In this episode, Leo talks with Jacob Gorban about being remote and what they've learning over the years being remote such as communication, keeping teams productive, managing iOS development and more.

Show Notes

Guest

Jacob Gorban - Twitter @jacobgorban
- Apparent Software

Youtube Video - https://youtu.be/wKGEc-9YFGs

Related Episodes

Episode 29 - Managing iOS Development with Peter Witham

Remote Work Guidelines

Dealing with Communication
Slack Guidelines for Channels and DMs
How to stay in touch
Scheduling Meetings

Remote Work and Software Development

Mentoring Junior Developers
Encouraging Communication
Doing Code Reviews and Pull-Requests
Organizing Testing on Devices
Using the right tool for Project Management

Social Media

Email
leo@brightdigit.com
GitHub - @brightdigit

Twitter
BrightDigit - @brightdigit
Leo - @leogdion

LinkedIn
BrightDigit
Leo

Instagram - @brightdigit
Patreon - empowerappshow

Credits

Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Transcript

Leo Dion (Host): Thank you for joining me for another episode, a empower apps. I'm your host, Leo Dion I'm with Brightdigit specializing in development in the Swift space and Apple space as well. Today we have with us, Jacob Corban. Hey Jacob, how are you doing?

Jacob Gorban (guest): Good. Thank you.

Leo Dion (Host): So Jacob, I've known you for, I wanna say like the first time we met would have been like release notes, maybe. Did you go to Release Notes?

Jacob Gorban (guest): I've been to all of them. Yes.

Leo Dion (Host): Yeah. That's probably the first time I met you back in 2015 back in the good old days when we actually like travel and go to conferences and stuff. I miss those days. I've done. Gosh, two conferences this year that have been I've spoken at that have been remote.

I've got. Three more conferences actually, by the end of the year that I'll be speaking at all remote, all from the convenience of this wonderful home office here, which has its advantages. Assuming nobody's home along with me, who's little and requires a lot of attention. I think we're kind of in the same boat actually.

There's there's been an adjustment for me, certainly because I have a lot of family members who live in this house. I don't know about you, but like I've worked for mostly for 12 years now. 10 years almost. So what's, what's new to me this year has just been dealing with like me and my wife scheduling and taking care of the kids while we're working, which you know, that's the big curve ball this year with COVID and everything with 2020.

How about you? Has there been any big adjustments working remotely this year? Well,

Jacob Gorban (guest): I was in this like a situation kind of as your, that I was already working remotely. I've been an Indie since 2009, like full-time Indie. So like on this front it was fine. Like I didn't have to adjust to working remotely.

But as you, as you have, like, I have like my kids and there's like a school age. They're not very small, so like it's easier, but. No, they were at home and most of the time I have my, one of my kids at home right now. And I could ask him to be quiet. It's like for the next door. Well, while we're your core is not bothering me with anything.

So there's none of that. It was like, it was fine.

Leo Dion (Host): Yeah. How long have you been an indie and kind of tell us a little bit about some of the stuff that you've been making over the last 15, 10 years.

Jacob Gorban (guest): Like I started dabbling in Mac development on the side, like how did they job? In 2005, I got my first Mac and I was already like a hobby developer.

And usually when I kind of tried the new operating system, they like to try those. I would try it to see how do we develop for those. And, and so I tried to do something for the Mac, which I had like almost like an app we try on different platforms to do like you know, my go-to project.

And I did that. And eventually on the Mac, I like the, like the, the software environment. I started to learn about cocoa and how this works and all these new concepts that are in cocoa and. I also started to lag the you know, the community of the cocoa developers. So at that time they were very open and helpful and they could see that all people do business with that.

And that kind of, Oh, I never considered that really, that much like doing software and, and selling them directly. And so this first app that kind of, it grew into like the first app in the business. This is what's now one of my Mac apps ImageStreamer. So now it's in version of it's version four, but you know, back then was the 1.0, like the ugly 0.1 0.0.

So I would continue to studying on the side. And by 2009 it was still not earning anything. I'm not sure, but I found that like part-time partner and we started to work on the new application, which is a CashCreator, which we also kind of still have and developing the second version of and I decided to try and make it like indie full-time.

And I know gave my notice at the day job and, and it's been a pretty, like a very luckier ride, but kinda, it was, it was fine. Like, I don't know, maybe I made less money, but I had a much more fulfilling and kind of relaxed life then as a day job, I guess.

Leo Dion (Host): Yeah. I'm in the same boat - going independent.

Has been one of the best decisions I've made in my life and just there's ups and downs financially. Most certainly. But like I did take that over the flex, the flexibility, and like just the lifestyle over, you know, it's worth the benefits quite a bit. Yeah.

Jacob Gorban (guest): Yeah. For, for me, I had like such a, I had a long commute.

I had a, you know, pressure. I didn't see my family. So like all these, like. Again, so many lifestyle benefits from going into that kind of adapt ways all day, like financial promise, like we could have, or like possibly now I do work also consult for a, for a different company remotely as well. So my time is split between like managing my own products, my own team, and And doing the consulting work.

Leo Dion (Host): Yeah. Yeah. Same thing here doing the consulting work and doing the independent stuff.

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So has any of your clients or anybody that you've worked with have had to adjust - not necessarily for you, but for the other folks that they work with have had to adjust to dealing with remote teams and managing a remote team.

Jacob Gorban (guest): My client knows. So because I have one client and I've worked for them for the last five years.

So it's a very kind of consistent work environment and they are mostly remote as they already were. So unless maybe, I don't know, maybe they're a sales team, which was kind of had a local presence. As, as far as developers that were already to remote. So I guess they had to do like, just again, only if you adjustments,

Leo Dion (Host): that's good to hear cause I think like some companies have had a really difficult time adjusting to being remote this year. What are some of like the biggest lessons you've seen from other teams going remote or having to go remote?

Jacob Gorban (guest): I think the biggest lesson is that it can be done. Right. So I think they many companies like wouldn't believe right. They can work remotely. Like there would be more downside than upside, I guess.

Leo Dion (Host): Yeah, it certainly seems like this year it's accelerated. It's been going on very slowly, as soon as technology caught up. I just, I remember like 20 years ago when we had all the situation with the airport, it's after September 11th, like conferencing, video conferencing became this big attraction and then it kind of died out.

Whereas like this year, a lot of companies have accelerated and found a lot of benefits do it financially, specifically when it comes to real estate to not having to have offices for folks, but it seems like this year it's really accelerated that that move to remote.

Jacob Gorban (guest): Yeah. I think one of these examples is like maybe one's the largest Canadians, software companies, Shopify.

Right? So they were all like in, I think Ottawa region if I'm not mistaken and so again, with the COVID situation, so people start to work from home. They gave people like, you know, some money to, you know, like buy a chair or whatever, like for the home office and you know, a couple of months. And they said, Oh, we will, that will be what they call like the digital first company.

Right? Like, so like the new hires we will default to working remotely and maybe, yeah, maybe they can, there was another company in Canada in the news of that. Like, I think the largest software company, that's going to answer a price company. And they said, Oh, we will just, yeah, like many people will not return home and we will just, you know, sell one of our buildings.

Leo Dion (Host): Right, right. That's that's the thing is like the ability not to have to pay for rent on a building is a big attraction. So what do you think are some lessons that folks should come away with when it comes to like dealing with a remote team?

Jacob Gorban (guest): You know, remote work is it's all about communication, right?

So the communication style changes. And if you, when you work in, you know, at an office, you can, you know, just knock on somebody's door or the chair, right. Or the backend, and, and ask a question kind of remotely it's different tools. Right? So the first of all, The company or the team, right. They have to decide what tools they use for communication.

And for many as it was already like, you know, maybe using Slack, maybe it's like one of the most popular for a smaller companies. And this is what kind of we're using. It appears in software as well. So you have to agree on like what the style is. Well, Communicating right. How you respond and, and, and have expectations about like what's the reasonable, like time to, for people to respond.

Or it's kind of, it's a big topic, but like communication. Right. And I think the larger the company, the more, I guess, guidelines, the company should have like the, either the HR people or the, you know, the. The leaders of the company set some kind of guidelines for like how people should talk on Slack, like how to respond and and what to expect.

And like my clients who are a bigger company than mine. Yeah, they do have that and it helps.

Leo Dion (Host): So what are some, like, what do you mean by guidelines? Exactly.

Jacob Gorban (guest): Well, it could be first of all. Okay. If you have multiple channels. So like what to post on each channel, if it's like you need to responds then again on Slack, you can have these like emoji responses.

Right. And so like, maybe even just know that you've seen like somebody wrote, maybe it's an announcement. So just maybe put an item, like an emoji that you've seen this announcement. Right. Stuff like that. Yeah.

Leo Dion (Host): Like a reaction emoji essentially. Yeah. And I think like for me, the, the guideline has always been, is like, Email is usually the slowest form of communication.

Like that's something that you're expecting like a few days, then you have the emergency. Of using like something like a text message personally, texting somebody, if you like, if it's really, really important. And to me, like Slack is somewhere in between where it's like, you want to get a hold of someone in a conversational manner, but you don't want it to be as slow as email, but it's not an emergency.

And that's like kind of where Slack or Microsoft teams is. The other one I've seen. As far as like communicating with folks, I am on gosh, like 20 slacks, at least, I don't know how many you are, but it's like every specific agency and every specific geographical area technology. And then of course, every time I pick up a new client, they're on their own little Slack workspace.

So I feel like I've become an expert in Slack accidentally over the last few years. The other thing I was going to say is like using mentions in a healthy way and making sure you are using DMS and channels properly. So what I mean by that is like a mention is a good way to get ahold of someone who's just not going to be like babysitting a specific channel in Slack.

And the other thing is like, some things could be DMS, but if it's something that could be helpful to a whole team, it might be worth putting that in a specific channel. That's. Let's say you have Android folks or iOS folks. Like if it's something to the helpful to the whole iOS team, you may want to ask that question in the whole iOS team as opposed to DMS.

Is there any other slick Slack tips you've run into?

Jacob Gorban (guest): I think this thing like about posting in the correct, like channel or the am is the important. Like decision for everybody to make. Right. It's similar to, like, you wouldn't want to invite everybody to a meeting and kind of waste their time if they're not related to the questions you're asking.

Right. And this may be what leads to sometimes like proliferation of Slack channels, like even on smaller groups. Right. Because maybe somebody is No. I know like a manager maybe needs like, you know, both see the marketing and the development side, but maybe the you know, the marketing team doesn't necessarily want to see the development chatter and vice versa.

So yeah, this kind of etiquette, I think becomes important and not mentioning if you don't have to, like, or if it's not really origin. And yes, I do feel kind of the same about like the email versus Slack versus text message kind of urgency or like hierarchy. So Slack is, yeah, I would like, like to have a reply relatively soon, but it probably, yeah.

Today or like the next big start of day. Right. I like, especially if you're working like across time zones. So in my team I have a. Some people are like basically the same time zone, but I have a developer in, in Poland. And so you know, and I mean, I'm in Canada, so we have our time difference.

And so that's fine. Right. Let's say if I'm messaging him and he's already in those working. And so he replies the next day and it's fine, right? Same for me.

Leo Dion (Host): I think that's a, that's one of the things, time zones, definitely something I've had to get used to as I've worked with more people. And just being comfortable with that, but like this idea of asynchronous communication you've talked about like how, when you're in a workplace, you can just tap on somebody's shoulder or just go to somebody's cube and say, Hey, I got a question for you.

You really have to do that with Slack. And you have to have like a healthy attitude of knowing that somebody is not going to like message you back right away. And. I like that. Cause I always hated being interrupted. In an actual office, I always found that to be unhelpful. And I think a lot of companies, they just don't like that.

They want to be able to get ahold of you all the time and constantly interrupt you. And I think that's, that's I I'm hoping that the remote team thing. Teaches companies, good habits communicating in an asynchronous manner, because if you really need to like talk to someone and you really need to like meet with someone, and that's what scheduling meetings is really about.

I don't know how you've found it over the last few years.

Jacob Gorban (guest): I like Apparent Software software. I do try something different now. So like the regular timing for like meetings and whatnot, it happened like we had like the weekly meeting where you have a small team. Right. So it kind of, we all get on the, yeah. On the call and it's like, you know, the development, the marketing, the design, we kind of all, I'll hop onto the call and and we'll have our like weekly status and decisions and kind of task for the next week.

I did find, well, sometimes it's just. Hmm of takes too long a time. So like if somebody gets either stuck on like, on something, or they're not, you know, banging their head and they're just afraid to ask like, like again, in a different environment, maybe they would just, you know, come by and ask and say, Oh, I have difficulty with that either because of Slack or again, maybe like personal styles, people will sometimes keep kind of to themselves and kind of keep trying to solve the problem instead of like, asking for help with where.

This could save a lot of time. And so I did ask for now, like for like from developer and designer too. And kind of, we try and get an experiment where they will like end of day will, you know, right in the, okay. I've been working on that and then maybe I'll be working on that tomorrow. And then if I had any difficulties or the difficulties,

Leo Dion (Host): it's basically like a standup, that's what it kind of sounds like.

Jacob Gorban (guest): It's like a daily standup. Yes. But instead of like in the, in the morning, especially because again, we're at different timezone and everybody's remote. So like we don't do it like set timers. So people just usually that candles their day, whatever time to decide that we'll kind of say. Okay. I did that and I, I see where the developer, so like my developer, she's like a junior developer, so, you know, I help him, like, I'm mentoring him.

And and thus you know, like I can see, Oh, like maybe he's stuck here or maybe he says, I'm stuck here and I can help it more, like quicker than previously. He was sometimes like, wait several days before it kind of, I don't know, maybe mustering the courage to ask or whatever, like it might be, he didn't feel.

Comfortable asking. And so I wanted to encourage, encourage that it doesn't necessarily mean that we'll reply, right, right away. Maybe even get maybe a man maybe in a different time zone, the, or maybe I'm busy with my client's work or whatever, but at least it will be, you know, it will not take more than a day or like probably several hours to get to the point.

And, and so far again, this experiment to find it, it helps It helps me to understand again, where am I? Kind of, my team stands on, like, especially with regards to the weekly tasks or whatever. And with the development it's helps me help the developer. Quicker and, and that's also kind of run the project maybe with Quaker as well.

Leo Dion (Host): That's a really good, good point about the junior developer. How do you create an encouraging environment for them to ask questions? Because I can see how somebody might be intimidated by that. Especially a junior who might think, you know, Oh, they're not going to think. I'm very good if I ask these questions.

So I should just keep my mouth shut. Waste time.

Jacob Gorban (guest): Yeah, we'll just as we started and, and this developer did work in a different place. Like for several months, like, as his first job where he wasn't encouraged to ask for help and it was kind of like, I guess, reprimanded for it because he was wasting other people's time.

And of course it wasn't very helpful for him. And and when w when we started to work together, it was very kind of, you know, I was encouraging that right from the start saying, you know, if you have any questions, like, you know, asking me and like, I, I never reprimand or anything. Right. Like, I, I try, I try to explain, I tried to explain to the, I will ask questions.

So like, he, he will try to get to the answer by himself. So like he learns how maybe like to think right. Or how to use the tools or so encourage the learning. But I think it was, he was maybe still, maybe just. Trying to learn by himself. Again, he's a self-taught developer, so, you know, I'm a self-taught developer, so it kind of makes sense for me.

Okay. I was banging my hands sometimes, like we know for hours or days to find the, to find the solution to something, but. Sometimes it's would have been nice to have a, you know, an experienced developer to ask in the beginning, the beginning of my career. And especially like, you know what, there was no stack overflow and then no slacks for like different topics.

Right. So punch cards, right. Well, not that far away, but, but you know, I've used tapes and like a lot before the Mac, right. I was using, yeah. I don't think discs is that the expectation we had before this, before the diskettes and floppy disks, before that, I meant like the tapes. So I just encourage that.

And I think the, now with the, like the kind of the daily stand-up kind of reports, which sometimes it's like, she would just say, Oh, I'm stuck home. Right. And this would be kind of the report and then kind of try to help him and and kind of guide them to the solution. So I think this helps, right, because just, just to save everybody's time.

Leo Dion (Host): Yeah. And I think like daily stand-ups are a great way to encourage like that kind of communication. Cause he's forced to basically say what he's stuck on and also realize he's not the only one who's stuck on stuff and has quit pending questions.

Jacob Gorban (guest): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In this case we don't do that.

Like. Publicly. So they, they just each message me, but especially because what, okay. One is the developer one is a designer, right? So like they don't necessarily kind of interact as far as like their tasks. Don't. Don't meet. Usually unless the designer works specifically like software, then maybe it would be, it would change, but it's not the case.

Now. Now the designer works more with the marketing

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End SponsorshipWhat are some other big challenges that you've seen with like developing software and remote remote teams?

Jacob Gorban (guest): I guess the code review. Right. And I know today there are tools for that, that kind of should help with that, but I'm still didn't. Like, I didn't try any of those. So with the developer, it's usually either we just, Oh, you know, open, you know, I would open on my Xcode or he would paste a bit of code and I will kind of go from there and local again, like open the project and Xcode then see what's there and kind of guide him this way.

But you know, like remembering from my you know, day job days and Yeah. Lucky even the university, like having somebody like right by your shoulder, like where we actually like looking at the same screen at the same time, like when, like, you know, one person navigation of the other kinds of, you know, talks with checks, this kind of was helpful and I don't use any of those tools yet.

Leo Dion (Host): Yeah, I know, like couple's a big one. That's been in a lot of circles I've seen people have been raving about. There is some stuff with like get hub and get lab, for instance, where you can do like code reviews within a poll request. There's things like that.

That's good for like asynchronous, like, Oh, I want to review a code, but you still like, like you're saying kind of, you need to have like a call, like a phone call or something where you can like, say, Hey, this is exactly what I meant about like, How you need to change this specific architecture here and like go over that stuff.

And I kind of, I, yeah, I completely agree with you, especially with like a junior developer, they need like the handholding essentially to know like how to fix some of the issues in the

Jacob Gorban (guest): code. Yeah. Yes. And the simplest would be just screen sharing. So we send them let's go like a Google meet or something and share this screen.

And this kind of a simple, you know, like two people's share, looking at the same school,

Leo Dion (Host): speaking of, Git and version control, what are some issues you see crop up with remote teams when it comes to that? Anything in particular?

Jacob Gorban (guest): I'm not very like detailed about how to work with get Well, we do use get, and, and we do use branches and, you know, we merged them and and all that, but again, we're not a large team.

Yeah. I mean, it still helps. And I'm trying to do like the, you know, the kind of like the version, not the version, like feature branches. It's I know it's always a struggle for me as well. Like how I tell me to do the commits. Right. I would usually not spend the time to like rebase and commit, but I will try to make.

The best I can during the commits. Right. So I can, okay, this is a fixed thing. I fixed that. Or I added this feature. I'm trying something. Okay. I will try to commit that. But with larger features, something's complicated, right? If you need to like, develop a new feature that goes like, along with the UI and the, I know like the kind of like the backend and sometimes it's just all has to grow together.

So I will just have like a work in progress commit, right. Maybe like end of the day. And not necessarily break this up because sometimes it's really hard to break up like a wide, like why it's fraught of development or why kind of you go across the whole, like cross-section of the app, let's say right?

Leo Dion (Host): Yeah. We'll be talking more about actually in the next episode, I have Ben Chatelain coming on to talk about, Git, and Gitmoji is and all the different things people need to know about when it comes to git. So definitely you want to catch that next episode when it comes out probably next week.

Jacob Gorban (guest): I'm make sure to listen.

Leo Dion (Host): It's just such a deep, deep subject there's always like 500 ways of, of doing stuff even more than you just realize. So one of the issues specifically in the Apple space is dealing with like team management and developer teams and certificates and all that stuff.

How do you deal with that as a, like with your indie team, essentially

Jacob Gorban (guest): within the limits of what they ordered, they allow, right? Like the With the teams and development, it's pretty, I guess, straightforward, right? You are the developer, you add, you allow them access to specific apps. So the, the, the developer I have in Poland, so he works on like, Oh yeah, iOS app, we have called Socialite.

And so he has the basically I call him, I called the rise. To not to commit dab to the, for review and to the app store, both he and the, like the product, like marketing person. She also has access to that Susanna with the provisioning. Yeah. You know, it's, it's always a headache. Like I never quite understand provisioning like 100% how this works and we just solve as it goes like, luckily Xcode became better with managing that for non-development devices. So this is fine for the Mac apps. I do the releases

Leo Dion (Host): Are you in the app store?

Jacob Gorban (guest): Yes, but okay. Both apps store and direct for the Mac app? Of course.

Leo Dion (Host): What other challenges do you face developing like in the Apple space and still being remote team?

Jacob Gorban (guest): Well, for me, like, again, In the Apple space, that was always remote. So like, I don't know the other way, but I would, I would think that like the larger the team gets and maybe like the, if you have like a QA, then, you know, like a remote team will have to have like their own devices. Right. Everybody's so like you cannot share maybe, you know, those devices and stuff like that.

So that might be a, you know, a bit of a problem for like some teams that they have like to spend more on maybe on Monday. On the equipment for remote team, I thought them that I don't think there's anything like special about Apple development versus like other types of developments. Right. Because it's just because like for Apple, we usually develop for the devices.

And so everybody has to have the devices or, or you have to, Oh, you have to ask. Right. So maybe if I have the you know, I have this kind of iPhone and the other person has like these kinds of I-phones and okay. Everybody has to you know test a little bit. Right. And this is like the other thing again, because there is no pool of devices in one place.

Leo Dion (Host): And then the other thing, do you use any sort of continuous integration?

Jacob Gorban (guest): No, no, no, we don't. We like just this such a small team and I used to have it at one point I used to have like an xcode server at like Mac mini colo. They changed name names, and they was using that for 'em. Oh, for one of the Mac apps when I was working with a different remote development team.

And so I had this set up and then when, you know, this app has a test for the, like the data model and selected around the tests, you know, went into, so it wasn't the way helpful, but when they start working with a team and it was pretty kind of stable and just managing and paying for that, then they eventually, after maybe a couple of years siding. I disabled that account. I thought of maybe having something like that at home. Like but I don't know, like I'm still not at that scale where I see that as a, you know, as a problem that they need to.

Leo Dion (Host): Right. So Jacob, before we close out, One of the biggest challenges. I think folks face, especially with asynchronous communication and such is, you know, we kind of touched on it with our junior developer, but how can you make sure that team members are spending less time like waiting for something that they're stuck on. And that work is constantly queued up. So that way, if there's something they're waiting on, they can always work on something else. What, what are some ways that you've found to like really help your team stay active?

Jacob Gorban (guest): I can relate to the question because I was once, like on a different remote contract where I wasn't the situation where I would sometimes get stuck in, like I would finish my task and would not get the next task.

And this was also acorss ocean, like my client was across the ocean, so I would have to wait till maybe the next evening for me. Yeah to get them that next task. And of course it wasn't very, yeah. You know, very helpful. Right. Because I, I couldn't build. And so yeah, in my case, like with my team what I'm trying to do is yes, I'm trying to make sure we have the tasks.

So one thing is, well, we have these weekly meetings and like, we go through them and I would usually try to make sure I can, we have several things going on at the same time. Like if there's like smaller things. And so often. We will have like more tasks may be queued, kind of we can fit in the week. Right.

But just, just in case something goes quicker. You know, people can, can go and if somebody is stuck on something, like one thing I get more. So maybe in like in marketing and design again, we have like a multitude of tasks and so like they can jump maybe to something else right now, like while they're waiting, maybe for, you know, for answer, I think designers that does that quite a lot.

He has not necessarily, he's waiting for an answer, but he is just like a variety of tasks and he would split his time, I guess, based on his like preferences or mood or anything. Right. But at any case, like there's always enough task. With the developer, I think like one thing is, well, first of all, you can give like larger tasks, right?

So like, just that they're not kind of finished like in the middle of the week and waiting for the next weekly. The other thing is. Is, what's kind of like, we talked about the word introduced, like the daily, right? Like, like the daily stand up for my job. Right. And this way, if they get stuck, then okay.

Then to get stuck for a long time. And what helps with that also is for a development project, especially like, right. There's like they plan the projects, and, and like ahead of time and breaks into smaller tasks. Right? So like, again, if you take, maybe, I dunno, like either it's waterfall or agile, like whatever methodology you're using, but.

Just just having like the tasks and maybe I signed them ahead of time, even. Right. And so like the developer finishes one. Okay. He knows this was the next one. What can I help with that is also have some kind of, you know, like a project management tool or or maybe some other things like tools. So like we use aSana mostly for both the design and the development.

Okay. Sundays, maybe not like the first choice for development teams and, you know, people use the as are like JIRA, maybe like you hadn't the in the most like heavy case. And yeah, but you know, designers, don't like JIRA and kind of, it's not for, for that marketing and the sun is kind of, it's like a good middle ground.

You can make us work for it. Like software tickets again, it's not as good, but you can make integrations or like find integration that integrate with you know, like backend tools if you need like Git or GitHub or anything. But we use it more like lightweight, but it has tools now that work well, like the timeline, and it's easy enough to use that.

Like everybody. Like, it was like different contractors. I worked with like, everybody find this up, comfortable using a Asana. And so this is kind of the heart of the business. And so like the all long-term task and like the planning and the software, like issues or they like the sprints, we all manage that.

Leo Dion (Host): Okay, cool. Thank you so much, Jacob, for coming on the show really appreciate it.

Jacob Gorban (guest): No, thank you for inviting me.

Leo Dion (Host): Where can people find you online?

Jacob Gorban (guest): Well my personal account, like I'm mostly most active on Twitter and Twitter was like a godsend in the early days of indie development on the right, in the cocoa space.

And like wherever I go to conferences, people you know, exchange Twitter handles. So mine is just the Jacob Gorbin's are just like the full, full name. I also, I right. Like, you know, through micro the blog. So like my personal home page, also like a gorban.org. Like my last name, G O R B a n.org.

Okay. And the company is Apparent Software, but the domain is a apparentsoft.com.

If people have any questions can reach us on Twitter. I am at Leo G Dion and my company is BrightDigit. Thank you for joining us. And we look forward to talking again. Bye-bye.

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Creators & Guests

Host

Leo Dion

Swift developer for Apple devices and more; Founder of BrightDigit; husband and father of 6 adorable kids

Guest

Jacob Gorban

💻- Founded @apparentsoft (Mac/iOS). 🎸- songwriter and guitarist: Rock with a gentle touch. Metal with soul.#mastodon at https://t.co/2HblDkd1uP

What is Empower Apps?

An exploration of Apple business news and technology. We talk about how businesses can use new technology to empower their business and employees, from Leo Dion, founder of BrightDigit.

Empower Apps

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