How We Built ShareCam In 3 Hours Per Week
by Paul Crawford and Jeff Ward
Hi, we’re Paul & Jeff and we’d like to share our experience with you in how we were able to build and launch an iPhone app in 3 hrs/week.
Because we were both working from our homes, we found that we actually wanted to get out and see another geek from time to time to share news, coding tips and to just co-work with somebody. The kinds of things that aren’t as easy when you’re a solopreneur who works from home. And so the Friday 2pm meetup was born!
Our initial motivation wasn’t anything more than to just have co-working sessions at a local coffee shop. But as a couple months went by, our coffee discussions inevitably led to business and what kinds of apps we each were thinking about building. We thought, why not use this small window of time each week to chip away at an idea together? The risk was small and it was the right amount of time to dedicate to a new side-project.
2pm on a Friday was also the right time to do this too. Our clients were winding down for the week and it was the perfect opportunity to unplug and focus on our app. We got a lot done in those 3 hours and this constraint kept us hyper focused.
We started working on our first project back in September of 2010, working a bit at a time we’ve sketched out, discussed, designed and built a 1.0 of an iPhone app and a simple web app to back it up.
What does it take to build an app? Motivation and persistence. We have both of those and so we made time even though it wasn’t a lot it was enough to build something real that people can use and enjoy.
Our 1.0 release of ShareCam launches our core functionality: recording and sharing video. This limited feature set allowed us to not be overwhelmed (or distracted) by building too much too soon. We are already hot on a 1.1 release with some new features in the works (including ShareCam accounts) but we’re also curious to see how people are using ShareCam and what features are requested. And we’ll get to those in due time. Maybe 4 hours per week? :)
Thanks for spending time to hear our story. We feel that our breed of entrepreneurs are hugely underrepresented in mainstream start-up news. Not everybody has the personal resources to do their side project every night from 9pm-1am. We value our health and spending time with our friends and young families.
Launching applications teaches you a lot no matter when you do it, and designing an app from the start to finish will teach you a ton. We’ve proven that you can get a lot done if you just stick to it. It’s kind of like putting money away and 8 months later you have a little nest egg saved. But in our case we built ShareCam.
» Download ShareCam From iTunes