Frabjous Dei

Software engineers joke that the first ninety percent of a programming task takes ninety percent of the time and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent. The idea is that once you’ve got a program working for the majority of “happy paths”, there’s always a bunch of edge cases you need to take care of. (Daylight saving changeover? Unreliable network? German translation where all the strings are three times as long and muck up your interface?). Tying up these loose ends typically takes about as long as writing the code for the happy cases.

Having gone through this process myself and finally having an app I’m reasonably proud of on the App Store, I’ve discovered there’s another ninety percent between that and a product. No matter how good your code is or how legitimate or large a problem your software solves, you’re not going to make any money until you market it well. That means writing App Store copy (with localised screenshots, translated into a dozen languages.) It means writing a press release. It means finding relevant people to send that press release to, sending it to them and fielding any follow-up enquiries.

It means signing App Store contracts and registering in a bunch of tax jurisdictions and eventually filling out their returns (or at least deciding whether it’s worth it.) It means dealing with support enquiries. It means organising with your translators (times twelve) to update the strings in your app when they change in a new version. A hundred little details like this turn a piece of software into a product worth paying for.

I like writing software. I’ve got a bit of aptitude, over a decade’s worth of experience and maybe even a little skill doing it. I’m interested in doing it and learning how to do it better. This other stuff, not so much. I’m not so sure how I’m going to bridge that gap.