Why did you build an incredibly useful app??? (Part 2)

In this post, we continue the journey we started in Part 1. 

I realised that there is nothing out there that helps me "tag" a contact with a personalised note that only comes up when there is a "contact event" with that person. Perhaps others briefly considered the need, but it's such a basic idea that perhaps it was discarded as not being of any value. Or perhaps the engineering challenges were such that it wasn't worth the effort.  Either way, there isn't anything like ReMynd out there.  

And when I explained it to my colleagues, friends and others (including my real estate agent and my accountant) they LOVED it.  Without a single exception, every person I spoke to about it lit up with instant recognition - this was something we ALL need.

So I spent weeks exploring and finessing ideas for functionality. I eliminated about 99% of things because I didn't want to build something that did a ton of things. I wanted to build something that was exceptionally useful for the problem it wants to solve. That focus was critical, but extremely hard to stick to. 

Most of my time went in discarding ideas rather than coming up with them.

 I then wireframed them, mocked them up by hand and worked and re worked the "flow" of the app - what happens when i click this, tap that, what do I want to see? It was incredibly hard to make something incredibly simple. It really was. I was ruthless about discarding stuff, even if they were "sexy". I wanted something so basic and easy to use that it was close to being non-descript.  I wanted people to forget about ReMynd but be delighted by how quietly it worked behind the scenes.

I interviewed a ton of freelance android developers, I asked questions on Quora and stackoverflow, I researched, and read, and watched, and asked, and thought, thought and thought some more.  Developers said it couldn't be done, or that it wouldn't work in this situation or that.  I started to suspect the reasons why no one had done this yet.

Eventually through sheer grit and persistence I amassed some information online that suggested it could be done.  I went back to my shortlist of developers and challenged them to be inventive.  One team did seem to be optimistic, so I chose them.

And over several months I iterated, reiterated and honed, chiselled and whittled.  I couldn't believe how hard it was to keep things simple.

Along the way I learned that people can be inspired by ideals, by challenges, and by an encouraging word. I learned that many developers are unsung heroes, closet pirates, mischief makers, or how some can be terribly awkward, self effacing and doubt themselves. I learned how to make then connect their work with their sense of meaning, purpose, achievement and fulfilment. I learned that I can make others proud of what they're doing, even if they're doing it for someone else, and for hire. 

I learned that just when you solve one problem a half dozen others arise, and that people have forgotten that necessity is really the mother of invention (and innovativeness). If I had more money or funding, I would have done things very differently.

And perhaps not in a good way.  With more money I would not have had to be as ruthless and focussed. With more money I suspect my decisions may not have felt so hard.  

With more money I may have given up on the small but important battles and opted to throw money at them.

Gosh, I learned a lot. I learned about myself, about others, about leading, following, accepting, fighting, being stubborn, being strategic, building, destroying, being nimble, being steadfast, dreaming, despairing, euphoria, disappointment.... but above all I learned that leadership and vision aren't skills. They are traits. Characteristics.

Why is that important? Because it means it's not what you know that makes you succeed, but what you're willing to do, who you're willing to be, and how you're willing to bring others on the journey that matters.

None of this is new to any of us.  It's just that living it, and experiencing it is completely different from reading about it.  It's the same reason why photographs of gorgeous places seem so.....two-dimensional compared to your memories of them.  

And that's why I built an incredibly useful app. Quite literally, to solve a problem for myself and to teach myself all those things that I admire but never experienced myself. And the sheer joy of it is that every day I see evidence of some learning I never knew I had, and which came from my experience with ReMynd, and before that, NobleGenie.

What a privilege - to live in an era where it's possible, more than ever before, to do amazing things with minimal resources. A world where ideas can be quickly be given life...

For those of you who want to discover what you're capable of I strongly recommend creating something with tools that are not in your toolshed. It is a joyous experience.

Check out ReMynd at www.getremynd.com or on the playstore (it's free!), and drop me a line at [email protected], especially if you've got feedback!