Starting Up

Take your idea to reality!
Think for a moment. Think about that one time--or maybe one of several times--where you said, "You know what would make my job easier? This..."

Innovation doesn't have to come from innovating minds. It can come from ordinary people who are just trying to make their everyday lives a little easier.

In my case innovation was twofold:
Modernizing every Shakespeare play
Putting it in a format that spoke to a modern audience: an app.

The app became SwipeSpeare and the idea was simple: Let students read Shakespeare as they normally would; when they're struggling to understand a passage, they swipe their finger across it to see a modern English translation.

It was simple--and it worked. With zero marketing, SwipeSpeare was downloaded over 350,000 times.

The number sounds good when in context, but it sounds even better when you understand that A) I wasn't a developer, B) I wasn't a designer, and C) Everything was bootstrapped.

In writing, there's an old phrase: show, don't tell. If you want your product to be successful, then you have to be able to show (not explain) how it works.

That's what this book will do.

I'll start with the basics: wireframing your idea and giving it a high-level framework; then we'll move into more visual designs, and finally interactive mock-ups.

Design is only part of the work. I'll also show you how to put your final product into a pitch deck that sells.