/ blog
Notes from the studio.
Lessons learned, project post-mortems, and the occasional opinion.
The Debugging Session That Ended With Me Questioning Reality for Ten Minutes
A bug that violated something I was completely certain about — until it turned out the certainty itself was wrong. A specific story about the worst kind of debugging session.
#indie dev#debugging#engineering#war story
What Running Six Products Taught Me About Saying No
Six live products means a constant stream of feature requests, partnership pitches, and "quick" ideas. Saying no to almost all of them turned out to be the actual skill.
#indie dev#focus#process#founder life#product strategy
Why I Still Read Every Single App Store Review
Six live products, years of reviews, and I still read every one manually instead of just scanning the star average. Here's what that catches that sentiment analysis doesn't.
#indie dev#app store#user feedback#process#founder life
The Codebase That's Older Than Some of My Users' Careers
Comet has been live on Google Play since 2015. A literal look at what's still running from the original code, what got quietly rewritten, and which early decisions actually held up.
#retrospective#indie dev#architecture#legacy code#corona sdk
How I Avoid Burnout Running Six Apps Alone (Spoiler: I Don't, Always)
The honest version of solo-founder sustainability isn't a clean system with perfect boundaries. It's a messier equilibrium that breaks sometimes, and what I've actually learned from the times it did.
#indie dev#burnout#founder life#process#solo founder
What I Actually Do During the Slow Weeks (It's Not Nothing)
August has a reputation as the dead month. It isn't dead — it's when the unglamorous work that never happens during a busy quarter finally gets done.
#indie dev#process#engineering#maintenance#founder life
Why I Still Manually Review Every Pull Request (Even My Own)
AI-assisted everything is the current discourse. I still read every diff, line by line, before it merges — including the code I wrote myself. Here's why that habit hasn't gone away, and what it's caught.
#indie dev#code review#process#engineering#AI tools
What Twelve Years of Naming Things Has Taught Me
XenneX. Redinfinite. Dealery. Game Night. Some of those names came fast. Some went through embarrassing intermediate versions nobody will ever see again unless I tell you about them. Here's what I've actually learned.
#indie dev#branding#naming#product#studio
The Architecture Decision That Aged Well
We've written honestly about the calls that didn't hold up. This is the companion piece: the decision we made early that turned out right, and why it worked when so many early bets don't.
#indie dev#architecture#engineering decisions#monolith#retrospective
Scalability Lessons Learned From Years of Running on AWS
We've written about why we default to AWS. This is the harder follow-up: what actually broke, what we assumed wrong, and what we'd tell ourselves before the first traffic spike caught us off guard.
#AWS#scalability#cloud infrastructure#engineering#lessons learned
Monolith vs. Microservices: What We Actually Choose and Why
Microservices get the conference talks. Monoliths get the actual work done. Here's our honest default, and the specific conditions that flip it.
#cloud infrastructure#architecture#microservices#monolith#engineering decisions
Why We Almost Always Go With AWS for Our Cloud Infrastructure Needs
We don't pick AWS because it's exciting. We pick it because it's boring in exactly the ways that matter, and the handful of times we've gone elsewhere taught us why.
#cloud infrastructure#AWS#engineering decisions#studio work#architecture
What We Actually Charge For (And What We Used to Give Away Free)
Our pricing looked nothing like this two years ago. Here's the honest version of how it evolved — what moved from free consultation to billable scope, and the lesson behind each change.
#indie dev#pricing#studio work#business#transparency
What Breaks When You Go From 1 Developer to a Small Team
The moment a solo project gets a second contributor, a dozen things that worked fine in your head stop working. Here's what actually breaks first, and what to build before it does.
#indie dev#engineering#team scaling#process#collaboration
Why Your App's Onboarding Is Losing You Half Your Users Before They See the Value
Most apps lose the majority of new users before those users ever experience the core value. The first three minutes are the most important and most misunderstood part of any product. Here's what breaks onboarding and how to fix it.
#indie dev#onboarding#retention#product#UX
Five Things I'd Build Differently If I Started XenneX Today
Eighteen months in, the decisions that seemed right at the start look different from the other side. Here's what I'd change — not to relitigate the past, but because these are the things I'd tell anyone starting something new right now.
#indie dev#product#retrospective#architecture#lessons learned
Wimbledon Is a Design Masterclass. Here's What Indie Devs Can Learn From It.
Wimbledon hasn't changed its visual identity in 140 years. White clothing, grass courts, dark green and purple — it's the same. Indie devs who keep refreshing their app's visual identity every 18 months could learn something from that.
#indie dev#design#brand#product#wimbledon
The Stack Choices I Made 3 Years Ago. Do I Regret Them?
Mid-2022 was when I locked in the technical decisions that are now baked into everything XenneX ships. Some aged well. Some I live with. A couple I'd do differently if I were starting today.
#indie dev#tech stack#retrospective#react native#iOS#lessons learned
Summer Is When Indie Apps Actually Grow. Here's Why.
The conventional wisdom says summer is a slow period for app downloads. It's wrong. Here's what actually happens to indie app discovery from June through August — and how to position your app to catch it.
#indie dev#app store#growth#iOS#summer
Twelve Years of XenneX. What I'd Actually Tell the Version of Me Who Started This.
XenneX turned 12 this year. Not a milestone post with fake lessons — the real accounting of what was actually hard, what I got wrong, what I'd do differently, and what I'd do exactly the same.
#xennex#indie dev#studio#retrospective#12 years
WWDC 2026: What They Actually Announced (From Someone Who Ships iOS Apps)
Four days ago I published a wishlist for what WWDC needed to deliver for indie developers. The keynote happened yesterday. Here's the scorecard.
#wwdc 2026#indie dev#apple#ios development#xennex
What I'm Actually Hoping WWDC Announces for Indie Developers (And What I've Already Given Up On)
WWDC is three days out. Here's the honest indie dev take — what platform changes would actually matter to someone shipping six apps alone, and what I've learned to stop expecting.
#wwdc#indie dev#apple#ios development#xennex
The Tools I Tried and Abandoned (And Why I Don't Regret Them)
Every 'tools I use' post is marketing. Here's the graveyard — the tools that seemed right and weren't, and what they actually taught me.
#solo founder#indie#tools#software#retrospective
The Actual System I Use to Ship 6 Products Without a Team.
Not a philosophy piece. The literal mechanics — what runs on what schedule, how triage decisions get made, and which products mostly run themselves.
#solo founder#indie#systems#productivity#studio
I've Been Building Software for 12 Years. Nion Lights Is Trying to Change That.
The mental model shift from software to hardware is steeper than I expected. Here's what I'm getting wrong.
#hardware#indie#nion lights#founders#manufacturing
What Memorial Day Means When You Are the Whole Company
There's no out-of-office that covers being the only one. A note on what a long weekend actually feels like when the studio is a one-person operation.
#solo founding#indie#studio#work-life
Why I Build Many Things Instead of One Thing
The conventional advice is to focus. I've spent 12 years doing the opposite. Here's why the portfolio approach works for this studio — and why I'd make the same bet again.
#indie#studio#portfolio#founders#strategy
Game Night: How a Side Project Ended Up With 150,000 Installs
The full story behind the Game Night drinking game app — where it started, what compounded, and what I'd do differently with 150K installs in the rearview.
#indie#game night#retrospective#side project
Building in New Orleans: What Working Outside the Tech Bubble Actually Feels Like
Twelve years running an indie studio outside the SF/NY ecosystem. What that costs, what it quietly gives you, and why I'm still here.
#indie#studio#founders#new orleans#location
The year I stopped patching and started rebuilding
A patch is cheaper today. A rebuild is cheaper next year. The trick is knowing which year you're in.
#retrospective#indie#architecture#redinfinite#rewrite
A decade on Ionic (and why I'd do it again)
Ten years of shipping apps on the same framework. What that consistency actually costs — and what it buys.
#ionic#angular#mobile#stack#retrospectiveHello again — relaunching xennex.app
After a decade on a tired WordPress install, XenneX has a new home. Here's what changed and what's coming.
#meta#studio