December 6, 2022 • 60 mins
This is Alexander, he and Drew created the note taking app Agenda. A Mac and iOS focussed App.Learn more about Alexander, how he got to creating Agenda and what motivates him day to day.
To learn more about Alexander and his product:
- Visit Agenda.com (referral link, it extends my Agenda update window)
- Learn more about Papers
- On Twitter
Stream makes it easy for you to seamlessly integrate real-time experiences into your application. Check out their Swift tutorial to learn how you can get started adding video or in-app messaging to your apps!
Lead Software Developer
Learn best practices for being a great lead software developer.
Rate me on Apple Podcasts.
Send feedback on SpeakPipe
Or contact me on Mastodon: https://hachyderm.io/@appforce1
Support my podcast with a monthly subscription, it really helps.
My book: Being a Lead Software Developer
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jeroen Leenarts (00:01):
Hi, welcome to another special edition of my
podcast. I'm sitting here withAlexandre Flexport. That's a
Dutch name, you might have beenable to tell that by the way
that I could pronounce itbecause try it. And you might
have a hard time because thereare some typical Dutch vowels in
there. Alexandre has beenworking on agenda.com, which is
(00:21):
a notetaking app that has atwist in the sense that it
attaches your notes to yourcalendar. So probably going to
dive into that he's been workingon that with through McCormack,
and several designers on theneeds of a needs basis. So
that's Marcelo and Joe, butmostly it's you, Andrew working
(00:42):
on this product. But just to getstarted, Alexandre, how long has
agenda been available?
Alexander Griekspoor (00:51):
Hi, yeah.
Since 2018. Yeah, that's amazingof Time flies.
Jeroen Leenarts (00:59):
But that's probably not the first time that
you wrote some code for thisproduct. Right?
Alexander Griekspoor (01:03):
For agenda. Yeah, well, agenda
started two years earlier, wehad a bit of a bumpy start. You
know, it's a long story aboutthat. Maybe we get into that.
But before that I was alreadymaking apps for Mac. Yeah, for
science, basically.
Jeroen Leenarts (01:19):
So immediately, you dive into some of the
history because I know, bychance, maybe that you've been
doing something with softwaredevelopment since at least 2001.
At least, then you graduatedfrom your education, which was
not it related. But you've beentinkering with computers a lot
longer. I believe you. Justbefore we started recording, you
(01:41):
said, since you were 15. Sothat's, that's a couple of
decades already that you've beendoing something with computers?
Alexander Griekspoor (01:48):
Yeah, you make me feel old? Well, we
Jeroen Leenarts (01:51):
only have a difference of like, two years, I
think. So let's let's just keepit at that. Right? Well aged. So
But why did you get started withcomputers in the first place
when you were a kid, because asa 15 year old, there's a whole
bunch of things that you can doa lot of stupid things you can
do, but then bought somethingwith computers, as has been a
(02:12):
very useful thing to do.
Alexander Griekspoor (02:14):
Yeah, well, I guess with this answer,
I'm gonna reveal the, you know,people can do the math, but, you
know, that's 30 years ago. Sothings are completely different.
I mean, I have three smallchildren. They basically the
moment they, you know, opentheir eyes, people are babies
nowadays, you know, they get aniPad. And for us, it was very
(02:35):
different. I didn't have TVuntil seven, you know, my dad
brought home a Mac a classic Macwhen I was 14. And that's when
it started. And so So, you know,mobile phone, not before 23. So
it's a completely differenttime. And, yeah, so my dad
(02:55):
brought back that that Mac fromfrom work, he wasn't too much
into it. And he asked me to helpbasically, and I and that's how
I got hooked to the Mac rightfrom the start. Many of my
friends have, you know,Commodore 460 fours and these
kinds of things, but I just fromthe get go, I was a Mac person,
which also meant no programmingwindows, you know, yet with
(03:18):
Windows and clicking a mouse andeverything. So even the
programming that wasn't reallymy thing. Status hobby, but that
got me a side job where I gotmore and more into it. And
ultimately, I discovered themultimedia side of the Mac. So
making videos and making imagesPhotoshop 1.0. And, you know,
(03:42):
that's, that's where I got in, Ifell in love with it until 2001
where it became for people likeme accessible to program because
I was 10 came out and with that,you know, the project builder at
the time interface builder andthe tools from Apple and so
finally, I managed to jump thathurdle and and get into
(04:04):
programming
Jeroen Leenarts (04:05):
and getting into programming. You mentioned
you did that. Not at an earlyage so in 2001 So you probably
were like 21 years old. Yeah,yeah. So why did you
Alexander Griekspoor (04:19):
What is what something is something I
always wanted I mean, I had donemultimedia project. So a little
bit of scripting languagescripting tools came with that
and you know, to to make yourdynamic and interactive
slideshows and stuff I had donethis but for me the jump to
especially then you know,building things in I think C++
was a language that your PascalPascal that you that you had to
(04:43):
know to make Mac apps was justway too big and I couldn't make
that mental jump. And inaddition, the tools were just
inaccessible, you know, you hadto buy Metro works for, you
know, $1,000 or something. So itwas just a way to pick a risk
and to different And then whenApple, you know, brought
(05:03):
basically tools for free, theymade the tools for free. And in
a much more accessible languagethan it was still a big jump
because I started out with Applescript studio. World Fair all
things. But yeah,
Jeroen Leenarts (05:16):
what you mentioned there the much more
accessible language and tryingtell any regular swift developer
nowadays that Objective C is anaccessible language.
Alexander Griekspoor (05:25):
Yeah, that's That's true. I still like
it, actually. I mean, I still, Istill liked it a lot at the
time, because it was definitelya lot more readable than
anything. See, Oh, yeah. Readanswer. Yeah. So that was, yeah.
And in fact, there's a funnystory because I, I bought
basically the Getting Startedwith Coco book at the time, and
(05:48):
I forgot that's it. But now Ican actually, you know, that
this looks a lot moreaccessible. And then it started,
you know, talking about arraysin like base three. And it's
like, I don't get any of this,what's this thing with a star
and, and so I Okay, I have to goa little bit more back to a
little bit more basic. So Ibought a book on C itself, like
(06:09):
a C Bible. I read until chapterseven, where they again, started
talking about the pointerarithmetic and all the stuff
that you had to do with arraysand buffers, and was like, well,
maybe I can now understand thiswhole NSRA thing. And so I
stopped reading the Bible. Andwent back to the, to the cocoa
guide, and that was exactly thejump that we're at just enough
(06:30):
info to understand it and growfrom there. Yeah.
Jeroen Leenarts (06:35):
Yeah, we're really talking about Objective
C. Before all the nice syntacticsugar that we have nowadays
before aarC, automatic referencecounting, you had your own
memory management with, withwhat Alec and release? I think
it's been exactly. Release?
Yeah. And then sometimes youwant to drain your auto release
pool manually, because otherwiseyou would run out of memory. And
so yeah, algorithmic situations.
Alexander Griekspoor (07:00):
A lot of times, yeah, a lot of a
Jeroen Leenarts (07:02):
lot of hassle to just get some simple things
done, right. Yeah,comparatively, the iOS apps and
Mac apps back in that day, theywere a lot simpler compared to
what they are now, right?
Alexander Griekspoor (07:14):
Are you hearing my silence, I'm doubting
I don't personally see a lot ofdifference to be honest. And in
fact, you know, the nicest thingand you know, this is kind of
maybe a pet peeve of mine. Buteverything that we got back then
was built in a way, you know,the whole next, basically, the
(07:34):
call Coco set up, was built in away where it was really generic
Lego bricks. So you could buildeverything. That's how I felt I
felt empowered, I felt I feltsuper excited, I could build
everything, because you couldoverride things and subclass
things, if you wanted to do itdifferently. It was real fought
(07:54):
out in a way where it wasgeneric building blocks, which
is sometimes a bit harder to getstarted. But you can then build
everything and controleverything. And it felt
fantastic. You could buildeverything nowadays. It's true,
it's more complex, more devices,more things. But I feel that
Apple is building stuff in in away that you also see actually,
(08:16):
with Lego itself happen as well,where you get more and more of
those kinds of one use parts islike you buy a project or a box
of Lego. And more and more youhave, you know, 234 of those
kinds of parts that are specificfor that box. And, and it means
that you can't do much more thanthat, then then just use them in
(08:38):
that project. And and, and Ifeel that that's where things
have moved a lot. So you got alot more stuff you can do. But
in a way, you have way lesscontrol. So and it's not built
generically anymore. It's builtbasically, Apple needs this.
That's what they built for theirapps, then they let it mature
(08:59):
once, you know, the next WWDC,we get it as developers, but it
does exactly what Apple does.
And, you know, and if I didn'tsay, but I would like to do like
that. It's like, yeah, sorry,that API. We haven't got any.
It's not fought out in a waywhere it's built for generic
purpose reuse. And that's andthat's the thing that one of the
things that I find the big PDnowadays, actually,
Jeroen Leenarts (09:23):
could you say that a lot of complexity has
shifted from, like coming upwith your own things based on
more basic building blocks to anAPI that has a much more broader
API surface. So that's asthere's so much API you get to
deal with and every specificthing that you can do on a Mac
(09:44):
or on an iOS app, is somethingthat you have to call a specific
API for I'm thinking about allthe extensions that you can deal
with nowadays. Everything is anextension it seems Yeah.
Alexander Griekspoor (09:57):
Yeah. And it actually goes me Uh, yeah, I
mean, we talked a lot about my80s podcast, and I'm gonna sound
like a grumpy old man. It'shorrible. But, you know, even
with API design, I see thishappening and you know, like
swift to go back to Swift. Ilove the link, I absolutely love
the language, I feel it's goingway too broad. There are
(10:18):
services like combine are thethings that I simply haven't
touched, because my, I just feelmore and more than my mental
capacity is not able to craftthe whole thing. I just feels
heavy to me. I mean, every timeis something new is in, for
instance. You know, I think theone of the biggest mistakes made
with Swift, two, so to speak, isthe addition of function
(10:40):
builders. It's terrible. Becausetake Dow added as a shortcut
support, so app intense, andevery framework of Apple now
starts to build their owneffectively domain specific
language, which is terrible,because it means that if I, if I
go to implement app intense, Ihave to think, Okay, how did
(11:03):
this actually work? And whatkind of Function Builder things
do, did they invent? And whichmeans like, okay, they've
decided that you need to do anif then when else, whatever, all
kind of nothing follows thebasic swift rules, because it's
all functions. So you can dowhatever you want, and that they
(11:23):
build a complete domain specificlanguage for app intents, then
I'm going to implement, I don'tknow, I want a handle for
something else. And chances arethat that group within Apple
have built their own domainspecific language with function
builders, let alone swift UI,which is another one with with
Function Builder. And so itmeans that every framework gets
basically is becoming different.
And you have to if I now a monthlater go back to the app intense
(11:47):
stuff. How do I know that itactually works? Documentation is
terrible, all this stuff. And soit's, like you say, it expands
the surface at a tempo at thespeed at which just becomes too
much for me to even, you know,it feels draining. And maybe
that's because I'm gettingolder, but I don't feel I didn't
have that with you know, theold. It was very concise, the
(12:09):
old app kid, Coco. And it feltdifferent at a time. Yeah. But I
do
Jeroen Leenarts (12:17):
think you have a point there because it used to
be that apps on the Mac, andalso a little bit on the on the
iPhone, because the iPhone wasalready much more constrained
and a Mac platform thatinitially it was really about,
okay, what can people do on thisplatform in creative ways. So
what their product really does.
And nowadays, a lot of the workthat you have to do to build a
product is actually finding newand interesting ways to actually
(12:39):
attach Apple's API's together innew and novel ways. So that you
can actually pipe data from aninput to some sort of an output
facilitated by Apple.
Alexander Griekspoor (12:52):
Yeah, and the problem there is that
because those API's were notbuilt in a generic way, often,
you cannot do much more thanwhat Apple does. For instance, a
good example is I implementedpointer support in agenda. And
one of the things I wanted to dois like, based, you know, based
on, you know, whether when youwould swipe, you know, the
(13:14):
trackpad, you would open theleft or the right sidebar, and I
would do that on a Mac, I dothat based on where the mouse
your pointer is, because it'svery low. If your pointer is on
the right side of the screen,you very likely want to open the
thing on the right side, it's onthe left, vice versa. Now, the
first thing I do is like, Okay,give me the location of the
pointer on screen. API doesn'texist. You can't ask, you know,
(13:38):
where'sthe ring on screen school?
Sorry, I have to get that out.
You know, you can't ask youwhere's the finger on the
screen?
Jeroen Leenarts (13:46):
It's probably somewhere like three layers? No,
it's
Alexander Griekspoor (13:49):
not. It's not. It's just not there. No, at
least I want my happy, happy tobe contacted say, Now is there
but I look for, it's not there.
And it's, it's, it's like,what's even worse is that, like,
you know, it's not that thepointer was invented for the
iPad, I mean, we have had for 30years, and literally over a
month. And and so, you know, allthis stuff? Is there on a Mac.
(14:12):
And it's just like, of course,you can just ask for the mouse
location in its window. It's,you know, and it's like, and I
feel a lot is that of that ishappening. And I think it's a
shame because it's not foughtout from Okay, so what are we
what does a great, you know,pointer API looked like in a
generic sense. And then we builtthat now, it's basically Oh,
(14:34):
Apple needed this. And they justnever had this need to, you
know, at least publicly makeavailable the mouse location, so
or the pointed location onscreen. So the API is not there.
And we didn't need it. So wedidn't build it. And I can
understand that that's how theirsystem has worked. But it
doesn't, you know, it doesn'tmean it generates, you know,
(14:55):
good API for us as developers.
Any new security in a box,you're in a box that is
basically say, okay, Applethings, this is what you should
make. And this is what greatapps are. But you know the time
from the highly inventive appswhere you were like blown away
by third party apps, it's kindof it's gone. And maybe the only
(15:19):
way we get those is bytechnology, like the stuff that
Twitter nowadays is explodingabout, but not about apps that
do interesting stuff, becausethey're boxed in all kinds of
ways. API wise, sandbox wise,privacy wise, everything is Oh,
yeah, don't expect somethinglike that blows you away
anymore, like an old disco didwith smoke coming out of your
(15:42):
fingers, or that we did with Idid with putting a destroy in CD
into your Mac, I remember,
Jeroen Leenarts (15:48):
like, there was like a CD ROM, the only tool.
That was initially when theybrought it out, there were some
people who are running withsomewhat older hardware, that
their actual write operationswere failing because the CPU was
a bit busy rendering the smokecoming out the app on screen. So
(16:09):
it was a bit of a suboptimalexperience if you didn't have
enough performance in yoursystem. But speaking of, of the
Swift language, because youtouched upon that a little bit,
and you mentioned swift UI, andI know that a lot of the
features that have been addedlast few years have been to sort
of make sure that certain thingswould become possible in Swift
(16:31):
UI. And some other things likeasync await, and some other
asynchronous operation has beenadded to the Swift language. But
what I do notice is that thebasic principles that were
already available in the Swiftlanguage, they're being
repackaged and given new API's,and it's just adding more
(16:51):
complexity. And I'm, I'm, I'mstill a recovering Java
programmer for decades. So I'vebeen doing Java development from
2002 till 2012. And then Iswitched over to iOS development
full time. I see the Swiftlanguage making the same moves
and going into the samedirection as for instance, the
(17:13):
Apple language, it's justgetting, it's a nice concise
language, then it gets a bitbigger. And then it's basically
Well, at least my taste was likefeature complete somewhere
around the time of Swift five,or maybe swift six. And then it
just starts growing and growingand growing. And I don't know
about you, but I'm feeling like,do I need all this stuff? Yes,
yes, it is cool. And yes, it isinteresting to read about it.
(17:34):
But do I need it?
Alexander Griekspoor (17:35):
Yeah, no, I'm with you. And swift UI, you
know, it just doesn't click withme. And again, that's because I
like to have real control overwhat I get on screen. I want to
say this pixel needs to be onepixel up, and not, you know, and
so because it's off, and then Imean, I'm just, I can't I just
(17:57):
want that control. I understandthat Apple is steering towards,
okay, we'll get unfortunately,we'll get you know, 90% of the
apps doing, you know, greatstuff in terms of basics. Yeah.
Which was their problem that Itried to address, I think, is
that a lot of app developerswere just sloppy or not going
for it. But people like, youknow, maybe like us that want to
(18:18):
really go the extra mile to makea great app. That's actually the
ones that you now hinder.
Because you don't give them thecontrol that I need. And worse
for me, I've been following itfrom the side every time. Okay,
I'm not ready to join that ship.
But it works like you say,because it's grow so fast that
(18:39):
if I would join now and try itnow. And then often the answer
is yeah, oh, yeah. But that waskind of how you did things last
year, because now we have, youknow, last year it was geometry
reader, but now it's somethingthat where you can just ask it
to face fit the size you giveit. Right. Okay. And it's okay.
Yeah, what next year, you know,and so, combined, same, you
(19:00):
know, where did that go? Likethis? WWDC is gone. And so
Jeroen Leenarts (19:04):
it's, it has a very specific nice use case. But
it's not, like, advocatedanymore by Apple as being the
end all solution forasynchronous and timeout
operations and orchestratingbasically processes within your
app process. Wow, that's kind ofmatter. But anyway, you think
(19:24):
that's that that's the oldstyle, compared to the new
style, and then the old stylebeing objective C swift and UI
kit and app kit? Does that likefade out in comparison to Swift
UI on the Mac? And on iOSeventually, because I know right
(19:45):
now, there are certain thingsyou still cannot do in Swift UI.
You have to go back to app kitsor UI kit but what do you think
about like the future of like,the familiar API's to the both
of us?
Alexander Griekspoor (19:59):
Yeah, I think ultimately it will go that
route that I think it will bevery comparable to Objective C
and Swift, ultimately, in thesense that, you know, Objective
C, you can still do things andyou can build. Yeah, it will, it
will. Yeah, but I thinkObjective C and Swift is a good
comparison, because ultimatelyyou will start to get, you'll
(20:22):
actually see that already, youwill start to get frameworks
that are only available in SwiftUI. Just like some frameworks
are only available in Swift andnot in object in Objective C,
and that's the route I can seethings going for that it's been
too long to not be a garbagecollection. To mention, another
(20:46):
nice example of garbagecollection
Jeroen Leenarts (20:48):
fails in Objective C, right? Yeah, but
Alexander Griekspoor (20:50):
that's what I mean, I've heard I, you
know, I've made that mistake.
I've I've gone full in garbagecollection with, with papers at
the time. And, you know, becausethat was the thing. And and
indeed, you mentioned out therelease and all this stuff, and
you're like, oh, man, no, DeLacykind of this is this is it, you
know, garbage collection isgoing to do all of that stuff
for you automatically knowsbetter than you, etcetera. So we
(21:10):
went all in. And it was adisaster till the point that at
some point, you know, Iliterally ripped it out. And I
was surprised how much quickerthings were gaming, because we
had massive performance issues.
But, you know, for certainly, atleast one WWE, I'm sure,
probably to Apple was, you know,telling you this is basically
(21:33):
the way forward garbagecollection, is it. And so, and
then two years later, you know,it was dead. And so that's the
one thing I've learned Ben is tosay, I never jumped on any, you
know, like, well, in a waycombined, I think is for me,
that's a similar example. It wasreally brought at one WBC it's
kind of almost like this is thenext example, maybe not
(21:55):
intended, but just because we'vegot so much intention. And then
now it's gone. Nobody talksabout it, I think
Jeroen Leenarts (22:01):
combined, basically, was a victim of its
own. Well, not success, but itwas so well thought out as an
API. That was true, but it wastrying to do so many things. And
also, the complexity of the APIitself was so high that a lot of
people they just tried combined,and they just failed miserably.
(22:23):
And then just thought, well,table flip, I'm just going to do
it the old way. And that's whywhen Apple saw that happening,
they came up with something likeasync await to just simplify the
experience for the for the enduser, the software developer, I
think, yeah,
Alexander Griekspoor (22:38):
yeah.
Well, I mean, the funny thing isthat, you know, you mentioned
async await, and it's anotherwith actors and everything I can
see, I guess. Yeah, exactly. Andthat's what I mean, I mean, that
it just feels heavy to just addall that info to really dive
into that, if you're an appdeveloper, like myself, who's
always, you know, his main focusis to progress the app, and
(22:58):
already is an existing app notto forget, right. So I can't
jump always into the newestthings, you know, just adding on
top of, you know, doing thesupport and the development of
your app, and everything, justadd the mental load of having to
learn new API's, and certainlythe complex ones, because they
tend to be, you know, you know,complicated to keep to say it
(23:20):
nice. You know, it's just toomuch. And then even worse, I
recognize that there's a lotwith a lot of those
technologies, you, you know,it's make apples, and I
understand why it is, and it'snot wrong, but you want to make
it feel that you can step easyeasily in and it often makes you
(23:43):
feel that you don't have to knowso much of what's going on
beyond the you know, below thehood. And I think that's a you
know, ultimately you always needto know exactly what happens
because you can still createreentrant issues and you know,
all kinds of, you know, typicalconcurrency problems. So, and at
least with, you know, withGrant, you know, this it can
(24:07):
Grand Central Dispatch, yeah,that you kind of familiar with
those limitations andeverything. So, that also took
long, but at least that,
Jeroen Leenarts (24:19):
could it be just just like, thinking a bit
out there, because you have aproduct that you've been working
on for six years now. Yeah, thatpart of your viewpoint is also
influenced by the situation thatyou have to be careful with your
backwards compatibility. Andadoption of new API is not as
(24:41):
straightforward as likegreenfield development, because
you already have a ton of codethat just needs to be brought up
to spec again, in sight of newSDK versions coming out. Yeah,
absolutely. I
Alexander Griekspoor (24:53):
mean, it's different if you start a new
project is different if you'remean there's nothing nicer than
to be younger. If not no, andthen because that gives you the
energy to battle these thingsthat you will come across the
way Well, now, you know, you maybe more the guy that has become
the person or to the app, let'snot risk it, you know, you have
(25:13):
your risk evaluation verydifferently. And so, you know,
when I started programming, youwere like, you know, I just want
to make this happen in everyhurdle on the way you would you
would just overcome. Now, I'mmuch more like, okay, you know,
I see 10 hurdles on the waybecause of my experience, so I'm
not going to try it. And yeah,yeah, whether that's what I'm
(25:38):
saying that sometimes I'd loveto be the one, you know, back to
be in that state. It's just nothow it goes. It's just
Jeroen Leenarts (25:45):
one of the characteristics that separates a
junior developer from a moreexperienced media or senior
developer, you think,
Alexander Griekspoor (25:53):
yes, and in many ways, it makes a senior
developer, you know, morevaluable, more effective, etc,
etc. But the new stuff or theinnovation, and it may be the
kind of thing that unexpectedcomes from the junior people,
because they don't have to beg.
It's
Jeroen Leenarts (26:12):
like, the new guy on the team comes in, and he
just does something in like, Idon't know, 10% of the lines of
code that took me like 10 timesas much code. And I was like,
wow, yeah, yes. Right, actually,
Alexander Griekspoor (26:23):
yeah, maybe because he didn't start
off by thinking about all thethings. I mean, a good example
of it, I look at swift UI, and Ijust see bindings. And that's
another technology, I've beenbitten so much by cocoa
bindings, you know, it, youknow, you end up with, with all
this stuff, where you're like,Oh, my God, oh, let's just push
(26:43):
this to the next run loop,because then it will actually
work. And then things areactually ready, you know, and as
you've saved you a lot of thesekinds of parallels, and they're
like, no, never again,
Jeroen Leenarts (26:53):
I've been lucky in regards to binding, I think,
because I got started on iOSdevelopment, and they just
didn't have the concept ofbinding at all. So it was never
a thing within within the iOS oriPhone ecosystem. Yeah. But
before we really dive into,like, too much complaining about
Yeah. I do want to talk a littlebit about the product that you
(27:18):
work on. But before we do that,I just want to drop in a little
bit of a timeline, because 30years ago, you started tinkering
with a classic Mac. And thenyeah, 24 years ago, you started
software development in earnest.
So somewhere around 2001, youmentioned, yeah, but Well, what
did you do between the tinkeringand 2001, because you must have
done something, you did someform of education, you just did
(27:41):
something to like, sharpen yourcognitive abilities, and get
yourself to a point that youactually wants to start to
program, I guess,
Alexander Griekspoor (27:51):
yeah, I lived a parallel life,
basically, two parallel lives. Ihad on one hand, I had studies
studies becoming University forsome, you know, I won't go into
crazy reason, I went from a moretechnical thing that I always
liked to biology, then studiedbiology, and then you go into
kind of a flow in a kind ofstream that you, you know,
(28:14):
there's just automatic, youfollow University, then you have
to do rotation periods as partof those. So you do those, then
the guy where I did the rotationperiod offered me a position in
his lab to stay longer than heoffered me a PhD position, and
etc. And so I've I followed the,the career path of a scientist,
(28:35):
the biological scientist, and atthe same time, I had this, you
know, like I said, I earn somemoney on the side is in this in
the summer, you know, helpingout on in an office where they
had Max, you know, just doingExcel sheets, and etc. Then I
went to university, I couldn'tdo that in the summer anymore.
But so I had to shift tosomething that I could do in
(28:56):
evening hours. So I worked forthem on the marketing
department, by then my immediateskills required, okay. And then
speaking of the programming, soat that university, I run around
the time I started buildingwebsites, so I earn money by
building websites, then, youknow, then on the during a PhD,
I started making those Mac apps,those were basically targeted
(29:19):
for myself and scientists. So westarted sharing that and that
started living its own lifegrew, etc. So I had these two
parallel tracks. One was kind ofwonder what you would call it
Mac iOS development. And theother one was scientific career.
And, but they kind of wereoverlapping, but I realized at
some point that the passion wasat making those apps.
Jeroen Leenarts (29:43):
But when did you really make the switch from
primarily being a biologist tobeing a software developer
because the software developmentwas like, growing and becoming a
thing in the background, but atsome point, you must have
flipped the switch in your ownmind. Right.
Alexander Griekspoor (30:00):
Yeah, so during my PhD in cell biology, I
started making those apps forscientists, we put them on their
website called Macintosh, thatwas our kind of our acronym.
And, and that started reallytaking its own life, people
started using scientists startedusing those apps, and you can
really popular, they were allfree, by the way at a time. And
I, I noticed, okay, this isreally you got feedback, you got
(30:23):
a lot of users, you know, yougot it. But you really, it
really became the passion. Andthen, when I finished the PhD, I
realized I need to do somethingwhere that software bug kind of
contributes to my scientificcareer, because I couldn't
really see how I could live fromthose free apps. And so I chose
(30:43):
a bit of a slight redirection ofmy scientific career towards
bioinformatics. And I had a gapbecause I was waiting for a
grant to come through. Andthat's when, and that's when I
decided to build papers. Andthat was a project that was just
too big for hobby, but that Ialways wanted to make what's the
kind of iTunes for scientificresearch articles. And that's,
(31:06):
that's what I built. And thatbecame so popular. And because I
had, you know, used some timefrom the spare time, I also
decided to make that a paid forproduct, you know, and that
became so big that within oneyear, it basically was the
equivalent of my, you know, mypostdoc salary. And I figured,
well, it was also what I reallywanted to work on the moment
(31:28):
that would leave the lab. And soI decided, okay, if I, if that
is now already generating andliving next, on top of what I'm
doing for professionally, Ishould be able to live from that
full time. So that's when Istopped the science bit and went
full time indie developer, firstalone, and then a bunch of
people join me because, youknow, you meet people that are
(31:50):
like minded, and it kind oforganically grew until in 2012,
we were with six people in sixdifferent places in the world.
And a big scientific publishercame and they said, Well, we
really like to, you know,acquire your product, grow it
further within, you know, this,this publisher. And so that's
(32:12):
when I sold it, and then it grewto 25 people or something in
based in London, but I was stillworking from here in Portugal.
And I decided to, basically,after three years, okay, well,
what are we I basically seen theentire cycle from pure hobby, to
(32:33):
more serious hobby to more, youknow, independent developer,
small group distributed to largecorporates, 25 people. And I
said, Well, what I really lovedwas the period where I was just
doing it on my own. Justeverything, just also the
marketing, also the sportdesign, the building of the
product, everything. And so Ireturned to that, basically,
Jeroen Leenarts (32:56):
so. So we're talking about that 2016
timeframe, I guess that youstepped away from papers, which
was a successful acquiredproduct, which basically, many
indie developers just dream ofthat ever happening to one of
their products. You got apaycheck out of this
acquisition, I guess. So theygave you some runway to build
(33:18):
something new? Did you alreadyhave like an idea of what you
wanted to create? Because I cansee the similarities between
your prior experience as being aresearcher or a biologist, doing
a lot of things with notes andthat you wanted to organize in
your own way?
Alexander Griekspoor (33:32):
Yeah, actually, this is actually a
product that came from theperiod that I was running a
larger team in a more corporateenvironment. So you start having
more meetings, and you start tohave, you know, one on ones with
people, weekly meetings, etc.
And that's where I kind of haddeveloped a notetaking way, you
know, that was our faultrevolving around dates and
everything. And I also realizedthere wasn't really a good tool
(33:55):
for that. And at the same time,I saw people around me that were
not taking notes at all. So Iwas like, okay, you know, I see
something that at least I canbuild for myself, which has
always been housing, so it'sgone. For me, I always build
stuff today, too. Which, by theway, is also you know, even I
was by then also like, five or10 years out of science hands on
(34:16):
science. So also by then Istarted realizing I'm not
building papers for myselfanymore. And so I that's another
reason why I wanted to go toagenda because there was a
product that I still everydayuse for everything in that same
kind of way.
Jeroen Leenarts (34:34):
So do you use agenda yourself everyday?
Alexander Griekspoor (34:37):
Everyday?
Everything everything?
Jeroen Leenarts (34:39):
Do you for yourself use the production
version, or the latest bleedingedge that you have products?
Alexander Griekspoor (34:45):
Products in person? Yeah. And so I
switched to, you know, we havesaid that we have set the
project up for that reason, sothat our debug versions are, I
can run them side by side andthey run their own libraries.
And then basically the moment wecreate the first test flight
builds is when we switchourselves, Drew and I switch
(35:06):
ourselves to, for our own notesto that version. Yeah,
Jeroen Leenarts (35:10):
yeah. So at least you have the full product
lifecycle. It's yeah.
Alexander Griekspoor (35:16):
And we're going full in, you know, I'm
losing my notes if my testflightbuild is not,
Jeroen Leenarts (35:21):
that would be a bit sad. Yes. So so the
notetaking of agenda is, well,the novel thing is the direct
attachments with your agenda, Ithink. And also, for some
reason, you were able to landthis amazing domain name for
that. Is that also maybe inpart, part of the origin of the
(35:43):
product that you were able tosecurity agenda.com domain? And
then thought, Okay, well, now Ihave to build a product based on
this name or what?
Alexander Griekspoor (35:51):
No, no, no, it's actually it's a kind of
a funny story. Because the I wasthinking about naming its
agenda. It's because the idea isthat it's the cross between
calendar in a notetaking. App.
And in, in certainly in Dutch,we have we use the word agenda a
lot for for it's a sec,essentially a pocket agenda.
It's kind of a small, small kindof agenda that you have with
(36:13):
you, which has more like theweek is more focused on the day
slash week view. But a lot ofpeople use it also to keep notes
in. And so it's not like a wallcalendar, or desk calendar. It's
really in between. And that wasalso my thinking is like there
is something missing that is inbetween the Calendar app and the
Notes app, you know, and sothat's what's the idea. And at
(36:34):
the same time, I was thinking,okay, there was a lot of
calendar apps done again, we'reliving in. I think, right now
we're living in the hype ofcalendar apps, one every there's
every week, a new one. That'ssame hype cycle, we went through
with notes app 234 years ago. Sothere was there's a ton of note
(36:55):
taking apps, and there's verylittle in between. So you start
thinking is that because thereis a gap in the market that we
can fill? Or is it because theother two categories are so
overlapping that there is nooxygen in the room for that,
that kind of product? And I waslooking at the time, I was
thinking about naming it agendaand under name, we thought it
(37:17):
was minutes, you know, frommeeting minutes, but there was a
bit more focus. But agendasounded nice. And I started
looking and then I noticed thatagenda.com was up for sale, I
find it very odd. And and Ilooked at it, but it was it was
very expensive, first of all,but at the same time, again,
it's confirmed this thing likeOkay, is there then nothing in
the middle between? And in theend, he said, Okay, we go for
(37:40):
it. And I negotiated a bid withthe domain owners. And they it
was just a generic, it wasliterally just for sale. So it
was one of those genericcompanies. And it was a very
expensive domain. But at thesame time I fought out. Yeah,
let's go for it. I mean, I knewfrom from papers, that was also
a successful product, that if ifthe product is successful, it's
(38:02):
nice to have a domain like that.
Jeroen Leenarts (38:05):
So yeah, it does help with discovery. And
also, it's okay, yeah, agenda.
Yeah. agenda.com. It's veryYeah, share with people.
Alexander Griekspoor (38:13):
Yeah, it's very hard to find on the App
Store. That's, that's the flipside.
Jeroen Leenarts (38:17):
That's where the domain name comes in. So but
agenda is, what I really likeabout it is that my mom, she
used to have like this big. It'smore than a4 sized book. That
was her agenda. And it wasbasically she took her
appointments in there, whichalso did during the appointment,
she did her note taking in thebook itself. So and that's
(38:40):
always the the idea I get with,with your products. And
Alexander Griekspoor (38:43):
yeah, that's exactly, exactly it.
That's exactly it. Yeah.
Jeroen Leenarts (38:46):
But I do know that the book that my mom used
to carry was a bit unwieldy, andjust having it available in your
pocket on your phone, or on yourlaptop. That's like really
awesome, because you can justbring it with you. Yeah, but
creative agenda. It's a Mac app.
It's an iOS app. How difficultwas it to grow? These two
codebase because I recognizesome overlap. But some things
(39:10):
are very specific. And on top ofthat, I do see that a lot of the
user interface elements that youand mechanisms that you use in
agenda, both on the Mac and onthe on the iOS platform. There,
but they're not exactlystandard. I think they're like,
they're obvious. They'relogical, but it's not what you
get out of the box with withwith SDKs. If I'm right,
Alexander Griekspoor (39:35):
Yeah, correct. Yeah, I mean, Marcel
did an amazing design, veryclean and fun. If it is that. I
think we were one of the fewpeople that have very few things
to do for, you know, what doesit make? I was 11 or when they
introduced the big redesign.
Yeah. Because effectively, we,you know, our app looks like
that. So you know, it's like thewindows It is very wide. It's
(39:59):
very text based and is veryclean. So yeah, it's using a lot
of stamp for me easy. It's notlike we invented everything
from, you know, all the all thecontrols. Now it's just styling
them really. But like you say,like we discussed earlier, I
(40:20):
think with Swift UI would havemaybe a bit more work to do
could also be possible. But it'snot that it's not crazy amount
of custom controls. But there'sa fair amount of them. Yeah, in
their own looks. Yeah.
Jeroen Leenarts (40:37):
One thing that is really different about when
you launched agenda with Drew,was the way that people could
actually support the product,right? Because back in the day,
when agenda was launched, it wasa new thing that you did. And
it's basically an in apppurchase that gave you sort of
like a runway of updates. Andthen once that runway ran out,
(40:59):
you either renewed or you didn'tget the new feature anymore, you
still get the product updates,but new features that you
launch, they are not part ofyour experience anymore, then.
So what's the idea there becauseit was new, it was, I think, a
big gamble that you took there.
Alexander Griekspoor (41:17):
Yeah, I don't want to take all credits.
Because I mean, I think therewere a product like sketch and
others that were kind of goingin this direction of you will
kind of keep the products evenif you stop paying. But that's
the thing where there was thisbig drive that is still going
on, I think towardssubscriptions. And Drew and I
(41:38):
ourselves, we're not a big fanof it in the sense that if
everything becomes asubscription, it just doesn't
make sense. So and the othercomponent of that is that they
say subscription. But if youthink about it, it's actually
rental often. So you basicallyuntil you you get the features,
(41:59):
and then when you stop paying,you're simply lose them. So it
feels like more like rental tome, then social. So
subscription. And a realsubscription, to me feels like
the magazines that you would youwould pay at a magazine
subscription, you get thosecopies at home. And if you stop
paying, then yeah, you won't getnew magazines at home. But the
pile of magazines that you'reread is yours and will stay
(42:22):
yours, you know. And that modelis what we tried to replicate.
So it's it's really featurebased and date based. So each
feature, what we call a premiumfeature. It has a date stamp,
and basically depending on on,if you're paying if you're
paying, then it's included thatfeature and will stay for your
(42:45):
for as long as forever,basically, you will own that
feature. If you stop paying,then then basically you can keep
using whatever you have. But ifthere is a new premium feature,
it will be indicated in the UIthat it's premium. And that is
not part of what you have. Andso you can't use that feature.
But everything else is there.
And I mean, that's only ahandful features, almost
(43:08):
everything of the app is free,you will also still get all the
updates, because that's themajor difference with say the
models from sketch is that thereyou would be stuck on version
with us, you're always on thelatest version. So you always
have the latest version. And youknow, you get say in the next
update another 50 minor newfeatures and bug fixes and
(43:30):
everything that we ship, justnot maybe that one or two new
premium features, if you're ifyou've decided to stop paying.
And the whole idea is to sayevery time we have to deliver
because you you can just It'sfine that you pay once and then
you stop paying us if you don'tfeel you get the value for what
we deliver. And you can keep onusing what you have. And then
(43:53):
maybe, you know, you know, ayear from now we ship a feature
that you do think makes it allworth it paying for. And then
and then you step back in, andyou basically unlock those and
everything that was in betweenat that moment in time. So it's
very much, you know, it's muchmore, I think, what the
reactions have been very poor,very, very good. People think
(44:15):
it's an extremely fair modeltowards the user. And at the
same time, it does guarantee usas developers some kind of
recurrent income, whichultimately is needed if you want
to keep on going and keep theapp alive.
Jeroen Leenarts (44:31):
Do you see a lot of reactivation of user
accounts from like unpaid stateto a paid state in their
timeline? Or do you track thosemetrics? Yeah,
Alexander Griekspoor (44:43):
it's nice, because we can see in the App
Store Sales, for instance, areclear. I mean, often, you know,
we're lucky in that Applesometimes teaches us after it's
one of those updates. But thenice thing is that we see a
direct, big peak on the day thatwe release the app, which are
people then That must bereactivating or, you know,
buying premium features again.
And so we see that big peakpreceding the kind of attention
(45:06):
the big you usually get if, say,Apple features you. So we see
that very clearly. Yeah.
Jeroen Leenarts (45:14):
So basically, the reactivation that you're
seeing when you release is basedon your existing user base, and
exactly the feature status withApple is just added on top. And
that's growing your exposure,but new use exactly, exactly the
same people seeing the samestuff again,
Alexander Griekspoor (45:31):
that's really cool. Yeah. So we invite
now we've seen, it's often thatyou can say it really works. And
the model works. And we get alot of developers saying, oh,
yeah, but that doesn't work.
Because Oh, now you've got likea wheel, the code base, where
we'd 100 If deafs everywhere,because, and in fact, there's
another all the case, because itfeels very natural, because, you
know, it's just like, it's like,it's just a door right there
(45:55):
feature is a door, door to asheet or to a configuration or
to an action. And so it'sthere's very often natural entry
points to the house. So this isthe front door. So if the front
door, you can't open, you can'tget into what's behind that
house. But other than that, youdon't have to think about it. So
it's very natural, you learn howto pick, you know, where you put
(46:17):
those barriers, but then itdoesn't lead at all to a code
base. It's Oh, this guy can'tuse this, or this guy can't do
that. And it's very natural.
It's not very different from anyof them.
Jeroen Leenarts (46:30):
And just as an indication for the two of you,
Drew, and you, is it like arecurring income stream that is
on the level of yeah, we'regetting by or we're living
comfortably? Or it's like, oh,wow, what do I do with all this
money? I need new ideas tocreate something new.
Alexander Griekspoor (46:48):
Now, it's free, I think in the in the
middle for two people is iscomfortable income? Yeah. Of
course there is the you're stillan independent developer. So you
need to look further than two.
Okay, now I have a stableincome. So that's all but that's
for any self employed person? Iwould say. It's not like it's
comes with buckets loads in andwe don't know what to do, you
(47:11):
know, the fifth Ferrari doesn'tfit my garage? No, it's not, but
it's not, we don't have toscrape by. But the thing is, is
we can't scale this to say, oh,let's add 15 developers, then
then then it doesn't becomeprofitable anymore. Yeah,
Jeroen Leenarts (47:29):
yeah. But that's, that's, I think, right
on the sweet spot where yourwants to be right to be able to
keep on working on a producttightly integrated with your end
users, because you have a lot ofa lot of interaction with them.
And a lot of back and forth,that at least that's what I see
on the agenda forms. And also ontop of that, the product and the
(47:50):
company is now in a state that,well, you don't need to have
some sort of an outside investorjust giving you lots of cash to
grow the product, there's nopressure to grow it. It's just,
I think, the
Alexander Griekspoor (48:01):
only priority even even differently,
I would put it even differently.
I mean, in 2018, we won theApple design award, I kind of in
year one. And at that point, wehad the choice because now I in
hindsight having gone throughthe entire cycle I can I can
understand that I can see thatwe could have gone to a bunch of
feces and say we're the nextEvernote with did went away I
(48:21):
kind of predicted and gain a lotof money, you know, open an
office in Lisburn, with beanbagsand football tables, and you get
a whole bunch of people working.
But I'd come from that I'vethat's exactly what I didn't
want to do. I didn't want tobecome a manager. So we decided
on purposely not to go to theworld, it means also that you
(48:43):
can't just do a lot of thingsthat that those companies would
want you to do, like an androidversion or a web version, or or,
you know, I don't know, you haveto really be selective and say
no to a certain amount of thingsthat that people would want to
see.
Jeroen Leenarts (48:59):
But it also gets to the product, right?
Yeah,
Alexander Griekspoo (49:02):
definitely.
And, and keeps it in this phasewhere we can do everything. And
we can have those interactionswith the users. And I can have
this chat without anybody havingto consulted about why am I not
here this morning? And, youknow, everything right? So
that's a that's a deliberatechoice that you make. Yeah,
Jeroen Leenarts (49:23):
that's, that's, it's very good to hear that
it's, it's actually in a statethat you Andrew actually want it
to be, but doesn't give you alot of pressure that you have to
get the next premium feature,thought out and implemented in a
reasonable timeframe. Because Ican imagine people with a
(49:44):
subscription, they are reallyitching to get to new premium
feature or the next best thingthat you're going to add to the
product, right?
Alexander Griekspoor (49:52):
Well, not in my experience, I think we
have basically a list offeatures that we know people
would want then that we wantedfrom day one, we're now five,
six years further. And so we'rechunking through a bond to
through those I know the thingswe're working on is that people
want because we wanted ourselvesas well. Yeah, the pressure
(50:16):
comes not from the businessmodel, the pressure comes from
the interaction with the peoplethat ask you a, you know, I
asked them, you promised thistwo years ago, which I never
have learned to try to minimizepromising. But nevertheless, you
experienced it as that's a formof pressure. But it's again, I
(50:36):
think we both are in thesoftware business before. So we
learned how to deal with thatpressure. And, and it's the
same, it's pressure, but it isalso excitement that the stuff
I'm now working on, which isscheduled for January, that I
think will be the stuff thateverybody that is now a user
would love to have. Yeah. Sothat's that's excitement that
(50:57):
you get from the energy that youget from that, that knowledge.
Jeroen Leenarts (51:01):
And it's its agenda, the the only thing that
you're doing professionally?
Yeah,
Alexander Griekspoor (51:07):
yeah. It's funny, because I remember people
asking me when we launched theneed to have a DNA. So what are
you going to do next? You know,Friends, you don't understand if
this is any, if we can see ifit's sustainable. That was, of
course, the big question in yearone. If it's sustainable, then
(51:27):
this is a product I can work for10 years on, and that that's
maybe something more specific tome, you know, every person is
has this kind of, I needsomething new kind of level. But
for me, which fits this job verywell, I think is that I can I
can really motivate and findenergy out of working on this
project for, you know, anotherfive or 10 years easily. Without
(51:52):
the need, like, oh, I need to dosomething now with with Swift UI
or something.
Jeroen Leenarts (51:58):
Maybe someday, start carefully with an
extension or two.
Alexander Griekspoor (52:01):
Yeah, you know, one of the I'll be honest
with you. And again, maybethat's a bit of a set, etc.
Moment. I'm getting actuallymore and more to the point where
I kind of know that my nextproject is maybe not anymore Mac
app or an iOS app. And becausewhat I really miss again, you
(52:23):
know, the cycle is this feelingin 2001, where I would make
something in this objective Capp in Project builder, I think
it would be cool, I would make azip file would upload it. And I
would give you a ring and saydon't use it, use it. Use it,
look what I've done. And youdownload it, and you're like,
(52:45):
Oh, this is amazing. But itwould be cool. If it could do a
and it's like, okay, hold yourhorses, you know? And yeah, give
me a second build and run, zipfile, upload and try it now. And
that fit. Yeah. And that feelingthat was effectively the same as
building websites in 2001,right, where you would say, Hey,
do you see it? I've made themade a thread reload your
(53:07):
browser. And that was superexciting. Because yeah, and that
has completely be gone. It's nowall kinds of limits then have to
go to app store reviews. I'veseen reviews, there's no or
doesn't like it or misunderstoodit or whatever. And then this
and then that. And can we dothis maybe not the API's don't
allow it, or whatever. And Imiss Ole Miss that that creative
(53:32):
freedom that I'm too good. Andmyself getting to the point is
like, and sometimes I wonder ifApple is missing the point there
is like Yeah, but Swift, theSwift UI is the future and so
maybe it's by now is for me, thefuture is just my next project
would be a web based app, I'mOnyx insurer, with a very
lightweight wrapper to make itrun on a Mac on iOS, maybe. But
(53:57):
if I would start something new,I would go back to that feeling
of, of, of the web and and whichis really sad because I'm one of
the biggest Mac persons from
Jeroen Leenarts (54:10):
the age of ever just the ability to tinker with
things right?
Alexander Griekspoor (54:13):
Yeah, and the freedom the freedom to say
I'm going to build this and andI can do that I can push it and
it's instantly available toeverybody without you know big
discussions. For me it's neverabout the 30% Gods on the
revenue because that for meApple deserves that part of that
what they bring they bring a lotof people to the agenda and
(54:35):
everything but for me it's aboutthe being put in a sandbox that
is become so limited that youliterally can't think outside
the box because it doesn't allowyou right so that's that's why
I'm saying like, I like agenda,but there is still more and more
this this feeling in the back ofyour head sometimes like Okay,
(54:56):
what if Apple doesn't like thisanymore? Or what We have all
these exciting users in a superfair model. But if tomorrow
Apple says, yeah, maybe itdoesn't fit the App Store, or we
don't think it fits rule number18, whatever. Yeah, then what do
I do? You know, and so thatthat, you know, I would like to,
yeah, I find I find a pity thatit went in a direction to be
(55:19):
honest. All right. But I will becontinuing on agenda.
Jeroen Leenarts (55:24):
Okay, that's, that's good. That's a good.
That's I think, yeah,
Alexander Griekspoor (55:28):
let's not let's not, let's not end it
alone.
Jeroen Leenarts (55:32):
Speaking about agenda, where should people go
to learn more about agenda?
Yeah. agenda.com
Alexander Griekspoor (55:38):
is the is the website. And we have a
really nice community that's inthe app, but also available for
anybody using a web browser. Itsagenda dot community. And that's
where all the users are, youknow, we have articles on
notetaking, and all kinds ofother related topics. And so and
that's also where you can findout more
Jeroen Leenarts (55:58):
now, what's the best way for people to try
agenda for the first time?
Alexander Griekspoor (56:08):
That's a good question, actually. Because
we see a lot of people actuallyseeing that there's only click
second time. It's filled, Ihaven't got my finger behind why
that is, I have
Jeroen Leenarts (56:21):
one tip for people who start and who have
installed and start agenda forthe first time, make sure that
you're in a quiet area, that youhave to follow him off your Mac
turned up just a little bit. Andluckily, I can sit back and just
see what happens.
Alexander Griekspoor (56:36):
Especially in your library. Now. Yeah,
there is, it comes with somevery nice and funny sample
documents, that gives youalready a good idea, I think you
do have to give it a bit of achance to play around. And but
yeah, or check the YouTubevideos that I've started making,
(56:59):
maybe that helps as well, to geta better feel of what what the
idea is. But it's really anotetaking to where at least I
keep everything that's going onin my life effectively, that I
want to put on paper andpreserve. I put everything in it
from I keep track of thedevelopment of agenda, all its
features, its bugs. When I havechats with people, when I meet
(57:24):
people, you know, everythingreally literally. But it is
yeah, you have to find the rightset up a little bit imperfectly,
it's actually like Lego to comeback to that story. It's, it's a
notetaking app that I'mpurposely gives you a box of
Lego, where ultimately after awhile, you will build your own
system. And it takes a littlebit of tinkering, a little bit
(57:46):
of trying a little bit of reorganizing sometimes if you if
you notice, but it also doesn'tmean that it's Yeah, it doesn't
come with a whole ton of one useparts. You see what I mean? It's
the same analogy. You build yourown system after a while. And
the nice thing is that thatmight look different for
everybody. And in yourcommunity, you see a lot of
(58:07):
people then sharing what worksfor them. So that's also where
you can get a lot of ideas. Ifyou feel that, why don't I grind
away? Why doesn't click for me,maybe it's because you haven't
yet find the right setup. And
Jeroen Leenarts (58:19):
also, if you're in some sort of process with
agenda for your day to day, youcan always adjust and tinker
with it and change it a littlebit down the line. I think
that's exactly what your agendais really a tool that that you
adjust and integrate to yourlife instead of making sure you
(58:40):
adjust to the tool. And yeah,that's that's one of the that's
one of the biggest barriers toentries. But I also think it's
one of the biggest exactlybecause it ties to the to
Alexander Griekspoor (58:51):
Yeah, because it gives a bit this
blank page problem, bydefinition, right the year ago.
So how do I start this exactlythis setup because you haven't
got that set up yet. But youknow, that's the nice thing. It
gives you the flexibility tostart building it out. And after
a while you kind of nicely itkind of Yeah, continuous, you
know, iteration is kind of partof it, I think.
Jeroen Leenarts (59:13):
All right. I will make sure to link those
things in the show notes. Greatjust in case you you start
developing some wild ideas aboutsomething after agenda where
people will follow you to stayup to date.
Alexander Griekspoor (59:29):
Normally, I would say Macintosh at
Twitter. That's how long theZabbix is. Yeah, got the agenda
community. Like I said, That'sit. That's where we're very
active. So you will see usaround. And again, yeah, Twitter
is still my kind of newspaper incheck. So that's another one and
(59:50):
agenda.com if you if you go toyour fine Neil ventually. I
Jeroen Leenarts (59:55):
will I will take up some some links for
people to follow What to do coolall right Alex I'm gonna thank
you for your time and we'll talkto you soon
Alexander Griekspoor (01:00:06):
yeah cheers you
Jeroen Leenarts (01:00:07):
bye bye
Hi, welcome to another special edition of my
podcast. I'm sitting here withAlexandre Flexport. That's a
Dutch name, you might have beenable to tell that by the way
that I could pronounce itbecause try it. And you might
have a hard time because thereare some typical Dutch vowels in
there. Alexandre has beenworking on agenda.com, which is
(00:21):
a notetaking app that has atwist in the sense that it
attaches your notes to yourcalendar. So probably going to
dive into that he's been workingon that with through McCormack,
and several designers on theneeds of a needs basis. So
that's Marcelo and Joe, butmostly it's you, Andrew working
(00:42):
on this product. But just to getstarted, Alexandre, how long has
agenda been available?
Alexander Griekspoor (00:51):
Hi, yeah.
Since 2018. Yeah, that's amazingof Time flies.
Jeroen Leenarts (00:59):
But that's probably not the first time that
you wrote some code for thisproduct. Right?
Alexander Griekspoor (01:03):
For agenda. Yeah, well, agenda
started two years earlier, wehad a bit of a bumpy start. You
know, it's a long story aboutthat. Maybe we get into that.
But before that I was alreadymaking apps for Mac. Yeah, for
science, basically.
Jeroen Leenarts (01:19):
So immediately, you dive into some of the
history because I know, bychance, maybe that you've been
doing something with softwaredevelopment since at least 2001.
At least, then you graduatedfrom your education, which was
not it related. But you've beentinkering with computers a lot
longer. I believe you. Justbefore we started recording, you
(01:41):
said, since you were 15. Sothat's, that's a couple of
decades already that you've beendoing something with computers?
Alexander Griekspoor (01:48):
Yeah, you make me feel old? Well, we
Jeroen Leenarts (01:51):
only have a difference of like, two years, I
think. So let's let's just keepit at that. Right? Well aged. So
But why did you get started withcomputers in the first place
when you were a kid, because asa 15 year old, there's a whole
bunch of things that you can doa lot of stupid things you can
do, but then bought somethingwith computers, as has been a
(02:12):
very useful thing to do.
Alexander Griekspoor (02:14):
Yeah, well, I guess with this answer,
I'm gonna reveal the, you know,people can do the math, but, you
know, that's 30 years ago. Sothings are completely different.
I mean, I have three smallchildren. They basically the
moment they, you know, opentheir eyes, people are babies
nowadays, you know, they get aniPad. And for us, it was very
(02:35):
different. I didn't have TVuntil seven, you know, my dad
brought home a Mac a classic Macwhen I was 14. And that's when
it started. And so So, you know,mobile phone, not before 23. So
it's a completely differenttime. And, yeah, so my dad
(02:55):
brought back that that Mac fromfrom work, he wasn't too much
into it. And he asked me to helpbasically, and I and that's how
I got hooked to the Mac rightfrom the start. Many of my
friends have, you know,Commodore 460 fours and these
kinds of things, but I just fromthe get go, I was a Mac person,
which also meant no programmingwindows, you know, yet with
(03:18):
Windows and clicking a mouse andeverything. So even the
programming that wasn't reallymy thing. Status hobby, but that
got me a side job where I gotmore and more into it. And
ultimately, I discovered themultimedia side of the Mac. So
making videos and making imagesPhotoshop 1.0. And, you know,
(03:42):
that's, that's where I got in, Ifell in love with it until 2001
where it became for people likeme accessible to program because
I was 10 came out and with that,you know, the project builder at
the time interface builder andthe tools from Apple and so
finally, I managed to jump thathurdle and and get into
(04:04):
programming
Jeroen Leenarts (04:05):
and getting into programming. You mentioned
you did that. Not at an earlyage so in 2001 So you probably
were like 21 years old. Yeah,yeah. So why did you
Alexander Griekspoor (04:19):
What is what something is something I
always wanted I mean, I had donemultimedia project. So a little
bit of scripting languagescripting tools came with that
and you know, to to make yourdynamic and interactive
slideshows and stuff I had donethis but for me the jump to
especially then you know,building things in I think C++
was a language that your PascalPascal that you that you had to
(04:43):
know to make Mac apps was justway too big and I couldn't make
that mental jump. And inaddition, the tools were just
inaccessible, you know, you hadto buy Metro works for, you
know, $1,000 or something. So itwas just a way to pick a risk
and to different And then whenApple, you know, brought
(05:03):
basically tools for free, theymade the tools for free. And in
a much more accessible languagethan it was still a big jump
because I started out with Applescript studio. World Fair all
things. But yeah,
Jeroen Leenarts (05:16):
what you mentioned there the much more
accessible language and tryingtell any regular swift developer
nowadays that Objective C is anaccessible language.
Alexander Griekspoor (05:25):
Yeah, that's That's true. I still like
it, actually. I mean, I still, Istill liked it a lot at the
time, because it was definitelya lot more readable than
anything. See, Oh, yeah. Readanswer. Yeah. So that was, yeah.
And in fact, there's a funnystory because I, I bought
basically the Getting Startedwith Coco book at the time, and
(05:48):
I forgot that's it. But now Ican actually, you know, that
this looks a lot moreaccessible. And then it started,
you know, talking about arraysin like base three. And it's
like, I don't get any of this,what's this thing with a star
and, and so I Okay, I have to goa little bit more back to a
little bit more basic. So Ibought a book on C itself, like
(06:09):
a C Bible. I read until chapterseven, where they again, started
talking about the pointerarithmetic and all the stuff
that you had to do with arraysand buffers, and was like, well,
maybe I can now understand thiswhole NSRA thing. And so I
stopped reading the Bible. Andwent back to the, to the cocoa
guide, and that was exactly thejump that we're at just enough
(06:30):
info to understand it and growfrom there. Yeah.
Jeroen Leenarts (06:35):
Yeah, we're really talking about Objective
C. Before all the nice syntacticsugar that we have nowadays
before aarC, automatic referencecounting, you had your own
memory management with, withwhat Alec and release? I think
it's been exactly. Release?
Yeah. And then sometimes youwant to drain your auto release
pool manually, because otherwiseyou would run out of memory. And
so yeah, algorithmic situations.
Alexander Griekspoor (07:00):
A lot of times, yeah, a lot of a
Jeroen Leenarts (07:02):
lot of hassle to just get some simple things
done, right. Yeah,comparatively, the iOS apps and
Mac apps back in that day, theywere a lot simpler compared to
what they are now, right?
Alexander Griekspoor (07:14):
Are you hearing my silence, I'm doubting
I don't personally see a lot ofdifference to be honest. And in
fact, you know, the nicest thingand you know, this is kind of
maybe a pet peeve of mine. Buteverything that we got back then
was built in a way, you know,the whole next, basically, the
(07:34):
call Coco set up, was built in away where it was really generic
Lego bricks. So you could buildeverything. That's how I felt I
felt empowered, I felt I feltsuper excited, I could build
everything, because you couldoverride things and subclass
things, if you wanted to do itdifferently. It was real fought
(07:54):
out in a way where it wasgeneric building blocks, which
is sometimes a bit harder to getstarted. But you can then build
everything and controleverything. And it felt
fantastic. You could buildeverything nowadays. It's true,
it's more complex, more devices,more things. But I feel that
Apple is building stuff in in away that you also see actually,
(08:16):
with Lego itself happen as well,where you get more and more of
those kinds of one use parts islike you buy a project or a box
of Lego. And more and more youhave, you know, 234 of those
kinds of parts that are specificfor that box. And, and it means
that you can't do much more thanthat, then then just use them in
(08:38):
that project. And and, and Ifeel that that's where things
have moved a lot. So you got alot more stuff you can do. But
in a way, you have way lesscontrol. So and it's not built
generically anymore. It's builtbasically, Apple needs this.
That's what they built for theirapps, then they let it mature
(08:59):
once, you know, the next WWDC,we get it as developers, but it
does exactly what Apple does.
And, you know, and if I didn'tsay, but I would like to do like
that. It's like, yeah, sorry,that API. We haven't got any.
It's not fought out in a waywhere it's built for generic
purpose reuse. And that's andthat's the thing that one of the
things that I find the big PDnowadays, actually,
Jeroen Leenarts (09:23):
could you say that a lot of complexity has
shifted from, like coming upwith your own things based on
more basic building blocks to anAPI that has a much more broader
API surface. So that's asthere's so much API you get to
deal with and every specificthing that you can do on a Mac
(09:44):
or on an iOS app, is somethingthat you have to call a specific
API for I'm thinking about allthe extensions that you can deal
with nowadays. Everything is anextension it seems Yeah.
Alexander Griekspoor (09:57):
Yeah. And it actually goes me Uh, yeah, I
mean, we talked a lot about my80s podcast, and I'm gonna sound
like a grumpy old man. It'shorrible. But, you know, even
with API design, I see thishappening and you know, like
swift to go back to Swift. Ilove the link, I absolutely love
the language, I feel it's goingway too broad. There are
(10:18):
services like combine are thethings that I simply haven't
touched, because my, I just feelmore and more than my mental
capacity is not able to craftthe whole thing. I just feels
heavy to me. I mean, every timeis something new is in, for
instance. You know, I think theone of the biggest mistakes made
with Swift, two, so to speak, isthe addition of function
(10:40):
builders. It's terrible. Becausetake Dow added as a shortcut
support, so app intense, andevery framework of Apple now
starts to build their owneffectively domain specific
language, which is terrible,because it means that if I, if I
go to implement app intense, Ihave to think, Okay, how did
(11:03):
this actually work? And whatkind of Function Builder things
do, did they invent? And whichmeans like, okay, they've
decided that you need to do anif then when else, whatever, all
kind of nothing follows thebasic swift rules, because it's
all functions. So you can dowhatever you want, and that they
(11:23):
build a complete domain specificlanguage for app intents, then
I'm going to implement, I don'tknow, I want a handle for
something else. And chances arethat that group within Apple
have built their own domainspecific language with function
builders, let alone swift UI,which is another one with with
Function Builder. And so itmeans that every framework gets
basically is becoming different.
And you have to if I now a monthlater go back to the app intense
(11:47):
stuff. How do I know that itactually works? Documentation is
terrible, all this stuff. And soit's, like you say, it expands
the surface at a tempo at thespeed at which just becomes too
much for me to even, you know,it feels draining. And maybe
that's because I'm gettingolder, but I don't feel I didn't
have that with you know, theold. It was very concise, the
(12:09):
old app kid, Coco. And it feltdifferent at a time. Yeah. But I
do
Jeroen Leenarts (12:17):
think you have a point there because it used to
be that apps on the Mac, andalso a little bit on the on the
iPhone, because the iPhone wasalready much more constrained
and a Mac platform thatinitially it was really about,
okay, what can people do on thisplatform in creative ways. So
what their product really does.
And nowadays, a lot of the workthat you have to do to build a
product is actually finding newand interesting ways to actually
(12:39):
attach Apple's API's together innew and novel ways. So that you
can actually pipe data from aninput to some sort of an output
facilitated by Apple.
Alexander Griekspoor (12:52):
Yeah, and the problem there is that
because those API's were notbuilt in a generic way, often,
you cannot do much more thanwhat Apple does. For instance, a
good example is I implementedpointer support in agenda. And
one of the things I wanted to dois like, based, you know, based
on, you know, whether when youwould swipe, you know, the
(13:14):
trackpad, you would open theleft or the right sidebar, and I
would do that on a Mac, I dothat based on where the mouse
your pointer is, because it'svery low. If your pointer is on
the right side of the screen,you very likely want to open the
thing on the right side, it's onthe left, vice versa. Now, the
first thing I do is like, Okay,give me the location of the
pointer on screen. API doesn'texist. You can't ask, you know,
(13:38):
where'sthe ring on screen school?
Sorry, I have to get that out.
You know, you can't ask youwhere's the finger on the
screen?
Jeroen Leenarts (13:46):
It's probably somewhere like three layers? No,
it's
Alexander Griekspoor (13:49):
not. It's not. It's just not there. No, at
least I want my happy, happy tobe contacted say, Now is there
but I look for, it's not there.
And it's, it's, it's like,what's even worse is that, like,
you know, it's not that thepointer was invented for the
iPad, I mean, we have had for 30years, and literally over a
month. And and so, you know, allthis stuff? Is there on a Mac.
(14:12):
And it's just like, of course,you can just ask for the mouse
location in its window. It's,you know, and it's like, and I
feel a lot is that of that ishappening. And I think it's a
shame because it's not foughtout from Okay, so what are we
what does a great, you know,pointer API looked like in a
generic sense. And then we builtthat now, it's basically Oh,
(14:34):
Apple needed this. And they justnever had this need to, you
know, at least publicly makeavailable the mouse location, so
or the pointed location onscreen. So the API is not there.
And we didn't need it. So wedidn't build it. And I can
understand that that's how theirsystem has worked. But it
doesn't, you know, it doesn'tmean it generates, you know,
(14:55):
good API for us as developers.
Any new security in a box,you're in a box that is
basically say, okay, Applethings, this is what you should
make. And this is what greatapps are. But you know the time
from the highly inventive appswhere you were like blown away
by third party apps, it's kindof it's gone. And maybe the only
(15:19):
way we get those is bytechnology, like the stuff that
Twitter nowadays is explodingabout, but not about apps that
do interesting stuff, becausethey're boxed in all kinds of
ways. API wise, sandbox wise,privacy wise, everything is Oh,
yeah, don't expect somethinglike that blows you away
anymore, like an old disco didwith smoke coming out of your
(15:42):
fingers, or that we did with Idid with putting a destroy in CD
into your Mac, I remember,
Jeroen Leenarts (15:48):
like, there was like a CD ROM, the only tool.
That was initially when theybrought it out, there were some
people who are running withsomewhat older hardware, that
their actual write operationswere failing because the CPU was
a bit busy rendering the smokecoming out the app on screen. So
(16:09):
it was a bit of a suboptimalexperience if you didn't have
enough performance in yoursystem. But speaking of, of the
Swift language, because youtouched upon that a little bit,
and you mentioned swift UI, andI know that a lot of the
features that have been addedlast few years have been to sort
of make sure that certain thingswould become possible in Swift
(16:31):
UI. And some other things likeasync await, and some other
asynchronous operation has beenadded to the Swift language. But
what I do notice is that thebasic principles that were
already available in the Swiftlanguage, they're being
repackaged and given new API's,and it's just adding more
(16:51):
complexity. And I'm, I'm, I'mstill a recovering Java
programmer for decades. So I'vebeen doing Java development from
2002 till 2012. And then Iswitched over to iOS development
full time. I see the Swiftlanguage making the same moves
and going into the samedirection as for instance, the
(17:13):
Apple language, it's justgetting, it's a nice concise
language, then it gets a bitbigger. And then it's basically
Well, at least my taste was likefeature complete somewhere
around the time of Swift five,or maybe swift six. And then it
just starts growing and growingand growing. And I don't know
about you, but I'm feeling like,do I need all this stuff? Yes,
yes, it is cool. And yes, it isinteresting to read about it.
(17:34):
But do I need it?
Alexander Griekspoor (17:35):
Yeah, no, I'm with you. And swift UI, you
know, it just doesn't click withme. And again, that's because I
like to have real control overwhat I get on screen. I want to
say this pixel needs to be onepixel up, and not, you know, and
so because it's off, and then Imean, I'm just, I can't I just
(17:57):
want that control. I understandthat Apple is steering towards,
okay, we'll get unfortunately,we'll get you know, 90% of the
apps doing, you know, greatstuff in terms of basics. Yeah.
Which was their problem that Itried to address, I think, is
that a lot of app developerswere just sloppy or not going
for it. But people like, youknow, maybe like us that want to
(18:18):
really go the extra mile to makea great app. That's actually the
ones that you now hinder.
Because you don't give them thecontrol that I need. And worse
for me, I've been following itfrom the side every time. Okay,
I'm not ready to join that ship.
But it works like you say,because it's grow so fast that
(18:39):
if I would join now and try itnow. And then often the answer
is yeah, oh, yeah. But that waskind of how you did things last
year, because now we have, youknow, last year it was geometry
reader, but now it's somethingthat where you can just ask it
to face fit the size you giveit. Right. Okay. And it's okay.
Yeah, what next year, you know,and so, combined, same, you
(19:00):
know, where did that go? Likethis? WWDC is gone. And so
Jeroen Leenarts (19:04):
it's, it has a very specific nice use case. But
it's not, like, advocatedanymore by Apple as being the
end all solution forasynchronous and timeout
operations and orchestratingbasically processes within your
app process. Wow, that's kind ofmatter. But anyway, you think
(19:24):
that's that that's the oldstyle, compared to the new
style, and then the old stylebeing objective C swift and UI
kit and app kit? Does that likefade out in comparison to Swift
UI on the Mac? And on iOSeventually, because I know right
(19:45):
now, there are certain thingsyou still cannot do in Swift UI.
You have to go back to app kitsor UI kit but what do you think
about like the future of like,the familiar API's to the both
of us?
Alexander Griekspoor (19:59):
Yeah, I think ultimately it will go that
route that I think it will bevery comparable to Objective C
and Swift, ultimately, in thesense that, you know, Objective
C, you can still do things andyou can build. Yeah, it will, it
will. Yeah, but I thinkObjective C and Swift is a good
comparison, because ultimatelyyou will start to get, you'll
(20:22):
actually see that already, youwill start to get frameworks
that are only available in SwiftUI. Just like some frameworks
are only available in Swift andnot in object in Objective C,
and that's the route I can seethings going for that it's been
too long to not be a garbagecollection. To mention, another
(20:46):
nice example of garbagecollection
Jeroen Leenarts (20:48):
fails in Objective C, right? Yeah, but
Alexander Griekspoor (20:50):
that's what I mean, I've heard I, you
know, I've made that mistake.
I've I've gone full in garbagecollection with, with papers at
the time. And, you know, becausethat was the thing. And and
indeed, you mentioned out therelease and all this stuff, and
you're like, oh, man, no, DeLacykind of this is this is it, you
know, garbage collection isgoing to do all of that stuff
for you automatically knowsbetter than you, etcetera. So we
(21:10):
went all in. And it was adisaster till the point that at
some point, you know, Iliterally ripped it out. And I
was surprised how much quickerthings were gaming, because we
had massive performance issues.
But, you know, for certainly, atleast one WWE, I'm sure,
probably to Apple was, you know,telling you this is basically
(21:33):
the way forward garbagecollection, is it. And so, and
then two years later, you know,it was dead. And so that's the
one thing I've learned Ben is tosay, I never jumped on any, you
know, like, well, in a waycombined, I think is for me,
that's a similar example. It wasreally brought at one WBC it's
kind of almost like this is thenext example, maybe not
(21:55):
intended, but just because we'vegot so much intention. And then
now it's gone. Nobody talksabout it, I think
Jeroen Leenarts (22:01):
combined, basically, was a victim of its
own. Well, not success, but itwas so well thought out as an
API. That was true, but it wastrying to do so many things. And
also, the complexity of the APIitself was so high that a lot of
people they just tried combined,and they just failed miserably.
(22:23):
And then just thought, well,table flip, I'm just going to do
it the old way. And that's whywhen Apple saw that happening,
they came up with something likeasync await to just simplify the
experience for the for the enduser, the software developer, I
think, yeah,
Alexander Griekspoor (22:38):
yeah.
Well, I mean, the funny thing isthat, you know, you mentioned
async await, and it's anotherwith actors and everything I can
see, I guess. Yeah, exactly. Andthat's what I mean, I mean, that
it just feels heavy to just addall that info to really dive
into that, if you're an appdeveloper, like myself, who's
always, you know, his main focusis to progress the app, and
(22:58):
already is an existing app notto forget, right. So I can't
jump always into the newestthings, you know, just adding on
top of, you know, doing thesupport and the development of
your app, and everything, justadd the mental load of having to
learn new API's, and certainlythe complex ones, because they
tend to be, you know, you know,complicated to keep to say it
(23:20):
nice. You know, it's just toomuch. And then even worse, I
recognize that there's a lotwith a lot of those
technologies, you, you know,it's make apples, and I
understand why it is, and it'snot wrong, but you want to make
it feel that you can step easyeasily in and it often makes you
(23:43):
feel that you don't have to knowso much of what's going on
beyond the you know, below thehood. And I think that's a you
know, ultimately you always needto know exactly what happens
because you can still createreentrant issues and you know,
all kinds of, you know, typicalconcurrency problems. So, and at
least with, you know, withGrant, you know, this it can
(24:07):
Grand Central Dispatch, yeah,that you kind of familiar with
those limitations andeverything. So, that also took
long, but at least that,
Jeroen Leenarts (24:19):
could it be just just like, thinking a bit
out there, because you have aproduct that you've been working
on for six years now. Yeah, thatpart of your viewpoint is also
influenced by the situation thatyou have to be careful with your
backwards compatibility. Andadoption of new API is not as
(24:41):
straightforward as likegreenfield development, because
you already have a ton of codethat just needs to be brought up
to spec again, in sight of newSDK versions coming out. Yeah,
absolutely. I
Alexander Griekspoor (24:53):
mean, it's different if you start a new
project is different if you'remean there's nothing nicer than
to be younger. If not no, andthen because that gives you the
energy to battle these thingsthat you will come across the
way Well, now, you know, you maybe more the guy that has become
the person or to the app, let'snot risk it, you know, you have
(25:13):
your risk evaluation verydifferently. And so, you know,
when I started programming, youwere like, you know, I just want
to make this happen in everyhurdle on the way you would you
would just overcome. Now, I'mmuch more like, okay, you know,
I see 10 hurdles on the waybecause of my experience, so I'm
not going to try it. And yeah,yeah, whether that's what I'm
(25:38):
saying that sometimes I'd loveto be the one, you know, back to
be in that state. It's just nothow it goes. It's just
Jeroen Leenarts (25:45):
one of the characteristics that separates a
junior developer from a moreexperienced media or senior
developer, you think,
Alexander Griekspoor (25:53):
yes, and in many ways, it makes a senior
developer, you know, morevaluable, more effective, etc,
etc. But the new stuff or theinnovation, and it may be the
kind of thing that unexpectedcomes from the junior people,
because they don't have to beg.
It's
Jeroen Leenarts (26:12):
like, the new guy on the team comes in, and he
just does something in like, Idon't know, 10% of the lines of
code that took me like 10 timesas much code. And I was like,
wow, yeah, yes. Right, actually,
Alexander Griekspoor (26:23):
yeah, maybe because he didn't start
off by thinking about all thethings. I mean, a good example
of it, I look at swift UI, and Ijust see bindings. And that's
another technology, I've beenbitten so much by cocoa
bindings, you know, it, youknow, you end up with, with all
this stuff, where you're like,Oh, my God, oh, let's just push
(26:43):
this to the next run loop,because then it will actually
work. And then things areactually ready, you know, and as
you've saved you a lot of thesekinds of parallels, and they're
like, no, never again,
Jeroen Leenarts (26:53):
I've been lucky in regards to binding, I think,
because I got started on iOSdevelopment, and they just
didn't have the concept ofbinding at all. So it was never
a thing within within the iOS oriPhone ecosystem. Yeah. But
before we really dive into,like, too much complaining about
Yeah. I do want to talk a littlebit about the product that you
(27:18):
work on. But before we do that,I just want to drop in a little
bit of a timeline, because 30years ago, you started tinkering
with a classic Mac. And thenyeah, 24 years ago, you started
software development in earnest.
So somewhere around 2001, youmentioned, yeah, but Well, what
did you do between the tinkeringand 2001, because you must have
done something, you did someform of education, you just did
(27:41):
something to like, sharpen yourcognitive abilities, and get
yourself to a point that youactually wants to start to
program, I guess,
Alexander Griekspoor (27:51):
yeah, I lived a parallel life,
basically, two parallel lives. Ihad on one hand, I had studies
studies becoming University forsome, you know, I won't go into
crazy reason, I went from a moretechnical thing that I always
liked to biology, then studiedbiology, and then you go into
kind of a flow in a kind ofstream that you, you know,
(28:14):
there's just automatic, youfollow University, then you have
to do rotation periods as partof those. So you do those, then
the guy where I did the rotationperiod offered me a position in
his lab to stay longer than heoffered me a PhD position, and
etc. And so I've I followed the,the career path of a scientist,
(28:35):
the biological scientist, and atthe same time, I had this, you
know, like I said, I earn somemoney on the side is in this in
the summer, you know, helpingout on in an office where they
had Max, you know, just doingExcel sheets, and etc. Then I
went to university, I couldn'tdo that in the summer anymore.
But so I had to shift tosomething that I could do in
(28:56):
evening hours. So I worked forthem on the marketing
department, by then my immediateskills required, okay. And then
speaking of the programming, soat that university, I run around
the time I started buildingwebsites, so I earn money by
building websites, then, youknow, then on the during a PhD,
I started making those Mac apps,those were basically targeted
(29:19):
for myself and scientists. So westarted sharing that and that
started living its own lifegrew, etc. So I had these two
parallel tracks. One was kind ofwonder what you would call it
Mac iOS development. And theother one was scientific career.
And, but they kind of wereoverlapping, but I realized at
some point that the passion wasat making those apps.
Jeroen Leenarts (29:43):
But when did you really make the switch from
primarily being a biologist tobeing a software developer
because the software developmentwas like, growing and becoming a
thing in the background, but atsome point, you must have
flipped the switch in your ownmind. Right.
Alexander Griekspoor (30:00):
Yeah, so during my PhD in cell biology, I
started making those apps forscientists, we put them on their
website called Macintosh, thatwas our kind of our acronym.
And, and that started reallytaking its own life, people
started using scientists startedusing those apps, and you can
really popular, they were allfree, by the way at a time. And
I, I noticed, okay, this isreally you got feedback, you got
(30:23):
a lot of users, you know, yougot it. But you really, it
really became the passion. Andthen, when I finished the PhD, I
realized I need to do somethingwhere that software bug kind of
contributes to my scientificcareer, because I couldn't
really see how I could live fromthose free apps. And so I chose
(30:43):
a bit of a slight redirection ofmy scientific career towards
bioinformatics. And I had a gapbecause I was waiting for a
grant to come through. Andthat's when, and that's when I
decided to build papers. Andthat was a project that was just
too big for hobby, but that Ialways wanted to make what's the
kind of iTunes for scientificresearch articles. And that's,
(31:06):
that's what I built. And thatbecame so popular. And because I
had, you know, used some timefrom the spare time, I also
decided to make that a paid forproduct, you know, and that
became so big that within oneyear, it basically was the
equivalent of my, you know, mypostdoc salary. And I figured,
well, it was also what I reallywanted to work on the moment
(31:28):
that would leave the lab. And soI decided, okay, if I, if that
is now already generating andliving next, on top of what I'm
doing for professionally, Ishould be able to live from that
full time. So that's when Istopped the science bit and went
full time indie developer, firstalone, and then a bunch of
people join me because, youknow, you meet people that are
(31:50):
like minded, and it kind oforganically grew until in 2012,
we were with six people in sixdifferent places in the world.
And a big scientific publishercame and they said, Well, we
really like to, you know,acquire your product, grow it
further within, you know, this,this publisher. And so that's
(32:12):
when I sold it, and then it grewto 25 people or something in
based in London, but I was stillworking from here in Portugal.
And I decided to, basically,after three years, okay, well,
what are we I basically seen theentire cycle from pure hobby, to
(32:33):
more serious hobby to more, youknow, independent developer,
small group distributed to largecorporates, 25 people. And I
said, Well, what I really lovedwas the period where I was just
doing it on my own. Justeverything, just also the
marketing, also the sportdesign, the building of the
product, everything. And so Ireturned to that, basically,
Jeroen Leenarts (32:56):
so. So we're talking about that 2016
timeframe, I guess that youstepped away from papers, which
was a successful acquiredproduct, which basically, many
indie developers just dream ofthat ever happening to one of
their products. You got apaycheck out of this
acquisition, I guess. So theygave you some runway to build
(33:18):
something new? Did you alreadyhave like an idea of what you
wanted to create? Because I cansee the similarities between
your prior experience as being aresearcher or a biologist, doing
a lot of things with notes andthat you wanted to organize in
your own way?
Alexander Griekspoor (33:32):
Yeah, actually, this is actually a
product that came from theperiod that I was running a
larger team in a more corporateenvironment. So you start having
more meetings, and you start tohave, you know, one on ones with
people, weekly meetings, etc.
And that's where I kind of haddeveloped a notetaking way, you
know, that was our faultrevolving around dates and
everything. And I also realizedthere wasn't really a good tool
(33:55):
for that. And at the same time,I saw people around me that were
not taking notes at all. So Iwas like, okay, you know, I see
something that at least I canbuild for myself, which has
always been housing, so it'sgone. For me, I always build
stuff today, too. Which, by theway, is also you know, even I
was by then also like, five or10 years out of science hands on
(34:16):
science. So also by then Istarted realizing I'm not
building papers for myselfanymore. And so I that's another
reason why I wanted to go toagenda because there was a
product that I still everydayuse for everything in that same
kind of way.
Jeroen Leenarts (34:34):
So do you use agenda yourself everyday?
Alexander Griekspoor (34:37):
Everyday?
Everything everything?
Jeroen Leenarts (34:39):
Do you for yourself use the production
version, or the latest bleedingedge that you have products?
Alexander Griekspoor (34:45):
Products in person? Yeah. And so I
switched to, you know, we havesaid that we have set the
project up for that reason, sothat our debug versions are, I
can run them side by side andthey run their own libraries.
And then basically the moment wecreate the first test flight
builds is when we switchourselves, Drew and I switch
(35:06):
ourselves to, for our own notesto that version. Yeah,
Jeroen Leenarts (35:10):
yeah. So at least you have the full product
lifecycle. It's yeah.
Alexander Griekspoor (35:16):
And we're going full in, you know, I'm
losing my notes if my testflightbuild is not,
Jeroen Leenarts (35:21):
that would be a bit sad. Yes. So so the
notetaking of agenda is, well,the novel thing is the direct
attachments with your agenda, Ithink. And also, for some
reason, you were able to landthis amazing domain name for
that. Is that also maybe inpart, part of the origin of the
(35:43):
product that you were able tosecurity agenda.com domain? And
then thought, Okay, well, now Ihave to build a product based on
this name or what?
Alexander Griekspoor (35:51):
No, no, no, it's actually it's a kind of
a funny story. Because the I wasthinking about naming its
agenda. It's because the idea isthat it's the cross between
calendar in a notetaking. App.
And in, in certainly in Dutch,we have we use the word agenda a
lot for for it's a sec,essentially a pocket agenda.
It's kind of a small, small kindof agenda that you have with
(36:13):
you, which has more like theweek is more focused on the day
slash week view. But a lot ofpeople use it also to keep notes
in. And so it's not like a wallcalendar, or desk calendar. It's
really in between. And that wasalso my thinking is like there
is something missing that is inbetween the Calendar app and the
Notes app, you know, and sothat's what's the idea. And at
(36:34):
the same time, I was thinking,okay, there was a lot of
calendar apps done again, we'reliving in. I think, right now
we're living in the hype ofcalendar apps, one every there's
every week, a new one. That'ssame hype cycle, we went through
with notes app 234 years ago. Sothere was there's a ton of note
(36:55):
taking apps, and there's verylittle in between. So you start
thinking is that because thereis a gap in the market that we
can fill? Or is it because theother two categories are so
overlapping that there is nooxygen in the room for that,
that kind of product? And I waslooking at the time, I was
thinking about naming it agendaand under name, we thought it
(37:17):
was minutes, you know, frommeeting minutes, but there was a
bit more focus. But agendasounded nice. And I started
looking and then I noticed thatagenda.com was up for sale, I
find it very odd. And and Ilooked at it, but it was it was
very expensive, first of all,but at the same time, again,
it's confirmed this thing likeOkay, is there then nothing in
the middle between? And in theend, he said, Okay, we go for
(37:40):
it. And I negotiated a bid withthe domain owners. And they it
was just a generic, it wasliterally just for sale. So it
was one of those genericcompanies. And it was a very
expensive domain. But at thesame time I fought out. Yeah,
let's go for it. I mean, I knewfrom from papers, that was also
a successful product, that if ifthe product is successful, it's
(38:02):
nice to have a domain like that.
Jeroen Leenarts (38:05):
So yeah, it does help with discovery. And
also, it's okay, yeah, agenda.
Yeah. agenda.com. It's veryYeah, share with people.
Alexander Griekspoor (38:13):
Yeah, it's very hard to find on the App
Store. That's, that's the flipside.
Jeroen Leenarts (38:17):
That's where the domain name comes in. So but
agenda is, what I really likeabout it is that my mom, she
used to have like this big. It'smore than a4 sized book. That
was her agenda. And it wasbasically she took her
appointments in there, whichalso did during the appointment,
she did her note taking in thebook itself. So and that's
(38:40):
always the the idea I get with,with your products. And
Alexander Griekspoor (38:43):
yeah, that's exactly, exactly it.
That's exactly it. Yeah.
Jeroen Leenarts (38:46):
But I do know that the book that my mom used
to carry was a bit unwieldy, andjust having it available in your
pocket on your phone, or on yourlaptop. That's like really
awesome, because you can justbring it with you. Yeah, but
creative agenda. It's a Mac app.
It's an iOS app. How difficultwas it to grow? These two
codebase because I recognizesome overlap. But some things
(39:10):
are very specific. And on top ofthat, I do see that a lot of the
user interface elements that youand mechanisms that you use in
agenda, both on the Mac and onthe on the iOS platform. There,
but they're not exactlystandard. I think they're like,
they're obvious. They'relogical, but it's not what you
get out of the box with withwith SDKs. If I'm right,
Alexander Griekspoor (39:35):
Yeah, correct. Yeah, I mean, Marcel
did an amazing design, veryclean and fun. If it is that. I
think we were one of the fewpeople that have very few things
to do for, you know, what doesit make? I was 11 or when they
introduced the big redesign.
Yeah. Because effectively, we,you know, our app looks like
that. So you know, it's like thewindows It is very wide. It's
(39:59):
very text based and is veryclean. So yeah, it's using a lot
of stamp for me easy. It's notlike we invented everything
from, you know, all the all thecontrols. Now it's just styling
them really. But like you say,like we discussed earlier, I
(40:20):
think with Swift UI would havemaybe a bit more work to do
could also be possible. But it'snot that it's not crazy amount
of custom controls. But there'sa fair amount of them. Yeah, in
their own looks. Yeah.
Jeroen Leenarts (40:37):
One thing that is really different about when
you launched agenda with Drew,was the way that people could
actually support the product,right? Because back in the day,
when agenda was launched, it wasa new thing that you did. And
it's basically an in apppurchase that gave you sort of
like a runway of updates. Andthen once that runway ran out,
(40:59):
you either renewed or you didn'tget the new feature anymore, you
still get the product updates,but new features that you
launch, they are not part ofyour experience anymore, then.
So what's the idea there becauseit was new, it was, I think, a
big gamble that you took there.
Alexander Griekspoor (41:17):
Yeah, I don't want to take all credits.
Because I mean, I think therewere a product like sketch and
others that were kind of goingin this direction of you will
kind of keep the products evenif you stop paying. But that's
the thing where there was thisbig drive that is still going
on, I think towardssubscriptions. And Drew and I
(41:38):
ourselves, we're not a big fanof it in the sense that if
everything becomes asubscription, it just doesn't
make sense. So and the othercomponent of that is that they
say subscription. But if youthink about it, it's actually
rental often. So you basicallyuntil you you get the features,
(41:59):
and then when you stop paying,you're simply lose them. So it
feels like more like rental tome, then social. So
subscription. And a realsubscription, to me feels like
the magazines that you would youwould pay at a magazine
subscription, you get thosecopies at home. And if you stop
paying, then yeah, you won't getnew magazines at home. But the
pile of magazines that you'reread is yours and will stay
(42:22):
yours, you know. And that modelis what we tried to replicate.
So it's it's really featurebased and date based. So each
feature, what we call a premiumfeature. It has a date stamp,
and basically depending on on,if you're paying if you're
paying, then it's included thatfeature and will stay for your
(42:45):
for as long as forever,basically, you will own that
feature. If you stop paying,then then basically you can keep
using whatever you have. But ifthere is a new premium feature,
it will be indicated in the UIthat it's premium. And that is
not part of what you have. Andso you can't use that feature.
But everything else is there.
And I mean, that's only ahandful features, almost
(43:08):
everything of the app is free,you will also still get all the
updates, because that's themajor difference with say the
models from sketch is that thereyou would be stuck on version
with us, you're always on thelatest version. So you always
have the latest version. And youknow, you get say in the next
update another 50 minor newfeatures and bug fixes and
(43:30):
everything that we ship, justnot maybe that one or two new
premium features, if you're ifyou've decided to stop paying.
And the whole idea is to sayevery time we have to deliver
because you you can just It'sfine that you pay once and then
you stop paying us if you don'tfeel you get the value for what
we deliver. And you can keep onusing what you have. And then
(43:53):
maybe, you know, you know, ayear from now we ship a feature
that you do think makes it allworth it paying for. And then
and then you step back in, andyou basically unlock those and
everything that was in betweenat that moment in time. So it's
very much, you know, it's muchmore, I think, what the
reactions have been very poor,very, very good. People think
(44:15):
it's an extremely fair modeltowards the user. And at the
same time, it does guarantee usas developers some kind of
recurrent income, whichultimately is needed if you want
to keep on going and keep theapp alive.
Jeroen Leenarts (44:31):
Do you see a lot of reactivation of user
accounts from like unpaid stateto a paid state in their
timeline? Or do you track thosemetrics? Yeah,
Alexander Griekspoor (44:43):
it's nice, because we can see in the App
Store Sales, for instance, areclear. I mean, often, you know,
we're lucky in that Applesometimes teaches us after it's
one of those updates. But thenice thing is that we see a
direct, big peak on the day thatwe release the app, which are
people then That must bereactivating or, you know,
buying premium features again.
And so we see that big peakpreceding the kind of attention
(45:06):
the big you usually get if, say,Apple features you. So we see
that very clearly. Yeah.
Jeroen Leenarts (45:14):
So basically, the reactivation that you're
seeing when you release is basedon your existing user base, and
exactly the feature status withApple is just added on top. And
that's growing your exposure,but new use exactly, exactly the
same people seeing the samestuff again,
Alexander Griekspoor (45:31):
that's really cool. Yeah. So we invite
now we've seen, it's often thatyou can say it really works. And
the model works. And we get alot of developers saying, oh,
yeah, but that doesn't work.
Because Oh, now you've got likea wheel, the code base, where
we'd 100 If deafs everywhere,because, and in fact, there's
another all the case, because itfeels very natural, because, you
know, it's just like, it's like,it's just a door right there
(45:55):
feature is a door, door to asheet or to a configuration or
to an action. And so it'sthere's very often natural entry
points to the house. So this isthe front door. So if the front
door, you can't open, you can'tget into what's behind that
house. But other than that, youdon't have to think about it. So
it's very natural, you learn howto pick, you know, where you put
(46:17):
those barriers, but then itdoesn't lead at all to a code
base. It's Oh, this guy can'tuse this, or this guy can't do
that. And it's very natural.
It's not very different from anyof them.
Jeroen Leenarts (46:30):
And just as an indication for the two of you,
Drew, and you, is it like arecurring income stream that is
on the level of yeah, we'regetting by or we're living
comfortably? Or it's like, oh,wow, what do I do with all this
money? I need new ideas tocreate something new.
Alexander Griekspoor (46:48):
Now, it's free, I think in the in the
middle for two people is iscomfortable income? Yeah. Of
course there is the you're stillan independent developer. So you
need to look further than two.
Okay, now I have a stableincome. So that's all but that's
for any self employed person? Iwould say. It's not like it's
comes with buckets loads in andwe don't know what to do, you
(47:11):
know, the fifth Ferrari doesn'tfit my garage? No, it's not, but
it's not, we don't have toscrape by. But the thing is, is
we can't scale this to say, oh,let's add 15 developers, then
then then it doesn't becomeprofitable anymore. Yeah,
Jeroen Leenarts (47:29):
yeah. But that's, that's, I think, right
on the sweet spot where yourwants to be right to be able to
keep on working on a producttightly integrated with your end
users, because you have a lot ofa lot of interaction with them.
And a lot of back and forth,that at least that's what I see
on the agenda forms. And also ontop of that, the product and the
(47:50):
company is now in a state that,well, you don't need to have
some sort of an outside investorjust giving you lots of cash to
grow the product, there's nopressure to grow it. It's just,
I think, the
Alexander Griekspoor (48:01):
only priority even even differently,
I would put it even differently.
I mean, in 2018, we won theApple design award, I kind of in
year one. And at that point, wehad the choice because now I in
hindsight having gone throughthe entire cycle I can I can
understand that I can see thatwe could have gone to a bunch of
feces and say we're the nextEvernote with did went away I
(48:21):
kind of predicted and gain a lotof money, you know, open an
office in Lisburn, with beanbagsand football tables, and you get
a whole bunch of people working.
But I'd come from that I'vethat's exactly what I didn't
want to do. I didn't want tobecome a manager. So we decided
on purposely not to go to theworld, it means also that you
(48:43):
can't just do a lot of thingsthat that those companies would
want you to do, like an androidversion or a web version, or or,
you know, I don't know, you haveto really be selective and say
no to a certain amount of thingsthat that people would want to
see.
Jeroen Leenarts (48:59):
But it also gets to the product, right?
Yeah,
Alexander Griekspoo (49:02):
definitely.
And, and keeps it in this phasewhere we can do everything. And
we can have those interactionswith the users. And I can have
this chat without anybody havingto consulted about why am I not
here this morning? And, youknow, everything right? So
that's a that's a deliberatechoice that you make. Yeah,
Jeroen Leenarts (49:23):
that's, that's, it's very good to hear that
it's, it's actually in a statethat you Andrew actually want it
to be, but doesn't give you alot of pressure that you have to
get the next premium feature,thought out and implemented in a
reasonable timeframe. Because Ican imagine people with a
(49:44):
subscription, they are reallyitching to get to new premium
feature or the next best thingthat you're going to add to the
product, right?
Alexander Griekspoor (49:52):
Well, not in my experience, I think we
have basically a list offeatures that we know people
would want then that we wantedfrom day one, we're now five,
six years further. And so we'rechunking through a bond to
through those I know the thingswe're working on is that people
want because we wanted ourselvesas well. Yeah, the pressure
(50:16):
comes not from the businessmodel, the pressure comes from
the interaction with the peoplethat ask you a, you know, I
asked them, you promised thistwo years ago, which I never
have learned to try to minimizepromising. But nevertheless, you
experienced it as that's a formof pressure. But it's again, I
(50:36):
think we both are in thesoftware business before. So we
learned how to deal with thatpressure. And, and it's the
same, it's pressure, but it isalso excitement that the stuff
I'm now working on, which isscheduled for January, that I
think will be the stuff thateverybody that is now a user
would love to have. Yeah. Sothat's that's excitement that
(50:57):
you get from the energy that youget from that, that knowledge.
Jeroen Leenarts (51:01):
And it's its agenda, the the only thing that
you're doing professionally?
Yeah,
Alexander Griekspoor (51:07):
yeah. It's funny, because I remember people
asking me when we launched theneed to have a DNA. So what are
you going to do next? You know,Friends, you don't understand if
this is any, if we can see ifit's sustainable. That was, of
course, the big question in yearone. If it's sustainable, then
(51:27):
this is a product I can work for10 years on, and that that's
maybe something more specific tome, you know, every person is
has this kind of, I needsomething new kind of level. But
for me, which fits this job verywell, I think is that I can I
can really motivate and findenergy out of working on this
project for, you know, anotherfive or 10 years easily. Without
(51:52):
the need, like, oh, I need to dosomething now with with Swift UI
or something.
Jeroen Leenarts (51:58):
Maybe someday, start carefully with an
extension or two.
Alexander Griekspoor (52:01):
Yeah, you know, one of the I'll be honest
with you. And again, maybethat's a bit of a set, etc.
Moment. I'm getting actuallymore and more to the point where
I kind of know that my nextproject is maybe not anymore Mac
app or an iOS app. And becausewhat I really miss again, you
(52:23):
know, the cycle is this feelingin 2001, where I would make
something in this objective Capp in Project builder, I think
it would be cool, I would make azip file would upload it. And I
would give you a ring and saydon't use it, use it. Use it,
look what I've done. And youdownload it, and you're like,
(52:45):
Oh, this is amazing. But itwould be cool. If it could do a
and it's like, okay, hold yourhorses, you know? And yeah, give
me a second build and run, zipfile, upload and try it now. And
that fit. Yeah. And that feelingthat was effectively the same as
building websites in 2001,right, where you would say, Hey,
do you see it? I've made themade a thread reload your
(53:07):
browser. And that was superexciting. Because yeah, and that
has completely be gone. It's nowall kinds of limits then have to
go to app store reviews. I'veseen reviews, there's no or
doesn't like it or misunderstoodit or whatever. And then this
and then that. And can we dothis maybe not the API's don't
allow it, or whatever. And Imiss Ole Miss that that creative
(53:32):
freedom that I'm too good. Andmyself getting to the point is
like, and sometimes I wonder ifApple is missing the point there
is like Yeah, but Swift, theSwift UI is the future and so
maybe it's by now is for me, thefuture is just my next project
would be a web based app, I'mOnyx insurer, with a very
lightweight wrapper to make itrun on a Mac on iOS, maybe. But
(53:57):
if I would start something new,I would go back to that feeling
of, of, of the web and and whichis really sad because I'm one of
the biggest Mac persons from
Jeroen Leenarts (54:10):
the age of ever just the ability to tinker with
things right?
Alexander Griekspoor (54:13):
Yeah, and the freedom the freedom to say
I'm going to build this and andI can do that I can push it and
it's instantly available toeverybody without you know big
discussions. For me it's neverabout the 30% Gods on the
revenue because that for meApple deserves that part of that
what they bring they bring a lotof people to the agenda and
(54:35):
everything but for me it's aboutthe being put in a sandbox that
is become so limited that youliterally can't think outside
the box because it doesn't allowyou right so that's that's why
I'm saying like, I like agenda,but there is still more and more
this this feeling in the back ofyour head sometimes like Okay,
(54:56):
what if Apple doesn't like thisanymore? Or what We have all
these exciting users in a superfair model. But if tomorrow
Apple says, yeah, maybe itdoesn't fit the App Store, or we
don't think it fits rule number18, whatever. Yeah, then what do
I do? You know, and so thatthat, you know, I would like to,
yeah, I find I find a pity thatit went in a direction to be
(55:19):
honest. All right. But I will becontinuing on agenda.
Jeroen Leenarts (55:24):
Okay, that's, that's good. That's a good.
That's I think, yeah,
Alexander Griekspoor (55:28):
let's not let's not, let's not end it
alone.
Jeroen Leenarts (55:32):
Speaking about agenda, where should people go
to learn more about agenda?
Yeah. agenda.com
Alexander Griekspoor (55:38):
is the is the website. And we have a
really nice community that's inthe app, but also available for
anybody using a web browser. Itsagenda dot community. And that's
where all the users are, youknow, we have articles on
notetaking, and all kinds ofother related topics. And so and
that's also where you can findout more
Jeroen Leenarts (55:58):
now, what's the best way for people to try
agenda for the first time?
Alexander Griekspoor (56:08):
That's a good question, actually. Because
we see a lot of people actuallyseeing that there's only click
second time. It's filled, Ihaven't got my finger behind why
that is, I have
Jeroen Leenarts (56:21):
one tip for people who start and who have
installed and start agenda forthe first time, make sure that
you're in a quiet area, that youhave to follow him off your Mac
turned up just a little bit. Andluckily, I can sit back and just
see what happens.
Alexander Griekspoor (56:36):
Especially in your library. Now. Yeah,
there is, it comes with somevery nice and funny sample
documents, that gives youalready a good idea, I think you
do have to give it a bit of achance to play around. And but
yeah, or check the YouTubevideos that I've started making,
(56:59):
maybe that helps as well, to geta better feel of what what the
idea is. But it's really anotetaking to where at least I
keep everything that's going onin my life effectively, that I
want to put on paper andpreserve. I put everything in it
from I keep track of thedevelopment of agenda, all its
features, its bugs. When I havechats with people, when I meet
(57:24):
people, you know, everythingreally literally. But it is
yeah, you have to find the rightset up a little bit imperfectly,
it's actually like Lego to comeback to that story. It's, it's a
notetaking app that I'mpurposely gives you a box of
Lego, where ultimately after awhile, you will build your own
system. And it takes a littlebit of tinkering, a little bit
(57:46):
of trying a little bit of reorganizing sometimes if you if
you notice, but it also doesn'tmean that it's Yeah, it doesn't
come with a whole ton of one useparts. You see what I mean? It's
the same analogy. You build yourown system after a while. And
the nice thing is that thatmight look different for
everybody. And in yourcommunity, you see a lot of
(58:07):
people then sharing what worksfor them. So that's also where
you can get a lot of ideas. Ifyou feel that, why don't I grind
away? Why doesn't click for me,maybe it's because you haven't
yet find the right setup. And
Jeroen Leenarts (58:19):
also, if you're in some sort of process with
agenda for your day to day, youcan always adjust and tinker
with it and change it a littlebit down the line. I think
that's exactly what your agendais really a tool that that you
adjust and integrate to yourlife instead of making sure you
(58:40):
adjust to the tool. And yeah,that's that's one of the that's
one of the biggest barriers toentries. But I also think it's
one of the biggest exactlybecause it ties to the to
Alexander Griekspoor (58:51):
Yeah, because it gives a bit this
blank page problem, bydefinition, right the year ago.
So how do I start this exactlythis setup because you haven't
got that set up yet. But youknow, that's the nice thing. It
gives you the flexibility tostart building it out. And after
a while you kind of nicely itkind of Yeah, continuous, you
know, iteration is kind of partof it, I think.
Jeroen Leenarts (59:13):
All right. I will make sure to link those
things in the show notes. Greatjust in case you you start
developing some wild ideas aboutsomething after agenda where
people will follow you to stayup to date.
Alexander Griekspoor (59:29):
Normally, I would say Macintosh at
Twitter. That's how long theZabbix is. Yeah, got the agenda
community. Like I said, That'sit. That's where we're very
active. So you will see usaround. And again, yeah, Twitter
is still my kind of newspaper incheck. So that's another one and
(59:50):
agenda.com if you if you go toyour fine Neil ventually. I
Jeroen Leenarts (59:55):
will I will take up some some links for
people to follow What to do coolall right Alex I'm gonna thank
you for your time and we'll talkto you soon
Alexander Griekspoor (01:00:06):
yeah cheers you
Jeroen Leenarts (01:00:07):
bye bye
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.