An Iterative Life
Building great software was undoubtedly influenced by what it takes to build a great life. Life has too many twists and turns to predict. Resilience, adaptability and self-compassion are key. It’s impossible to know everything before starting. One learns things that lead to countless pivots. But they won’t be clear until that point is reached. Critical information is revealed from the most unlikely of sources. Software too.
It may seem that certain mediums have been established and there’s a clear path to success. But those paths took years to beat. Let’s take mobile apps:
Most mobile apps nowadays are either free trial or freemium based . Money unlocks either extra time or features. This wasn’t always the case. In the early days people monetized by:
Making people pay upfront.
Infuriating ads.
Loading malware if the builders were really nefarious.
This demonstrates how the market shifted the business model. Someone started doing it differently and achieved success. So others started to follow. With a multitude of variations. It still might not be the best way. Only time will tell.
We didn’t even get to talk about iterating on the product. Suffice to say that if one can’t even safely predict what pricing structure users will want. Predicting the product they want is next to impossible.