This weekend, I registered a new domain name and published a new website—cushionapp.com. For the past few months, I’ve been nurturing an idea. This idea started as a simple prototype for seeing how long a freelancer could coast, based on their income applied to their monthly expenses. I shared this idea with the late night Twitter crowd and discovered that they liked it, too. I could feel I was onto something.

Over the following weeks, I shaped the idea. I started thinking about my day-to-day as a freelancer and wondered what would make it easier. Considering the original idea, I thought about breaking income into three types—deposited, pending, and potential—then, mapping them over time. I thought about my existing projects and how I wished I could track when they were delayed or dragged on too long. I thought about potential projects and what it would be like if I could visually weigh the pros and cons. After designing several of these prototypes, I realized just how much I needed this app.

The decision to commit was easy, but I also made another decision—to go on this trip alone. When I first started building apps, like DestroyFlickr and DestroyTwitter, I worked by myself, so I had free reign to take them wherever I wanted to go. Instead of focusing on the same features that every other app already had, I would experiment. I would implement the kind of features that none of the bigger apps would ever bother adding. And, sometimes, those unique features would be what set my apps apart from the rest.

With Cushion, I also want to focus on its feel and make it as personal an experience as possible. Rather than aim for unbelievable growth, I’d like to establish Cushion as a independent app, where users can have a direct connection to the person behind it. By creating an account, you are also creating a relationship.

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