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.
How to Go Over Budget
On working within an estimate.
Assembling a good project estimate can be hard. Unless you’ve shipped something similar before, you’ll probably need to consult experts, investigate risks, do product definition work, and gauge a thoughtful “iteration and surprises” buffer that considers the chance of external surprises, scope grenades, and shark attacks. There’s a reason many...
Setting Two Spies Free →
An update on a beloved side project: In 2019, we launched Two Spies as a little side project with cosmetic-only monetization. It exceeded our wildest dreams, with 800,000 folks trying the game, and rating it more than 4.7 stars on average. Still kind of hard to believe this little game...
Giving a Shit as a Service
A mental model for service businesses.
A few years back, my team decided to get a custom meeting room table. In our search for something great, we were referred to a small studio that does great work: East Vancouver’s Union Wood Co. The team there met with us, showed us various samples, and asked thoughtful questions...
Someone Wants to Learn From You
How writing habits pay odd dividends.
It’s common for people to feel hesitant about writing. Before somebody even types a word, I often hear objections like “I don’t have anything important to say” or “I couldn’t really add anything, I’m not enough of an expert.” If that’s the kind of thing you might say, I have...
How to Buy a Family EV
Doing battle with the global supply chain.
When our second kid was born a couple years back, I started working on getting us a bigger car. This proved… challenging. The requirements My quest had two key requirements that I thought were simple, but weren’t: Big enough to haul around two young kids, plus stuff. Nothing huge; just...
Coda vs. Notion, and Emoji Pickers
On tools for building knowledge together.
At Steamclock, we like to share docs. Guides, notes, plans – writing helps get think and working more asynchronously. Google Docs is okay for this purpose, but by early 2021, we knew we’d outgrown it. We’d seen glimpses of what more modern knowledge base and note-taking apps could do, and...
How Two Spies Closes Cities
A little story about iterative experimentation.
Recently my team has been putting together some case studies. You know, telling the story of things we’ve built in a more timeless way than a 6-year-old blog post exclaiming “this is launching today, check it out!” with a link that has since become a 404. When it came time...
What Doesn't Need to Be Done
Finishing things requires simplification.
Project management is, roughly, the art of ensuring a team gets what needs to be done, done. Given that, a lot of the focus ends up being on those needs. Checklists, breakdowns, schedules, updates – all focused on the things that need to be done. While that’s all very important,...
Beyond Optimism
On a mindset for doing hard things.
We’re often called on to consider future events. While you may endeavour to be a realist – evaluating what may come based on the facts and odds – the future is inherently uncertain. Whether we like it or not, gut judgement drives a lot of how we anticipate and prepare...
The Burgeoning Need for Focus
How increasing resources can decrease effectiveness.
One of the core building blocks of effectiveness is focus. Much of leadership training, business strategy, executive coaching, and personal development comes down to focus: how do we choose what to focus on, and how do we stay focused on it? One of the reasons startups and small indie teams...
Fresh Air Life
On getting out in the rain.
Many of us live in a place that has weather. While weather has certain benefits, it presents us with an annual challenge. Each year, at a certain time, the weather gets worse. Warmth gives way to rain. Long days give way to short. The dark closes in. When this happens,...
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...