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Some things are so foreseeable that I am having problems to understand why anyone would expect things to turn out the unexpected way. Just a few days ago I met a developer I hadn’t seen in a while. And that was one of these moments that left me puzzled.

As we hadn’t spoken for quite a while, I asked him what he had been up to recently. With a fair amount of pride, he told me that he had been learning native app development in recent months. Now he had reached a stage of professionalism that allowed him to release his first app into the app stores of the globe.

He accepted my congratulations but then went on far less proud than before. His app would not live up to his expectations, he told me. Downloads would be homeopathic, sales even worse. Practically no-one would decide to make the in-app purchases he had figured out would make him a wealthy man.

At this point, I asked him what kind of app it was that he had created. Immediately his pride was back, and he told me enthusiastically that his app was a todo approach and that it was easily comparable to the other great apps already on the market, namely Wunderlist, Todoist and others. He would even charge the same price.

Surprisingly all this would not help. I was too surprised to say anything more than “Are you serious?”.

P.S.: This recent post describes another aspect of the problem.

By the way, we have numerous cartoons for you here.