93: Stuff — Austin Blake

On the podcast: Austin Blake shares his journey from film student and Apple superfan to the creator of Stuff, a task management app built for people who care deeply about design and productivity. He explains the challenge of competing in crowded markets, building software that “feels right,” and what it’s like getting featured by Apple.Top Takeaways:🛠️ Out-persist the crowded market You do not need to reinvent the wheel to succeed; you can stand out in a saturated space simply by committing to continuous development and polishing the user experience over several years.🤖 Let AI agents review each other When learning a new platform, you can accelerate development by using AI to generate code and setting up multiple AI agents to review and refine each other's plans before you inspect the final code.⏱️ Shorten your trial to find the magic number A month-long free trial is often too much time for users to feel the urgency to upgrade; reducing your trial to seven days can significantly increase your trial-to-paid conversion rate.📦 Rethink native paradigms from scratchPorting an app to a new platform requires more than stretching the UI; you must implement the platform-specific interactions, like keyboard navigation and native undo states, that users subconsciously expect.⏳ Always triple your launch buffer for new platforms App Store review guidelines are highly inconsistent across platforms; even if your app's core features are already approved on mobile, expect unexpected rejections and budget at least three weeks for a desktop launch.About Austin Blake:🚀 Indie Developer and creator of Stuff, a task management app focused on combining simplicity, beauty, and powerful productivity workflows. Former Apple contractor and incoming Developer Advocate at RevenueCat.👋 LinkedIn🌐 Learn more about StuffFollow us on X: Charlie Chapman - @_chuckycRevenueCat - @RevenueCatLaunched - @LaunchedFM Episode Highlights:[00:00] Why Austin built “another” to-do list app[00:42] Meeting at WWDC and joining RevenueCat[03:22] From film school to advertising to coding[04:55] Growing up as an Apple superfan[07:11] Learning to code after getting ignored by Evernote[08:35] Building MightyNote and Achievements[11:58] Early lessons about onboarding and subscriptions[14:03] Quitting his job to go all-in on indie development[16:24] Working at Apple while building Stuff on the side[18:55] Why Austin chose task management as his focus[20:40] Competing in crowded app categories[22:22] The magic and inspiration behind Wunderlist[25:39] Designing apps that “feel right”[26:47] Building task dependencies into Stuff[28:09] Launching Stuff through pre-orders and community feedback[31:33] The pros and cons of large TestFlight betas[38:14] Launching the Mac version of Stuff[40:04] Getting featured by Apple for AI-powered features[42:12] Pricing strategy, subscriptions, and free trials[45:01] Building trust through dev logs and transparency[50:14] Designing for macOS vs iPhone and iPad[56:22] The realities of App Store review for Mac apps[59:12] Austin’s favorite creators, apps, and inspirations