It seems that with every passing week, someone else in the Mac development world “goes indie”, i.e. quits their regular day-job and makes a commitment to building a Mac OS X software business of their own (with or without doing some freelance work part-time to tide them over financially). Gus’ blog keeps me up to date with who’s just gone indie, and the news always has an energising effect on my personal development projects.
As some of you may know, I’ve been working for a company here in Leith (Edinburgh) as a web applications developer for the past 3 months (i.e. since we moved to Edinburgh; I’ve been a web apps developer for quite a while longer than that), and also devoting some hours during the evenings and weekends to work on my own Cocoa projects (really one application in particular). I’m not here to talk about the app just yet, though you’ll hear more about it in the new year. The reason I’m writing is to say that I handed in my notice at work on Thursday (to finish up before Christmas; just a few days now), and as of 2007 I will officially be out there on my own.
I’ll be starting off by spending 60% of my working week freelancing remotely, doing both Cocoa and web apps development (obligatory mention of the now-badly-needing-updated Magic Aubergine site if you’d like to get in touch in that regard). The remaining 40% of each week will be devoted to my own Cocoa development work, with a view to getting some software out there and eventually making that my full-time occupation. I’ve thought long and hard about this, budgeted as carefully as I can, talked it through fully with Lauren, and I think that now is the right time to do this. I’m 27, I feel I’ve really got something to contribute to the OS X software landscape, and I’m determined to give this my best possible attempt.
It’s scary to lose a guaranteed income and all, but nowhere near as scary as the spectre of future regret, and that’s a hell of a lot more important. Here goes.
Congratulations, and welcome!
Best of luck to you!
Excellent news, Matt! I know you’ve been mulling this over for quite a while and for what it’s worth I feel it’s a damn good decision. I also hope this heralds your return to the mid-day MSN scene though I’d guess time wasting on MSN isn’t so attractive when you’re not getting paid for it!
Best of luck.
N
Congrats…. best of luck….
Dude… all the luck in the world!
Good luck!
Good luck sir! One bit of advice to you, don’t fall behind on the tax returns, I know how that feels ;)
Awesome- congrats! And good luck (but I don’t think you’ll need it :).
Matt, it’s always great to see someone else join the fold (and for me, especially when they’re British – there’s not enough of us). I know what a scary move it can be, and wish you all the best.
Hi all,
Thanks very much for the encouragement and good wishes; it’s very much appreciated indeed. I don’t feel quite as scared as I thought I would; I’m actually really looking forward to this. Should be an interesting experience at the very least!
Congratulations and good luck! I look forward to seeing what you come up with for new Cocoa applications. (The code you’ve contributed back to the community looks great.)
Good luck, Matt! Welcome to the world of freelancing. It sucks, but I wouldn’t live any other way. Just don’t let the Wii take all your time, and you’ll be fine.
My feeling is that if you stick to the safe thing because you’re afraid you might mess up, why bother getting up in the morning? I think following your instincts is the only worthwhile choice.
Download this video and keep it around in case you ever need an extra push.
Also, I made this a featured post on Cocoa Blogs.
I wish you the best success! I hope to speak for my fellow older, married with kids, more stuck in a job programmers when I say we will be rooting for you and living vicariously through you and hope that “we” ;) will be making the next killer app!
Best of luck!
Dave
We wish you the best of luck! Please keep us informed of all the latest happenings :) Cheers.
If your contributed code is anything to go by, your apps should be great.
Don’t price yourself too cheaply, people will always complain it’s too expensive, I read in a blog somewhere. Price it at $40, people will moan it should be $30. $30 and they say $15. $15 and they say it should be free.
Of course, free beta testing to a closed group of hardcore followers is always nice… ;) Best of luck!
Yes. Yes. YES!!
As a fellow Indie… I have to say good on you man. Give me a shout – I’ve potentially got a big personally initiated project coming on-stream; and there’s a specific OSX widget I want to develop that makes accessing the resource much easier.
Aside… I’m sure there’s plenty of common ground we can cover between us in the future.
Good on you man! I’m chuffed to say the least.
Congratulations and good luck Matt. I’m curious to know what you have for us Mac users, so let’s hope that your app goes well and we’ll soon have another Mac indie gem on our hands and computers.
Since Gus Mueller has left a message, I believe this is the only place I can ask him something:
Gus, I cannot reach any of your domains (flyingmeat.com, gusmueller.com) and I have been triyng (wanted to donwload Voodoopad since my HD died on me and I had a very poor backup of my stuff…).
Are you blocking ips form Brazil?
Sorry to bother your blog with this Matt and all the best with your new career.
Yep, best of luck! I’m sure you’ve made the right decision :)
Way to go Matt! When you follow your passion, you can not fail.
Matt, let me be the 20th to wish you good luck on this venture. I’m delighted to see that you’re going to be doing the thing you enjoy most, and I am sure it’ll be a success.
Hmm, good news indeed. Glad to hear it — nobody needs to be pinned down for 40+ hours on a job they don’t necessarily agree with (I refer to http://mattgemmell.com/2006/10/25/applications-20, which makes perfect sense).
I’m looking forward to hearing what this new app is — and I’m not even a Mac user!
Dude, you buy a Wii no more than a few weeks ago and now you quit your job to “work for yourself”, *wink, wink*.
Seriously though, best of luck though man, may I suggest that selling drugs or becoming a loan shark would be a good way of tiding yourself over anytime the work is a bit dry (and if you decide to do this gimme a shout, I’ve been trying to break into the sharking business for some time!).
Best of luck.
“Dude, you buy a Wii no more than a few weeks ago and now you quit your job to “work for yourself”, *wink, wink*.”
Haha :D yeah
Congratulations, Matt.
I’m thinking to going this way myself (but I split between Cocoa and running websites) but haven’t currently made the full jump and work part time till I base some more.
(Probably the fears of uncertainty and the family are the real reasons).
Good luck, anyway.
Georges Kormikiaris: nope, there’s no blocking of ip’s.
Good luck mate!
I’m with Chris on the loan sharking. You could do a dock applet to manage who’s due to be kneecapped next and stuff…
Good luck! If you’re in London, give me a shout and we’ll find a suitable pub to chat about all things Cocoa (and football).
Good luck and congratulations!
Hope you do well. It’ll be really interesting to see what you release.
Hey you just congratulated me a week ago when I went Indie and now I see that you’ve gone Indie too! That’s wonderful!
You will definitely enjoy it, although probably the first few weeks will be a little nerve-wracking and hectic. Just hang in there and enjoy the ride.
I think you’re doing this the right way – save up some money, develop a good budget, line up some contracts to pay the short-term bills and then work on the things that you really really love like writing Cocoa apps that will hopefully develop into your sole income in the long-term. And definitely get the support of your wife / girlfriend / significant other.
Anyways looking forward to your future apps!