Chapter 01
The crowded room
Important details kept getting lost between the people working on a real-estate deal. I wanted to give them one place to find what had happened and what needed doing.
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Illustrated personal edition
Little App, Big Store
I spent nearly three years building the app. Then I discovered what finishing really meant.
I spent nearly three years and close to half a million dollars building the original Circle app. Then I faced a question I hadn’t prepared for: how would the people who needed it ever find it?
About this story: This is my personal account. The time and development costs come from my recollection of building the original app.
Before you start
What brought me here
- The original Circle app was designed to preserve the shared memory of a real-estate transaction across people, roles, tasks, messages, documents, notes, and acknowledgments.
- According to the founder's account, the original Circle app took nearly three years to build.
- According to the founder's account, development costs approached five hundred thousand dollars.
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Chapter 02
One deal, one circle
I began with the deal itself: the people involved, their responsibilities and the information they needed to share. The idea was straightforward. Building it was another matter.
Read this chapterChapter 03
Three years to get it right
Nearly three years passed. By my account, the cost approached half a million dollars. I kept working toward an app that people could depend on.
Read this chapterChapter 04
The app-store machine
I thought a working app meant I was nearly there. Then came the listing, the screenshots, the explanations and the challenge of being found.
Read this chapterChapter 05
The second industry
An entire business had grown around helping people sell apps. Each new offer seemed to promise an answer to the problem I was facing.
Read this chapterChapter 06
The path gets crowded
The work kept growing. So did the costs. I began to wonder whether I would ever get the app into the hands of the people I had built it for.
Read this chapterChapter 07
The mall and its rules
I understood why a store needed rules. I also began to see how much those rules could shape a small developer’s choices.
Read this chapterChapter 08
Walk through the front door
I started asking what it would take for someone to come to our own page, understand the app and get it onto their device.
Read this chapterChapter 09
The question underneath
I found a reason to keep building: the person who might open an app and feel helped. That is the direction Circle takes today.
Read this chapterInside the story
The questions I had to work through.
- Why was the original Circle real-estate app created?
- What did the original Circle app take to build?
- What does the book mean by the second industry?
- Why can an app-store listing become its own business?
- Why did Circle choose a direct customer path?
- What does Circle mean by bringing the product and person back to the center?