Hi, I'm Allen Pike. I run Steamclock, where we design and develop nice apps in beautiful Vancouver. At least monthly, I write an article and publish it here.
Fight for Outside Perspective
The case of too many team meetings.
To build a product, you need to talk to people. You need to talk to potential customers, and to potential employees. People whose expertise you could use, and people who could use yours. Any leader that isn’t getting outside perspective is going to eventually get stuck. Unfortunately, with our own...
The Persistent Gravity of Cross Platform
Coordinating a large product org is hard.
Agilebits recently caused a stir with their announcement that they’ve rewritten 1Password 8 as a cross-platform Electron app, replacing their well-loved native Mac app. The takes came hot and fast. Like many developers, I love and appreciate a well-crafted native UI, and I’ve been somewhat skeptical of the consistent trend...
How to Write Docs People Read
On the power of a guide.
I like to write. Well, I like to have written. And I especially like when people read what I’ve written, and find it useful. It brings me joy. Writing useful things also helps me do my job. When you’re growing a team, you only get so far on oral tradition,...
Amazing Atelic Activities
On doing things for the doing.
Early in one’s life, it’s easy to be driven by goals. Pass the test, get the grade. Get a job, buy a car. Get into university, finish university. Get married, have a kid. There are a lot of things to do! While the specific goals vary from person to person,...
The Teams You Worked on May Have Sucked
On who we compare ourselves to.
As we grow at Steamclock – we’re now at 14 and hiring our 15th – we’re getting more intentional about how we do things. I worry less about how to do the work, and more about how to build the team and our processes. Which is great. But it’s a...
Should You Build a Mobile App? →
I talk to a lot different companies about their mobile app plans. Sometimes they have a really compelling business case for an app. Sometimes getting a quality app their customers’ hands is the key to supercharging their business, and is something that will pay dividends for years. More often, it...
Books Are a Seed You Can Plant
Why every diet could use the occasional book.
For most of my life, I rarely read books. I’m a pretty high-energy person, but a rather slow reader. Ever since I grew into an Extremely Online teenager, books have felt a bit… sluggish. Less informative, per hour invested, than the alternatives. Low density. I’ve always loved the idea of...
Remote Hiring at Steamclock →
I’ve spent the last year trying to decide if Steamclock should go all-remote, or if we’re better off going back to all-in-office. Both options have substantial upsides! And both avoid the dreaded “hybrid” meetings with half the team in a conference room and half on Zoom. I feel a bit...
An Iterative Workflow for Attention
My current OmniFocus setup, and why it works.
I am not instinctually a planner. In school, I didn’t keep a todo list, or even a calendar. I would make the occasional list, but for the most part I was a “we’ll do it live” sort of person. And sometimes that served me well! And other times it didn’t....
Do Great Work, Then Tell People About It
On marketing, and when it matters.
“We are looking for a development team for our app idea. We have our brand and logo finalized – with a worldwide go-to-market plan – and just need to finish things off by building the app.” I’ve spent a lot of time building new products with different people. I’ve picked...
App Tracking and Analytics →
Today I posted a recap of iOS’ new 3rd Party Tracking rules and their impact on analytics over on the Steamclock blog: Apple did not – and from a legal perspective likely can’t – explicitly ban the Google Analytics, Flurry, Facebook, and Firebase SDKs. Their wording leaves some wiggle room....
Streaming Stories and Troubling Tales
Apple Music proves an imperfect source of kids' stories.
Conventional wisdom says that spending hours in front of a screen is not great for young kids. Most guidelines encourage parents not to give kids under age 2 “screen time” at all, and not to give kids ages 3 to 5 more than one hour a day. Now, in the...