Short story

I’ve co-founded a new company, rocket, with the designer I worked with on Concentrate. Over the next month or so all roobasoft products will be transitioned over to rocket and will be sold through rocket’s online store. This is mostly a name change. I’ll still be the man doing the development and support, but now I’ll also have Dave helping to make things prettier and more user friendly.

More details

Shortly after hiring Dave to work on Concentrate I asked him if he was interested in partnering up in some way. At the time he was working full-time-ish for a startup with potential to be a big deal, so although he was interested, the timing wasn’t right.

4.5 or so months later and the timing was better, so we decided to talk through it. We ended up meeting at least once a week for lunch for a good month or so talking through details. Then in early September we met with an accountant and worked through business details. At this point it really started to take shape. Finally, on September 22nd, 2009, the secretary of the state of Idaho stamped our articles of incorporation and made it official, we were business partners. We’ve now got a fancy website, all sorts of official documents, a bank account and two names (our official company name is Made By Rocket, Inc., but we have a legally assumed business name of rocket).

Why?

• Our skills are complementary. I now have access to a designer without having to worry about hours spent, and Dave has access to a programmer without having to worry about hours spent.
• We worked well together. Regardless of how we did it, it was clear we’d be working together in the future. So partnering up seemed like a solid choice.
• Two is better than one. We’re both excited to have each other to bounce ideas off of, help keep each other on track and to help make better business decisions (or at least make sure we talk through things first).

How?

I’m guessing some of you are interested in how things are structured, so here’s a short explanation:

roobasoft, LLC will still exist and will remain 100% owned by my wife and I. All existing roobasoft apps will remain owned by roobasoft. roobasoft will license the rights to sell the apps to Made By Rocket, Inc. (an S-corp). rocket is co-owned 50/50 by Dave and I. That’s it. It’s really all a bit simpler than we thought and probably simpler than it sounds. Feel free to shoot me an email if you have any questions or want to know more, I’m happy to provide more details.

That’s it. So roobasoft still exists, but it won’t be publicly active in a month or so. Our plan is to put a page up on roobasoft.com explaining it’s now rocket and pointing to madebyrocket.com. However, I do plan to keep this blog and will probably even continue to post things here. We’ll see.

Just a quick note to mention that both rooSwitch and Concentrate work great on Snow Leopard. I’ve been testing and developing with Snow Leopard for the past couple months now and have, I believe, ironed out all the known Snow Leopard specific issues.

I’m guessing the content of this post won’t be news to most folks, but it helped me so much I wanted to write it down.

Sometime in April I was chatting with Andy Kim, of Potion Factory and The Hit List fame, over IM and I asked him how he, a one-man shop producing some awesome stuff (both code and design work), got things done. His advice was pretty simple: Always make sure you know what to do next. I’m convinced that advice, along with a lot of other things, helped make the next three months extremely productive for me.

This really wasn’t anything new. I’m sure I had heard this before, but hearing it from Andy was apparently just enough to make me actually try it for reals and experience it for myself.

It wasn’t long before I noticed how serious the change was. If I either didn’t have my “to do today” (more on that later) list available, or I had let myself finish everything without adding to it, I would almost immediately procrastinate when a task was done. However, when I crossed something out, if there was another task to pickup and do right there without me having to think about ‘what now?’, I almost always immediately got to it. So simple.

How I manage my lists

I use two list systems. One for my to do today list, and one for planning at a larger level. The to do today list is paper based. I carry a small Moleskine squared notebook for this list. My other lists are stored in The Hit List organized into folders and releases and stuff like that. Every morning I scan my lists in The Hit List and write stuff down in my to do today list. I put a large square to start each item and then write the task next to it. When I complete a task I put a check in the box and strike out the words. If I decide to not do something, I use an X and strike out the words. This has worked great for me.

If I notice my to do today list getting small, and I know I have a lot of available time left in the day, I try to make sure I re-scan The Hit List for things to add. This is because I know if the list is empty before I’m done working for the day I’ll find myself watching YouTube videos of babies laughing or on Wikipedia reading about a Country I’ll never visit.

More on To Do Today

Concentrate was heavily inspired by a productivity method called The Pomodoro Technique. Part of that technique involves a To Do Today list. You pick from your larger list and put down what you think you can do today. The technique also has you estimate tasks and some other stuff that I don’t do, but are probably worth checking out. The Pomodoro Technique gave me the idea for the to do today list vs. working off one master list. I highly recommend it. Being able to look at a, relatively, much smaller list makes a huge difference compared to staring at your endless list for a project.

Feel free to drop a comment here with your own take on this. I’d be curious if others are using a to do today list or if you try it and how it worked for you. Good luck!

I’m now a bit over half way done with my 6 month roobasoft v2.0 experiment. The goal was to be able to support my family 100% off my own apps by the end of the 6 months. Although I don’t think my apps will meet that goal, I do think it’s going to be a lot closer than I originally expected[1]. And that’s real exciting. That cautious optimism[2] is all due to Concentrate’s launch.

So as you could guess, the biggest news here at roobasoft HQ is that Concentrate has officially shipped. So far, it’s been very successful (compared to other apps I’ve launched). I wrote a bit more about it on the Concentrate blog here.

The most enjoyable part of the release has been watching people talk about it on Twitter. This has meant a lot. Folks seem to get the idea and see how it can help them pretty quickly, and that’s very important. It means a lot when people recommend it so willingly.

To watch twitter real time I’ve been using a new Mac app, Incoming!, to search for the terms: getconcentrating, #Concentrate, Concentrate app and Concentrate OS X. Incoming! has a lot of potential, but its quite buggy in its current beta form. Hopefully it will all be cleaned up soon. Should be a great tool. Update Aug. 16th: 0.89 of Incoming! just came out and fixes both of my reported issues. If you need to keep an eye on twitter I’d definitely check Incoming! out, it’s looking great.

It’s also been enjoyable to get fantastic feedback from users. From that feedback I’ve been able to prioritize features and have scheduled what will be in Concentrate’s 1.1 and 1.2 releases.

I have a few blog posts I want to write. I’m hoping mentioning them here will help make me feel accountable and actually write them. Here are the ideas:

1. Avoiding procrastination with next actions
2. roobasoft v2.0’s secret weapon: A project coach
3. Taking the time to pay attention to details

OK, that should keep me busy until the next v2.0 post, which surely will be late. In fact, how ’bout I just say there won’t be another until October 1st. Done. It’s in my calendar. So, you know, it has a fighting chance of happening now.

[1] Yes, I set a goal I had no realistic expectation to meet)

[2] That may sound pessimistic, but trust me, it’s optimism for me.

I’m a couple weeks late to writing about how the 2nd month of my 6 month experiment went, but here it is:

So what happened in June plus 2 weeks of July? Development. I started focusing on my new OS X app, Concentrate. Late May and early June were fairly slow. I spent a lot of time experimentating, brainstorming and sketching UIs. Then, about 4 weeks or so ago, the idea was whittled down to what it would be, proof of concept work was done and I had a list of high level things to do. After that everything turned over resulting in 4 extremely productive weeks. Of course I still had some slow days, but they were very few and I was able to get kicked out of them with ease. I also employed a secret weapon that I’ll blog about soon after Concentrate’s release.

So where am I today? The app finally has an official name, Concentrate, and its website is taking shape: http://getconcentrating.com. It also has an icon:

Concentrate is currently in a private beta and I’m hoping to ship 1.0 in the middle of August.

A lot of time was spent settling on both the scope of the application, it started much bigger, and the name and icon. The scope fell into place more or less on its own. The naming, however, was a lengthy process going through about 3 “oh, that’s the one!” names and a handful of icons. I have no regrets about that time spent, I’m very happy with where it all ended. I plan to blog more about Concentrate’s history on its blog (still to be themed).

OK, if you’re interested in helping out with the beta, I’m trying out running the beta through MacDeveloper.net. You’re free to sign up there as a tester for free and get involved that way. Or you can just send me a note asking for a beta build (ask nice ). I’ll blog more about my MacDeveloper.net experience after 1.0 ships.

I’d say 90% of Concentrate is done. Now it’s time to dig into the last, but most difficult, 10%.

Courtney, the woman that agreed to marry me, read my Not Going to WWDC Survival Guide and took action. Delicious action!

The cookies pictured here magically appeared in my office today, and they’re as good as they look. She rocks.

In years past I’ve discounted rooSwitch during WWDC. Although I’m not attending this year I decided that shouldn’t matter. So here you go, rooSwitch for $10, this week only. Buy now.

The coupon code is WWDC09, but clicking that link should pre-fill that in for you.

Enjoy!

I’ve attended the last 3 WWDC’s but I won’t be present this year. Here’s my plan to get through the week:

• Sleep in on Monday Even with Steve Jobs not running the show, I’m guessing people will be queueing up for the keynote surprisingly early. Sleep in. Take the morning off. Watch the keynote later when it’s available off apple.com.
• Turn off twitter If you’re a Mac or iPhone dev, you’re probably following a handful of people that will be at WWDC. Don’t bother loading twitter, it’s just going to be full of your attending friends telling people what session they’re in, what they’re wearing and about what party they’re going to. It will just increase your jealousy.
• Enjoy your comfy chair The chairs at Moscone West are awful. Wallow in your comfy chair and appreciate it. Side note: before attending my first WWDC (or any conference) I assumed each room had movie theatre style stadium seating. Not sure where I got that picture, but I was sorely disappointed.
• Bake your own cookies I’m a sucker for treats, especially the kind that magically show up in the afternoon. The magic treats are probably one of my favorite parts of WWDC (yes, I know that’s sad). Bake your own cookies or brownies one morning. Try really hard to forget they exist and ask someone in your house to put a plate out randomly one day. Cookies! [1] Bonus points if you can convince someone else to do the baking.
• Just walk right in and use your bathroom Taking a bio-break at WWDC is tricky. Between sessions there’s always a line for the men’s room. Enjoy the fact that you can just waltz right into your bathroom and use it without waiting (and hopefully minus the sticky floors too).
• Throw your own party The nights at WWDC are packed with social events. Take your significant other (or whoever) out to a fancy dinner or just get out and do something. You likely won’t meet any new people, especially Mac/iPhone devs, but it’s very likely you’re like me and don’t get out often enough.
• Get stuff done WWDC is a lot of fun and you certainly can get a lot out of it, but you really have to consider it a vacation. As much as I tried each year, I got nothing done [2]. So stop crying about not being able to be there this year and go check things off your todo list!
• Call ADC Finally, if you’re really bummed out about not being there, use a tech support incident. Call ‘em up and just chat about something (just make up an issue). Talking to someone at Apple could help you feel like you’re there. Of course, I’m not really sure anyone’s manning the phones during WWDC since they’re all at the Moscone center having a blast! [3]

[1] – A lot of the WWDC survival guides actually suggest avoiding the junk food and some suggest avoiding the Moscone food altogether. If you’re stronger willed than I, do that. My first year at WWDC I went nuts on the free Odwalla drinks and had a tummy ache for a couple days. Pace yourself.

[2] – Of course if you show up well prepared with questions and bugs to sit down with an Apple employee you could save yourself a lot of time in that one week.

[3] Don’t do this.

May was month #1, so what has happened?

• rooSwitch 1.5 shipped with some new features as well as new screencasts and a new website.
• I moved to a shared private office in downtown Boise.
• I started work on a new desktop app.

Things learned:

• Multi-tasking is evil. There’s plenty of people talking about the evils of distractions and multi-tasking. It wasn’t until this month that I made a real effort to actually turn mail, IM and other notifying distractions off for extended periouds of time. I also stopped bouncing between projects within a given day. I’m now much more conscious about what I want to accomplish for the day, and what project(s) it involves. If more than one project has to be dealt with I make sure to start on the most important and finish it before moving to the next. In the past I’ve bounced from project to project and let “emergencies” take over. Now I’m just finding an appropriate home for the “emergencies” (later) and really giving my current task all my attention.
• Routines are good. I wake up while the house is stil quiet and I start every day the same. I’ve been doing this for two months, so I know its stuck. The actual routine is personal and not important. It’s also boring. But by the time I sit down at my desk I’m fully awake and my day has started. My routine ends when I sit down to my desk and write down what I want to do for the day. Then I’m off. I’m experimenting with incorporating routines throughout my day as well. Nothing’s stuck yet, but it’s been interesting and I’m still hopefully I’ll wander into something useful.

Now for some miscellaneous jibba-jabba:

It felt good to get rooSwitch 1.5 out the door. Now close to 100% of my working time is focused on a new app, currently called Focalize.

I’m not ready to share any real details, but it’ll be an OS X app and a little sister iPhone app. If for some reason the name intrigues you enough to be interested in testing, feel free to [shoot me an email](mailto:brian@roobasoft.com?subject=Focalize me!). It’s not yet in private beta, but I hope to have it there this month.

Regarding the office space, I’m continuing to really enjoy it. Boise doesn’t have a large downtown, but it’s plenty big enough for me. I’m within walking distance to a little park and plenty of great food. However, I’m trying to avoid going out to lunch more than once a week.

I’m also trying to bike in most days. Turns out I enjoy biking to a destination a good bit more than just biking in a loop. And bonus points to the office for maintaining a nice big locker room with private showers and an awesome limited access bike room.

I’m 20 days into roobasoft 2.0 and am already adjusting things as needed. The first major adjustment is switching from the co-working space I was using to a shared private office at a different location.

There was one major show stopper for the shared space: I wasn’t able to keep an external monitor, power supply, external hard drive, keyboard, mouse, etc at the office. Of course, I knew this when I signed up, but I underestimated how much I’d miss that.

As soon as I realized it wasn’t going to work out I hit craigslist. Within a week I found a potential alternative. It’s a similar style setup to where I was, but the new place will rent out 1/3 of a private office and provide a dedicated desk and all. I signed up for that and am giving that a go. The other 2/3rds of the office aren’t yet occupied, so there’s a concern with that unknown, but it seemed worth the risk.

Unexpected benefits

When planning to move out to an office, I really wasn’t looking forward to having to get in a car and drive daily. For my first year working at home (2006) my wife and I shared one vehicle, I just never went anywhere. Well, turns out the 15-20 minute commute is a hidden gem. Why? Forced detachment from whatever I’ve been working on. I didn’t really notice it at the time, but when working a full day at home, whenever I would come out to hang with the family, I was constantly thinking about what I was working on. I could have been working on nothing, but I still felt like I was in the middle of something and would always wander back to my office to check on things. It’s stupid and it sucked.

Now by the time I get home I’ve had 15-20 minutes of fully disconnected time to let me brain rest and I know I wasn’t in the middle of anything important. Not only that, but there’s a barrier to reentry. I have to take my laptop out of my bag. This sounds like a small barrier, but it’s enough to make sure I don’t open my laptop until I have a purpose and some time for that purpose. It also works well for me to just get out of my car and move right into any necessary yard work. That’s a much easier transition than having to get out of your pajamas at 4pm because the lawn needs mowing.

Of course all of that is mental and I could have fixed it with some solid discipline. I guess the point is I didn’t even see the situation clearly until I was working outside of the home regularly. Also, I lack solid discipline.