{"id":3006,"date":"2016-12-03T02:00:35","date_gmt":"2016-12-03T10:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/softwareengineeringdaily.com\/?p=3006"},"modified":"2021-11-05T04:43:06","modified_gmt":"2021-11-05T11:43:06","slug":"adforprize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/softwareengineeringdaily.com\/2016\/12\/03\/adforprize\/","title":{"rendered":"Adforprize"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are multiple paths to constructing a piece of software from start to finish. <\/span><\/p>\n

An individual programmer can build an entire product from scratch in a couple days. A giant corporation can commission a project and delegate responsibilities to hundreds of people. An open source community can use the wisdom of the crowds to efficiently build an operating system.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s episode is about another path for building software, and my own experience traveling that path. I designed and contracted an app called Adforprize that is now available on the iOS app store.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Designing an app and contracting it out to an engineer to build is a worthwhile exercise for most people in the tech industry–whether you are an engineer or not.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

This post has two main arguments:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. the process of designing and prototyping an app is useful and educational for anyone<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. it is now cheap and effective to hire a contractor to build a working version of your prototype<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    As with the previous monologue episodes such as 10 Philosophies for Engineers<\/span><\/a> and You Are Not a Commodity<\/span><\/a>, there are no advertisements on this episode. Please email me any feedback you have–jeff@softwareengineeringdaily.com<\/span><\/p>\n

    Why This Matters To You<\/span><\/h2>\n

    Everyone has an app idea, and many of them are pretty good. <\/span><\/p>\n

    You have probably had a conversation with a friend where one of you says \u201chey, wouldn\u2019t it be great if there was a 2-sided marketplace for bacon?\u201d Or \u201chey, wouldn\u2019t it be great if there was an app where users could take a selfie and instantly see what celebrity they resemble the most?\u201d\"prizes_1\"<\/span><\/p>\n

    These things would<\/i> be cool! But most ideas end with the ideation. <\/span><\/p>\n

    Who has the time to implement these things? Most of us are busy at
    \nwork, where we spend our time and mental energy dealing with the technical complexity of our jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n

    If you are a \u201csmart creative<\/span><\/a>\u201d, when you get home from your job, you probably don\u2019t want to spend your leisure hours reading iOS documentation and slowly learning to write the necessary code for your bacon marketplace app.
    \n<\/span><\/p>\n

    Smart creatives who have a busy full-time job often have a hobby with more immediate gratification, like playing an instrument or blogging. Some of us also write apps on the side, but if you don\u2019t already have all the requisite skills for writing an app, the prospect of reading tutorials and documentation can make the feeling of ever publishing an app seem so distant.<\/span><\/p>\n


    \n\"prizes_2\"There are many people listening to this who are
    \nbetter at sales, marketing, design, or product management than they are at programming–they want to build an app. One common narrative is that if these people want to see something built, they need to learn to program, and that\u2019s not true.<\/span><\/p>\n


    \nThere is a more fun, fulfilling way to build an app than learning to code in Swift or React Native–contracting out the programming to someone else.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Designing<\/i> an app is a fun exercise. Building a prototype with tools like Sketch, InVision, and Keynote is free and frictionless. Most people listening to this probably spent some time drawing in KidPix or Microsoft Paint or PhotoShop when they were a kid. <\/span><\/p>\n

    Most of us know how to draw at some basic level, because we spend all<\/span><\/p>\n

    day seeing and understanding images–drawing is second nature to anyone who can understand shapes. Similarly, we all know how to design apps because we spend all day using them. We understand the purpose of a button or a slider or a swipe.\"share_1\"<\/p>\n

    But most of us have no idea how to configure the code around this user experience–the buttons and sliders and TextViews.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Along with the design process, \u00a0 <\/span>the business ideation process is also fun. It\u2019s fun to imagine business models and viral loops and ways to drive user engagement. But without the capability to build the app that embodies your business ideas, it is less fun to think about those ideas. And again–most of us don\u2019t relish the idea of struggling through the compiler errors and Stack Overflow posts that an app implementation requires.<\/span><\/p>\n

    We\u2019ve all become product designers. We are using our phones all day–most of us have naturally developed a good intuition for how an app should <\/i>function.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Product design ability is naturally acquired by being steeped in technology all day. If you are an employee in marketing, sales, or design (and certainly engineering) at a tech company, you will naturally learn how to think about product.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"untitled-2\"<\/p>\n

    Importantly: you probably even have a few good product ideas yourself!<\/span><\/p>\n

    This article is about why and how to prototype your own ideas and communicate your intent as a product designer–which is an incredibly fun process.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

    If you can afford it, you can then hand off your prototype to a contractor for engineering implementation.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Working at a tech company, you might have accumulated some excess cash. You can invest that $5,000 that you have sitting around by contracting a product in your spare time. This can be a much better investment than something like stocks or ETFs, and it is more satisfying and durable than taking an expensive vacation. <\/span><\/p>\n

    The experience of contracting a product teaches you skills that might not be stressed in your 9-5 job: management, product design, user experience, budgeting, communications, and engineering limitations.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Why Now?<\/span><\/h2>\n

    \"untitled-3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    The first version of Uber was written by a contractor. The Uber founders clearly communicated the specification for their product to the contractor, and they got what they asked for.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Contracting Uber was easy for the founders. They had millions of dollars from their earlier startups, they had a network of contractors to choose from, and they had experience hiring people.<\/span><\/p>\n

    There is now a set of technologies that are enabling this for the average person.<\/span><\/p>\n