Startups are led by entrepreneurs who have the vision to succeed, the foresight to identify threats, and an infectious passion to solve problems with an innovative solution.
Today, you have the App Store to acquire apps on your iPhone and a similar Google Play Store to acquire apps on your Android device.
However, there isn’t a single place to buy any relevant programming material for tech geeks who wish to code and discover the latest apps to enhance their coding skills.
Just like other entrepreneurs, Adrian Sieber addressed this unique pain point with a smart solution of creating a store for programmers and tech nerds.
We spoke with Adrian Sieber, Founder at Cliapp.Store, to understand what his online store is all about and to get an insight into his entrepreneurial journey.
He also shares 3 motivational tips with budding entrepreneurs who are contemplating whether or not to startup. Read on!
What inspired you to start Cliapp.Store? Tell us the story.
It bothered me that there was no easy way to discover and obtain command-line only apps/tools. If you want an app for your Mac, you’d visit the Mac App Store, if you want an app for your iPhone, you’d visit the iOS app store. But what if you want an app for your server or a simple command-line tool for your desktop? There was no easy way to discover the best CLI apps, learn about their features and to easily install them. So, I started Cliapp.Store.
Could you give us an insight into your entrepreneurial journey? How has becoming an entrepreneur helped you evolve as an individual?
It was definitely one of the biggest learning experiences of my life! When you start you have all these notions of how things should work, how your product should come across, and how your company should evolve.
However, you’re going to learn pretty quickly that real life doesn’t follow a rule book.
So, you have to adapt quickly and learn tons of things you haven’t even heard of before.
You have to exercise yourself in patience and humility, but also persistence and discipline, you need to learn to handle the ups and downs, to withstand the general chaos.
Most importantly, you have to be pragmatic to leverage your limited resources. It’s been quite a journey, but if someone has an entrepreneurial spirit, I would definitely recommend them to go for it!
Could you share 3 motivational tips with budding entrepreneurs who are contemplating whether or not to startup?
- The rules are not yet written! We’re so used to being told what to do from school and normal jobs, but as an entrepreneur, there are no rules (besides the law of course). So, you’re not only allowed but even encouraged to try out things, find shortcuts and win the game. Your creativity is the only limit!
- You’ve got nothing to lose! If you’ve done your homework, then you’d know that it has become much easier to obtain funding in recent years. With that backing, you can go all in without having to risk your own personal financial situation. You can only win!
- No more “what if’s?!”. Believe me, “At least I tried” is much better than a “what if”.
Share a few handy tips with developers building CLI apps. How can they hone their skills?
Most programming languages have at least one good library to simplify the creation of CLI apps. E.g. docopt for Python, optparse-applicative for Haskell, or neodoc for JavaScript.
Unfortunately, there are also many low-quality CLI apps out there. So instead of blindly copying the interface of some random app, try also to evaluate and test the usability of your apps yourself.
A CLI app with awesome usability, however, is the Google Cloud Platform (gcloud). It makes great use of sub-commands, name-spacing, and has extensive functionality and documentation.
What are future plans for Cliapp.Store?
Currently, I’m working on a comparison feature, so that it’s possible to easily compare individual apps side by side.
Also, I’m planning to provide a dedicated CLI package manager to install and manage the apps. And most importantly, of course, I am looking to attract more developers to offer their apps on our store!
Why did you choose a .STORE domain name? How is it helping you develop a unique online brand?
“.com”, “.org”, “.net”, etc. are really very generic TLDs. They provide very little additional information to the user and just make the URLs longer, uglier and less comprehensible.
“.Store”, however, makes a clear statement about the site’s purpose and lets me unify the branding and the URL. I’m really happy that I was able to obtain such a fitting domain!
