the path I was moving towards. I react to my feelings and surroundings and see where the path takes me. Now, however, I see a VERY clear path and a goal that I aim to achieve. And that is to become an indie developer, making my own apps and games.
That was what motivated me to start coding in the first place. I had the design skills but not the ability to make them work. I have had a desire to create since early in my childhood, where I was either making things out of clay or chopping some wood with an ax. But imagining words and characters was something that always brought joy to me.
Very very carefully 😅 I was reading a but about time management and try to make sure I do a bit of everything each day. That way, nothing REALLY suffers a lot, but at the same time, you keep moving forward and progressing. Family is always a priority, and I try to have weekends reserved for that and some quality time every day. I find joy in the little things we do together each day 🙌 Not gonna lie. It is hard!
0) When I heard about your goal to release 5 apps on April 1 it didn’t even cross my mind that you were serious. What made you want to take on this huge task? Do you sleep? If so, as someone who accomplished this with a full time job, marriage, and small child can you give us some insight into your time management skills?
Hehehe thank you Chris! It was tricky that's for sure. Most of those apps were half-way done, and I decided to challenge myself and try wrap them all up in a month, otherwise that time I spent on them unti then would have been for nothing! As for the HOW, I just focused on planning a lot. I had 2 hrs per day, and tried the do the most important features first, reaching the MVP stage as fast as I can, and not striving for 100% completion or perfection. It goes without saying I had loads of support from my wife in this 🙌
1) You recently gave a presentation about how an egg timer got you so much traction in the job market. For those that didn’t see your talk can you tell us about this? I’m sure that there are beginners who think you have to have a huge, complicated app to get noticed by potential employers.
Oh yeah, I am so proud of my egg-timer app! My initial idea was to create "anything" really, but then I remembered the saying, "there is no such thing as bad marketing." So, I figured if I created an eye-catching and a bit over-the-top egg timer app, I would stand out in the marketplace a lot more. And it worked like a charm! It also allowed me to put a lot of concepts developers should know about into practice. So really, it was a clear win-win. Highly recommended for anyone starting the job hunt 👍
2) Accessibility Assistant - This looks like it will be so handy for helping developers better support accessibility. Can you tell us what it does? BTW, the app icon is chef’s kiss!
Thank you so much! I had so much fun creating that icon, and the community helped a ton there — another bonus of building in public. I made the app to help developers understand how their views would be read by people who use voiceOver. I always forget which property is read first and in what order, so with this app, by checking off a few boxes and inputting some text, you can generate a voiceOver result and make sure the view "reads" well, along with looking good 👌
3) spendersson - This is an interesting budgeting app in that it can be just for tracking a day’s spending if you want. Can you go into more detail?
Yes! When I moved to Oslo, the first thing that hit me is, "what are these new moneys?" 😅 I had no concept of value and price. Even though I could convert it to a currency I am more familiar with, it made no sense, as prices and standards differ a LOT! That is when I realized I needed an app that could just help me manage any amount of monthly income, no matter the currency, and inform me how much I could spend per day and still save a pre-determined amount of money. I use this app daily. I cannot describe how much it helps me to manage my budget.
4) StorkUI - I love that this app not only gives you beautiful UI elements, but shows you the code that created them. It’s a great learning opportunity along with being a helpful tool. What’s the significance of the name and what kind of views are you planning on adding in the future?
Ah, the name 😂 It was originally called " SwiftUI Views, " but Apple had issues with that, so I renamed it to something I found mildly funny. Stork is an ultimate "bringer of babies" in many cultures, and these views are, in a sense, babies. Initial ideas of what a view can look like, and it is up to you to shape it to how it can work for you :) The main idea for the app is to have a library of moderately tricky views that can either inspire you or allow you to bootstrap an app prototype in the shortest amount of time. You will notice that many of the apps I make are made to speed up development, as time is a commodity for myself and many other devs in similar situations.
5) You appear to be gearing up to challenge Jordi Bruin for the title of fastest app developer. Can you give us a sneak peek into what you have coming up? I know owler will be in beta soon.
Oh you are too kind 🙏 Jordi is not only producing apps fast, but they are so good and polished, it feels like he has been working on them for ages 😂 Owler, as you mentioned will be in beta soon, and it is a Twitter helper app specifically aimed at people that....you guessed it! Don't have time! 😅 It is a product I am making for myself and just hope there are enough people out there that would use it as well and find some value in it.
As for the sneak peak. Well...I was not fully ready to share anything, but the app I am working on after Owler will be an app that is very near and dead to my heart and that I plan to work on for years to come if everything goes right. It is an app that will help people take a breather and stop...to bring them back to the time where playing a game was not a rushed experience but something you enjoyed and fully immersed yourself into. Imagine starting a game, putting on your favourite headphones and closing your eyes. I know, right? And allowing the game to narate and bring you into the world where you can escape and have fun at. It will not have notifications, leaderboards and similar. It will be a game that is there for you when you need it, to relax but to have fun as well. Oh man, I just cannot WAIT to dig into it 🙌
6) What’s been the hardest part of being an indie dev? What the most fun part of being an indie dev?
Hardest, marketing. Marketing is not HARD perse, but something none of us really enjoys. I started to enjoy some parts of it but still have difficulties in general. The most fun: BUILDING THINGS! When I start an app, I feel goosebumps all over while setting up the architecture and seeing the app come to life. The feeling is out of this world.
I can be way too energetic in a good or a bad way, and I want people to know this is who I really am 😅 If I say that I am really excited about your app, you better believe I REALLY am! I rarely "just say things" 😅
Oh wow, I know so many that I feel listing a few would instantly feel bad as I might forget to mention someone. But I think I have to mention someone who has skyrocketed recently: @FloWritesCode. App he made few weeks back, LaunchBuddy, is crazy usefull and it has been such a lifesaver for me 🙌 Also, and this is shameless "family-self-promo", my wife joined this amazing iOS community just a few days ago and I am over the moon. I and cannot wait to see what will she be making once she gets her hands on SwiftUI. A lot of apps I make are at least 50% better because her opinion is ruthles but fair 😅 @TigrrSwift My opinion might be too subjective there as you might imagine.