On June 17th, 2025 I happened to — for whatever reason — scroll to the bottom of Cascable Studio’s version history page. Ten years!
My wife and I shared a toast that evening, I made a snarky comment about it on Mastodon, and life carried on as normal.
It’s hard not to reflect on it, though. Ten years is a long time to be doing any one thing — it’s by far the longest “job” I’ve had, and the only other things in my life that outlive it — other than my life itself and relationships with family members — are a few friendships, my marriage, and my house.
I do consider myself a “successful” indie developer, although I’m pretty anonymous in the space and am not raking in megabucks. Running a small business that sustains a small number of employees just isn’t very exciting, I suppose, and it’s not like I spend a lot of time talking about it as part of my “personal brand” or whatever.
That’s not to say there isn’t an interesting story behind it all, though — it’s been an incredibly difficult journey at times, some of the low points of which I’ve shared here in the past. It’s not even plain sailing now, ten years in — budgets can be tight, sales are still a concern, and the App Store’s gonna App Store.
I will, however — just this once — allow myself to enjoy the successes and high points of the past decade.
- Leaving a stable job to go it alone is somewhere between brave and stupid. It takes guts, though!
Leaving Spotify in 2015 with a box of crap from my desk.
-
Getting a big-name partnership with SanDisk back in 2019 was really cool.
-
Having a deep partnership with a camera manufacturer was a huge high point.
-
While the burnout I suffered in 2019 through into 2020 was horrible, battling through it and redefining what it is I am took a lot of work and self-reflection.
-
Being able to pivot the business with a new app in a matter of weeks when the pandemic caused the bottom to fall out of the photography industry was pretty cool.
-
Having to confidence to put my salary on autopay felt like a huge milestone — and the fact that took several years is a testament to how hard being an indie developer can be.
-
Building my small business to the point where it could hire its first honest-to-goodness employee was an astronomical step.
-
Building it to the point where we’re able to establish some sort of relationship with most camera manufacturers is pretty gratifying.
-
Having my wife join me full-time as an owner and employee of the company was monumental.
That last one is the biggest by far. I share a decent amount on here and on Mastodon, but I usually stop at talking about myself.
My wife getting to experience the “when you run a business, you can never truly leave work behind” adage firsthand, working in the New York Public Library (on her birthday!) shortly after joining the company.
My wife (then girlfriend) had a front row seat to the implosion of my first indie business back in the UK. She experienced the angry letters, the debt collectors, and the bailiffs right alongside me. She was — quite understandably — scared of any sort of financial risk for years after that, even being nervous of me getting a phone contract in the aftermath of the collapse.
When I’d rebuilt from all that and wanted to “go indie” again, she supported me as long as we had a set of sensible “outs” along the way. The kind of stuff that should been in place the first time around, really — for example, we agreed that if the company wasn’t working out after six months of starting it, I’d pack it in and go back to a regular job. When we passed that milestone, another one was set.
Over the past ten years, we’ve worked together to keep financial risk as low as we can. She kept a “normal” job (that she enjoyed!) and we’ve been careful to live within our means. Debt is kept low (and never “upside-down”) compared to our income, even on “stable” assets like our house. Always in a state where if it ever came to it, we could pull some levers and survive on a significantly lower income. Mortgage? Way smaller than the maximum the bank offered, and overpaying and able to reduce the monthly payments. Stupid car? Always “right side up” so it could be sold and the loan settled at a moment’s notice.
Let me tell you, folks: there were a couple of moments where the levers were nearly pulled. Like, “conversations with the bank have fallen through” close. But, with hard work and trust, we’ve pulled though.
From pretty much the day the company was founded I’ve been making comments about her joining — her skills in Product and Business Development are a perfect fit — only to be brushed away for a thousand sensible reasons, principal of which being the “eggs in one basket” factor. Last year, though, I made an offhand comment as various factors coalesced: “I know the answer is no, but if you did want to join the company, now would be a really great time.”
This time, it stuck. It took many months of conversation, including lots of difficult ones. What happens if we split up? What happens if one of us dies? What happens if both of us die?
But, in March 2025 my wife quit her job, I gave her half of the shares of the company — we succeed together or fail together, after all — and Cascable AB is now owned and run by the two of us.
And that is my proudest achievement. My wife’s introduction to the “indie” lifestyle was fighting off debt collectors and struggling to keep the roof over our heads during the dwindling months of my previous business, and building this one to something she’s excited to be a part of — she has no interest in being a “token employee” while her husband does all the work — and be willing to go all in on is an amazing achievement.
I’m incredibly proud of her for taking the leap, but I’m also incredibly proud of myself for building something for her to leap to.
Here’s to another ten years!