3 Years of Indie iOS Development, making a living on the AppStore |

6 years ago I decided to teach myself how to code. 3 years later I was able to quit my job and make a living on the App Store. I've been working on my own app business full time for the last 3 years and it was time to give back and answer some questions asked by my IG friends over @edouard_iosdev ( / edouard_iosdev .
If you have any more questions, I'll be happy to answer them in the comments below. You can also shoot me a DM on IG (expect potential delays as the inbox periodically gets flooded).
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Questions covered:
0:00 Intro
1:06 Overview
1:32 How long did it take for me to learn iOS Development and ship my first app.
2:21 What was the app I had the most fun building?
3:32 How intense were the early days of my learning journey?
5:11 When did I know it was time to go full time indie?
6:35 Any downs in my journey so far and how did how overcome them?
9:42 What's been the highest high and my biggest learning opportunity?
12:22 Would I make the same choice if I could rewind the clock?
13:28 Employee life vs indie dev life in terms of money, freedom and challenges
15:44 Biggest pro & biggest con of being an indie iOS developer
16:58 Any regrets so far in my journey?
18:30 My experience with SwiftUI & recommendations to learn
19:19 Developing MVPs and monetising MVPs
24:13 How did I get better at UI Design?
26:50 What is my approach to time management?
28:38 What are my best marketing advices for indie devs?
32:04 What advice would I give my younger self if I was starting from scratch today?
35:39 Thanks & see you next time
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Links:
SwiftUI Resources:
• www.hackingwithswift.com
• seanallen.teachable.com/?affc... (affiliate link)
Books:
• The Big Nerd Ranch - iOS Development 7th Edition: amzn.to/2LE886A

[@lwa.dev74]

Thank you… I have a disabled step son, and my goal is too help him with the use of using his iPad which he loves very much. I want to encourage his learning and digital awareness so he has the same chances as a normal user. He is also deaf and I am currently learning to build iOS apps and hope I can develop some thing to help him and others. This has been very motivating I can’t thank you enough.👨🏽‍💻📱

[@edouard_iosdev]

This is awesome!!! I love this! Solving problems is the best way to create high quality apps. All the best with your learning journey :)

[@acromos]

Very useful, thank you. 🙌

[@DaveJacobseniOS]

Thanks so much Ed! Appreciate you sharing all this. You have a great approach and happy to see you doing well.

[@edouard_iosdev]

Cheers Dave!!

[@swapnilharpale7244]

Thanks for inspiring all of us. Your journey has certainly helped me understand the business side of building apps

[@edouard_iosdev]

That’s awesome to hear! Thanks for the great question btw! 🙌🙌

[@TheAppleBias]

Great video loved hearing your story and all the advise.Very motivating.

[@edouard_iosdev]

Thanks a lot Brian!

[@opensourceideas]

deeply inspiring

[@mikaelacaron4694]

I remember that 2019 quota issue! 💀 omg I was stressed for you! These are great questions and tons of valuable info 😍

[@edouard_iosdev]

Glad you enjoyed them :) yeah 2019 was rough …

[@GustavoNascimento-ml1ed]

Very informative, as usual ;)!

[@edouard_iosdev]

Cheers Gustavo :)

[@AZMerf]

Thanks for sharing this. The section on MVP was very helpful.

[@edouard_iosdev]

Glad you found it helpful :)

[@pacioss_]

Great job my friend

[@edouard_iosdev]

Thanks for watching :)

[@8aev]

This is incredibly inspiring. So glad I came across your channel. Thanks so much for making this video, Edouard. Many things that you’ve said really resonate with me. I even have a similar background to yours, I’m a Master in Management too and have a very similar growth hacking/mobile app startup experience 😃 Really admire your journey and hope for something like that for myself one day.

[@edouard_iosdev]

Glad you enjoyed the video. Go for it! It’s so worth it!

[@ManleyCelicourt]

Thank you for answering my questions on launching an MVP👋🏽

[@edouard_iosdev]

Any time! Glad I could help!

[@aevin_io]

Thanks for sharing

[@SANsSlowPath]

That's very great. Wow, this is one of the best coding journeys I have heard in a long time. Using the app, sometimes I forget I have it because I stopped doing KZbin. I hope that the app could like guess or suggested topics based on your highest viewed videos. Just a suggestion, if that's possible, how super excellent this app would be.

[@edouard_iosdev]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll see what I can do on that front :) Glad you liked the video :)

[@vladimirmoor]

Hello Edouard. Big thanks for this video! Is it possible to see series about indie iOS dev? There are so many questions to discuss: 1. Am I need to study data structures and algorithms at all for indie dev? 2. How you decide that app succeeds and need more support or drop it ( number of installs per day, number of purchase)? 3. What do you think about StoreKit2? 4. How to work with negative reviews? 5. Is it actual to provide wide localization and what do you do for it? 6. Do you write tests and when? 7. Do you use some architecture patterns in your app - like MVVM, VIPER, MVP? Am I need to use it from scratch?

[@edouard_iosdev]

Many great questions in there. I’ll see what I can do in the future. :)

[@ancyantv]

👍👍👍👍

[@RatherBeCancelledThanHandled]

I prefer developing mobile apps but I’ve heard b2b saas is more profitable and easier. Where as mobile indie dev requires a large marketing budget. Can you please share your thoughts on these points ? I’ve shipped 4 mobile apps , a desktop app and a saas web app albeit I haven’t had a hit yet :/.

[@schmidvid]

Hey man thanks for sharing! I followed your journey from very early on. i‘m missing new videos and updates and wondered: what happened? is every ok with you? I hope you are doing great and nothing severe happened. Greetings from Germany ✌🏻

[@edouard_iosdev]

Thanks for your kind message. Everything is fine. I became a dad and took a sabbatical. Back to work in October :)

[@schmidvid]

@@edouard_iosdev that answer came quick! 😄 oh wow heartfelt congratulations! I have three kids and know the feeling. Enjoy the time - take the time you need and don’t stress out ;) Are you still capable of being indie from financial perspective or will you take on a job?

[@edouard_iosdev]

@@schmidvid still 1000% indie and no plans of changing that. The business has been running smoothly, bringing passive income for the last 10 months. Incredibly grateful for that. Time to get back into it and give my users all the new features they deserve :)

[@Aggelos19911991]

Is flutter good to start ? What is your opinion ? I think you have more clients when you have a prodyct for bot ios and android.

[@edouard_iosdev]

I never used Flutter. I prefer using Swift to optimise the user experience on iOS. You can get clients in many different tech stack. So I wouldn’t focus your choice on that. Just pick what feels most natural to you. And if you want to build apps for both platforms, cross platform is a good shortcut if you are ok with a bit less quality in user experience.

[@ShredzZ]

Hi, do you think its still good career path as iOS dev if i want to be freelancer?

[@edouard_iosdev]

Yes absolutely :)

[@TechyedYT]

Any plans for iOS Development Coding content on this KZbin channel ?

[@edouard_iosdev]

ideally yes, I would love to. It's just a matter of priorities at the moment. KZbin content is very time consuming :D I'll see what I can do soon.

[@przemysawrak216]

Hi Edouard! Thank you for replying to my question. Keep up the good work with KZbin movies, I really enjoyed this one and it motivated me to still working hard :) Enjoy your holiday!

[@edouard_iosdev]

This is awesome to hear! Thanks for letting me know :)