In the hectic world that software development seemingly has become, reading “The Joy of Building Slow” by Andy from !Boring1 felt like a breath of fresh air. And it deeply resonated with me.
The current zeitgeist (at least according to my YouTube feed) seems to be to create apps in the shortest amount of time possible while maximizing revenue at the same time.
But statements like “I built this app in 48 hours and made $20k from it” aren’t the flex people think they are. Sure, I’d love to have that hourly rate, but how fulfilling and sustainable can this be?
Andy’s post touches on that and I agree with his thesis. The far superior way to build software and by extension a business is to do it slow and in a compounding way. Even in today’s fast-paced landscape. Hyper Growth (and crash) vs. Slow Growth.
Now I admire slow builders like Panic, 37signals, and James Thompson who's maintained and shaped an app for 30+ year (new life goal).
Same. Because I’m building Morgenblau, an RSS reader, I would add Brent Simmons to the list. He’s the creator of NetNewsWire, probably the longest running RSS reader on Apple platforms. Or companies like Information Architects, the folks behind iA Writer2. These people and companies are much more interesting to me than the ones who obviously only follow the hype train.
Slow success means you get to stick with an idea long enough for it to get interesting.
If you want to do your life’s work, do it slow.
Not saying that everything you do has to be “your life’s work”, but it helps with finding direction. And you can always tell when the creator of some tool has thought things through, has worked through the idea hundreds of times, sat with it for long enough. No matter how good the tools get, you can’t do that in 48 hours.
The tools don’t even matter. Honestly, I don’t care about whether every line of an app I use has been written by hand or Claude Code. What I care about is the craft, the thought that went into how the app should “feel”, what the experience is like for the person using it.
An app built with the slow growth mindset almost always checks these boxes.
Even when they don't hit some flashy revenue number on day one, I believe in the long term, you can only succeed when you work like this.
Apps attract the audience they deserve. Apps built with care attract users who care.
And I also believe that once you’re known as someone who “cares” as a creator, you have won. A reputation like this is enormously hard to earn and invaluable.
On the other hand, if people know you as someone who’s only selling them something to make a quick buck and reach another revenue milestone, you’re in trouble. Recovering from this kind of reputation is even harder.
So choose wisely.
It’ll be way more fulfilling as well:
Most of the founders I know were happiest in their early days when it was just them and a buddy building cool shit around a kitchen table.
That’s exactly the vibe I’m optimizing for when building my own software.