Back in July I secretly added the signup page for the Lanteon beta, and then did absolutely nothing with it.

In the subsequent weeks I was then busy in the build of:

  • Friend invites
  • Widgets
  • A unified design system
  • Observability stack
  • Deciding and renaming the app (a great topic for another post)

But none of this was launching the beta.

Then on Tuesday, my friend reminded me about Parkinson’s law:

Give a job a fortnight and it takes a fortnight.

I’d heard it hundreds of times before and I realised I was completely under it’s spell.

I decided instantly that the app would be in my friends hands by the end of that very day - every other task was secondary. I put two events in my calendar: friends today, beta next week, and set to work.

Fire tore through my fingers for the next 12 hours toward a goal that was so intensely clear. And now, under the thumbs of my friends, is my app being tested by a group of close friends and family.

The power of a deadline

Having just a single event in my calendar gave me complete and total clarity over what was important that day.

I’d been in the middle of important features too like profiles, redesigning the landing site, data sync fixes and more.

But the core feature had been built for over a week. If this app is going to eat anymore of my time, it’s base functionality has to at least work.

In particular there’s one niggling iOS platform worry that I’ve resolved just cannot be answered without testing on other people’s phones.

Was it the worry of this answer coming back negative? Was it the desire to have a more complete app for the first testers? Was it purely just the dopamine-rich thrill of building at the speed of thought? No doubt it’s all these and more.

Solo-founding has all sorts of headaches, but prioritising the right work and being accountable for your time has to be one of the hardest. It’s a hard lesson that needs learning again and again.

If anyone wouldn’t mind just sending me a message every now and then asking what is the most important work to get done today, that would be great 😅

So what’s next?

With iOS now having it’s final bugs ironed out, public beta release is planned for the 11th August - pending Apple Beta Review.

Tick tock.

If you’re wanting free access for life and to help build the one thing that, at least for me, could be the one real, simple cure to being addicted to your phone, then join the waitlist and I’ll be with you in no time at all.

Looking forward to having my first app out in the real world - it’s been a blast coming this far 🤘