Focused - 18: A Series of Logical Decisions, with Greg Pierce

Episode Date: April 4, 2017

Agile Tortoise's Greg Pierce discusses what he's learned in a decade as an independent developer and consultant.

David Sparks and Jason Snell spent their careers working for the establishment. Then one day, they'd had enough. Now, they are independent workers, learning what it takes to succeed in the 21st century. They are free agents. Welcome back to Free Agents, a podcast about being an independent worker in a digital age. I'm Jason Snell, and I'm joined by my fellow host, as always, Mr. David Sparks. Hi, David. Hi, Jason. Well, this is one of our interview episodes, so we should probably get to it.

I think we should. Welcome to the show, Greg Pierce. Thanks for having me. Greg, you may know or may not know, is the brains behind the Agile Tortoise company that makes applications like Drafts, Interact, Terminology, some of my favorite apps on iOS. But more importantly, Greg is a long proven free agent. Greg, I think we should talk a little bit about your origin story. Sure.

To say I set out to do this, it would not be accurate. It's something I worked my way into over time through a series of logical decisions. But, you know, I had a career making software at companies, and I had always enjoyed working on side projects. at companies, and I had always enjoyed working on side projects. And over time, I tried to make decisions and moves that allowed me to spend more of my time doing the things I enjoyed and less doing the things I didn't enjoy in the tech business, things like system administration and stuff like that, that tended to come along with a lot of the work I was doing. And eventually, I kind of found myself at a turning point a little over 10 years ago, where the employer I was with and had been with for years, I spent about half

my time doing software for them, about half my time doing administrative chores. And they had grown enough to really make that administrative work a full-time thing. So I negotiated a deal with them and said, I'm going to go do my own thing. So I negotiated a deal with them and said, I'm going to go do my own thing. You guys can hire me to do the software. You hire a full-time administrative person. And that was sort of a great, safe way to transition into being an independent. And I never looked back. So you had some work that came, you knew that going out on your own, you'd have a good client to start out. Correct.

For that first six months or so, they were responsible for about half of my revenue, you know, good, reliable company I had a relationship with, made it really easy to transition. But how long before you'd made the move were you thinking about going independent? I wouldn't say I sat down ever and said, that's exactly what I want to do. I want to go start my own business. But I had a background that lent itself well. I had always worked in small organizations. My undergraduate degree has a business core. And I had worked in small organizations that let me kind of get involved in all aspects of business.

So I didn't really have any fear or trepidation about developing that skill set or, you know, that came with going independent. You know, I knew how to keep books. I knew how to do the business and manage cash flow and stuff that is sometimes what's new for someone going free to be a free agent. So I had always been doing side projects, you know, as something I did in my own time. I've been doing work on the web. I had released shareware Mac applications in the 90s and stuff. None of them amounted to much revenue-wise, but they were things that entertained me. And I just wanted to move more towards doing that kind of stuff and freeing myself up to make those decisions. And I think ultimately what pushed me over the edge was

having kids and just looking at my day and the flexibility I wanted to have and the two hours I was wasting in a car every day commuting and stuff that made it time to make a change. It's funny, something you said earlier really struck me, the idea that it sort of happened with a series of logical decisions. And I wanted to just put a point on that because I think there's this fantasy that everything happens in big moments of inspiration where you see the whole future laid out in front of you and you have a master plan. And I don't know about you, but based on that statement, that really resonated with me because I look back at some of the stuff and you could totally ascribe it to being part of a master

plan. But when you boil it down, there was no master plan. It was literally just a series of logical decisions to get to some place you wanted to be and do things you want to do. And I feel like demystifying that is maybe healthy for all of us because, you know, I think, you know, if you wait around for that moment of revelation, it may never come because they don't necessarily exist. It's a bunch of small steps to get you where you want to go. Yeah. And when you're in this business, it obviously depends on what type of services or products you're developing or doing and how you balance your work. But, you know, that was a process that continued for me after I was independent. I mean, clearly I went independent before there was an iPhone. I didn't go and quit my job to make apps, but that was an opportunity

that presented itself over those next couple of years as I found my way in the business. And it was an opportunity for me to say, hey, how can I diversify this business and take some of my client work and make some products instead? And where to find the balance there. And it was just logical transitions that moved me more and more towards that as I had successes. We're in the next logical step for my business and for me. I always felt for me, it was almost like my subconscious was making plans before my conscious was, you know, you know, I really hadn't occurred to me that I was going to be going out on my own until a lot closer to the time I went down on my own. But looking back, I had made a ton of ideas and decisions that pushed me in that direction. Yeah, I was never in a position where I think you hear a lot of people who express an interest in going to be an independent and they're maybe in a job they don't like. And there's always aspects to any job as an indie or not that you don't like or that aren't your favorite parts of the job.

But I was never in a position where, hey, I had a bad job I was trying to get out of. It wasn't a situation where I got laid off and had to figure out what to do. I just sort of moved in that direction. And it's worked out great over time. I was lucky to have those sorts of relationships with former employers and clients that allowed me to support that. With this 10-year track record, I think one of the things that I'm most interested in is the evolution of your life as an independent because, you know, David and I have only been doing this for a couple of years. And so, I'm really curious, like, when you look at what you do now and the way you structure your life, not just like what projects you're working on today versus 10 years ago, but what's different? How has it evolved over a decade of being independent? That is an interesting question. I mean, I think you develop strategies over time. You realize your

points of weakness and your strengths. And if you're actively monitoring that, you can plan over time. And I still find myself getting into ruts over time where I'm maybe not making the best decisions either from a business point of view or from a personal point of view on how to manage schedule or, you know, plan for future projects and stuff. And you kind of always have to have that additional thread going in your mind that you stop and remind yourself to say, well, why am I doing this? Is this, you know, is being independent still what I really want to do? What are, you know, what are the pluses? What are the minuses? And reevaluate your strategies. And, I mean, you talk a lot on the podcast

about some of the personal, some of the business things you do, but some of the personal things you have to do and habits you have to get into and having systems to manage that stuff, make decisions about where you spend your time working, the types of time and structure. When you have the ultimate flexibility, a lot of people,

I think that causes people to stumble. There's not a structure of a nine to five workday that you're being required to follow. And if you don't have systems in place to keep yourself disciplined, that's where it gets hardest, I think, as time goes on. What are some of the most useful systems you've implemented for this? You know, that is also something that's changed over time. There's cycles where I find myself needing to get out of my home office and my rut and go do more things. I spend most of my time at my desk at home though, because it is comfortable for me. I mean, I've set up a great place to work. I have a wonderful sit-stand desk. I can be productive

here and I don't have to go anywhere. I don't have to lug things around or be missing something I wanted that was crucial to the task I wanted to do. There's a couple strategies I've used that are specific to the types of work I do, like doing client work and doing products. I do mostly iOS apps. I also do not take much of any client work doing iOS because that allows me to structure those two businesses differently. Not only it keeps my skill set up to date in different areas, but it allows me to easily not get confused. You know, if I'm doing iOS work, I'm doing my own products.

I'm working in one environment in Xcode. If I'm doing client work, I'm in a different environment writing different kinds of software or code or projects that really helps keep those things separated for me. I'm curious about time management. Have you gotten, this is the sound of somebody saying, does this get better or does it not? Have you gotten better with managing your time and having a system from when you started out? Or is that just a thing that you always have to keep struggling with over? A lot of my questions are going to be like, does it get better, Greg? Does it get better? Or is it just a constant struggle forever? Please tell us it gets better.

Are you familiar with the concept of biorhythms? There are times it gets better, and there are times it gets worse due to your own habits or lack of attention to your habits, I think, or other things going on in your life personally, events and stuff that may throw your focus off. I think there's no doubt that you get better at a lot of the aspects of it. I mean, especially your first couple of years, you're stumbling through a lot of things that just, what do I have to do to run this business? You know, the things that you weren't doing before, like bookkeeping or, you know, well,

what insurance do I need? Do I need insurance? I need to develop a relationship with an accountant. And probably over the first couple of years, you may stumble through some of those relationships that don't work out and you have to find a new accountant until you finally get to a place that those things are easier. You have those pieces in place and you don't need to worry about them so much. So that sort of stuff gets easier. The personal time management stuff, I almost find it difficult to provide advice because different things work for

different people. I think that I personally am more towards the slacker end of things, which I think a lot of people who do this type of work are actually more towards the workaholic end of the spectrum. So I have to make sure I don't slack off. It's real easy for me. Hey, the kids got home from school and it's a nice day out. I'm just going to knock off and play with them or something. And it's easy to let stuff slide, especially in my end of it, doing products and stuff. I don't have any hard deadlines. I mean, for client works, there's always somebody beating down your door. They need it yesterday or whatever. But when you're doing your own products, you've got to set those schedules yourself. products, you've got to set those schedules yourself. So it's real easy to let things slide and not have the structure you need. So you do need to force yourself to have that sort of

discipline. Yeah. You know, one of the things you talked about, and I know like you've been at it 10 years and one thing that gives you as perspective of changes in business. I mean, when you first started, there wasn't such a thing as the iOS app store, or it was actually, it wasn't, it didn't exist yet at that time. So obviously at some point you decided your business was going to transition into iOS stuff. Now the iOS store, there are some complaints about that as to whether you can make a living at it. And you're probably thinking about what that means for your future. How do you keep an eye on the big picture things? And how did you successfully make transitions over the types of products and services you provide?

I always look to diversify the things I do. And you have to work with what the market provides to you. The App Store was a great place to get into in the early years. And certainly there was a gold rush for indie type developers like myself in those first few years, people were willing to pay for apps. There was a novelty aspect to it. There was less competition. The products you had to produce to compete were less complicated. You know, over time, as iOS has gotten more complicated, what is expected of a successful productivity app is, you know, the bar is a lot higher. You can't spend a month on an app and ship it and expect that, you know, you're going to have something unique that really finds a market.

So those sorts of things have taken time to work with. The business models have changed, and I've addressed that by kind of being in multiple camps based on the different types of products. I have reference and utility apps that are free and have in-app purchases and advertising. I have productivity apps like Drafts that's still a paid upfront sort of app and the different markets dictate what's appropriate for that product. And you just kind of, some of it's experimentation

and some of it is just listening to, you know, what you see out there in the market and what your customer expectations are. And you just do your best to keep up with it. This episode of The Free Agents is brought to you by SaneBox. Clean up your inbox in minutes, sign up for a two-week free trial and a $20 credit at SaneBox.com slash free agents. I think email is one of the most dangerous things to an independent worker.

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and it will disappear and reappear next Monday. I use SaneBox in all of my accounts for Max Sparky, for Sparks Law, and even my personal stuff, and it allows me to stay on top of email without allowing email to stay on top of me. I really consider it my secret weapon in the war against email. Now, we know that free agents listeners would like to have a little more email organization in their lives, so we've worked out a great deal with SaneBox for you. Go to SaneBox.com slash freeagents today, and you'll get an extra $20 credit on top of their two-week free trial. You don't have to enter your credit card information unless you decide to buy, so there's really nothing to lose.

Check it out today and get your email finally under control. Again, that's SaneBox.com slash freeagents. Thanks, SaneBox, for supporting the show. that's SaneBox.com slash free agents. Thanks SaneBox for supporting the show. Do you have like a system to kind of audit your business and say, Hey, you know, what am I doing? That's going to make me money, you know, a year from now as things change, or do you just kind of, how do you deal with that? Some of it? Yes. Some of it? No. I mean, you're always taking certain risks and trying to find what will work within reason. I try to approach it in a product point of view by working with least viable products. You know, if you have an idea, you put the least time in to get it to be reasonably good and put it out and see if it finds a market.

And if it does, you can build on that over time, make it better, which is why I have a lot of products that are now up to version four, version three, you know, that I over time have built and maybe weren't as complicated when they first came out, but the grain, you know, of the idea stuck enough to be able to invest the time and develop it further. And you do have to sit down and it's always hard. I've had to kill products that didn't find a viable market, either were never profitable or showed no signs that further investing in them would make a profit. And those are, you know, always difficult decisions to make because you put a lot of work into something, you want it to be

successful. And it's hard to finally say, no, it's time to give up on this and move on to something else. I can't say I have a strategic plan in the sense that I didn't do what they told me to do at business school and sit down and chart out the next five years or anything. But I have a pretty good idea of schedule of, hey, I need to have, if I'm going to have enough revenue to support these products, I'm going to have to have something new out in this timeframe or by the end of this year, you know, is that where I want to invest my time? Well, one of the things you said earlier was that you occasionally think, do I still want to be independent? I don't know about you, Jason. And two years into this, that thought has not occurred to me yet. I'm okay staying independent. But after 10 years,

you have questioned it. Tell us a little bit about that. I think it's about what you want to be involved with and what you want to build. I've had opportunities over the years to say, get involved with a startup or something as a technical person. And had I made that choice, that would likely have meant, you know, the time required to dedicate to making a product like that succeed would have been setting aside all my other business and saying that's what my focus is. In my case, I haven't had the opportunity come up where that was the logical decision, as we were discussing earlier. But there's times, there's different rewards and payoffs. Being independent, I think both of you have independent jobs that involve a lot of social engagement.

You know, you work directly with clients or you do podcasts where you're working with a lot of other people actively. And being a software developer, independent can get socially lonely sometimes. And there's, you know, times I want to engage more. And sometimes I go back to doing more client work so that I am involved in a process more with other people. Or sometimes it seems attractive to shake that up and work on different types of projects. It's not so much at this point, I think I really would just want to go get a full-time job. It's not so much at this point I think I really would just want to go get a full-time job.

I'm pretty dedicated to and probably unqualified for that at this point in terms of what my expectations are and habits. But there's times when those different things seem more attractive. I wanted to follow up on something. You were talking about the balancing of client work with uh being your own indie app developer because it's kind of like it seems to me like you've got sort of two two different jobs at least which is which is the client work and the and then your ios development that you keep separately do you do you think about only doing one of those or is the balance important it sounds like maybe just for a for a not being lonely sort of social interaction perspective, having clients is useful. It is. And the diversity is useful. And I also feel I'm reasonably risk averse as a general personality type. And I think that

there's something of a myth of being independent or being a small business person is a riskier thing to be doing. But I feel it's really quite the opposite because you don't have all your eggs in one basket. this or Apple Sherlock's my product, or I have a client that I, the relationship goes sour with, or is no longer doing business in the area I was working for them, whatever, any of those things go wrong, that's not going to shut me down. That's not going to kill my business. You know, I, I have other income streams. I have other opportunities. And I think probably part of the original reason I went independent is for that kind of variety so that I wasn't stuck doing one thing all the time or being in one channeled area. You know, I like creative problem solving. I like working on different things. So to be having that sort of spread, it keeps it entertaining and

valuable. You know, I value that. I also appreciate your comment that you may not be qualified for that kind of job. Again, I don't know about David. David was saying this earlier. I think I can chime in here too, that the longer it goes, the harder it is for me to see myself in going back to a commute, big company kind of job, which is not to say that I couldn't do it if I wanted to, but the differences become even more pronounced the further it back in the context of what if I have to go back much more than in the context of, ooh, I am so sorely tempted to go back. But, you know, part of that is just keeping your options open and being aware of what your, you know, what your next moves might have to be. But I share your feelings that I'm not sure, like with every passing year, I'm not sure I would be as great at interacting in that kind of environment. Not that I'm a hermit or anything, but it's just like, I don't know.

You live this life for a while and you can see some of the compromises. It's pretty stark, some of the compromises that you have to make when you're in that kind of a job. My old firm hired me to come back for an afternoon a couple of weeks ago for on a little project they needed some help with the, something I could only help them with. And, um, uh, so I got to spend an afternoon back, you know, working for the man and man, that is, that was great for me because I came back and said, I am definitely going to make this work. And then I'm thinking about all this stuff Greg's talking about.

It's like, how do I make sure, you know, what's the future plan? And what, you know, how do I make sure that I don't know I have this job for the next six months, but for the next six years, you know, how do you do that? Well, being your own boss is very addicting. There's no doubt about it. And I think the times that it comes up sometimes to draw an analogy, sometimes you sit down on the couch and you want to watch something on Netflix. And sometimes you want to make the decision on what to watch. And sometimes you want to let somebody else pick. And you find yourself as your own boss, you always have to pick. And it's stressful at times when, you know, and I value that in my client work too,

where I have other people making decisions. And I don't always have to be the one to make the final decision on what's best on a certain thing, because that can be stressful. And it's sometimes nice to sit down and do the work you do with other people holding those responsibilities. And that's the times that you think maybe it's good, but I could never go back to that being the primary arrangement. I'm too committed to being in charge of so much of those decisions. This episode of Free Agents is also brought to you by FreshBooks. So you're racing against the clock to wrap up three projects, prepping for a meeting later in the afternoon, all while trying to tackle a mountain of paperwork. Welcome to life

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update on what's changed with your business and what needs your attention. All of these new features are coupled with a beautiful redesign, focusing on simplicity and clarity, giving you a bird's eye view of your business at all times. FreshBooks is focused on the age old question, how's my business doing? No more guessing games about what's owed or overdue. It's presented clearly and simply to you. FreshBooks is offering a 30 day unrestricted free trial to listeners of free agents. Just go to freshbooks.com slash free agents and enter free agents in the how did you hear about us section so they know you came from our show. Thank you to FreshBooks for supporting free agents and all of RelayFM. With 10 years in, you know, what are the things that, you know,

you can give us as the benefit of all this wisdom that work best for you? I definitely think that the maintaining a standard discipline is, is very important. What's worked best for me is treating my own business like it was any other job. Yes, I'm in control, but I, I stick to a pretty regular schedule. I stay focused when I do on what I need to get done. And don't spend too much of your time worrying about what could go wrong. Focus on what you can do right, and it'll work out in the long run. I was talking to an attorney friend who just went solo, and he's been quite successful. And it got me thinking about the amount of people I know that have done it seriously and failed versus the people who have been a success at it.

And the vast majority of people I know that have gone independent have been quite successful at it. I mean, people who took it seriously and did the things like we're talking about. I don't know if there's any way to get any, you know, research or numbers on it, but I suspect a lot more people are successful at this than aren't. Yeah. I mean, I think you have to have, there's certain types of professions that lend itself to it and you have to be, have a skillset and enjoy doing something in one of those types of professions, whether it's, you know, providing a service of some type, like a lawyer and accountant or a software developer, or, you know, producing content like podcasts, things like that. If you have to love doing it, and you're probably not even thinking about going independent and doing

it if you don't. But I think that's a big piece of that success factor is that the people who actually make the jump are people who love what they're doing and are trying to find a way to do more of the things they love. And that passion and dedication to it makes it work out for those types of people. What do you think is the biggest mistakes you've made in this 10 years? You know, wherever you go on a field. I think I'm sometimes a little slow to turn the rudder when it needs to be. It's easy to get, you have a certain amount of success heading in a certain direction and it's easy to just kind of stick with that. I mean, the obvious example in the

app store is selling paid apps. You know, I had a reasonable amount of success with that. I mean, the obvious example in the app store is selling paid apps. You know, I had a reasonable amount of success with that. Frankly, it's the arrangement I would prefer and the type of customer base I would like to continue to work with. But that market dries up and it wasn't there for me anymore. So you have to go out and make some of those tough decisions and make those adjustments. And I think I'm often a little too slow to make those course corrections. And I can do a better job of foreseeing some of those types of changes. And we talk about getting in a rut, but sometimes it's just like you get something working and you're like, all right, I'm happy. And it's hard to make those statements of like, I should protect same time um i'm concerned that i'm going to fall under the spell of of of you know of being in there being in a groove and miss opportunities or not protect myself yeah it's like a little healthy paranoia as part of this hopefully healthy yeah and you need to get not too far afield with your own decision making and have people that you trust and work with and rely on to share their opinions about what you're doing. You know, I have a network of people I do that sort of stuff with.

Being your own boss doesn't mean you're going to make all the decisions right. You're going to make mistakes and you need other people with similar related experiences to share with the network with and not make the same mistakes twice. And I think learning from other people's experience is something a lot of independents don't take the time to do. They fumble through a lot of the same mistakes. And the more we do stuff like this podcast that, you know, share information about those mistakes and what, how not to repeat them, the better we all are off. Do you get much help? I mean, are you doing most of this stuff yourself or are you hiring people to help you out with any piece of this? I have subcontracted most of that's on client type projects, not on my own apps. I pretty much have carved out that space as something where I can produce my own stuff. And I'm proud of that work. And probably sometimes to the

detriment of the products, you know, because I like to be involved in all aspects of it. I do a lot of my own design work and stuff like that, that most developers outsource. And there's times that maybe the products have suffered because of some of those decisions, but it's also something I enjoy doing. And it helps me keep in the flow of, you know, realizing the products the way I want them to be realized. So those things, I pretty much all do myself. But the other clients sort of work, I do more work with other people and subcontractors and different sorts of things as appropriate to the project. Well, what about like just the business management, you know, dealing with the customer support emails, the accounting, all that? How much help are you getting? I have the normal services that any business should have. I have

an accountant. I have lawyers I work with when that kind of stuff comes up. I, to this day, still do all my own customer support work. And I do it because it keeps me close to the product. And I've not ever gotten to the point that it's overwhelmed me. I mean, there's short periods of time, possibly I ship a certain bug or Apple ships a certain bug that affects my apps or whatnot, where I have a high volume to deal with. But there's plenty of tools that help you.

When those sorts of things come up, you're more or less giving the same answer to a bunch of people and things like TextExpander and a little bit of productivity help make it easy to handle that. But I, I have not, I sit down and spend time on the support queue once a day. And I often get a question from someone, I look into the problem. If it's a bug, I may even fix it on the spot right there and have a new beta build with a fix for that up an hour later. And I love being able to be that kind of responsive to those sorts of problems that come up.

So I have not outsourced that stuff to date just because I like being that close to it. And there's probably some times that as a result of that, people have gotten less professional or I don't want to say unprofessional answers, but brief answers from me because, you know, maybe I should have written them five paragraphs explaining it, but I gave them the short, direct answer to get that taken care of. And that's something I need to think about over time if some of my products continue to grow. That is something I'm facing a little more with moving to the free market for apps. The volume of customers expands.

When you had paid apps, I had a reasonable number of customers, you know, who had paid for my app, who I was providing customer support to. When you start moving into the market where you have free downloads, you're providing support to people who may have never and may never pay you any money at a volume much higher than you get with paid downloads. So that's a transition that I'm still working out how to handle in the long run. So no, a transition that I'm still working out how to handle the long run. So no, I guess the original question is largely no, I don't outsource a lot of stuff. I do most of it myself. And I kind of enjoy that aspect of it. Well, one of the reasons I want to have you on the show is, you know, you and I have been

friends for a while. I've spent time talking to you about this stuff and you're just so calm about it. I just feel like Greg is the Zen master of free agents. And I feel like, is that because you've been doing it 10 years or have you always been able to just kind of have a steady keel about this stuff? I think experience has something to do with it, but I've always kind of been this way. It's my more or less approach to it. I try not to freak out about things when things go right or wrong. I'm sort of a level-headed sort of guy, so it makes it easy to keep perspective on your successes and failures. What would you say, if there's one tip to give someone listening,

you know, someone out there thinking about going to be a free agent or somebody's getting started and want some help as a guy who's been at it 10 years, what's with the one piece of advice you'd give them? To make sure that's what you really want to do. I think that I've talked to a number of people over the years who say they want to be independent, and you talk to them a little more, and you talk to them about some of your experiences with it, and it may not actually be the choice for them. The people, if you really want to do it, you know in your heart that you want to do it, and then you should dedicate yourself to what's going to work out best for you. But you've got to know why you're doing it.

You know, is it because you want more flexibility? Is it because you want more control? If you don't know why you want to do that, you're probably not going to succeed in it because you'll never realize when you achieve that goal, if that makes sense. So I would definitely spend time ahead of time and making sure that it's what you want to do. It's, you know, that you're tolerant enough of the additional chaos that comes with taking on all the responsibilities of being independent. And that the, you know, those are things that will make your life better, not worse.

Every time somebody in the Facebook, Facebook group, which is growing, by the way, or in an email to me says, oh, thanks for all the great advice. I just quit my job. Just there's something in the pit of my stomach that just drops, you know, because I feel somewhat responsible and I hope they succeed. Yeah, that's how I felt about you, David. It's like, Jason, you're really encouraging me when I was thinking of leaving. And I'm like, oh, no, I've destroyed David Sparks now.

The Sparks family is on a street corner holding a cup. It's all my fault. I also think for the most part, if you are thinking about doing this, you should take a chance at it. Because if you have the skill set that is necessary to succeed as an independent, you also have the skill set that's going to be able to get you another job if you decide it's not going to work out for you after six months or a year or whatever. So if you don't ever take the chance, if you don't ever try, so if you don't ever take the chance if you don't ever try um then you'll never know if it was right for you or not yeah and and it's a lot more accessible now than it was before i mean just the the the support and the stuff you need to to get on your own uh is a lot more available i i

feel like you know one of the reasons jason and i do this show is we feel like i think it's this is a thing this is going to be more of a thing as we go into the future. take the leap in two steps and start by working at a much smaller organization, because it is a spectrum between being an independent and working at a huge corporation. And I feel like I knew what I was getting into because I had worked at a number of very small organizations that were, you know, four to five people staff, where everybody got involved in more of the different types of activities and responsibilities, and you get a taste of what it would be like to have all those responsibilities on your plate. If there's those sorts of people who are thinking about it, that's a great way to

get a start, you know, move to a small firm, an agency organization that does those sorts of things on a smaller scale and get a feel for whether that sort of environment's good for you and your personality. Yeah, I was thinking earlier, you were talking earlier about how when you got started, you were with a small company and it made it easier for the transition and it actually gave you a built-in client afterwards. And I was thinking in my head, you know, I'm the same way I've always trended towards a smaller company. I think this is part of my personality, which is, I think one of the reasons I ended ultimately ended up independent. But then I think about folks like Jason and, and Mike Hurley, who were in very big organizations and very successfully went out on their own as well. I'm not sure there is as much of a relationship as you would originally think. True. That's a good point. It just depends on the, on, on the person.

It is tough, though. I think one of the points that we hear through a lot of guests is if you just want to do a single job, if you just want to design user interface, if you just want to write contracts, if you just want to do whatever it is, write articles, going out on your own involves a lot more than that. And I think that's something that you have to be ready for. Getting into the app business. I mean, there's so many things you mentioned customer support before, but the marketing and things like that, that aren't necessarily the part I enjoy most, but they're not necessarily things I hate either. And, you know, you've got to be willing to do all those sorts of different types of things and activities, not focus single on one single direction. So, Greg, given everything you've seen, 10 years of doing this, would you do it again?

Absolutely. I have no regrets whatsoever. I mean, the fact that I, if nothing else, from a personal level, the fact that I have been here, you know, and watch my kids grow up day to day and not been off at a job or not sitting in a car in traffic, you know, for all the opportunities that this type of work has afforded me, you know, it's been wonderful. I would not trade it for anything. I'm glad you asked that question, David. That's a great way. So we worry about so much of this stuff. It's nice to hear that last affirmation, I would guess, from a veteran of doing this, that it's totally worth it.

I think that's it. Are we out of questions, David? I think we are. But I just would like to tell everybody to help support Greg as an independent head over to Agile Tortoise, because he has some great apps that are quite useful to me as a free tell everybody to help support greg as an independent and over to agile tortoise because he has some great apps that are quite useful to me as a free agent uh drafts is in my doc i guess i would say if you have not tried drafts um you should rectify that immediately basically and there's a great set of video screencasts that david provided for me uh help get you started

yeah in fact you helped me when i became a free agent by giving me some work so there you have it it all works all works out so gang head over to agile tortoise and check out greg's apps greg thank you so much and we'll have you back uh on your 20-year anniversary because i'm sure you'll have some great advice too great great we'll probably all be getting into doing a retirement podcast around then so oh yeah yeah that's that's not me man i just keep going no thank you all for having me it was a enjoyable conversation thank you greg and thanks to everybody out there for listening to free agents as always you can get our show at relay.fm free agents 18 in this case you can visit our facebook group facebook.com groups free agent group and you can tweet at us at freeagentsfm.

I'm Jason Snell, Jsnell on Twitter, and David Sparks is Max Sparky on Twitter. We will be back in a fortnight with more discussions about free agents. But until then, David, it's been a pleasure as always. It has. See you next time.