My letter to you who, directly or indirectly, became part of my life in 2013:
Dear all,
What an year we had in 2013!
I am truly grateful for your input helping shape Kwik and Kutt but, more than that, for the opportunity you gave me to improve my skills and become a better person. I honestly ponder about all words of incentive, support and friendship you sent. I know how time is short for providing unpaid feedback and requesting for things that should be work properly when they are not. You are really great!
In a market that is still in its infancy (more on that on Crossing the Chasm with Mobile Apps), I tried different things in the past year. Some of them have worked while other not much. This is a brief retrospective of what I have done:
- More tutorials, always FREE, to speed up your learning process: this has become an effective tool, used by many of you, not only to learn new tricks but, sometimes as full guidance to create better polish apps covered by the examples;
- Subscription model: yet not a unanimity, this model will provide constant updates and avoid situations where an old version generated code is not compatible with Corona/iOS/Android updates;
- Kwik 3 new interface and App Showcase: although Kwik is not fully delivered as designed, its new interface has proved to be a time saver for users (new or old ones), as well as, another opportunity to share your work with others, via the “not seen in any other tool in the market” App Showcase – I honestly love to start Photoshop and see which new banner will come up. More than adding color to Kwik’s panel, it reminds me about the great things you are doing with the tool;
- Partnerships: they are key for startups and their users and, whenever is possible, I try to bring people and companies that believe in my vision and are willing to help the improvement of my products. As many have noticed, neither Carlos Icaza nor David Porras are part of Kwiksher anymore. I thank them for their support and I wish they have success in their new paths;
- Kutt: this little tool has not yet take-off but I am certain this is a matter of time. When I announced it, some asked me why I was doing another tool instead of keeping focus only into Kwik. The short answer is “not everybody wants to create full apps but partner with developers only”. Kutt is my answer to that. Are you a creative user (Kwiksher’s target audience) working on a team where machine development is not necessary or needed? Kutt can speed up the integration between your designs and others people code.
Memories refreshed, this is the list of things keeping me awake at night and the actions I am doing to address them:
- Website: for many, it is not clear what Kwiksher and Kwik are about. It was my plan to have a complete re-design for the first week of January. Unfortunately the person I hired is still having some personal issues that are delaying it. When ready, the new site will be clear about audiences and products and, hopefully, easier to use;
- Training: besides tutorials, I am planning more “official trainings”. While I cannot offer, at least for now, discounted prices for the Official Training offered by SVS, I am offering one free lesson on Sprite Sheets from that course. You can check that the training page, day 6;
- Kwik: due its dependency with Corona Labs and our different timeframes, many times things, out of my control, are delayed or postponed. It is my hope that this minimizes in the first weeks of the year. I lesson I learned the hard way is NOT to announce things that I cannot share anymore. Be certain that your subscriptions will paid off with the bunch of things that are already coded or in the pipeline – again, keep sending your suggestions via the forums;
- Kutt: this little thing will also receive some attention and a good update is expected for the next month;
- Partnerships: I will keep “fighting” to bring the best people in the industry to work with us (as an advisor, technology provider or investor);
- New products: as I said before, different users have different needs that a single product cannot deliver. New announcements will be made soon about them;
A few other things YOU can participate now:
- The Welcome Screen contest was extended till the end of January (I learned too that almost nobody read anything during the holidays :)) – learn more about that here;
- Keep sending your Kwik made apps to our Showcase;
- Support your fellow artists checking and buying their apps, entering ratings (specially when you get a free promo code) and commenting about their works in our upcoming Artist Spotlight section in the website;
Again, I am very blessed with your support and I sincere wish we all a great year, full of memorable experiences and joy!
