Indie Developer == Adapter
A moderately terrifying thought occurred to me the other day and it’s been rattling around in my head ever since. I don’t have a plan. I have no idea what I will be working on one year from now. I have absolutely no clue what my tiny company’s product portfolio will look like in five years. In ten years will I still be a Mac focused developer?
There are about a hundred and one questions like that in my head, and not a single one has a definitive answer. And here I thought that in order to be successful you needed a plan. It appears that I am successfully not having one.
The good news is this seems to be fairly common right now. There are thousands of tiny little tech companies like mine out there and they are led by people who are just as clueless as I am about the future. Why? Because the future of technology is not something you can discuss long term. Heck, you can hardly even discuss it short term. I could never have predicted that I would be thinking about user interface design for a tablet device two years ago. The iPad didn’t even exist yet!
So, what happens when your business background tells you to have a plan, but your industry makes this virtually impossible? Herein lies my dilemma.
It’s not that I believe you truly do need a master plan in order to succeed. It’s just that I am the type of person that feels some anxiety with regards to uncertainty. I feel just a little out of control without a sense of where things are going in the long run. I see value in planning ahead. If you can anticipate the next move, you are one step ahead of your competition.
I may not be able to predict what Apple will change next about their devices, or what the next big thing will be, but I can train myself to be an adapter. In fact, that’s what I have been doing for two years now, I just didn’t realize it. While I thought I was just learning to be a better software developer, I was simultaneously developing my adaptive skills.
In fact, I think that all indie developers at this point in time can be accurately described as adapters. We are working with technology that is constantly changing (usually for the better) and our skills must be continuously developed and improved. I have a friend who is a financial consultant and is currently studying for the CPA. If you’ve never seen the books of material for the CPA test, they are about the fattest books I have ever seen. They are stuffed full of details and knowledge that must be mastered in order to achieve the CPA title. She has been working hard at this for over a year trying to master all the knowledge in these books so that she can finally earn her CPA title and be realized as an expert. Sure, the IRS makes minor changes and modifications every year that CPA’s must be aware of, but they reach a point where they can stop training and learning. Developers do not get that opportunity.
Our little technological bubble of a world is more like riding a high speed train. If we choose to get off at a stop, the train will go on without us. Sure we might be able to manage ok for awhile, but eventually our knowledge, skills, products, they all become obsolete. So we must be constantly adapting to the new if we want to survive. We are adapters.
So now I have a plan. My plan is to try and stop worrying so much about the fact that technology is unpredictable, and to instead embrace my long term career as a master adapter. Maybe I’ll add that to my title. Oh wait, I don’t really have a title.
