Won't lie, there's been some dark days. Especially in the beginning with zero users, negative $$$ (basically supporting UpKeep with my paycheck), and working alone in mom's garage.
But what kept me motivated through this period was just this idea that I was learning SO much in such a short period of time. I loved it. I basically asked myself if I'd rather pay to go to a bootcamp and learn to code or do an MBA or try and start my own thing and learn with UpKeep! I chose UpKeep and I just tried to learn something new and challenge myself every day.
Now, I am really motivated by our current customers using UpKeep. Watching them use our software and seeing how it actually has a significant impact on their business and workflow is awesome. I wouldn't trade it for anything else. When people say they actually "love" UpKeep it gives me all the warm fuzzies :)
Let me try to dig up a screenshot: http://cdn.appcrawlr.com/imageService/aHR0cDovL2E0Lm16c3RhdG...
This is what I designed. After we gained a little bit of traction, I asked one of my designer friends to help out with the designs (she's way better than me)
Because I started out on my own, basically learning iOS myself, I used Parse. I am so so thankful for Parse and what they have done because that is honestly the only way I could have gotten to where I am right now. It was sad to see them shut down, but we wound up migrating from Parse to our own node server after we heard the news.
Anyways, a big part of this for me was that I really wanted to create native applications because enterprise sort of gets the short end of the stick for apps and new technology. I really wanted our enterprise users to have a slick app they actually enjoyed using!
Did you do the design, too? What's the tech stack? How do you stay motivated?