This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey, what's up? Greetings and welcome. This is Chris Guillebeau, your host of "Side Hustle School," bringing you daily stories, questions and answers, looking at lots of different money-making projects, trying to understand how people made them happen without spending money of their own. So the goal is to make money without spending money, using a skill you already have and without quitting your job. Now, I don't think out of all the episodes we have done, I don't think we have talked much about the Apple Watch.
I know if you have one, you might know that it integrates with a lot of apps on your phone. You can choose which apps from your phone also display on your watch. Then there are also standalone apps designed specifically for the watch. Well, today's caller has made a mobile app to help people maintain their focus. It's purpose built for the Apple Watch.
It also sounds like I need this app, since I often need help maintaining my focus. And he's wondering what to do next. Now, this is a phase that I see a lot of new side hustlers go through. It is this nebulous, inception-like space where you're not in the early stages of building out an idea. Like you've already been through that, you've had the excitement of that, you've worked through some challenges on that end.
So that's great, your idea is out there. It's actually working a little bit, but you also haven't quite figured out where to go with it next. So in these situations, how can you decide between competing priorities? And what does moderate success look like? Which is what we have here in the story.
It's clearly not a failure, but moderate success is also different from major success or let's say massive success. What do you do in these situations? And what should this listener do with his app? Let's dive in after the shout out to our sponsor. [Music]
Hi Chris, this is Sergio from El Paso, Texas.
I've been a fan of the Side Hustle book and podcast for a while now. My Side Hustle is nudgeable. It's a mobile app for the Apple Watch that uses haptic taps to help people who struggle to maintain their attention and focus. It's basically a tool for people like myself who often have their heads stuck in the clouds and just need an occasional nudge to get their heads back in the game. I have limited time and funds to be able to work on this project unfortunately.
I often have to decide between app store optimization, reaching out to productivity influencers or working on upgrading the app itself. I've been working on this app for over a year now with moderate success. So my question is, how should I focus my time and resources moving forward? Thanks Chris. - Sergio, thank you for the call.
Thank you for the question. Thank you for listening in El Paso, Texas. Now this sounds like a pretty interesting project. I actually went to just download it myself. I went to download this app which listeners, it's called nudgeable.
You can find it in the app store. If you have an Apple Watch, N-U-J-I-B-L-E, nudgeable. I thought it had a really clean design, nice logo. Definitely would stand out if you're looking through various productivity apps and such. If I stumbled upon it, I might've downloaded it anyway because I'm absolutely in the market for this.
It reminds me of one I use on my phone and desktop computer called BeFocused. I thought the pricing was also good. It's free to use and $4.99 to unlock all the settings. So free to use and you pay five bucks if you wanna unlock everything. I think minor point, it needs some more user reviews and perhaps more frequent updates since the last one was a few months ago.
So I think the question is kind of, okay, well, how far can you take something like this? Because what else could this app do? In fact, the best part of an app like this is that it doesn't do a lot actually. I mean, it helps you stay focused. Helps you avoid getting distracted with a ton of other features and such.
So it almost seems to me like the project in this form perhaps is complete. Maybe there's something else you could build onto it. Maybe there's an add-on or something, or maybe this project leads to something else. I mean, I kind of wonder like, do you have other app ideas? Or do you have other ideas for productivity software in general?
Because as for that bigger question of competing priorities and what do you do when you have that moderate but not major success, in the long run, I think it's better to make clear decisions in terms of moving away from projects that only work moderately well. And I think it's okay to say like, this was a success. I learned a lot, but also it worked. It's helping people. I would like it to help more people, et cetera.
But maybe this is actually gonna lead me into something that's bigger and better. So sometimes the attention required by the moderate success holds us back from something that is much more profitable or impactful or just meaningful. And for me personally, I've been trying to focus more on that myself. So perhaps nudgeable will help me with it. That's my two cents.
Of course, do what's best for you, Sergio. Keep fighting the good fight. Definitely keep trying stuff. And thank you once again for listening. Listeners, if you got a question, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions.
We'll be featuring them throughout the year, along with updates from other listeners as they launch their projects. You are a rockstar. Be sure to stay tuned. Much more is coming up. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
from the Onward Project.
