In the last two and a half years I’ve launched a web application, moved twice, got engaged and married, went on a honeymoon, bought a house, and even got a dog. Today marks yet another milestone. I’ll be working on Sifter full-time from here on out.
Personally speaking, it’s been an incredible ride as I somehow managed to consolidate the 5 or 6 most significant and hectic events of my life into the last two years. That gave a very new meaning to finding a work-life balance. When I set out to build Sifter, I promised myself that I wouldn’t let work take over my life. I learned a long time ago just how unsustainable that is. However, that’s been the most difficult promise I’ve ever tried to fulfill as there was a constant struggle between personal time, bill-paying work, and Sifter. As a result, in the hierarchy of needs, Sifter was always last. It was the future, but it wasn’t putting food on the table in the present.
Putting food on the table, that was tied to client work. As a result, the amount of attention Sifter received was inherently limited. I worked on Sifter for an hour or so everyday for the last year, but the limited amount of time was generally consumed by operations and support rather than customer-facing enhancements. The tide is finally turning. I’ll still do a little client work here and there, but Sifter will dictate my availability for client work rather than the other way around.
Oddly enough, while this is a dream come true for me, I’m most excited for all of our incredibly patient customers. We’ve been all too quiet. That’s been a conscious, but difficult decision as we became more realistic about what we could achieve without a full-time developer. We’ve been very open with the state of Sifter anytime someone has asked, but we haven’t been as proactive about sharing simply because we didn’t have anything exciting to share until now.
We have always had an endless supply of ideas and enthusiasm, but finally, for the first time, we also have enough development hours to do something with it. Unfortunately, some of the initial time is being consumed by operations and the transition to full-time, so the impact of the additional time probably won’t be immediately visible. Rest assure, though, we haven’t had this much development activity since we launched.
There will be much more to share in the coming weeks, but for now, it’s time to get back to work.