On the podcast: Andy Allen shares how he went from designing the never-shipped Microsoft Courier tablet and co-founding the Apple Design Award-winning drawing app Paper to starting !Boring Software (Not Boring Software) — a deliberately tiny, 2-person studio built around one rule: never make boring software again. He talks about why staying small on purpose protects you from getting trapped in a business you hate, how a "patron plan" with no extra features outsold expectations, why sound design and haptics are the most underused tools in app development, and how 3 years of false starts led to Not Boring Camera — an app that strips out all of Apple's photo processing so you can take expressive photos instead of technically perfect ones.
Top Takeaways:
🎨 Design can be the entire value proposition — not just a nice-to-have
People pay premiums for notebooks, furniture, and cars based on aesthetics, yet the software industry still assumes you need feature differentiation to charge money.
🔒 The biggest risk isn't failure — it's getting trapped in a business you don't want to run Structure your company, your incentives, and your product roadmap around the work you actually want to do, not the work that seems most scalable.
🎭 Doing the uncool thing often has the most staying power
The projects that resonate most tend to be the ones nobody else wanted to do — starting an app business when everyone else was chasing SaaS turned out to be the right move.
💰 Patronage works when your mission resonates
If people see you fighting a battle they believe in, they'll pay significantly more than the value of the features they unlock — they're funding the effort, not buying a product.
🔊 Sound design is the most underused tool in app development
One sound file repeated is grating; a dozen slightly different versions of the same click — borrowed from game audio — makes software feel alive without adding real complexity.
📷 Default camera apps ensure you never take a bad photo — but you can never take a great one
Stripping out computational processing and putting expressive tools into the moment of capture makes people want to go outside and take photos of random things again.
🧱 Ship complete products and move on
Committing to "this is the app we made" — no V3 feature bloat, no chatbot in the corner — forces you onto the more creatively interesting path of making something new every year.
About Andy Allen:
🚀 Founder and designer behind !Boring Software (Not Boring Software), an app studio creating expressive, design-led utility apps including Not Boring Weather, Calculator, Timer, Habits, Vibes, and Camera.
👋 LinkedIn
🌐 Learn more about Not Boring Software
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Episode Highlights:
[00:00] The fear of building the wrong business
[00:45] WWDC, Apple Design Awards, and Not Boring Camera merch
[04:27] Growing up in a remote Alaskan fishing village
[06:09] Studying visual communication design
[08:51] Early interaction design work at Ziba
[13:37] Moving to Microsoft and working on Courier
[17:48] Designing tools for creativity instead of consumption
[22:03] Building Paper for iPad
[28:15] Raising VC and selling FiftyThree
[30:05] The origin of Not Boring Software
[35:28] Building a small business on purpose
[37:39] Testing whether design can be enough
[45:51] Subscriptions, skins, and patronage
[50:28] Why customers support the mission
[53:03] Avoiding a business you do not want to run
[55:47] Sound design, haptics, and game-inspired software
[01:03:15] Performance trade-offs with 3D app design
[01:06:06] Building Not Boring Camera
[01:12:13] Super RAW, LUTs, and expressive photography
[01:17:11] Why the moment of creation matters
[01:20:33] Andy’s creative inspirations
