Solo Dev Log #1

It's probably fitting that my first Dev Log newsletter is outlining my plans for 2026, but before I get into that let's quickly give you some backstory on me and outline what this newsletter is.

I am a self-taught solo dev who originally went to college for computer science, but then went down a decade-long detour in the telecommunications industry. I have come back to software development because I really missed the creation and problem-solving that comes along with it. I started my return with learning Swift and SwiftUI. I dabbled a little bit with Flutter, but have mostly landed on building iOS and Android apps using Kotlin & Compose Multiplatform.

What to Expect From This Dev Log

Being the first edition of this newsletter I don't entirely know what it is going to morph into, but I mostly want to use it for myself to help document my journey and as a tool to help focus myself more. As a side effect, maybe inspire some people to start building and more importantly shipping their projects. 

You can expect to learn about the struggles and wins in my journey as a solo developer. I've become really excited about Compose Multiplatform, so this newsletter is going to probably be a lot of talking about my thoughts on building apps using this framework. So definitely subscribe if that is something that interests you.

I'm going to start this Dev Log out as a bi-weekly newsletter, but my goal is to try to get comfortable with writing and documenting my journey enough to make it into a weekly newsletter.

App Goals

I have two apps out on the app stores. My first app, Ruff Title, was native on both platforms and is in a mostly feature complete condition, so we'll probably just get some minor updates throughout 2026. My latest app, Habit Hues, was built using Compose Multiplatform and is going to be my primary focus for the beginning of 2026 with some meaningful feature and content updates. I would like to get out three major feature updates for it this year and increase its promotion and sales.

Developer Goals

I personally feel like I'm slow on getting my ideas and app updates out there. Maybe this is normal for all the things that a solo developer has to juggle, but I feel like I struggle with focus and timelines when managing my own projects. I would really like to challenge myself to speed up my development workflow this year. I have a couple small utility app ideas, and I want to set myself a challenge of getting an MVP for one of these apps built in about two to three weeks to just help me dial in what I need to focus on. Not get bogged down in feature creep and the million other distractions that can plague a solo developer.

As a solo developer, self-promotion is critical, and so I'd really like to force myself to become more comfortable with that, remove some of the self-taught dev imposter syndrome, and get myself to interact more on social media. This newsletter is hopefully going to be one of the tools to assist me with that.

Framework Goals

I so far have been really enjoying using Compose Multiplatform and so I would really like to dive 100% in on these Kotlin and Compose frameworks. Continue learning and improving my knowledge on these frameworks and helping promote their implementations and popularity in the industry.

Also, I've recently been dabbling with Compose Unstyled after running into some issues with the Material 3 libraries, and so I would like to expand my implementations of Compose Unstyled.

Website Goals

I currently have a really basic website for my app development business. And one of my goals is to improve this and roll my individual app feature websites into this site to keep everything centralized and easier to maintain.

Success in 2026

With all these goals in mind, my overarching philosophy for 2026 and my real metric for success will be to ship faster and ship better. Most of all, I will hopefully by the end of it feel more like a professional solo dev and not a hobbyist.

Conclusion

This dev log is part accountability, part documentation, and part forcing focus and function. I plan to share what I’m building, what breaks, what I regret, and what I’d do differently next time. If you’re a solo developer, thinking about becoming one, interested in KMP/CMP content, or just curious what the day-to-day actually looks like, that’s who this is for.

Thanks for being here at the beginning. Let’s see where this goes.