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Today, I’m going to show you how to start your indie iOS career serenely.
In a world with fear, instability, and uncertain futures, I’m going to walk through a much more organic approach. This approach will solely focus on preparing you before jumping into the wild.
By securing your situation, you will be less stressed, increase your engagement with your goals, and focus more on building passive income with your apps.
The problem is that most guides focus on building apps rather than helping you establish a stable personal and financial situation.
Measuring the risk is better than going blindly
There will be zero hacks or tricks in this post. Only proven tactics that will help you to prepare your situation to jump in the journey of iOS solopreneurship. That generally be defined as someone who :
- Organize its finances
- Know what to spend necessarily
- Sticks to its plan
- Have a sense of discipline
Here's your action plan for the next days to prepare your career. Let’s dive in.
How to prepare your jump for iOS solopreneurship journey
- Measure your current situation
- Analyze your income and expenses
- Plan your budget for one year
- Have a backup plan
1 - Measure your current situation
To begin, it's critical to understand where you are right here, right now. If you start now without having a clear vision of your situation, you'll probably fail along the way.
Here's a checklist of what you can check to have a broad vision of your situation:
- Can you go full-time iOS indie?
- Do you have savings for one year?
- What is your current estate? 1 000€? 10 000?
- Why do you want to start iOS solopreneurship? Earn passive income? Enjoy the journey? Work anywhere?
Those questions are essential for what is coming next. You can use Google Sheets and write numbers about what you have in your bank accounts. It will help you visualize your situation.
2 - Analyze your income and expenses
Too many people don't analyze their expenses and their revenue. Some earn money and spend it right away. Some try to save it to buy a future product that will cancel all of their efforts. Is there something better to do? Of course.
Start analyzing what you earn each month in the Google Sheet you created. You will see if your income is stable, sufficient, and have a history.
Add another page for the expenses. It can be hard to see what money has been spent. However, it will help you to focus only on what you need in the future if some purchases are compulsive. Find your "Mandatory Expense Number" for one month. Basically, essential expenses like apartment rent, food, and transport. Note that number is the minimum needed to live with your needs.
3 - Plan your budget for one year
You don't know when and how much indie activity will start making money. Planning your budget for one year is best to ensure you are not in a bad situation. Your budget plan will depend on your situation when you start.
- Go full-time without income aside - Make sure to have between one year and a half and two years of savings.
- Go part-time with revenue aside - Make sure to have between six months and a year of savings.
What should be the saving amount? You can use the following formula to have a broad idea:
[Saving amount] = [Mandatory Expense Number] x [number of month]
You can start planning your budget with this budget plan. Feel free to copy and modify it according to your needs.
4 - Have a backup plan
Going solopreneurship for the year is uncertain. You don't know if it will work. In those cases, it is better to think of the worst. By doing so, you can define how you will go back to a normal life.
It can be either as a freelancer or as an employee. Your technical luggage as an indie will be an interesting asset for a company or a client. Make sure to match the technical aspects of your personal projects with the opportunity, so it will be easier to find your backup plan.
Start Launching Your Apps
With persistence, improvements, and shipping, you can start your indie career now. Here are the different points that you can tackle to be relaxed about your finances:
- Estimate your personal and financial situation
- Start shipping one product that helps people
- Share it with passion
- Learn along the way to improve your process
- Repeat again to succeed
With one year of creating apps, you will evolve. Your technical background, product vision, and marketing skills will be improved. Those unique experiences will be useful if you need to go back to an everyday job.
Reintegrating the market to work for another company or client will be easier. Make sure to start looking for jobs two months before finishing your journey.
Therefore, starting your iOS solopreneurship career can be a good idea and a compelling challenge.
If you want to know more about the mindset to be an efficient indie iOS developer, I invite you to check out the article The Mindset For Developing Side Project iOS Apps
