as we approach the first birthday of our dog Dutch, i wanted to look back on our time with him as a puppy with fondness and appreciation for what he’s taught us and the many fun things we’ve done with him.
A photo of Dutch and I at Del Mar dog beach in southern California.
in june of last year we decided to bring a puppy home. we had been talking about getting a dog at some point, then one day i ran into an old friend at the gym who had some puppies available from their litter of goldendoodles. we really weren’t planning on getting a puppy right then, but we saw this cute little ball of fluff with his unique silver and black coat and we fell in love. after a lot of discussion over a couple days we decided to take the plunge into puppy fueled depression and sleep deprivation.
i haven’t written about my new app Albums on this site, which is a little bit intentional and a little bit of an oversight. let me explain.
i don’t know who reads this blog. intentionally. i have no analytics, no email subscription list, nothing. if i had to guess, the number of people that read any given article is more than five and less than one hundred. i’m not sure if that’s me being dismissive of my own reach or trying to be somewhat realistic about the deluge of content we wade through every day.1
so back to not writing about my new app here. it’s a bit of an oversight because this is my “official” website. it’s the one that bears my name and the one that has some reasonably important announcements on it. it should probably contain at least some reference to my first indie iOS app in over a decade. as for it being intentional, i don’t consider the app to be “finished” yet. it’s still missing functionality that i desperately wanted to put into the first release, but somehow convinced my perfectionistic ADHD brain to push below the line. i stubbornly didn’t want to announce the app in a long-form post until it was “ready”.
but that’s kinda silly since as we’ve established: i’m not sure if any significant number of people read this blog and even if they do, is an app ever truly finished? i may be waiting a long time.
so without further delay: i shipped version 1.0 (and 1.1) of my first indie app in over 12 years. it’s called Albums, and it’s one of the things i’m most proud of building.
Some screenshots from my new app 'Albums' displaying a portion of my music library.
I’ve never met him in person, and I honestly don’t even know if we’ve interacted on the internet. He always seemed just a little bit too opinionated. A little too closed off to hearing from people who disagreed with him. But you know what, I’m coming around to the idea that maybe he’s the one who has it figured out.
I’ve been through this “new year” thing a few times. Not as many as some, but more than others. The last few years I’ve gravitated toward “themes” instead of listing a bunch of unrelated goals/wishes. That way when I list out any specific goals, it becomes more about listing actionable steps to support a singular goal instead of a bunch of things I need to keep in my head throughout the year.
What an outstanding piece of writing. I felt like I was riding alongside @joshm in the back seat of the Chevy Tahoe as I was reading it.
So many of the points and asides resonate with me. It’s as if Josh plucked the thoughts and feelings right out of my head and wrote about them for the world to read. I won’t begin quoting them because I will never be able to stop. The entire thing is wonderful and well worth the time.
Even though we start out trying to avoid “5 top line phrases with bullet points underneath”, we end up with some pretty great top line phrases (and some wonderful bullet points underneath):
Show up with heartfelt intensity
Start with ‘what could be?’
Assume you don’t know
You’re on the hook for the team
Make them feel something
These values (and the stories behind them) are powerful and inspiring. I hope to embody them in my own work at an early-stage startup and carry them with me into future endeavors throughout my life.
Thank you Josh for writing them down and for taking us along with you on some of your road trips.
