Blog – digitalbreed

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I pivoted and I didn’t tell you

Published by Matthias Gall

Hey there! It’s been a while.

As you can tell from the title, I paused working on 20 Seconds some weeks ago. Now, in autumn, the Corona numbers prove me right; the exhibition and event industry will struggle to make it through a winter without in-person conferences. Online events are much less visited and not really accepted yet, from what I can tell. We’re all spending too much time on video calls already, and we’re still hoping to get back to normal soon.

The decision wasn’t an easy one. I didn’t see much sense in continuing with the sudden loss of a market, but I also felt uncomfortable to pause something I had just announced. This project was ought to become a success, not another pipe crap! But there was no point in continuing unmotivated. I kept looking for other opportunities.

Hey! You are not alone.

Published by Matthias Gall

Many things kept me busy the last weeks. Today, I write about another, already running side project.

You may have heard about the hey.com controversy in the last few weeks. Long story short, hey.com built an app for a subscription product, didn’t want to let users pay through In App Purchases and lose up to 30% to Apple, got their initial release approved and a subsequent bugfix update rejected for violation of the App Store guidelines. Basecamp, the makers of Hey, used their social media and press outreach for a huge and effective outcry right before WWDC and eventually caused Apple to make some improvements to the App Store guidelines and also offer a way forward to get their app re-approved with some changes.

BotPreview.com is now closed

Published by Matthias Gall

When you’re hitting this post, you likely tried to visit BotPreview, my tool to create previews of Messenger chatbot interactions.

After more than three years, I decided to pull the plug and shut it down. If you have been using BotPreview in the past, I thank you for being a user and hope you found it to be useful!

Keep reading if you’re interested in why I pulled the plug.

Credit where credit is due – About the tagline

Published by Matthias Gall

As I wrote in my introductory post for 20 Seconds, I wanted to share some more detail about where I got the 20 Seconds tagline from – Remove the random in event matchmaking.

On Saturday, January 4th, I was busy doing research for the product and filling my product definition document.

By accident, I came across an industry podcast called The Exhibitionists, and the second episode from the top displayed on Spotify happend to be called “Matchmaking and the art of turning online ones and zeros into real world heroes”.

Obviously, that got me interested.

Introducing: 20 Seconds

Published by Matthias Gall

I started this posting a couple of times. Once in mid February while waiting for boarding, still unaware of how bad the crisis would become soon. Once again from the sofa in my living room, with a ban on public gatherings in place and thousands of deaths in Europe. Every time, the news became only worse. Sars-CoV-2 kept tightening its noose around the world.

One of the many consequences of the spread was that one trade fair after another got postponed or cancelled. MWC, GDC, ITB, FIBO,… expodatabase.de currently lists 1306 cancelled or postponed fairs and exhibitions worldwide (24/03/20).

Why am I writing this here? Well, coincidentally a new business idea happens to be in the trade fair space.

But let’s go back in time a couple of years first – 13 years, specifically.

Plans for February and a look back on January

Published by Matthias Gall

I guess this month’s kick off posting could also be called, “How to move on while feeling like a fraud.”. While I am writing this, I am still anxious about the progress of January. It wasn’t as good as I hoped.

A look back on January

Here’s a quick overview of what I had planned to do and how far I got with it.

Status Update on Quitter’s Day

Published by Matthias Gall

I’ve read that today is Quitter’s Day, the day people are most likely to give up on their New Year’s Resolutions. Probably a good day for a quick status update.

I need to admit, the progress so far was a bit disappointing. I am feeling like an impostor already because I’ve announced this project with bells and whistles, and now I am hardly posting at all. But I’m not quitting!

Plans for January

Published by Matthias Gall

The starting gun has been fired, so it’s about time to lay out my plans for January.

1. Write a basic product definition document

So far, my product idea exists mostly in my head. And for a single indie hacker, that’s usually fine and good enough to get started.

my dev life in a nutshell pic.twitter.com/85A0lZczhw
— Kitze (@thekitze) January 2, 2020

As I wanted to do things a little different this time, I decided to document the idea first and then keep iterating on it whenever something new pops up.

Happy New Year 2020

Published by Matthias Gall

The decade has come to an end, a new one is on it’s dawn. On Twitter, everybody is contemplating about their past decennial.

I can’t help but think about the next one. When we’ll wave goodbye the 2020’s on 31/12/2029 (and given that I’ll be lucky enough to see it), I will be 50 years old.

Gulp.

Free business idea: “Second Screen”

Published by Matthias Gall

I have no plans to build things in the “Business Ideas” category myself, so feel free to grab the idea and execute upon it. If you release something based on any of these ideas, I’d love to hear about it.

Today I found an article on Hacker News (#1) quoting Mary Meeker’s Annual Internet Trends report for 2019:

88% = Use A Second Digital Device While Watching TV
71% = Look Up Content Related To Content They Are Watching
Mary Meeker’s Annual Internet Trends Report (Slide 38) (#2)