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A New Era

A New Era

8/11/2020

 
This post marks the end of an era for Tectra. In the past, I’ve worked on a number of projects, all of which have been free. However, today, I am going to reveal one of the biggest secrets about the app I am working on: I’m going to likely charge $0.99 for it.

Wait, what?
Feeling confused? I wouldn’t blame you. Just a year ago, I was referring to Tectra as a “nonprofit organization”. However, over the last year, I have been transitioning from Tectra being a company to more of a personal portfolio.

Tectra has always been the place where I share my creations, but about a year ago, I had very different plans for it. I wanted it to be a nonprofit.

As a result, I “hired” a couple of volunteers for writing and graphic design. However, shortly after, I realized that being a nonprofit was not as glorious as it had seemed. There was much less freedom, and I seriously considered giving up on Tectra, as the direction it had taken had made me lose motivation.

About a few weeks in, I finally accepted that this wasn’t going to work, so I decided to refocus my plans for the site. If someone wanted to volunteer, I’d be willing to work with them, but I wanted to keep Tectra as a personal project rather than a company. After all, I had always been (and still am, to this day) the only one who wrote Tectra software, Nick had left, and I didn’t realize how much I had enjoyed Tectra as a personal project until it stopped being one.

Transitioning
After I realized that I wanted to keep Tectra as my own project, I decided I’d have to retire the whole company idea. So, that’s what I did. However, one thing I decided not to change was keeping my software free. Even as I continued to write Android apps, I never charged anything.

As Tectra was transitioning, I started to realize that maybe charging for an app wouldn’t be the worst thing ever. I needed money, and I wanted to buy a Mac so I could try out Xcode. However, it wasn’t until about a month ago that I finally realized I wanted to make a paid app. I knew that if I put enough time and effort into the app, it would be worth charging for it.

Today
This is the end of the “nonprofit” era for Tectra. However, that isn’t a bad thing. A new era has begun, and I’m excited to see what’s next.

To be clear, I’m not going to start charging for everything on this site. I don’t plan on making any of my existing projects paid. However, I am going to charge for some of the apps I’m going to write in the future.

As for the app I’m currently writing, I’ve been working very hard on it. However, there’s still a lot I want to do before I release it. Other than the price, I don’t want to reveal too much about it yet. Still, I have a feeling it’s going to turn out really well!

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to seeing what this new era brings!

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