What happens when you get laid off from your dream job at Disney? If you’re Adrian Eves, you take some advice from Paul Hudson, add a dash of spite, and finally launch the indie app you’ve always talked about making.
In the latest episode of Launched, host Charlie Chapman sat down with the developer and community organizer to discuss his journey from working on Apple’s accessibility team to building apps rooted in his own life. His story is a candid look at the messy, non-linear, and deeply rewarding path of an indie creator.
The push you didn’t know you needed
For years, Adrian was the developer who was going to ship an app. “Oh, I’m going to do it this year,” he’d say. But it took an unexpected layoff from Disney to turn the idea into a reality. Feeling “pretty mopey,” he got some crucial advice from a friend. “Paul [Hudson] said, ‘At the very least, you need to make an indie app so that way you always have something you can fall back on.’”
That conversation was the spark. The problem to solve came from his own life: a chaotic jumble of Apple Notes trying to track his child’s health data. “I kept getting lost in all these notes that my partner and I would share,” Adrian recalls. “I was like, ‘My child who’s like three years old, I know she’s not like 11 inches.’ So that’s like an old note.” That frustration became PediaPal, a health hub for kids and his first real foray into indie development.
The bet that built an app in a month
After the emotional rollercoaster of launching PediaPal—and the subsequent letdown of not getting featured by Apple after a massive redesign—Adrian found a new, more potent form of motivation: spite.
“Paul encouraged me to get into something he called spite driven development and I made a second app out of it.”
This time, the problem was even more personal: managing his chronic, debilitating migraines. He needed a tracker that was effortless to use in a moment of intense pain. The idea for Auralog was born. But it was a friendly challenge that got it over the finish line. “One of my friends issued a challenge and they said they bet that I couldn’t release my app in a month,” Adrian laughs. “The stakes were real high. Let me tell you, it was ice cream.”
He won the bet. By focusing on a single, search-driven problem and designing for a moment of extreme user need (the core feature is a giant “Save Now, Log Later” button), Auralog quickly found traction and became his first project to generate meaningful, growing revenue.
Building spaces for others to succeed
Adrian’s story isn’t just about apps; it’s about the community that surrounds them. He’s a natural organizer, driven by a desire to pay forward the support he’s received. “This community has given me so much,” he says. “It would not be right to be like a dragon and hoard a bunch of gold.”
From helping run iOS Dev Happy Hour to co-founding CommunityKit—the unofficial “glue” of WWDC week—he creates spaces for developers to connect and learn. Now, he’s channeling that passion into his own conference, Swift Sonic, a music-festival-inspired event with a unique twist: pairing veteran “headliner” speakers with first-time “opener” speakers.
It’s this commitment to building up others that defines his journey. Adrian Eves’s story is a powerful reminder that indie success isn’t just about shipping features or hitting revenue goals. It’s about solving real problems, learning in public, and building relationships that lift everyone up.