Last week I finally got permission to rename the Wrds app on the App Store to “Wrds”!

I launched Wrds around 18 months ago.

I quit my job when I realized that I could make my own things and it was way more fun than working on someone else’s product in someone else’s company. I like building things from scratch!

I think I learned more from Wrds than I did from the entire 10 years before.

Things such as:

  • It’s better to launch something minimal than to never launch anything at all.
  • I’m bad at UI, but I was worse before I started trying to make stuff.
  • I can always perfect something later.
  • I can learn from the users who have downloaded my app.

It’s really easy to get stuck in our own heads protecting our ego and not doing the things that we think we should, especially as a solo developer when our ego maybe is precious.

When I fantasize about a dream that’s really complicated that I can’t achieve, I make my dream smaller so I can start launching and building things that I can get other people to love.

If I launch an app with an atrocious color scheme, no sounds, and not enough content? I can find a few people who like it, and fix it later with the momentum of real users to motivate me.

So much of the 10 years I spent dreaming about building apps but not launching anything has changed my perspective so much.

Failure to me, now, is not trying. Failure to me, now, is not launching. Failure, to me, now, is not learning and paying forward the learning to build newer and greater things.

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