Coding as a Founder
19 Sep 2017
I started my career as a software developer in 2002 after graduating in B.S. Mathematical Sciences/ Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I love building software. You could think of something, code it and change people’s lives. For me, this is a very powerful thought.
Over the last decade I haven’t done much programming. A little bit here and there to fix success/error messages, language and some UI stuff. I often get that itch to contribute one small feature or an improvement every month. I have often compared programming to meditation. Put on your headphones, get in the zone and complete focus for a few hours. You come out really refreshed. I feel the same with golf.
I took myself up on this offer of a monthly sprint and started plugging away a few weeks back on introducing Themes within Brightpod. I always wanted Themes and so this was more of a selfish reason to code away and get it done. I was sure that customers would love this too. What is there not to like with personalizing your account. 🤓
I normally would code in the afternoon or post-dinner. I would love to do it first thing in the morning but being a founder (wearing multiple hats) I prefer to jump into email and customer emails first. Get everything out of the way, delegate stuff and then you have a clear mind to focus on building logic.
MY CODING TOOLS ON THE MACBOOK 12 #
Sublime Text
Mamp Pro
Sequal Pro
SourceTree
MY PLAN IN A NUTSHELL #
I first plan out the feature in Evernote. Make sure I have everything outlined. Then I start coding the UI and make it work with dummy data from the database. Once my logic works, I start to code the backend and get everything working on my localhost. I often share screenshots using Droplr on our Slack channel.
What I really am particular about is code formatting and documentation. Every developer needs to take this seriously. Write code that everyone can understand. The logic should be concise and the code well optimized. In software, you can write code to get from A to B but what counts is how quick (what I call optimized code) one can get from A to B without unnecessary overhead. Code is poetry. So very true.
I pushed my code for a review yesterday and today we launched 10 beautiful themes 😀. I handpicked all the color combinations myself from this site I found — https://coolors.co
1 to 6 themes in Brightpod
7 to 10 themes in Brightpod
As a founder, there is nothing more exciting than making a major improvement to your product that you have seen grow up.
If you are a founder, do you work on improving your product? If so, please let me know in the comments below 👇🏼