Reinder de Vries, the person behind learnappmaking.com

Reinder helps people play with code. He does this through learnappmaking.com. Hear how he got started by game modding as a kid and how it put him on the path of creating an online business.

Learn more about Reinder:

• https://learnappmaking.com/
• His Twitter: @reinder42

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Transcript

Jeroen Leenarts: 0:47

Hi, and welcome to another special edition of my podcast. I'm sitting here with Vander DeFries. He's from the Netherlands as well. And you might know him from Learn app making.com. At least that's, that's why I know his name. And we're just gonna dig into his backstory a little bit and see how he got onto iOS software development, because he's done a lot of different things, including having a broken laptop on a tropical island. So Ryan, there, how are you today?

Reinder de Vries: 1:17

I'm good. I'm good. Thank you for having me.

Jeroen Leenarts: 1:20

So this tropical island thing. Let's just jump on that. Because it's a nice story to begin with, I think what happened to me?

Reinder de Vries: 1:29

Right, so I think this is a 2014. So a couple years back, and I was traveling to Thailand with a with a friend. And at that time, I was doing mostly freelance work. So I had a client and we were going to conference in Bangkok for digital nomads and people work online. So and I think we, we decided to travel for a bit before at that point, we were on an actual tropical island. It's called Lanta. It's on the coast of Thailand. And my laptop broke down. And at that time I was working on I was working on the actual assignment. So during the assignment, my laptop laptop just broke. And I couldn't work anymore. And I remember I had to publish in an IPA. So it's a binary file for the App Store in something like three hours. So it was an actual deadline. It was maybe on a on a Friday was a deadline day. So the worst thing at that point that could happen was my laptop breaking down. And I sort of MacGyvered it. So what I did is because I noticed at some point that I knew my laptop was was running maybe it was connected to Wi Fi or something. So because I did all the all the usual things like resetting the P ram and the SMC and all that stuff. So I knew that the laptop was sort of okay, so I suspected that it was the the LCD, it was the screen that broke. So I took a flashlight and I shun shone shine shined on the under screen and a little bit of light was reflected and I could see the screen it just wasn't wasn't lit. So I suspected that the the backlight broke. So what I did with the flashlight, I installed one of those mirroring apps, sidecar wasn't wasn't invented yet. So I installed a mirroring app. Because I also had an iPad, so I mirrored the screen on the iPad, and I was working on my laptop looking at the iPad screen. And I managed to publish publish the app, you know, all went fine. But it was it was yeah, it was kind of scary at that point. Because the I think the nearest Mac repair shop or any repair shop was was you know, in some of the bigger cities up north, so there was no point I could have had a repaired in time. But this you know, this kind of worked. I don't I don't even think my client knows or knew at that time that my laptop broke down.

Jeroen Leenarts: 4:13

It's always good to avoid disappointing a client, I think. Exactly. All you also mentioned that you live the digital nomad lifestyle. So how did that work out with with clients because you you still have to do quotes and offer your work to your clients and make sure that you don't lose any work. So how did you manage to do that while you were traveling?

Reinder de Vries: 4:37

Well, I never really traveled for long, at least up to that point. So I've been living I lived in Norway between 2015 2014 and 2019. So for five years, and up to that point, I would only travelled for maybe a couple of months. So I had a place back here in the Netherlands. So it was basically I would call it a workstation, right? So you go on vacation, but you also work and maybe you're working two warnings or two evenings and then you go do something fun on the beach or whatever. So I never because one thing that digital nomads do is that they take advantage of living in some other place where the cost of living is lower. And I never really did that because I was still living in the Netherlands. I was just on a on a on a holiday basically. And how right so how did it affect clients? I think it was it was fun. with them, I didn't really tell all of my clients. So and I don't think they they noticed I've always worked very asynchronously and independently of what they do. So if I was working on a client assignment, I wouldn't necessarily work from their office or, you know, be there where their team was working, I would I would just do my own work and then report back to them every once in a while. And that's something that you can do perfectly from from a beach in Thailand with a broken laptop. Or, or do from from home. Because yeah, I was I was living in the Netherlands doing the same thing.

Jeroen Leenarts: 6:24

What's also interesting is that one of the things that I've seen you mentioned somewhere is that when you're making quotes and offers to clients that it is perfectly fine to be actually paid for the quoting and offering work that you're doing. Can you tell a little bit more about that?

Reinder de Vries: 6:42

Yeah. Right. So for some reason, right? So so in, in kind based work and doing freelance work and working as a business, you often make a quote, when you start or before you start a project, right? So you're going to tell the client, what, what, what do you need from them, what they're going to get from you how much is going to cost and what the what the, the timeframe and the planning and everything is, and when I started freelancing, what I noticed is that, or what happened is that I would make these quotes for free, and there was considerably considerable time involved in making these quotes. And I would often make a mock up for an app or some sort of technical design, or I would already take technical decisions on their behalf. And I, you know, when the when the project would fall through, and when, when I wouldn't get it, then I would have lost all that work. So I decided that I would charge a flat fee to all new clients, or to existing clients who had a new project, to sort of cover my cost for making this quote, and doing the technical designs and the decisions and the markups and everything. And I would always tell the client that this is a tangible product that I'm making for them. And that if they, for some reason didn't want to work with me, or that they didn't like the project that I designed for them, they could always take it someplace else, right? So they could take my designs and get another developer or get another team or whatever, and work with what I'd built for them up to that point. And that's work well. One of the benefits is that well, you get you get paid for your for your work, but it also communicates some, I would say severity or weight to the client. So they take you more seriously, if they get a free PDF in their inbox that says I'm going to build this, this and that app for you for this price. They may not take it seriously. But they if they've paid for that they're already enrolled in the whole process. And it's actually easier, I think, to land that project.

Jeroen Leenarts: 8:55

Yeah. And also, it's for you an opportunity to validate that the client is forthright with processing payments and things like that, so that you don't have to wait too long for getting your invoices paid, which is also it can be very annoying if that's a bit late. That's true. So you already mentioned a few years 2014 and 19 that you lived in Norway. So let's drop down sort of like a timeline of your backstory. And just begin with how you got involved with computers. What was your first interaction with computers? And can you tell a little bit about that and when it actually happens and how old you were?

Reinder de Vries: 9:39

Sure. So once upon a time now. I think I was 11 years old when I first got in contact with computers. And at that time, I so I got a PC from friends of my parents, it was a 486 with I don't know 120 megahertz like like your phone is 25 times faster than what my computer was at that at that time. And I I found a program on the computer that was called basic right. So it was a BASIC interpreter. So I got a book from the library called about I don't know what it's called anymore. It was about Q basic, right? So that's a dialect of the basic programming language and there was my first interaction with programming so this book had little programs that I would just type over and and we would see what happened. I think there were also a couple of things magazines at that time that had printouts from basic programs that you could, you know, play play around with? And I'm not really sure. I mean, it's it's a long time ago. So I, I don't really know if I actually understood what was going on with all the syntax and the statements and the variables and go to and all that stuff. I don't know if I actually understood what I was doing. But I really liked it because at some point you, you were finished with typing in the program and playing around. And you had a result, right. So it was it was something tangible, and that that stood out for me. Then, fast forward a couple years later, I was building websites, so HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and a bit of PHP back end programming. So I would make dynamic websites, maybe build a guest form rights if somebody types something into the into the field and it appears on your website. I tried to make turn based games. So so so then I had hopped from basic programming to to building websites. And I was just doing this for myself, right. In my spare time. There wasn't any professional coding involved or working for clients that came much later. And then at some point, I started building. So there's this game is called Wolfenstein 3d. It's a dust based game. I think it's one of the first or the actual first first person shooter that was that was invented. And at some point, the source code for Wulfstan was released, then people started modifying this game. So I found a forum online, it's called diehard Wolfers, I think it's called diehard Wolfers bunker, where all these people would come together, and they were making mods, and they would make private tutorials in this forum. So it was a it was a close of forum. So you would have to ask to get access. And there there were all these tutorials about making different shaders into game, making parallax backgrounds, adding sprites, sprites systems, and I would follow these tutorials and start working on my my own game, my own Wolfenstein 3d modification. And I think that was the first sort of seed that started me working on projects and working on different I mean, apps were in the thing back then. But I suppose this was an app, a little tangible thing that you could work on for a very long period of time and have some sort of idea that you were you were building something. And at the same time, there was a group of people in that forum that would help me answer questions. So I think I think that's where my sort of love for communities and for building things really took off.

Jeroen Leenarts: 14:03

So at what age were you when you were doing these wolf Stein related things?

Reinder de Vries: 14:08

15 or 16.

Jeroen Leenarts: 14:10

So it was really before you had to decide on what formal education you wanted to pursue after you graduated from I think it's called Middle School in other countries and Netherlands. So, and then you went into Yeah, then you went into media technology as an education. And what happened, then you graduated, and then you went to work?

Reinder de Vries: 14:35

Well, that really, I started freelancing and started as an entrepreneur working as a business, I think when I was 18, so right around this same time, I started my studies in media technology. And at at some point, so I've always, or at that point, I studied full time, but also kind of worked full time. So I did, studying and working for clients. So yeah, right, right around that same age of 1718.

Jeroen Leenarts: 15:10

You did your education you you were working on, on client work as well, next year studies. And was it like supporting each other that the work that you were doing for clients was also material that you or knowledge that you could apply in your education? Or was the two very distinct and discrete things that you were doing?

Reinder de Vries: 15:30

I think there is some overlap. So the what I studied media technology is a very broad and wide field. So we would have classes around. We would have classes around Audio video game design, animation, character development, programming, user interaction design. So it's a very broad field. And I was I've always had a broad interest in things. So this was the sort of the perfect study material for me. But at the same time, I was developing these skills around programming, which is rather specific, right? So there is some overlap in there. And I think in my third or fourth year of studying, I specialized in user interaction and user experience, better known as UI UX. And I think that so so I've always looked for synergies, right? Because as a developer, sure you're typing code, but you're also working together with other people, designers, UX designers, marketing, other other types of development. So I was trying to learn a little bit about those disciplines as well, so that I could do my main skill development and programming and software development better. So there was some overlap. It didn't entirely overlap. There were many things I didn't do much with video and audio and game design, as you know, today, but I, I glanced little insights from those fields so that I could apply them to client work or my own work.

Jeroen Leenarts: 17:18

What years did you did your studies?

Reinder de Vries: 17:22

You mean, what year I started and graduated?

Jeroen Leenarts: 17:26

Yeah. What year did you start your media and technology, education? And what year did you graduate?

Reinder de Vries: 17:32

I started in 22,007. And I graduated four and a half years later in 2012. basic math.

Jeroen Leenarts: 17:44

Okay. And so we're already getting to like you starting as professional by freelancing and all kinds of pipelines work. But when and how did you get into iOS app development?

Reinder de Vries: 18:00

It's very good question. I get into iOS developer, I don't even know if he knows this. But there's a I'm always at this time, I was stuck for names. So I don't know if he knows this. But there's ilka lip sync and kiss heidolph, who are two Dutch developers, I think kiss is better known for his iOS development work. And Ilco is better known for his work on framer, which is an app. And so I was studying at a time. And I was going to these little meetups every Wednesday morning, at a coffee place here. And there were all these guys and girls, and they were working on different startups, some were freelancers, some were not even working development. But it was just this this sort of entrepreneur meetup and I would meet kiss and Elko there and I went to work for them doing some freelance work on a on a system that had developed in PHP. So there was a web development back end, app sort of thing. And they needed somebody to do maintenance on that. And at that time, I was still strictly a web developer. So I would work on HTML, JavaScript, all that all that stuff. And at that time, I think Elko and Chris were working on a on an app, and this is this, the early days of the apps read this, this must have been around through 2009. So it was the sort of the first time third party apps were allowed in the app store. And they were working on a on an app for a Dutch newspaper, I think, and I was working in their office, and they would show me around and I got very intrigued by by this by this, you know, smartphone with with apps on it. Because somehow it really vibed with me the whole concept of apps and having something you know, in your pocket that could do computation and having UI. So I get a book called Teach Yourself iOS development in 24 hours. Now 24 hours is a bit of an understatement. And maybe it took me a little bit more time than that. But it worked through the book and I just really loved it. It was It is so compact iOS development, you have everything that you would want to build into, you know, a tool into an application that is all on your phone. And yeah, that was I find it fascinating. So so that's when I got into it more.

Jeroen Leenarts: 20:50

And and you mentioned that you initially did web development, are you still doing web development nowadays?

Reinder de Vries: 20:57

Not not really not as a not as a main thing. So I'm mostly focused on iOS development in Android Development native, there are still still some projects that I maintain a support. So I suppose most of that is back end development, not really front end.

Jeroen Leenarts: 21:18

And what's also interesting is that you do iOS and Android development. So is it hard to keep up with two platforms at the same time? Or how do you manage that?

Reinder de Vries: 21:30

I hard is maybe the wrong word. Because I think in general, software development is hard, because you always have to keep up. And there's always things changing. But once you get a knack for learning and for keeping in touch with the, with the different systems, then I think it's not really hard to keep up because you're, if you're if you're trying to keep up with one platform, it's not so much more work or a different discipline to keep up with with another platform.

Jeroen Leenarts: 22:02

Okay, and at what point did you decide that maybe writing tutorials and creating videos for other software developers to learn iOS development became a thing for you?

Reinder de Vries: 22:14

This was around that time I went to Thailand actually. So 2013 2014 I, at that time, I was working on a very large project that would take me I think that the project in total would take me two years to build with with different people. And I was getting a little bit overworked, burnt out, disheartened by, by this by this project. And also, I think, working as a freelancer in general, you mentioned, invoicing problems, I think that's the number one problem for any freelancer to get paid on time and to work with the color feast or famine, right. So you either have too much work, or you have too little work, because if you you're working on a project, you don't do much acquisition, so then when the project finishes, you'll always have these these periods of downtime. But the bills still need to get paid, right. So I was getting tired of freelancing. And I also felt that I was in a position of privilege, right? Because I was development, it's very well paid work, at least here in the in the Netherlands. And I wanted to give something back. And at the same time, you know that that same interest in a broad spectrum of of topics also meant that I wanted to do something different, something new. And I had done some workshops at that time for for people around web development, UI, UX, that sort of thing. And I really liked diving deep into a topic and then teaching it to somebody else. So for me, it was a kind of a natural step to get out of this freelancing rat race to build something for somebody else, and to try to teach other people iOS development.

Jeroen Leenarts: 24:14

So but what made you decide that you didn't want to do just in person workshops, or maybe online workshops, and that you wanted to record yourself and really create videos so that it is content that people consume on their own schedule?

Reinder de Vries: 24:34

Was schedules a good work here, I didn't want to be tied down to teaching in sync. And I also felt limited by that somehow, because there's a there's a if you do workshops, then you kind of reach somebody who is in India or in the United States or in Korea or whatever. So I wanted to do something that is more web Global's the wrong word, but I think do something that is async where I could work on my blog and publish it when it was ready and then somebody else could consume it a year later and learn something from it. I like that idea. A lot more than having 2030 People cramped in a room trying to you know work out some project.

Jeroen Leenarts: 25:24

Yeah, cuz I can imagine that doing in person workshops is also work that is very seasonal, and very dependent on acquisition as well. Yeah. And so but does the does the website that you create with all this video content on it? Does it actually pay the bills? Or how did it work out for you?

Reinder de Vries: 25:45

It does, it does. I'm in a position now where I can, you know, work on the blog and create new courses and sell these courses and then do maybe one or two projects freelance project for companies, and a year,

Jeroen Leenarts: 26:02

and how was your journey from initial inception of this website learn@gmail.com into actually being able to look at your numbers and decide, hey, this is actually my income now.

Reinder de Vries: 26:16

Right? Well, it was very chaotic. It's it's not a it's not an overnight success story. Not at all, I don't even believe that there's that there's such a thing as an overnight success story. So when I registered the domain Learn app making that calm. That was 2013, December 2013. And at that point, I literally decided in 10 minutes, okay, I'm going to build this website, I'm going to find the domain now I'm going to register it and then I'm going to start. So it was a very, very poignant moment for me, then I think I sold the first course in 2015. So two years later, it took me a very long time to build that first course, I totally underestimated how much how much time and effort it takes to something to make something that is, you know, a larger hole than its parts. It's it's not, it's it's difficult to teach people it's not like you can build one tutorial and then build the next there has to be some sort of structure and organization, something that fills the gaps for people.

Jeroen Leenarts: 27:22

So I was done. What were the hardest challenges, then in those two years to actually come up with the first bit of material?

Reinder de Vries: 27:31

Hmm. I, I don't know. I think it's part. Procrastination. And I think if you've talked about this before, you know, imposter syndrome. Right? So that is a, this is a big part. So even though I had quite some experience, as a developer, I didn't feel ready enough to to teach somebody else what I what I knew. And that is something that's never left me. So that still happens even today, when I'm talking to you right now. I don't, I don't some I some, I don't feel that I have the right to teach somebody else, even though I know. You know a little bit about development and and that's fine. You know, that's imposter syndrome. It happens to everybody who creates something new and exciting. So but so But back to the challenges, I think one of those challenges was procrastination and imposter syndrome syndrome. I also at that point, I couldn't work full time on learn at making on this project side, I still had my freelance clients, who took a lot of my time away from from creating courses and tutorials. So it was a matter of focus and figuring out what is what, what are the essentials that I want to teach to people, but it's also a matter of marketing. At that point, I knew very little about selling something online about promoting myself about being out there and trying to enroll people and in what I was doing. So for any business that starts online, I think there's 1000 days or a couple of years, at least of having not so many clients and customers and trying to get the ball rolling and figuring out what, what people need. So, so yeah, those were definitely that that definitely did happen for me in those first years.

Jeroen Leenarts: 29:35

And looking at your business how it's running right now. Is it like subscribers? Because it's a it's a subscription based website? If I'm correct, with people that that stick around for a long time? Or do you have like a high influx of new subscribers with a high churn

Reinder de Vries: 29:56

rates? Well, it's not a subscription business. It's a one off purchase. So it's a one off, you only pay once for the course you get lifetime access. Okay. And I also keep creating new materials that you also get access to, I think what I tried, so when we're talking about selling and about pricing, and I think that free courses are not the best way to teach people in the sense that I think it's good to have some free materials, but when there is a person involved, someone like me is teaching actively. But also when there's a person on the other end who wants to be involved in the process and wants to be enrolled at once to me rule, I think it's good to have a little bit of a bump, you know, in the same way that I charged companies for, for making quotes, so that they take the process more seriously and that you have a bit of a filter for people. Ah, sorry, I forgot what was the question again.

Jeroen Leenarts: 31:05

So, basically, you corrected me because I was under the impression that it was a subscription based service, but it's actually a pay by video thing that you do. And you keep people around by presenting new content to them. So to rephrase my question, do you your customers are always like new names? Or is there a lot of repeat customers coming back and purchasing more content? At this

Reinder de Vries: 31:30

time, I have one course that has three tiers, so you can upgrade from one tier to the next. But there's no such thing as a repeat customer, because there's only one course. So I think there is a there there has got to be a large influx of new people. Yeah, yes, that's that's sort of the short answer.

Jeroen Leenarts: 31:50

Okay. And you also mentioned marketing, that that was something that you really had to learn, and that you mentioned that that is something that every content creator online, needs to go through at some point. Can you like, because you've been through this challenge already of learning how to market yourself and your content? What are some things that people need to think about when they want to do similar things, at least either promote a blog promoted a video content promote a podcast like me? So what are some of the things that you learned along the way?

Reinder de Vries: 32:29

Well, you know, I'm a developer, so I will tell you how I buy jeans, you know, pants, I will go to the store, I will look at a pair of jeans that I like, that fits, maybe I will try three different jeans, and then I will buy the best jeans, and I will go home and put the jeans on. So that's that's sort of how I take selling decisions. And I was believed that for that fact that I'm very direct and very focused. And I know what I want, I already know the kind of pants that I want, before I go to the store. Based on effect, I, I didn't really believed that marketing would work on me, right, I didn't believe in advertising, I thought I couldn't be influenced, I thought that the decisions that people make when they tried to buy something, or when you want to buy something that they are very rational, so you go to the store, and you need a three inch holes. So you buy a three inch drill bit, or a quarter bit, drill bit, really. So these are very rational decisions. And I learned through practice that that buying decisions aren't rational adults, so people are looking for a person that they trust, or they're looking for something that they think will bring them a goal. So they're not really buying the product, but they're trying to they're buying the product, or they're they're buying the end result that they think the product is going to get them. So when we're talking about, you know, power tools and tooling for doing things to read the home, it's not really about the drill bit, but it's about the feeling that buying this drill bit gives me and the satisfaction that I feel when I've, you know, finished up a product project like building a shed or building a closet or something. So that's, that's, that's one of the first lessons that I that I really had to learn. And, you know, in the beginning, I was very involved with what do you call it growth, hacking and conversion rate optimization, and search engine optimization, SEO, all that stuff. So as I was very focused on that, and the tactics and and the strategies, but not very focused on what I was trying to be for other people, how was I going to help them? You know, what's the global overarching goal that these people and I had in common?

Jeroen Leenarts: 35:18

So but how did you? How did you figure out what was the suitable let's just call it a product market fit for your situation, because I can imagine that you have to come up with sort of like a concept of what you're trying to sell. So that's the that's the end result of people go to your course. But how did you end up on that? Because I can imagine that if your concept is not correct and you're dead then you can apply all the techniques. and all the search engine optimization. But once people land on your website and it's dead for them, then they will move on again. So so how did you figure out? What was the suitable persona concept or image for you to present online to potential clients?

Reinder de Vries: 36:04

That's a very good question. I mean, well, for starters, I'm not a big believer in product market fit. Because it's, it's very easy to say that you have product market fit once you have it, but it's not very, it's not a very helpful concept if you're still looking for it, because then you may start to try to find an audience for the product that you're building. And maybe it's not a great product from the start. So So that's like, what you're saying you can use and spend so much time on trying to apply all these tactics when, when there is no fit between your product and the people you're trying to sell it to. So what I did is I talked to a lot of people, and I listened very carefully and ask the right questions, questions like, what's your goal? What are you? What are you trying to achieve with iOS development? And then I would listen to people talk. And based on what they said, I think, well, it's I wouldn't say that nobody really wants to learn iOS development. But just like the drill bit, everybody has a goal that is different than than the topic they're trying to learn. So some people want to get a job as an iOS developer, not trying to get a job as an iOS developer. Other people just want to have this nice feeling you get when you're tinkering around with a with a project for fun, like a hobby. Some people want to build their own apps and publish those in the app store. And what's very important for them is that there is an app that they built, that is sitting there in the app store. It doesn't even need to make money for them. Maybe Maybe that's that's what they want to but they just like that feeling of achievement. And those are very different things. Compared to, you know, sitting down and doing the work of coding. So one of the things I learned and found out that if you start to work with people on that sort of level, like what are your goals? And what are you trying to achieve, and if you can help them to get enrolled in that process, and help them to take the steps from, I don't know any coding to, I'm sort of getting a feeling of how Xcode work. And I'm starting to get a feeling for variables and functions and foundational topics, up to the point of having built a project. And if you can guide them along that path. That was to me, I discovered the value I was trying to create.

Jeroen Leenarts: 38:43

So that's the three tiers that you have on your website, right. So the developer, the publisher, and the professional, the developer, just being able to write some iOS code, the publish, being able to create an app and and put it on the store and the professional to be able to do all the previous things, and convert that into actual client work and an app portfolio that you want to have as a professional. Okay, cool. Um, just to switch gears a little bit. Well, not not really, actually. So there's one big thing happening every year for iOS developers, right? That's the WWDC. Yes, yes. How was that for you, of course, a lot of new great content, new announcements, new stuff, but also a big potential of having to update a lot of your material. So how's that for you as a content producer?

Reinder de Vries: 39:33

It's a combination of excitement and fear. I was very excited when swift UI came out, but also dreaded that I had to rebuild or at least repurpose some of my courses. So that's a big add, you know, fear is an exaggeration, but it's, it's something that you have to deal with as a content creator. But it's also exciting. I absolutely love swift UI. And I'm mentioning swift UI here, because that's the first thing that came to mind. It was already two years ago. But I imagined this the WWDC there's going to be sort of things like that changes. And when I think about development, software development, it's you know, change has always been the name of the game. As the case changing, things are getting deprecated changing from one thing to the next. You know, I started out when I did web development, Flash, Adobe Flash was very popular, right? So I would make all these dynamic things in in Flash and these days For years, Flash has not been what he used to be. Right. So there's always change happening. And I think that it's always a bit of a loss for for people because you're learning something and now you have to learn something new. So you cannot really rely on what you learned before. But at the same time, it's exciting. And one of the things I tried to teach people in my course, is that an in my work also on the blog, and then tutorials, it's not really limited to the course, is that change is the only constant. So you're, there's gonna be changes for you. And one of the things you can learn to deal with that is to learn to learn. So instead of learning the skill, we're going to talk about how can you apply your focus and effort and time effectively, so you can switch from one topic to the next more easily? Like how can you learn to learn? Right? So WWDC, I'm veering off course here. I don't I used to watch the keynote, right. So a Monday or Tuesday, there's this big keynote where they have all sorts of an announcement. But I found those less and less interesting, because the format is very much the same. The products are different, but there's always, you know, Oh, one last thing. Right. That that's that's always the the theme. And I started to focus more on the workshops, right. So that the concrete things that as the case, components that you can learn and apply in your own work, because I think those are the most exciting of the whole WWDC?

Jeroen Leenarts: 42:32

Yeah, I can imagine where you're going out. Because the keynote, this is really like a product pitch that that Apple is doing. But the true keynote for software developers on the Apple platform is, of course, the State of the Union. And I always prefer that session, way more over the the keynote itself. And yeah, last time, I actually just watched the recap of the of the keynotes and read some news articles, and I watched the State of the Union. So that's each year, a lot of new content, a lot of new things that you have to change on your material. Is it pretty much the same workload every year? Or? Or is it really dependent on, on what Apple announces? I can imagine when swift UI came out, it might have been a bit more, but Core Data stayed pretty much the same? How does that work out in workload?

Reinder de Vries: 43:29

Well, I have to say that I'm not in the business of being the first or the the most up to date person on developments. So what I tried to do instead is, is so so it's not in my interest to be the first one that publishes about Swift UI. So maybe it takes me half a year to write something useful about Swift UI. And in fact, it took me up to a year before I started making courses around swift UI, because it wasn't, and in my opinion, still not is ready for, for primetime for production apps. It's not ready for replacing UI kit as the, you know, standard UI framework for iOS apps. So when I build tutorials and courses, I tried to do that around the principle of real, real world apps. Because that's what people are going to build in their own work, right, nobody's gonna build a to do list app or some sort of, you know, really tiny thing widget that that doesn't really do anything except has have a very small function, people are going to do software development in a production environment, either their own apps or somebody else's in a company. So I tried to build my courses around that principle, and maybe focus on things that are a little bit more mature and have matured. But also, you know, one of the things that always happens after WWDC is that people start to work with what's presented, right. So there's some new components and people start to apply that in their own apps. And I think that's the most interesting part. And that's a part you often don't see, right, because people are doing this for themselves. So I want to see how people are applying these things to their own apps. Because that's, that's the most interesting and I think that's also the core of development. So it's not, it's not about the new technology. It's about what happens after the new technology. And of course, this cannot happen without having that New technology and also, as a creator, I also rely on the work from other creators in in our community, right? It's not something I do entirely on my own god no. So it's it's a, it's a sort of a community effort where people work together as individuals, where we bring, you know, the whole front of software development, we bring that forward. And that is something that other developers in the scene and in the community can benefit from.

Jeroen Leenarts: 46:21

Yeah, just just to attach upon what you're saying. What I always see software developers on iOS struggle with is translating the samples and the documentation and code snippets that Apple provides in their documentation, and to transfer that into an actual working app. Because what Apple provides in the documentation, and sample code really is a toy code. And what you see if people directly do that, you end up with this huge view controller classes in UI kit, that everything is just dumped on the most opportune place in the code base, and it's not structured and it's not architectured, into a true appetite point. And with a new framework, or a new technology released by Apple, the community still needs to discover what is the best approach to actually embed such a feature into an existing code base, because most most feature adoptions from the iOS frameworks are done by existing apps, and not many new apps are being created based on the new features comparatively, of course, of course, there's always people who create something new with the new frameworks released by Apple. But I do imagine that it takes some time to figure out what's a good approach with this new technology that we get every year? Yeah, um, so just to recap a little bit, because we've talked already for over 45 minutes. So you got started with both Stein modeling, back in the day when you were young, and then you went to university, and you finished up there? I think you mentioned. So what year was it that you graduate that university? I did 2012. So you graduated in 2012, actually registered the domain@gmail.com in 2013. Right when you were getting an interest into iOS development and app development itself. But only two years later, you were able to make your first sale on your on your new training, endeavor. In the meantime, you were able to travel around the world a little bit, go on vacations, as you mentioned, actually stayed in Norway for five years is something that I've heard or read somewhere. And now you are still doing app making.com. And pretty much a full time gig with every now and then some client work before we start looking at the future. What happened with Norway there? Because she stayed there for five years.

Reinder de Vries: 48:56

Right? Well, I have to correct you for a little bit. It's learn@gmail.com. That's, that's good to mention.

Jeroen Leenarts: 49:02

learn@gmail.com. Yes, yes.

Reinder de Vries: 49:05

And the interest in iOS development started around 2009. So at that time, I was still studying and working freelance next to my next to my studies. Right. So Norway, it's a beautiful country, but I went there for a very good reason. Because of love, of course. So my girlfriend who's also Dutch. She, she got a PhD in told them. It's in the middle of Norway, at the university there. So we decided to sell most of our stuff, pack what we had left in boxes and then move there.

Jeroen Leenarts: 49:44

And basically was while she was doing her studies there, you live together in Norway. And then once you finished up, out once she finished up, the both of you went back to Netherlands, but went back to the Netherlands. Okay. So that's, that's Norway then. So let's look at the future a little bit because we're in 2021. And you've been doing learn@gmail.com for I think it's seven, eight, I think eight or nine years now. So what's the what's Yeah, pretty much right.

Reinder de Vries: 50:21

Yeah. So it's a long time when you say

Jeroen Leenarts: 50:25

so you've been doing learn@gmail.com For pretty much eight or nine years. So what's in store what's what's your plan for the past, let's say next year because you don't seem like a person who plans ahead like five for 10 years, but maybe you do have some plans for the coming 12 months.

Reinder de Vries: 50:45

Yeah, that's a good question. I think one of the things, many of us, if not all of us learned last year is that there's that there's only so much planning you can do for the future, the whole pandemic happened and that that, yeah, manage to mess things up for almost everyone. So, but you're right, even before that, I don't very much plan ahead too long, even though I tried to prepare for for different things. So one of the developments I'm interested in red now is low code, or no code tools. I'm not sure if I'm going to create some content around that or courses. But I think it's still interesting to pursue. Because it's, you know, with, with these tools, it's very easy to build an app. And of course, you kind of build everything with it. But still, that's gonna put the ability to build automations, and to build tools into the hands of a lot more people. And I think that's sort of liberating for these people. But because he used to be in the hands of developers and right now. Other people can build tools to solve problems that they have. So that's, that's interesting to me. But at the same time, as software developers, we have these sort of engineering principles. And I'm not really sure about this, but I think it's very hard if you if you can click together an app with a low code or no code tool, is there going to be something like Git or version control? How are you going to work together with people? Are you going to apply UI UX principles, that sort of thing? So I'm trying to discover how that works. And if there's some way I can help people to build better apps that way. But at the same time, you know, going back to wolf Stein, 3d, I think, all those things swift right now, which why iOS development, Android development, web development, they're low code tools. They're all very interesting to me. So I just want to dive in and play around with them.

Jeroen Leenarts: 53:07

And so basically, you just want to discover what's interesting, and what's actually something that is worthwhile to try and share on the platform that you created. Right. Cool. So before we start wrapping things up any recommended books or resources, that that tie in with the things that we talked about? And then I specifically mentioned, the marketing and the things that you learned and discovered during your journey in creating your website?

Reinder de Vries: 53:41

Right. I think for starters, it's a good idea for developers, if you're listening to this to support your local creators and buy ebooks from from that well, yourself, for instance, or these these, the people that try to write around what they're doing right in this moment. And publish books about that. I've always found that very interesting. Because you get you get the goodies from the trenches, so to speak. And then

Jeroen Leenarts: 54:14

and on top of that, it's always what I find is that it's always very great. If you have somebody who does self publishing doesn't matter what content, either video podcasts, books, whatever, giving feedback, just hearing what people think of the thing that you created. It's, it's amazing. It's a gift if you if you get that as a content creator. I think

Reinder de Vries: 54:36

so true. Yeah, absolutely. And as developers, for me, it's always been important to, you could call it a multiplying skill, right? So is there a synergy between what you know and a skill that somebody else has, for instance, it could be beneficial for you if you're trying to learn a little bit about UI UX. So a couple of books in that area is don't make me think from Steve Krug. It's a book about user testing, but it's really about user experience. And I think, reading that book and thinking about it, and seeing if you can apply it in your own work, that's going to change how you build software and how you interact with other people. And ultimately, that's, I think, gonna increase your value as a developer.

Jeroen Leenarts: 55:24

I'll make sure to link up the things that you mentioned in the show notes because this Don't make me think it's actually a book that I read, like years ago, and it's it's still a good book to pick up and, and take some some bits out of when you're working on specific things. Um, so One thing that that you seem to be doing across your entire career is to really learn how to learn that that's something that's very important for you. And one of the things that works really well, if you're learning things is to have a beginner's mindset. So that's the thing, the idea of the chicken always start over. And it seems to be that that's something that you really advocate for with people when either talking to them and also in the material that you create. So what's the idea behind that? And why the beginner's mindset?

Reinder de Vries: 56:23

Well, the headline on my website says, play with code. And I specifically call it plain because if you're playing with something, so for instance, we've got dub dub DC, and at some point, there's a component, maybe it's AR kid, right? AR k is, is new, and you're, you're playing around with it, and you're trying to build a project. Or maybe you're trying, just trying to get started, you're, you're trying to discover what's what's going on in this in this thing, and figuring out for yourself how you can apply that. I think, in that process, you're entirely lost in the practice of coding and playing. I mean, that's what kids do. They're, they're entirely focused on this whole playing exercise. And I think what your mind does at that point is be very open, it's open for things that don't work. And it's open for things that do work and everything in between. And if you're working on a deadline, and you have a bug in your app that you're trying to fix, he cannot fix it. And you've you've, you've got 20 tabs open in your browser would stack overflow answers. For the live view, he cannot figure out what's what's going wrong. I think at that point, your mind is a little bit more closed. So why don't I would I would, I would love to teach this to people, and I'm not sure that I can, but I, I try. If you can have a little bit of openness, you're going to learn so much more, and you're going to take in so much more. But it's also a very fulfilling exercise, you're going to feel good at the end of the day, if you've built something and you saw that you built it and there's this result, that's a much better feeling than you know, some rollout on Friday. That's that's completely botched. And now you have to work through the weekend to figure out what's what's going wrong on your production server. So that's for me, that's the principle of having an open mind. Having a beginner's mindset and playing around with the, with the things that you love.

Jeroen Leenarts: 58:31

Okay, I think that's sort of, I think Reinder that's a very nice thing to end our conversation with. And I want to thank you very much for your time. And I hope to sometime see you in person in the future. Yeah, maybe maybe at a cokehead Snell meetup. Who knows when when we start doing those in person again. Yeah. And I'd love to talk to you again in the future.

Reinder de Vries: 58:59

Yeah. It's it's good to talk to you and I just want to thank you for doing this. Work with the podcast and getting the people in the speakers from the from the community together so that we can listen and learn from them. So I'm very grateful for the for the work that you do.

Jeroen Leenarts: 59:19

I'm really glad that you that you like what I'm doing and thank you for your compliments.

Reinder de Vries: 59:25

Awesome. It's good to talk to you, man. All right.