Going Indie with Antoine van der Lee

[00:00:00] Pol Piella: I thought I was like a good developer. I was honestly shocking. My code was terrible. If I look back now.

[00:00:05] Antoine van der Lee: Welcome to the next episode of the Going Indie Podcast, the podcast that dives deep into the world of independent creators and developers. In this episode, I'm joined by Pol Piella, an indie developer known for his work on apps like NowPlaying and Helm, as well as his iOS CI newsletter.

We discuss his journey to going indie, how he balances multiple projects and insights on working with a partner. Do you split revenue? On which App Store account do you release the app? And finally, we talk about the impact of consistency, a topic close to my heart as it's been a driver of success. Enjoy this episode.

Welcome, Pol. Hello. Thanks for, for being here. Um, it's great that you, that you are around. You're here for the do IOS conference. It's November now. Um, welcome. How are, how are you doing? Thank you. Yeah, I'm doing great. How are you? I'm doing super great. I mean, we're sitting chill here. Um, I know you, I know you quite a bit.

We've had Hidde on episode two. Um, Um, Well, you and Hidde are now really, really, you know, going hand in hand, working together on Helm, the native App Store Connect client. Um, yeah, I feel like that's, that's how I know you a little bit, but I also feel like I'm getting to know you for real today. So, Woospel.

First of all, thank you for

[00:01:26] Pol Piella: having me.

[00:01:26] Antoine van der Lee: Like,

[00:01:27] Pol Piella: it's a pleasure to be here. And when you invited me, I was like, yeah, I really need to do this. I really want to do this. Um, so who am I? I'm originally from Barcelona in Spain. Um, but I lived a lot of my life, uh, in the UK. So since I was 18 until sometime last year, um, I lived in the UK and then I went back to, to Spain in October, uh, 2023.

Um, I'm an iOS engineer, uh, worked as an iOS engineer since 2018. And yeah, I've worked for a bunch of companies and now I decided, uh, recently to take the plunge and go indie. Uh, and yeah, just working on, on a bunch of, of different things.

[00:02:06] Antoine van der Lee: How long is that ago that you went in the

[00:02:09] Pol Piella: July to this year? Yeah.

July, 2024. And

[00:02:13] Antoine van der Lee: it's not November. So for those listening, it's like. Three or four months. Three

[00:02:17] Pol Piella: or four

[00:02:17] Antoine van der Lee: months.

[00:02:17] Pol Piella: Yeah. And are you broke? I'm not broke, I'm surviving, but I feel like it's been, it's been a big change, so I'm kind of like still acclimatizing to it, like still, you know, getting used to, to the ropes and everything.

But, um, yeah, so far I've, I've enjoyed it. And you moved from UK to Spain in the same Period. Isn't it? Yes. So I had a move, uh, but I didn't move and go in immediately. So I moved and I had a full time job, uh, in Barcelona when I moved. Um, and then I decided to just go in the six months after that. So yeah, something like that.

You were not moving. No, no, no, no, no. I don't think I could have managed that, to be honest. I struggled already with the move and everything and having a full time job, so going indie would have been like too much. Yeah,

[00:03:04] Antoine van der Lee: there's a lot on your plate, right? Yeah, exactly. Even if it's not, it feels like it. Yeah, yeah.

100%. So you started in 2018, iOS, what is it, iOS 10? I think so, yeah. Something like that.

[00:03:17] Pol Piella: Yeah, I think it was iOS 10. What a good time to start.

[00:03:20] Antoine van der Lee: Yeah.

[00:03:20] Pol Piella: Yeah. It was a good time. I go past all the, all the bad stuff, I think. Right?

[00:03:24] Antoine van der Lee: Yeah. Did you write any Objective C?

[00:03:26] Pol Piella: So, funny story. At the beginning of my career, I didn't write.

Um, so I started doing iOS, uh, at university. So I started, I studied electronic engineering. And then on the I think last two years of the degree, you chose whether you wanted to go hardware or software. Chose the software route and there was a module on the last year about like iOS development. So I took that, loved it, moved over to an iOS role.

They took the opportunity. I was absolutely, I thought I was like a good developer. I was honestly shocking. My code was terrible if I look back now. And I started doing, yeah, basically doing some, some iOS, uh, and stuff. And. Wrote a bunch of Swift for the first two, three years of my career and then I moved to Roll at the BBC in the UK worked on the iPlayer app which for those who are not in the UK It's like the Netflix for the BBC You can watch content and stuff and it's a very old app and it had a ton of Objective C So I've written a fair amount of Objective C in my my career Even though I joined like quite quite late in the in the community.

Do you miss it? I didn't dislike it, if I'm being honest. I don't, I didn't dislike Objective C. Um, quite like it. I like the separation of like header files and stuff. But, uh, can't say I miss it. I do dislike it, but I don't really miss it to be honest. I like Swift and SwiftUI and stuff.

[00:04:48] Antoine van der Lee: Yeah, it's much better these days.

And how did you end up in the UK?

[00:04:52] Pol Piella: So I went there for university. Um, so I've played, so I've been, uh, I've had a passion for music. Uh, it comes from my dad and everything for, for all my life. Um, and I played, I've played instruments and stuff all my life. And then when I got to choosing what I wanted to do after school, I was like, I don't really want to do a degree at this point.

Like, I'm not sure if I want to go into music. Uh, I DJed a bit and I had the dream like, Oh, I want to become a DJ. Um, and then my parents were like, please like study a degree, you know, have some like, because not everyone makes it. Yeah, you need to have like some something there, like in paper that so that you can go into to another field.

So we reached a compromise and I studied electronic engineering with music tech. Um, so I had like the whole goal of the degree is either you become like, you know, a recording, like a technician or something in a studio, or you produce music for artists, or you go the route where you build, uh, Equipment and stuff for for music.

So we found like the only way I could study that was like going abroad because there wasn't something similar in in Spain. So I decided to go to the UK to study that.

[00:06:00] Antoine van der Lee: Interesting how that decision brought you into app development, because BBC, was that your first official iOS job or was it something before

[00:06:08] Pol Piella: that?

There was two companies before that, so I worked for a company in Manchester, so all of them have been in Manchester except for one, when I moved to Spain. One of them was Straight after the degree. I worked for a company that's a music tech company, and I worked on a companion, uh, iOS app as a junior. Um, I'm,

[00:06:27] Antoine van der Lee: I'm trying to map your career a little bit towards,

[00:06:29] Pol Piella: so just a bit of like iOS there.

I ended up just doing a, 'cause a lot of people left and it was a bit, a bit of a mess at the time. I ended up doing a lot of other jobs, so just to get an idea. Mm-hmm . I was fresh out of uni. I had no experience with it and I ended up just automating a lot of, uh. C building tasks and stuff, which I had no idea about, so I learned, but I learned a lot about like linker settings and stuff like that in that, in that sense, and then I decided that was enough, uh, enough like C and stuff, and I moved to a proper like iOS role, um, uh, the next company, which was a student discounts company in the UK called Student Beans, had a great time there, and then I moved to the, to the BBC.

That was Yeah, I feel like that was the best where I've learned the most, to be honest, in my career.

[00:07:14] Antoine van der Lee: Which year did you start at BBC?

[00:07:17] Pol Piella: 20, 2021. I think it was like straight, still with restrictions from the pandemic and stuff. Um, so I didn't go into the office for a, for a very long time.

[00:07:29] Antoine van der Lee: The reason I'm asking this altogether is that you have a really short career before you went indie.

Yeah. And, uh, That's, that's in a way unique to, to the artists that, that have had in a podcast, right? Like Jody was, was not a developer before, so he had a unique journey. We had Hidde who was a designer, um, maybe Tim, 20 plus years of development experience, right? And now you show, show a journey that might be relevant to many young developers because our career is quite, quite trendy and new.

So there are many young developers and it's now 2024. And you already went, went Indie, so three years of BBC, three plus years. How did you know you, you've had enough experience to go for independence?

[00:08:16] Pol Piella: Yeah, so I, I didn't, uh, if I'm being honest. Um, I think it's something that I struggled a lot, like during, during my career.

It's like, um, during my life in general, it's like believing in, in myself, like in many ways. And to this point, I still like. Question a lot of the things that I do and when I publish articles and when I do um, newsletter issues or when I go into like podcasts for example, like this one, um, I still question myself like, oh, I don't have like as many experience as like the people, I dunno, giving talks at this conference and stuff.

Um, and I think that's helped me in a lot of ways. Like that's helped me make my content unique. 'cause I review it so many times and I work on. On things like so many times and I read a lot and I prepare a lot for like certain things that it's played to my advantage a lot and it's played to my like disadvantage quite a lot in terms of like or sometimes I won't ship something because I'm doubting that it won't be good enough and and all that kind of stuff.

In all honesty, I didn't know, like, I was good enough to do this, uh, things just happened, uh, eventually. And I think part of it, I had been thinking of going indie for, um, if I, if I talk too much, just do let me know and stop me. No, no, no, go I rumble, like, a lot of things. At your lip. Yeah. Awesome. Um. But yeah, basically I didn't really know I was going to go into this, this early in my career, but, um, I also didn't know I was going to move from Manchester to, to Spain.

Uh, but 2023 was like a mess of a year for me. Like it was, it was very hard. I lost my dad, which changed my life a lot. Like I was very, very close to my dad and my mom was left on her own as well. And we had like toyed with the idea with my partner, um, of moving to Spain. Um, but we. We always, like, we were comfortable there.

We had our group of friends jobs. I really liked the job at the BBC as well and had a lot of like, freedom to do other stuff, like to work on posts and stuff, on articles and apps and um, and all that kind of stuff. And then when my dad passed away, we just thought like the best thing for me to do right now is to be closer to family.

Um, and we decided to just, you know, take the opportunity, move our stuff to, to Spain. We, I found a very good job, like at the time in a company. Um, and then my partner eventually found the job, we kind of like settled into life there. So it kind of all worked out like pretty well. But after a few like months at this new job, I started to realize things weren't like quite compatible.

Like there was a lot of change like inside the company and Yeah, it was quite, quite tough. So I eventually just took the decision. I wanted to just quit the job and make things work on on my end, which it was scary. I'll admit that

[00:11:05] Antoine van der Lee: I bet. Sorry to hear about your dad. Yeah, these are impactful events and um, does it also impact like the way you took that decision because I, I can imagine that it does, right?

[00:11:20] Pol Piella: Yeah, yeah. Oh, like it did impact it like big time. Um, cause if I hadn't moved to Spain, I think inevitably at some point I would have gone indie because like I like doing a lot of stuff on my own and I, I'm lucky enough to be able to monetize like a lot of stuff that I do. And at some point I was like, okay, I can probably live off of these, uh, at the moment.

Um, but there was always like something stopping me. I enjoyed my job at the BBC and I was like, I have got no real reason to quit it. Like I love my colleagues and I love the work that I do and it's very impactful. And I write a lot about the stuff that I do. So. I was like, okay, maybe I, I won't like just leave just yet.

Um, but then all this stuff happened and I was like, okay, I'm not as happy in work anymore. Um, I can, I've got no excuse now to not, to not just try it and go in there. And

[00:12:13] Antoine van der Lee: this is so important, right? You only live once. So, um, you really have to have a really good reason to not do it if you really want it, right?

Like, it's, it's all about taking that, that step. You also say like. You overthink a lot of things before you publish something and still you do so many, so many things. So in a way you have managed to find your, your, your skill to get things out.

[00:12:38] Pol Piella: Yeah. Yeah. I think I got, so the only reason why I posted like I started doing blog posts and stuff cause I looked up to you.

I looked up to a lot of people in the community doing blog posts and I knew I wanted to do something similar and I enjoyed the like. Creating content kind of thing. And what I did was like keep some form of like log of this stuff that I had been doing, um, not work. I did something very interesting and I would just write it down and I would share it with some colleagues, but I would, I'd never thought of like.

Like publishing it online and for other people to see it and and at some point one of my colleagues was like you Honestly, this is pretty cool. You should probably like just put it online somewhere and and I eventually did like they kind of like Pressured me so much and encouraged me so much to do it that I was like, okay I'm gonna do it because now they're giving me this belief and after like feedback that I've got and sometimes positives mostly positive But sometimes negative but you learn from that negative feedback, but but negative like Can you give an example?

I don't know, I've got times where I've got messages from people saying like, Oh, you shouldn't have talked about this. Like, you've got no idea. I tried this and it doesn't work and stuff. But

[00:13:48] Antoine van der Lee: is that negative? Because you can also see this. Yeah,

[00:13:50] Pol Piella: that's true.

[00:13:51] Antoine van der Lee: Quality feedback. Yeah. That can improve you.

[00:13:53] Pol Piella: It is good, good feedback, but like at the time, it kind of like, makes you, makes you doubt yourself and it makes you like think, oh damn, like I made a mistake on this blog post or I did this, but you, you learn from it.

And, and the more, the more I write and going from like writing every, like, so often to writing weekly really help with this because every time I write and I notice that I got something wrong and people say it, I've got something wrong. I go like, oh. Like, honestly, thank you so much, because you've reviewed the article, you've read it, and I go back and I fix it, and it's even better.

It improves, like, the quality of the content. This is such

[00:14:25] Antoine van der Lee: an important mindset, right? With everything that you do, with an app that you publish, you can polish it forever, right? My course, on purpose, is not It's not only about how to make a lot of money, like the first three modules are just about mindset.

How do you get things out? How do you embrace failure in a way? It's fascinating how you experienced that journey and evolved yourself into first thinking it's negative, you actually just said it, to now realizing like, it's amazing. Bring in the feedback, isn't it?

[00:14:59] Pol Piella: It's hard to shake off the mindset that you originally have.

Cause I started my career thinking like, Oh. I saw it as like attack and I saw it like, Oh, I shouldn't have any like feedback like these that says I've got something wrong or that I do these and eventually you realize, well. I'm fixing a ton of stuff because people are telling me that they're seeing this stuff.

And it's happening a lot with Helm as well. Like we're, we got a lot of like user feedback of like edge cases that we could not possibly have covered. And people have like, uh, versions of their app with a letter in front of it that's causing like some issues. And we, we didn't know and we keep like fixing and improving the product.

So it's kind of exciting that there's so many like bug reports because we can't figure everything out. And it's, it's important to have that kind of like feedback loop and like collaboration with people that, you know, you, you learn from the feedback that they, they give you. So I completely agree. And I'm glad that's in your course as well.

Like the, the mindset is like incredibly important. It can change your, your career like entirely.

[00:16:00] Antoine van der Lee: And is that, that, um, seeking for perfection, is that something that's part of your life as a whole? Like when you try to become a DJ, like, like, maybe you've produced music yourself. Have you ever published music or did you hold yourself back there too?

[00:16:17] Pol Piella: No, I did. I did publish, uh, some music, uh, and I, I did like a radio show at uni as well and, and everything that people, I, I usually hide it because I'm, I'm not. My English was terrible, like it was, it was terrible, but like some people, uh, my past work actually found it and they, yeah, they, they shared it like around the office and stuff.

It was fun. Like, but kind of like put me like, I feel like I am a perfectionist in that kind of sense. And I'm, I'm growing out of it a bit. Like I'm still, I still like. Products to be like very, very good and stuff, but I'm learning a bit more to ship like early and learning from those, from those kind of mistakes that you do and from it not being perfect.

But with music, it really happened to me a lot. Like I would get very demotivated because I would do something and I would think like it was good then, but I would never just like send it to record labels or to other artists because I'd be like, I don't think it's good enough yet. Like I can make it better and I feel it feels like you lose the chance if you send something that's not quite.

[00:17:18] Antoine van der Lee: It's, but it's a lost opportunity, isn't it? I see so many developers not publishing their products because they think it's not good enough. Well, you can let artists decide whether it's good or not. And if it's not, then you'll get the feedback that actually helps you make it as good as you're actually seeking for.

Right. Like let, let people. Let users help you get to the point where you actually want to be before going live, but yeah, don't wait for it. Go live.

[00:17:46] Pol Piella: It's a beautiful like thing to look back. Like if you look back at like your version one and you look back at and you look at your current version of your app, you'll see a lot of difference and you'll feel proud of like the journey that it has.

It has done. And it's, it's better to just like get things, get things out there and see what people think. It can help with like validating that your idea is, is good, right? Like, or even like, if you don't want to publish an app, you could just publish like a video, uh, of your app or like an image or something, and then just get it out on social media and try validate, see how that, how people react to that and see, see what people feel.

Um, and it gives you like, kind of like an idea of what, whether it's going to be, you know, good or not.

[00:18:25] Antoine van der Lee: That's the thing, right? You start working on something. You don't know yet whether it will be. Something users want. So having a way to validate that. It's like, it's a nice segue into one of your apps that you have.

You have the QR code app. When I saw that going live, I was like, Pol, aren't there like a hundred of those? I hate to break it to you, but Why do you do it? Um, at the same time, it was inspiring, fascinating, and I know many people think about apps in a way like, okay, there's already an app out there, so why would I even do it?

Same with articles, I bet you recognize that too. Why would I write another article about property wrappers while there are already 10? Why did you still decide to do that, QR code app? And is it in any way successful?

[00:19:10] Pol Piella: Um, so in terms of the why I decided to do the app, it started when I started doing public speaking and conferences.

I realized I actually needed a ton of QR codes to share, like, links, resources, or even, like, my own, like, website or Twitter handle and stuff like that. And I was using, like, I was going to websites and using these services that either they ask you for a subscription immediately or they give you a free trial.

And then you realize that you want to reuse these slides that you used, uh, in the past and nothing really works anymore because your QR codes. Go through their proxy first and then they block you if you don't have an active subscription after your free trial so it was a lot of like frustration around that point and and I was like I want to build a product that Does pretty much what or even less sometimes that a lot of these subscription services and a lot of these these websites already do But it kind of works forever, like it doesn't do anything magic, so there's no, like, tracking.

I honestly couldn't care less about the traffic, the tracking that these websites gave me because I wasn't really that interested in seeing the clicks. I didn't want to pay a subscription for that. I just wanted a QR code. And something very, very simple that I could work on. I work on flights on trains that don't have, like, Wi Fi when I'm building slides, like traveling to the conference.

And I couldn't use his websites to generate the QR code, so I wanted something offline first as well. And it would give me, like, a playground to gain some experience as well. There was no actual intention of making something, like, groundbreaking that would, like I mean, for one slide in your talk,

[00:20:47] Antoine van der Lee: one QR code, you're starting, like, a whole app.

[00:20:49] Pol Piella: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I, yeah, I just decided, you know, I would go for it. Then I actually did the validation thing, so I Whenever, like when I finished like a first iteration and I was happy with being able to export the QR codes, create like very simple ones, I decided to validate it. I put a video on social media and it was the first time from not having a lot of followers.

It was the first time it had like 30, 000 views, which was insane for me. Um, and everyone was like, oh yeah, one beta. Where's the beta? Where's the beta? And I was like, okay, I'll, I'll just ship it, I guess. Uh, and I felt like a ton of very good, good feedback, um, from it and the fact that it's also not a subscription, uh, a lot of people really, really liked.

So it was a one time like purchase, it was a paid app, um, which recently I changed the business model, but it's still a one. One time purchase with the same price, um, but yeah, people really, really liked it. And I think you could, you could see that there's like a lot of apps that do the same thing as you do, but putting your own like personal spin and maybe finding something that those apps don't really do that you really miss could be an opportunity to, to build something.

I've heard from people in the past that want to build their own, um, app just because the other ones paid, um, I wouldn't encourage you to do that, to be honest. Like, if that's the only reason, then maybe, like, don't do it. Just buy the other app, I would say. But if, like, you feel like there's things that could be done in a different way, or you could put your own, like, personal spin into something, or you could build something that does the same, but in a different way that's better, then you could, yeah, you could definitely do it.

Yeah, that's what Helm is as well. Right? Like, it's,

[00:22:35] Antoine van der Lee: I mean, Helm is a native apps to connect client. There aren't that many and the API is still relatively new. Yeah. QR codes are like, everybody says they're not successful. Well, everybody still uses them and you're targeting the whole world. Yeah. I think that's also a good thing to consider here.

If you're building a niche app in a niche market and there's already something for it, it's going to be much more. Harder to grab a piece of the pie. If you're building a QR code where, where almost everyone in the world could potentially need a QR code, you're basically targeting the whole app store.

Then the pie is much bigger. So if you get only a small piece of that pie, it's still a lot of users. And if your conversion rate in your app is 2 percent but your pie is bigger than, Yeah,

[00:23:24] Pol Piella: you still get, you still get the big, Yeah,

[00:23:26] Antoine van der Lee: right. And I mean, Helm. Absolutely amazing native AppStore Connect client. I think, I think if you're doing app development, yeah, this is what you need.

Um, also started from a pain point, right? AppStore Connect was just terrible, is, is terribly slow. Yeah, yeah, it's still. And you solve that, uh, if only by, by storing your apps in memory, while you can directly get started, right? Like something like that, or, um, They have two things, they have a thing in common, right?

You start from your own itch from a problem that you see, and when you start validating and you can see that 30, 000 views, that's like a great validation point where, where you realize, okay, this is actually something I can seek for, um, and, and, and continue doing, because would you say it's also, um, worth your time now?

Can, can you see the potential for a QR code app? And I'm saying it like that because there's. Yeah, it's a great example for those seeking to build another. Yeah,

[00:24:26] Pol Piella: so I, I think there is like the, the market is, is huge. Like I can see other, other products and recently I saw, so my app is only on macOS, but I've been thinking for a while of, uh, taking it to iOS and watchOS.

And I've got like a ton of pretty cool ideas of things you can do. Um, but I've not really had a lot of time recently to, to work on that with, with Elm and everything. Um, but I can see, like, recently saw iOS app, uh, which was a QR code generator, and it, like, honestly, the tweet had, like, 2 million views or something like that, and I was like, wow, like, people really love this kind of stuff, um, and it's kind of now, like, my, my playground for doing a ton of, like, experimental stuff, so now I'm doing a lot of, like, I'm doing on device, like, machine learning to generate, like, artistic QR codes, which are kind of, like, a trend now, so you can, um, Basically uses like some control net models to make sure that the QR code's still readable, but it, that it honestly looks like it shouldn't be readable.

It kind of morphs the image that you give it awesome. Into, into a QR code. Um, so there's a lot of like fun little things that I could do that could like differentiate. Mm-hmm . Differentiated from other, like things in the market. And I think it does have a lot of potential because every time someone talks about QR codes or share something, I see the tweets going viral and to some point, I don't really understand it.

But like when you go to a restaurant, you usually have this kind of QR code when you People think of promoting something on their slides, they usually use a QR code. So, there is a market, and to this point, it's not like, I think it makes like 200 euros a month or something like that, which is quite nice, and it kind of like, for the little time that I put in it, You're just getting started.

Yeah, exactly, and it's quite good, like for the little time. So, if I put more time and I build like more stuff, then I guess it could Yeah, big change. I think it will be supporting more platforms because a lot of people have been asking, um, Yeah,

[00:26:18] Antoine van der Lee: and also visibility, right? Like you need to still grow your presence.

And if you're just getting started, your app is just out. You shouldn't expect right away that you make like five K a month with an app unless it's like an A. I. I. A. I. You know, like we've seen some recent crazy examples, but rocket sims revenue was the first two years was like under a thousand monthly recurring revenue.

And only after, you know, it started to Started really to raise because your app becomes more mature. Uh, it really fills the gap that you've seen before that other users seem to because they will run in the same problem. Yeah, I've actually recently had somebody that had a QR code and it didn't work anymore, but it was already printed out.

And it was laying around in that restaurant, right? So that it is a real problem.

[00:27:04] Pol Piella: Yeah, that was my original pain point, though, like I don't end up the thing that I've got about. Create that I think it's super important for people who are building an app is do not give up on the original reason why you build the app.

So even though like you might get users asking for, I don't know, I want tracking and stuff and I want, uh, So, for example, for the, um, artistic QR code stuff, I feel like that's a very niche feature that maybe not a lot of people will use, but will kind of like give some nice playground thing and it lets me like play with some APIs.

I could have like, there's an API I could make network requests and stuff. But. I also didn't want to because that's not what I built it like I wanted to be an offline editor like I don't want it to do anything like I don't want it to collect any data, no API keys, nothing like that, something that just works on device, you open it, you create your QR codes and you're, you're basically there.

No. We are at sign up flows or anything like that. So I think never give up on like the half division and the values of your app like set up very early on and do not give up on them because that's the reason why you built it, especially if you're comparing yourself to what exactly those companies, right?

[00:28:14] Antoine van der Lee: And yeah, it is also challenging, right? Because eventually you will recognize that. Hey, if I build in tracking. Yeah. It becomes more valuable for my users that I already have. Um, so that I think I just want to point out that it's also fair if it eventually changes because your journey evolves, right? Like, um, but it's good to have that, that playground app.

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So 2018 you started with BBC, you moved to Spain. It sounded in your journey as if you just went indie. You didn't prepare anything for it. You went, you take, you took the leap, but I'm sure you prepared yourself for any insecurance. Yeah. How did

[00:29:35] Pol Piella: you do that? So I think for a very long time, like I started like, uh, doing content and I think doing content is what changed, but there's a few things that kind of changed my, my life and let me go through my career like a lot quicker than, than I would have, uh, if I hadn't done them.

One of them is, uh, creating content like that really, really changed, uh, changed my life and changed me in terms of, um, Confidence and creating content,

[00:30:04] Antoine van der Lee: writing articles, writing

[00:30:05] Pol Piella: articles and starting the newsletter as well. It kind of like put me in touch with so many people and it made me meet so many people and the other one is going to conferences basically.

So it was two years ago here that I did my first ever public public talk in the IOS. And that's where I met Hede and I met you there as well. And from there, Hede moved to Manchester and we started working together and we, uh. started with now playing then helm. Um, and that kind of like gave me, you know, a lot of confidence on someone to, to work with, uh, as well.

And with the blog, I eventually, after a lot of effort, I find a way to, to monetize it. And that kind of was some like groundwork as well to look into like revenue streams and look into, to a bunch of stuff like that so that I could. Potentially one day, um, go in the, go in the as well. Um, so I did, I did prepare a lot in that, in that sense.

[00:31:01] Antoine van der Lee: How did you monetize

[00:31:02] Pol Piella: the blog? Advertisement. So like slots, sponsored slots. So I don't do any Google ads or anything like that. So the people can book like a one week, uh, package to, um.

[00:31:14] Antoine van der Lee: It's not that you monetize people to work the QR code app or to helm or no, no, no, no.

[00:31:19] Pol Piella: Um, so I've got that and then I've got the sponsors on the newsletter, uh, as well, which that also, um, like bring it brings in some, some revenue.

So in terms of, in terms of preparing, I just like really. Spent like a very challenging year, I think 20, 23, 20, 24 before I went indie was pretty challenging because I worked on a lot of stuff and on the side, on the side. Yeah. While having my full time job. And when I moved to Spain, like it got even harder because the job was not more demanding technically, but more demanding in terms of hours.

Um, and the expectation from you was to work overtime and to work, like, it was kind of like giving your commitment to the cause in a way. So you would like, really need to be focused, like all the time. You couldn't like switch off. And at that point, like, I was really, really struggling. It took a, a toll on me, like personally.

Um, 'cause I was like, I, like I'm doing too much. Like I'm going to sleep very late every night, waking up very early

[00:32:19] Antoine van der Lee: to be clear. So you, you were booking. Full time, they demanded you to work more than full time?

[00:32:25] Pol Piella: Yeah.

[00:32:25] Antoine van der Lee: And you also started your blog in the newsletter at that time?

[00:32:28] Pol Piella: No, not at that time, but I was still, I went, so before I moved to Barcelona, I went, um, I changed the frequency of my blog to do weekly.

Um, so I was doing weekly articles, I was doing bi weekly issues of the newsletter, I was building, um, NowPlaying, Helm, uh, the QR code app, everything on the side while I was working full time and they demand them more hours. So you can imagine it's a recipe for disaster, basically. And

[00:32:58] Antoine van der Lee: your girlfriend's still with you?

[00:32:59] Pol Piella: Yeah, she's still with me. That's a question I get asked a lot. And yeah, part of going indie as well and having more time is Is about that like it's I love her very much and we got engaged last year and and thank you And I want to spend more time with her and not be like that person. That's like constantly working and not You know Like not having like a life outside of what I do like I want to like spend spend a lot more time with her and have like more family time than I than I did during during that year, but that was my way of preparing for what I could.

I knew it wasn't going to be forever, but even still looking back, I wouldn't have done it to be honest. I wouldn't have like, I would have found other ways, like through contracting or something like that to, to kind of like make it easier on me or maybe moving jobs to make it easier to build my career as an Indie before going Indie.

Um,

[00:33:55] Antoine van der Lee: So you didn't do anything at that time. You really just. Until you went indie, let it happen to you, in a way.

[00:34:02] Pol Piella: Yeah, yeah. Um, so I, yeah, I did, um, so I did like a lot of, uh, a lot of stuff on the side and stuff. And then when I went indie, just, yeah, I just decided to quit the job and start, uh

[00:34:14] Antoine van der Lee: This is a classic example of when you go indie, you actually gain more time than Because everybody says, like, when you go independent, entrepreneurship You will have to work much more time, but if you do something on the side, the same happened to me, when I went indie, my evenings were certainly free because everything I wanted to do I did during the day.

Yep. Right, that's already, already a great win. How did you, how did you manage your time back then? You were working full time and the days only have so much hours and you're, you're soon to be called wife is still with you. How, because many that listen have side projects and want to make the leap eventually.

Can you give them any tips on maybe not make the same mistake as you did? Because if you look back, it sounds like you did something wrong, but also like, how can you do it in a way that's sustainable?

[00:35:09] Pol Piella: I think, first of all, don't do what I did. Uh, that's, that's my first advice. Don't, don't work like too much.

Uh, I think being one thing that's, that's very good. Um, being very open about what you do and make sure your colleagues know what you do. And when you. When you talk to your manager or when you talk to your colleagues and stuff, make sure you say that, I don't know, you write articles or that you do this kind of stuff so that On the side.

On the side, yeah. But make sure that they, they know that because if one day, like, I dunno, it can leave, lead to misunderstandings in, in certain ways. And it's better to like be open about these things because if you've got a nice manager and maybe you've got like learning days or something like that, they might like leave you to do like articles if you want or 'cause at the end of the day is, is learning.

And that's what I liked about, about the BB, C. It kind of like gave me the opportunity once, one Friday every couple of weeks to, to do some work on that, um, on my side projects and stuff. Um, no on the side project as such, but like learn and write articles and, and all that kind of stuff. So I took that, that learning and applied it to, to articles.

Other things that I would recommend is be very intelligent with the stuff that you do, um, and be very efficient. So for example, for me, something that worked very well was if I want to write articles. And I'm working on apps. I'm going to work on the app, and then I'm going to write about what I worked so that I don't have to think about a different topic and I have to research something new.

And at the end of the day, those articles were the ones that were doing like the best. If your company knows you blog, and maybe that can give you like visibility as well. Write about stuff that you do at work wins. Exactly. Yes. So you're doing some work and then You're also maybe writing down on the side, like saying, oh, okay, so this is how I build this.

Or you've got the code ready and obviously maybe it goes through some approval process. Mm-hmm . And some make sure you don't share secrets or anything like that. Yeah. Um, but a lot of the time, like it's, uh, like it's a win-win for, for both sides and you can, you can save yourself some time. So one of my most.

Viewed articles that maybe says a lot about SwiftUI is how to, how you can rotate a specific screen in your app without supporting landscape on your phone. Um, and that was something we did in iPlayer to basically only have portrait throughout your app. And then when you launched the player, it would rotate.

Classic,

[00:37:35] Antoine van der Lee: yeah.

[00:37:36] Pol Piella: And the videos I show are from, from iPlayer, um, basically. Um, that was kind of something I did at work and it was very interesting. So I kind of wrote about it and it, it worked in that, in that sense.

[00:37:47] Antoine van der Lee: You're in the context, writing about it is so much easier. Another part of my course is how you can benefit from your full time job.

And there are so many learnings you can gain out of your full time job, isn't it? This is a great example of where you write knowledge based on what you learn in the company and you even. You're, you're open and honest with your colleagues. It doesn't always work like that, by the way, but it does give you opportunities to also work during work hours eventually.

Uh, but there's also like, uh, people in marketing or in sales, like go chat with them and see if you can seek something that you don't know yet while you're at that full time job and make the most out of it. Right. Really seek for those win win, uh, win win opportunities. I think that is great. When I worked at WeTransfer, I also really signed an addendum, kind of like to really put on paper, like, hey, I'm doing something on the side and here I signed that I will only work on it on the side and it won't ever take over my time when there's two deadlines crashing each other, something like that, you know, those kind of So, yeah.

Basically to put each other on the same page and to manage expectations, did you do the same there as well?

[00:39:00] Pol Piella: I, I didn't, uh, I didn't do it. Looking back, I should have and I think when I negotiated with the new role that I took in Spain. One of the things I should have done is get a lot of the like a lot of the promises and stuff that I Like got made during the offer process and stuff in paper because that Kind of like I wanted time to go to conferences and they were like, oh, yeah, that's okay And then they started to complain about me going to conferences.

So You need, you really need like things in paper. So that's 100 percent something to, yeah, to consider if you're negotiating an offer, if you're a job already and you're doing things on the side, make sure there's an understanding just because it will save you like hassle down the line for sure.

[00:39:42] Antoine van der Lee: Yeah.

And it's all for the company, right? Like you were great at managing your time, it feels like, or find those win wins, but I bet you've also had days where it just didn't went as, as you wish. Your energy level would definitely be lower the next day at your work. Yep. Then, um, it would have been if you didn't have all the side projects, right?

Like has that ever been an issue?

[00:40:09] Pol Piella: I, it was, it wasn't an issue. at the BBC where I was because we had like very clear like working hours and it was like a very healthy environment. I think it's honestly the healthiest environment I've ever worked in where when you finish your hours like there was no expectation of you staying there to

[00:40:30] Antoine van der Lee: You just said they demanded you to work over hours, right?

[00:40:33] Pol Piella: Oh, no, that's not. So that was not my last. So my last job was the one in Spain. So it wasn't the BBC. Okay. I wanted to make that. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, that's clear. BBC

[00:40:42] Antoine van der Lee: is a great place to work. It is. It is a fantastic place to work.

[00:40:45] Pol Piella: So yeah, there was, there was no, they didn't demand any, you know, extra commitment, even though I felt committed and I, if there was times where I had time, I would like give it, but if I didn't, like family kind of like time and or things that you do outside of work where your own business, you can leave whenever you want and Um, And as long as you've done, you've done your, um, your hour.

So, uh, there, there it wasn't really, really an issue. But when I moved to the new job, it started to become an issue. I, I felt myself being very tired. Like some days I'm feeling like demotivated and It kind of like made me not be as efficient with my, with my work as I was and wanting to, to leave the office and wanting to go home and stuff like that.

So I was getting into a bit of a, um, of a vicious cycle and that's why, like I always say, like, fine. Like a workplace and a, and a job that aligns with what you want to do and respect what you, what you want to do as well. And that you feel like you can, you can work on, on this stuff on the side if you, if you want to, if that's really, really important to you.

Um, and then the other thing that I didn't do that I honestly do now and, um, even going in the, is take days off, like take days off, enjoy time off. block weekends, like say, okay, I'm not going to work on weekends, just Monday to Friday. If there's one day where you feel like, Oh, I really can't do anything today.

I know in the right headspace, just don't do anything is fine. Like it's actually beneficial. Like sometimes you go back to, to, um, work with more energy and then you spend maybe Five hours looking at something and then the next day like you decide to call it off Leave it for like a couple of days and then you come back and you fix it in 20 minutes.

So this is a classic Yeah, yeah, so make sure you take it off, you know, yeah, you have to walk the dog. It's

[00:42:36] Antoine van der Lee: It's a good way to get yourself out Yeah Also schedule in the time like the weekend is a easy one but also schedule times in the evenings where you know, like you'll sit down with your Uh, with your girlfriend or with your wife or, and it sounds stupid, but, um, it does makes you aware of it and you don't literally have to take you on those evenings, but yeah, ensures you, you, you have the time there.

Um, and also the, the, the company in Spain now sounds a little bit like a bad place to work, but it's definitely not. It's more that it just didn't align with what you also wanted to do on the side. Right. So yeah, there's, there's a difference there where. Um, some jobs are just easier to combine with side projects than others.

Exactly. Like if you're, if you're starting at a startup, then you should join that startup probably because you are absolutely amazed and excited about the startup journey. Right. But like a BBC is more mature company or, um, yeah, that's probably more set in stone. So it's more cleared, cleared out what you need to work on.

So it's also easier to probably. wind down at the end of the day at a fixed time and, um, you know, releases go well. Uh, It's funny. I think you will do a talk on releasing on a Friday. Uh, quite related here, but yeah, you want to go in the, I think it's super important than to, you need to have a good

[00:43:58] Pol Piella: concept, a good context.

Um, you basically need to have like the right job. And I, and I've lived through these, like there's how the job that you have can really help you. Shape what you do and what what you what you want or can do actually outside of work and it wasn't it wasn't a bad place to work at all like the people were were amazing like and the work that you do was super interesting and it had like a ton of impact but they had the expectation that you would live and breathe the company and you would like be fully committed and stuff which wasn't Something that I was, that I was like looking, I was like super professional.

I was committed to the hours where I was contracted, but then I needed like the time outside and, you know, it's, it wasn't just, it just wasn't a right, a right fit, I guess.

[00:44:44] Antoine van der Lee: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. All right, so. July 2 24. Yep. You have your block. Mm-hmm . You have your newsletter, you monetized it. Yep. Uh, probably just partly filling up your salary that you need.

[00:45:00] Pol Piella: Mm-hmm .

[00:45:01] Antoine van der Lee: You have now playing.

[00:45:02] Pol Piella: Mm-hmm .

[00:45:02] Antoine van der Lee: You already worked on helm with, with data.

[00:45:05] Pol Piella: Mm-hmm .

[00:45:05] Antoine van der Lee: Um, was, was there enough income to say like, okay, this, this will just pay the bills? Or was it like enough income to match your salary or that you had savings that would add up to the income? So you draw the picture,

[00:45:19] Pol Piella: it, um, it didn't match up the salary that I had, um, at my job, but I didn't really like my outgoings were in like crazy, like, and like crazy to to need like a high salary anyway.

Um, so I think with the, um, with the sponsorship primarily and with some income from, from the apps. And with like doing other bits as well, like, uh, doing workshops and, and monetizing that, that kind of stuff, I, I could, like, do, um, Good.

[00:45:51] Antoine van der Lee: Or did you do that already?

[00:45:52] Pol Piella: I didn't do it because I started that. So when I went in the, I picked up a contract.

So I was already working with, uh, so to add to all this stuff, I was already creating content for a runway, uh, mobile release, uh, management, um, while I was full time. Um, and then it got. To the point where I was ready to quit my job and I was gonna go in the, um, I decided like to speak to runway and see if like I could do a bit more for them and that was kind of like giving me the safety and they said yes, they had a project going on and I started working with them on a on a project with a low like time commitment and that gave me like an extra layer of safety and I think I didn't I could have lived with The other stuff, but I wanted, like, the extra bit of, like, safety as well, uh, like a safety net in case some sponsors just fell through, uh, or, yeah, something, something happened, like, uh, in that kind of, like, year.

[00:46:51] Antoine van der Lee: Yeah. Yeah. Because before you had your main salary and that income, right? So many compare their to be earned in the salary to watch just the job they had before. But if you don't watch out, you actually spend more than that because you also had the in the income. Yeah. Um, on top of it. Right. That, that happened to me in a way I, I didn't have so many outgoings, but I really went down quite a bit.

Yeah. Because. That, that changed, um, but the, this recurrence, you drafted a clear picture of what you could do when you, when you actually go indie, right? So we're, we're only a few months in and the ideas that you had with the workshop and those kind of potentials that you couldn't do because you were already so busy, but now you have the time.

What did you do already? And. What is the result so far?

[00:47:44] Pol Piella: I've done two, well, I've done one workshop, um, that was paid and then I'm doing, I did one for free. And then I'm doing another one that's, that's paid, um, and that's, that's a good like amount of, of income, like when you do, when you do a workshop, I think for the first one, uh, it paid like 800 euros or something like that.

And it was like three hour workshop. Um, so that's like the total like net income from, from the workshop.

[00:48:12] Antoine van der Lee: And was it, was it like at a company or?

[00:48:13] Pol Piella: No, no, it was just, uh, I sell tickets. Online. Online. Yeah. And then people come and do the workshop thing. I want to expand it to potentially contact companies and go to the workshop for them.

That would be like a quite nice way of like generating some, some extra revenue as well. Um, but that's like kind of another thing that I had in mind that I could never try and it's, it's working out well as well. Um, so yeah, that, that's kind of what I'm, what I'm trying. And I think I did a lot of the groundwork already while I was full time.

And I always had in my head, like, Oh, if. I quit my job. What would I, what would I do? What would my, my sources of income be? So I've got that kind of, um, thinking in my head. Uh, now, so I, I always like try to structure my day in a way so that it's, it gives a lot of focus to the things that primarily bring me revenue.

And then I've got like some time usually allocated for like bets and things that I'm really interested in and that I think are gonna Potentially take off and I work a lot on that as well and I give them like some priorities and

[00:49:22] Antoine van der Lee: smart. Yeah Is that distribution like on on a single day or do we have like a fixed day in a week?

That's fully focused on that

[00:49:27] Pol Piella: usually usually fix fix days. Um, so I usually do Fridays I usually spend like working on on stuff like that. I'm sometimes a bit erratic with my With my timetables and stuff. So I One day I feel like doing something else, I will just do it. But I think my main focus and where my, a lot of my effort is, is on the things that already bring me like the revenues to make sure that I'm more because they're like sponsored stuff to make sure that they still like keep growing and provide value and stuff.

Did this change when you went in the

[00:50:01] Antoine van der Lee: time management?

[00:50:03] Pol Piella: It did.

[00:50:04] Antoine van der Lee: Like how you make priorities and decisions?

[00:50:06] Pol Piella: It really did. I kind of like stopped and reconsidered like a ton of, a ton of stuff. Cause, uh, before that it was like, okay, I need to work on a blog. Okay, I'll do it. It was like a bit of a last resource.

Like I need to do this for Friday. So let's do it now. Um, now it's more like, okay, I've got this. Full week. I don't have a single meeting in the week. So yeah, what do I do with all this time? Right? Like, what do I really want to do?

[00:50:32] Antoine van der Lee: Everything? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[00:50:33] Pol Piella: Or nothing. Yeah, that makes it more

[00:50:36] Antoine van der Lee: challenging.

[00:50:36] Pol Piella: Right? It does. Yeah. And the first like month I kind of struggled with it because I was like, okay, I don't know what to do with all this time now, but then I started like just trying to like to figure out what was really and I think before you put like anything on a calendar, you should write down what's really important and what you really want to achieve.

Um, and more of like, uh, on a, on a life level as well, like what, what you want to be doing, like, is this thing that's bringing a lot of money really what you want to be doing? Maybe not. Like, maybe you're tired of writing blogs. Maybe you're so start finding other stuff and maybe put more. Emphasis to that and put the other thing on maintenance mode, maybe like just try not grow it, but like just keep it going to see how it goes.

So yeah, it's contrary, right? Like you feel like you

[00:51:24] Antoine van der Lee: get more time, so it becomes much easier to make your priorities and. But in a way, it's, it's not. Yeah. Do you know another example of that? That changed unexpectedly for you when you went indie?

[00:51:39] Pol Piella: Um, so I think that, that's the most important one. Like the, the making sure that you've got all your priorities right.

And then the, I think the, the time off is another thing that. Really changed and that I I'm really getting kind of getting used to it now because like for example my like my fiance's Fully like employed in a company. So she's got time off Allocated and she's got like bank holidays and stuff like that that that she takes Um, so whenever it's a bank holiday, um, she's completely off, but it's, I don't get bank holidays now.

Right? Like, and I don't get, um, well, I kind of get sick, babe. I don't really get it. Uh, and it's not like I can say, Oh, I've got 23 days a year. I'm going to book these two here. I'm going to do that planning. So being like very thorough with those kind of things and making sure that, okay, I'm setting this time off, uh, there or not feeling guilty about taking time off, because that's another thing that I'm still struggling a bit, a bit with.

You find it hard to take time off, right? Yeah, a hundred percent.

[00:52:44] Antoine van der Lee: You can take off whenever you want, right?

[00:52:47] Pol Piella: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you make it sound like you can't. You could only take time off if you wanted. You could just like not do anything. Obviously that, that won't work very well, but yeah. There's no one who is going to tell you like, Oh, what are you doing?

You're taking too much time off or you're not taking time off. Yeah. And

[00:53:03] Antoine van der Lee: everything you do adds up to your own income, right? But everything impacts your personal growth directly. So you also feel like if you take time off. Everything stops. Yeah. Extremely sad. But yeah, uh, the way I say it now, um, it's not sad like sad, but it's, yeah, it's not.

Yeah, I tell it sounds extreme, but

[00:53:27] Pol Piella: it is, uh, it is how it feels. It is what it is on the flip side. You're everything you do has an impact on yourself and on your revenue. It's also positive. It's which your motivation like goes through the roof. Like it's it's like, Oh, wow. If I do these like I can see that I maybe like will increase this and it's.

It directly impacts you like it's your money. It's what will come to you. Yeah. So like the motivation also goes goes through the roof, which is a plus side.

[00:53:52] Antoine van der Lee: So are you working 60 hours now? 70?

[00:53:56] Pol Piella: Probably less, less than that, a lot less than that. Okay, okay. No, a lot less than that. Because that's the risk of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It really is and I'm working a lot, a lot less than that. For example, like I, last week I had a bit of like a personal situation. I was feeling a bit drained and We happened to be a bank holiday, so I just went with my mom and with my fiancé to Madrid and we spent like a long weekend there.

Didn't do anything and then I came back on Monday and I felt like completely recharged. And yeah, I think that that's something that I'm getting better at now. And that I'm really liking and that I've kind of like regained control in a bit, which is which is pretty good.

[00:54:40] Antoine van der Lee: Great. Before we dive back into this episode, I want to quickly share something that could change your journey.

If you're dreaming of turning your side project into full independence, my Going Indie course is designed to guide you every step of the way. Visit goingindie. com and let's make your indie dreams a reality. That's going indie. com. Enjoy the rest of the episode. All right, I want to switch gears a little bit because one thing that I find fascinating too is that you do a lot together with Hidde.

It almost feels like you're like a small company together, but still you're working independently. And that brings several challenges that comes to mind. For example, under which account do you deploy the apps? Because that's actually the one that's really owner of the app, but also how do you split income?

Um, How do you divide the hours spent on an app? Maybe somebody is more passionate about the app that you join. Um, so that influences it. Can you give us a bit of an insight in that journey? Working together with your best colleague. Yeah,

[00:55:46] Pol Piella: he's a great colleague. Um, so I think for a bit of context, like I said, I said before, but we met here in Amsterdam in the US.

Then he moved to Manchester. So we like. kind of met a lot during that time because I was living in Manchester as well and while we lived there he basically said that he wanted like someone to like collaborate a bit more and we became like very good friends and Um, we started working together on NowPlaying, but it was an app that he had, like, already, he had built a ton of functionality and stuff, so we, we had a chat, like, he wanted to bring me on, because I'm, like, I think we complement each other very well, like, he's from a design background, he's very good with, like, SwiftUI and building, like, great, like, user experiences and stuff like that, and I'm very good with, like, the performance side of things, the data side of things, and that kind of, like, partnership works, works very well, and that's why he wanted to, like, bring me on to And then we started talking about how we would do it, and we quickly decided there was, like, gonna be more revenues here for him than for me, which makes complete sense.

And so it was like a 60 40 split. And from that point on, from that point on. Yeah. Um, and then in terms of the account, it was just on his account. So it just just stayed there. Um, and then we did some some bits like changing the names on the on the app on the website, the about section so that it reflected like fairly that it was it was the two of us.

And then in terms of helm, um, he also had started like Prototyping the idea and building the the app. Um, and he had like a test flight version, but um, I came in basically as well in the same kind of level of partnership in a way in terms of like I would tackle like a lot of the data side of things because it's I mean, you've built an SDK for the AppStore Connect API, it's not.

We need

[00:57:31] Antoine van der Lee: to talk about my part of the pie. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

[00:57:35] Pol Piella: It's really, really helpful. Um, but yeah, it's not the easiest thing to tackle. There's a lot of caching involved, so I kind of took on that part. And by that point, because the app wasn't out yet, we decided to do a 50 50 split. We were, like, super passionate, but it got released on, like, his account, as it was already set up there.

Don't really mind, I know you said like, the name on the account eventually is, is HEDIS. Yeah. But I don't, I don't really, really mind that to be honest. Like I think it, in terms of, sometimes you get people saying like, Oh, this is, check out Pol's app, blah, blah, blah. And sometimes you get like, check out HEDIS app, and, Um, but we're quite good at coming back to that person and saying, Oh, it's not.

All in my app, like, you know, it's, it's balls up as well or, or the other way, way around as well. Maybe more legally or something,

[00:58:24] Antoine van der Lee: right? Like, yeah, so you get in a fight together or something. There's nothing you can do. Yeah. I mean, did you write something down on paper? So

[00:58:31] Pol Piella: we recently, uh, wrote due to some, uh, some things we wrote a partnership, uh, agreement.

Not that we, we fought or anything, but we thought it would be a good idea. We, um, a co ownership agreement for, for helm. I should probably do something similar for, for now playing, but. We're just very relaxed. I, I do know, like, yeah, but I, I wouldn't screw him over. I know he wouldn't, he wouldn't do that to me either, and we're very good friends.

So, um, but I do understand, like, things can happen, and it happens with families as well, and things can happen. So it's good to have, like, stuff in writing, um, anyway. But Yeah, we didn't really worry about that. Like we don't, I don't, I hate the legal stuff. I had the, yeah, all that kind of stuff. It's not needed.

So you don't, yeah. And I,

[00:59:17] Antoine van der Lee: um, but yeah, when you, when you marry somebody, you don't expect to divorce either. Right. So, yeah, exactly. Um, but how do you. Agree on time spent because it's a 50 50 split, but you both have a lot of other projects to do. So it could easily be that he spends like 20 hours on helm while you feel like I'm not so into helm this week.

So I only spent like 10 hours this week. Yeah. You still get 50%.

[00:59:40] Pol Piella: Yeah. I think that that's a, that's a very good question. I think because we're in early stages, I think we've both been like very committed to it. And to be honest, like, if I, It gets to a point where we have 50 50 and one, two weeks I do like maybe 100 percent of the work and he does not, not done anything.

I don't, I don't really mind because I know at some point it will be the other way around. Um, we don't like track hours or anything like that. That's not how we, like, at least that's not how I like. to work anyway, but if there is some points where, like, there were some points where I wasn't, like, putting that much effort into, into now playing, I know, like, I can speak, like, very openly with, with Hida, and he did mention to me, he was like, oh, it feels like I'm doing, I'm doing a lot, and I was like, okay, I'll pick up, like, this kind of task, take a break from it, and then I'll, I'll do that kind of stuff.

Um, so, like, obviously being, like, respectful to each other and to each other's, like, time commitments and, and stuff, um, and just basically sharing responsibilities and making sure. Having defined roles and what each other does is really, really helps with that because there's a lot of stuff that I can't do without Hida and Hida can't do without me.

There's a lot of stuff where the UI is ready, so I'll know, like, that's holding up the release that I need to, like, work with the AppStore Connect API and implement a bunch of stuff that I will go and do. So it works quite well in that sense.

[01:01:04] Antoine van der Lee: Yeah, so I think it's really important that you have a really strong connection with the person that you start the project with.

[01:01:10] Pol Piella: 100%,

[01:01:10] Antoine van der Lee: yeah. He was really generous for you then with now playing the 60, 40%, right? Yeah, yeah. At that time when you started, you directly gained 40 percent of the income. Yeah. Well, you haven't had done anything for the app yet. Yeah, yeah,

[01:01:21] Pol Piella: yeah. And it was, yeah, it was incredibly, incredibly generous.

[01:01:26] Antoine van der Lee: Did you, did you consider contracting with him instead?

[01:01:28] Pol Piella: I, I think we, we talked about it like for certain things. So I've, I've helped him with, uh, GOLA a bit as well with, uh, and we're going to work on GOLA today as a bit, uh, with some performance stuff and, and stuff like that. And he was like, Oh, I'll, Contract you for doing that work. And I was like, nah, I'll do it for free, honestly.

Cause I know eventually like at the end of the day, we're friends and I know eventually that stuff that I do or that stuff that I share, he will like share it with me. Like he will design like some icons. It will help me with like the design of something. Still components that he's built on, on Helm as well.

And I put them in my app sometimes. And does he know I Yeah. He'll, he'll eventually find out. Uh, but, um, but yeah, I thi I, I know that like we do, we do a lot of stuff, stuff like that. Uh. for, for each other. So I think it eventually works, works in that, in that sense. But yeah, I agree. It was like entirely generous from, from inside.

[01:02:22] Antoine van der Lee: Yeah. And you know, if it brings you both in a better place, because he knew you as well, he knew like this will bring my apps to the next level. Then there's also something to it to invest in it a little bit. Right. And then eventually, yeah, for sure. When you just started, you got 40 percent while not having done anything for it.

But it's also an intent for you to

[01:02:43] Pol Piella: Yeah. Yeah. To push it and push

[01:02:45] Antoine van der Lee: it and bring something.

[01:02:45] Pol Piella: Yeah. And it makes you feel like with, with that kind of like split, it makes you feel like you go on the product, right? So it's now your name as well. That's on the line. If people like complain about it, if people like you, if it's a bad product, it's your Your reputation on the line as well.

And you're what you're building. So it kind of like makes you motivated to build the best possible like experience that you can have.

[01:03:09] Antoine van der Lee: Yeah, that makes sense. All right, so we're getting closer to the end. I want to look ahead shortly with you. You just went in the what are your, um, What do you work on on the Fridays?

Basically, like, what are your plans? What do you hope to Yeah,

[01:03:26] Pol Piella: so I'm doing a lot with AI these days, just trying to like get familiar with, um, like how to run models locally and how to do, um, on device experiences. I'm working a lot with, um, with like my app create with the QR code up. Uh, in that sense, it's kind of becoming my, my playground to doing to doing this kind of like research and this kind of, uh, more challenging stuff that I'm, that I'm looking into.

Yeah. Um, so that's my, my goal is to eventually keep like building more apps and become a bit of an expert in running more local experiences because I think that's, um, the approach that I'm taking with AI now, if it's something more like computation, computational heavy, like generating images, for example, or this kind of like morphing images into different, different things.

I don't really want to use an API because it's first of all it takes a lot of time like it can take up to a minute to generate like things and I don't want to keep a connection open for a minute. I don't want to pay a lot like to, to do this kind of tasks. Um, so I'm trying to like build up on the, on that kind of like knowledge.

And then I've got like a solid foundation to be able to experiment with things a lot easier than it would be like if I already have to charge people for using it or them providing their API keys. So for example, with um, Create, I'm trying to get people to do unlimited like image generation. For free because they don't really have to pay anything because it's all on device and you

[01:04:54] Antoine van der Lee: don't have to pay more either.

Yeah, exactly.

[01:04:56] Pol Piella: So that's the kind of stuff that I'm working on and trying to like learn a bit more a bit more about that. I think that's my my main like go for the future and obviously just keep building apps if. I think the end goal is that one day my whole revenue will come from apps. Ideally, if my whole revenue came from Helm, uh, that would be, yeah, that would be ideal because that's the one that I enjoy.

I think Kido shares the same.

[01:05:22] Antoine van der Lee: Right, right. So it's not that you have all those apps to allow you to work on AI.

[01:05:26] Pol Piella: Yeah, no. So, and then, like, yeah, I think the one that I'm, like, that I'm enjoying the most at the moment working on and building updates and building functionality is definitely Helm. So, yeah. Um, growing that to potentially being like the full time job for the two of us would be, would be ideal.

Sounds like a pretty, pretty good dream, especially if Epsilon Connects remains the same. Yeah, yeah.

[01:05:48] Antoine van der Lee: That is, yeah, granted, it all remains the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. And, um, for those listening that seek to go indie, Uh, you just went in the, I feel like you're right into it. You're, you're actually now going in.

It feels like, uh, what would be one tip you want to give to those that have a side project and dream of, of, of going in?

[01:06:07] Pol Piella: I would say like, try be one thing that really helped me was try be public with what you do. Like try grow an audience, uh, try go on social media. I know it can feel like a drug sometimes and it can feel like maybe you don't enjoy like social media that much, but it's.

Super important to, to kind of like grow your audience. And once you've got like a bigger audience, then the impact you can have with your products obviously like exponentially grows. Um, so I would say like be public about it, keep working on it, but take it easy. Like do not, uh, yeah, do not take time for family, relax and enjoy like yourself as well while you're doing it.

One of the most important things is have fun with what you're doing with your side projects because as soon as you stop having fun and it being like a thing that motivates you, then it probably isn't like you have to think, would you see yourself doing this full time? And if you don't, then maybe like, it's not something like that you, yeah, you want to do that much and maybe it's not something that you want to put like that effort and don't be scared to drop things as well.

Like if you feel like it's not taken off or if you feel like you don't enjoy it or you didn't think it was going to be like what it was, don't take it as a failure. It's just another. Embrace failure. Yeah, exactly.

[01:07:27] Antoine van der Lee: In the audience building, do you mean like building an audience for the project that you have in mind or just in general?

[01:07:32] Pol Piella: I think in general for yourself, like I think for, for, um, like for you as a, as an indie developer, for you as a content creator, it's important to, to build an audience. So that when.

[01:07:43] Antoine van der Lee: So more and more a network.

[01:07:45] Pol Piella: Exactly. And a network. Of

[01:07:46] Antoine van der Lee: like minded people around you that inspire you, that help you further.

[01:07:49] Pol Piella: Yeah. And then when you, when you're ready to launch your next thing, then you will have people you can either collaborate with, or you can ask them questions, they can give you feedback and you won't feel like you're alone launching things. You'll have people to support you. Yeah.

[01:08:02] Antoine van der Lee: You'll reach compounds with the creators around you.

Exactly. Right. Amazing. That's a, that's a great way to end. Um, so Pol, if people want to follow you, where can they find you?

[01:08:11] Pol Piella: Uh, all over the place. But if you, uh, yeah, if you go to my Twitter profile or Mastodon, they're both polpielladev. Uh, and yeah, it's just that handle on both. It's iOS. dev. space, I think, on Mastodon.

It's complicated, very complicated. I'm not on Mastodon for this reason. Yeah, fair enough. It's quite complicated. You can no longer say the handle. You have to say the space you're in, like the server. Yeah, it's so complicated. It is, it is complicated. Um, or LinkedIn, uh, yeah.

[01:08:41] Antoine van der Lee: I'll put the links down in When you find them directly, press the like button.

I hate that I have to do this, but if you say like and subscribe, well, the button will actually glow if you say like this video. Really? Yeah. I didn't know that. Nice. YouTube AI. Oh, that's pretty cool. You see it? Like this video. If you're listening to the audio, um, maybe watch the video as well. And press like or rate in your favorite podcast app.

Now, Pol, um, absolutely amazing that you've been here. I look forward to you talking to iOS and I'll keep following your Indie journey.
Pol
[01:09:12] Pol Piella: so much. And thank you

[01:09:13] Antoine van der Lee: for having me. You're welcome. It's been a pleasure. That's it for this episode. Every Indie journey is unique, and you might find inspiration in other episodes as well.

If you enjoyed the show, please like, subscribe, or leave a rating on your favorite podcast platform. It helps me reach more creators who dream of going Indie. Thanks for listening and see you next time.