Welcome to Buildcast, hosted by Alex Kim and Feifan Wang. In this podcast, we share our experience developing, designing, and launching an iPhone app from scratch, called Core15.

While indie development holds the promise of financial independence for programmers and designers alike, succeeding on the App Store can be tricky. That’s exactly what we talk about in this podcast–it's for listeners who build digital products or are interested in learning about building digital products.

As the App Store is slowly taken over by established players like Nike and Clash of Clans, indies are up against some serious competition in terms of financial resources and technical expertise. We’ve also had our fair share of ups and downs trying to promote and beta test our app. In this episode, you’ll learn learn about:
- identifying a target audience for your app,
- isolating core problems your app can solve,
- developing a business model, and
- finding a voice in your brand

Find all past episodes at buildcast.fm. If you like what you hear, please leave us a review and share your thoughts with us on Twitter @ buildcastfm (http://twitter.com/buildcastfm).

Resources mentioned in the episode:
- Brain Audit: http://www.amazon.com/The-Brain-Audit-Customers-They/dp/0473175045
- Brain Audit worksheet: http://bit.ly/brain-audit-worksheet

Episode 1 - The Idea

Welcome to the second episode of Buildcast! In this episode, we cover how we find beta testers with a simple landing page as well as getting UI/UX feedback in real world settings. If you are using social media to connect with your users or are having a hard time capturing emails of early adopters, you’ll find this episode especially useful.

Specifically, we cover how we are:
- rethinking the way we reach out to potential users on paid Facebook ads,
- finding potential users where they are to get the most out of their feedback, and
- incorporating user feedback directly into the UI/UX design process.

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Find all past episodes at buildcast.fm. If you like what you hear, please leave us a review and share your thoughts with us on Twitter @ buildcastfm (twitter.com/buildcastfm).

Resources mentioned in the episode:
- Marvel: marvelapp.com

Episode 2 - Fake It Til You Make It

Welcome to the newest episode of Buildcast, Episode 3. In this show, we talk about our journey building and launching an iOS app called Core15.

It’s been a while, but the app is about 75% ready and we have a good list of beta testers ready to go. In this episode, we managed to shoot the workout videos with our trainers, Hanna and Darrin, at a studio in San Jose, California. We had quite a few mishaps trying to setup a green screen, but finally found a solution that worked for us. The best thing is that we got to celebrate by going to a bar in Chili's followed by an intense sauna session at a Korean spa.

Talk to us and let us know what you think of the show. Thanks for staying in tune, hopefully by next time we’ll be ready for launch!

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Find all past episodes at buildcast.fm. If you like what you hear, please leave us a review and share your thoughts with us on Twitter @ buildcastfm (twitter.com/buildcastfm).

Episode 3 – Shooting Day

Welcome to the newest episode of Buildcast, Episode 4. This week, we explore social media marketing through Instagram and a variety of customer satisfaction service options to integrate into our app. We also tackle a challenging conversation about how Fei is taking Core15 full-time and Alex is staying part–time. How can we evaluate each individual’s contribution without hurting our professional and personal relationship? We also reminisce about our first jobs and question the quality of Subway’s seafood meat option.

Products we mention in the show:
SupportKit - now known as Smooch (smooch.io), Apptentive (apptentive.com), Intercom (intercom.io), Mixpanel (mixpanel.com), Helpshift (helpshift.com) and Hipmob (hipmob.com).

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Check out our past episodes at buildcast.fm. If you like what you hear, please leave us a review in iTunes and share your thoughts on Twitter @ buildcastfm (twitter.com/buildcastfm).

Episode 4 - Going Deeper

Welcome to the newest episode of Buildcast, Episode 5. This week, we share how we responded to the latest updates to iOS 9 and how we prepped for our public beta launch. We try to establish whether building features for the new iOS 9 (Core spotlight and Health integration) is a "need to have" or a "want to have". We also share how we designed for permission prompts, instructed our beta testers to setup TestFlight and used social media to build a community around our product.

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Check out our past episodes of buildcast.fm. If you like what you hear, please leave us a review in iTunes and share your thoughts on Twitter @ buildcastfm (twitter.com/buildcastfm).

Episode 5 - Beta Launch

Buildcast is about the unfiltered journey of two friends creating and launching a fitness iPhone app called Core15 (core15.co).

While indie development holds the promise of financial independence for programmers and designers alike, succeeding on the App Store can be tricky. That’s exactly what we talk about in this podcast–it's for listeners who build digital products or are interested in learning about building digital products.

Find all past episodes on http://buildcast.fm or tweet us @buildcastfm

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