think pink

a weblog by  Elliott Kember

hurricanes rock… wait, i did that wrong…

and thanks for the feed!

I wouldn't discount the creative aspects of programming. It may be very left-brained, but as someone who's a designer, and grew up playing music, yet really enjoys programming too, I can say this: the act of programming feels very different from nailing a good design, but they both feed my soul in the same way.

On some level I have trouble with the idea that failure is good—or, more precisely, that we need to fail in order to be successful. I like to think of it a different way: we need to iterate to be successful. That could mean building an app and tweaking it until we hit the sweet spot (financially-speaking or otherwise) or it could mean building an app, recognizing it won't perform as expected and rolling some of that knowledge into a new venture.

As long as we're building things that solve actual problems and trying to attach business models to them (where appropriate), and learning as we go along, I don't think it can be called a string of failures in any sense of the world—especially if we're taking calculated risks along the way.

@Elliot You're right, the app itself might be a failure in a business-sense, but that's why I make distinctions between business failures, iterating ideas, and overall growth. I don't like the negativity surrounding the concept that failure is a good thing. Maybe a better way to say it is that you can't have success without growth, and you definitely can't grow without doing some things wrong and learning from mistakes.

I'm with you. We always think the grass is always greener (and there are definitely things I'd like to see improved about the app store), but I shudder to think what the store would be like with the floodgates open.