Learning is living, time is your most precious commodity, it's about the journey not the destination and other cliches I have lived.... Let's call it 2014!

If there's a thought I can't stand it's one related to stagnating. Doing the same thing in the same place, year after year and then wondering where life went. Part of it is connected to a feeling that if you aren't at the cutting edge of things then you are just part of the crowd. This underlying itch to have the latest things, go to the cool places, hang out with the right folk even. Society pushes this materialistic message that everything is happening right now and if you aren't on the cool gadget train... then guess what. This is to the point where people are ridiculed for their old phones, old clothes, old jokes and old references. I'm pretty convinced now that these "needs' aren't healthy but somehow in life I dance this tightrope between self aware, compassionate, happy with myself and one utterly fuelled by the need for better, cooler, faster and more "fulfilling" STUFF in my life.  There's a fork in that journey and it goes wrong, of course, with the assumption that you get fulfilled by things and not experiences. 

Last year, determined to find more authentic happiness in my life, I made A LOT of changes.

Having reached the top of my chosen profession as a CTO I was very proud of myself but I can't figure out why I didn't truly realise what I already knew, i.e. that working for a company, you always have a boss, the CEO answers to the Board and the Board to the Shareholders. Unless your job is one where you choose what you do, you are never the master of your days, your time or really, your destiny.

My days were definitely not my own. I wasn't seeing my kids grow up and actually I was quite happy to hide behind work as three kids (almost under two) was a bit much, especially if one has special needs. I read a stat that said this is pretty much the norm for men who reach a certain level and who have kids. You just can't be Clarke Kent, Superman and Superdad all at once. Who knows where your own sense of self goes in this circumstance and how are you supposed to maintain a relationship is beyond me. Those first five years require a great deal of sacrifice from parents and if you are lucky, after the battle you'll find each other again and hopefully you still like what you find. 

At the same time I knew that what I loved was leading by example and seeing others grow and that I still liked the challenge of learning new things. Most of all though, want I wanted was some creative control of my life back and I still selfishly wanted to get some of that through the activity and output of my work. I'm fortunate to have had people around me to take this inspiration from. Really good people.

First thing I did was quit my job. Bold but necessary or foolish and reckless. With hindsight, I am not sure which, but sometimes you just know when a job is going to be an energy detractor and frankly I didn't believe in the company I was with. I would encourage anyone in the same boat to vote strongly with their feet.

Next, I got in shape. After creative outlets, exercise is the next easiest victim of our busyness! I selfishly buggered off to France and learnt some Yoga from a wonderful teacher and have maintained and built on what I learnt. It is one of those experiences that requires your full attention and therefore when you do it you not only feel great but it gives you some separation from everyday thoughts. I do some Yoga virtually every day.

I started a daily meditation practice and what started as a curiosity toward mindfulness has become an essential part of my life. It has, after a year of practice finally given me some space from the never ending cycle of thoughts that generally aren't healthy and that I had previously used to drive relentless scenario planning to "win" at work. Any game where you win at work is of course a nonsense because someone else loses and that has a high human, and ultimately, commercial cost.

I also went and did a course on making bicycles. It was incredible. For 20 years, software based products have been my thing, and some of them I am truly proud of too but there is no substitute for building something with your own hands. It gave me a strong desire to build more stuff personally that I could sell and that would make money when I was asleep.

So I started Delivery Craft and under that umbrella, I started Disruptive Distillery as a way to generate product ideas and to help people bring them to market. The Distillery also allows me to exercise my creative gene and to help people evolve and ignite their ideas. Delivery Craft is how I make money day to day and I promised myself that I would not work on client assignments more than 10-12 days a month so that I could invest my other time in developing the business, my family and into other creative ideas. Don't get me wrong, when I am working, I work extremely hard. I am one of the first in the office and I try to make every hour genuinely productive. I take less meetings and I back myself when I am confident in a decision. That free time quickly evolved into advisory opportunities and some of the best networking I have ever done. Meeting talented positive people doing great things is a gift in itself.

Nowadays, even though it's early days and I don't know what will happen next I do feel blessed and even though I say it myself, I needed a huge shake up to push me into the decision and it cost me on the way in both money and relationships. I spent a lot of my savings as I reshaped things and I sold my favourite possession, my car, to make it happen. I figured that if I was doing what I loved that more cars would come my way.

Rytyu, as I have said was an idea I had cultivated for a while but this period of change was the catalyst to get it done. I was used to running teams of many hundreds of people and in some places i had teams that made awesome apps. Now I wanted to learn what it was like delivering an app in a very different environment:

1) I wasn't an expert in any aspect of the iOS development process, I knew a fair amount about operating systems, a bit about Xcode, something about design and a smattering of what it took to get the app into the store.

2) Budget definitely was an issue. I had been used to pretty much unconstrained access to funding in some very big and successful corporates but now I was essentially asking two very talented people to work in their spare time for less money than they could normally earn. For the money, I know we did an excellent job.

3) I literally had to do everything else myself. I thought up the concept, I did the requirements, the spec, the marketing, the website, the social sites and a lot of the launch process (with some help) myself. The app review process is a total lottery depending on whose doing the reviews this week and which rules they fancy wheeling out. This was the amazing thing, however many units sold, and we have sold some all round the world (which I am really pleased by) it was the journey that was the destination that matter. Along the way I met amazing collaborators who are really good people.

Luckily for me, the journey is still in progress. Without any real encouragement, Stuart, who wrote the code has continued to develop features. Not even the slightest mention of payment has been made (although I will find a way to compensate him). 

So, very soon we are launching a new version of Rytyu. It now has a number of new illustration options for many of life's wonderful events including Birthdays, Weddings, Easter, Christmas and soon to be a hot topic, Valentine's Day. We have also added the ability for you to select any image form your phone to use as a custom envelope image a bit like a postcard, but a letter, well a Rytyu. 

We hope that you will tell all your friends about this, preferably in a Rytyu but we will gladly accept your Tweets, Facebook updates and any emails you care to write to your contacts to spread the word.

I'm glad the journey is still going and I wish everyone happiness in their own travels. Letters, are an incredible way of marking the journey in a way that can truly bring people with you and so I hope you all write one soon. 

Justin

Rytyu - The story

There's always a story and ours (Rytyu's) starts as a love story. When I first met the lady who is now my wife, Christabel, we were, for a time, separated by about as much distance as the Earth can put between two people. I remained in London as she left for New Zealand and I had no real way of knowing that I would ever see her again.

As I do, when I meet someone with whom I have an extremely rare connection, I fell totally, completely, truly, madly, deeply (sorry) head over heals, can't sleep for the missing of her, consumingly and utterly in love. I have remained like this, a believer in Fairy Tales and magic and the power of love to overcome all else and to this day I am a romantic dreamer.

During this period of enforced absence, with complete disregard of any other form of communication that could possibly convey the depth and sincerity of my feelings, I took to writing letters to my beloved; every single day. I was hoping to woo her and have her fall for me, in any similar way. She reciprocated with her own beautiful words and it eventually, evidently worked as we were reunited, first in the tropics and then in California where we spent a good few years bathing in the total freedom of a new culture and young love.

During this time Christabel introduced me to the work of Nick Bantock and his Griffin and Sabine trilogy. This is a marvellous work of amazing imagination and beautiful talent combined in a book series recording a correspondence between two lovers. I'll say no more, but I urge anyone with an ounce of romanticism to read the books. They are a completely rare treat and a great testament to the quality of dialogue that can result from this age old means of communication.

We kept those precious letters and we still have them to this day. Something about those moments stayed with me as I poured out my heart and sent those words on their way knowing that I would finish another three, at least,  before the current one arrived in the hands of my love. The magic was that I new that the opening and reading of them and the thoughts conveyed in them would hopefully serve to show my love, care, commitment and strengthen our resolve to one day be together.

Of course, like many of us I grew up with email and text and then the onslaught of a multitude of ways to communicate over thousands of miles, instantly and almost without limits to what could be attached or embedded along with my words.

However, it always stayed with me that none of these mechanisms of communication retained the critical elements of the experience that count and resonate and make you save letters in a box for a lifetime. The effort has to be there, you have to put something into producing a letter but I also accepted that the devices we all carry are now able to generate any image we can conjure and any words we can imagine, in any format or colour.

Then, I theorised that effort had to be coupled with the notion that the writing I send has to at least "feel" like mine and so I wanted to retain some sense that the handwriting I use was a representation of me. 

Finally I wanted to allow people to use technology for what its best at. Making things quicker and more convenient and not standing in the way of producing a letter wherever I was.

The net result was that I carried around an idea for a letter writing app for about two years and every time I told someone how I might achieve it they seemed to think I was onto something if I could execute it in the right way. I even came up with a name. Rytyu (Write you).

After a few false starts trying to eliminate the hand made element of producing a letter so that the user never saw any paper, I realised that although it could be done that I was depriving people of any real sense of creating the letter and so I started playing with the simplest possible means to allow the customer to print and make a Rytyu with no special equipment and the least fuss. This evolved into what we released on 1st November 2014.

The Rytyu app allows you to use many of the features of your iPhone like your contacts to pick your sending and recipient addresses, your photos in case you want to add some colour and the voice dictation service to produce simple beautiful handcrafted letters. When you set up the app you are guided through some questions about you to allow Rytyu to suggest some appropriate handwriting fonts. We have fonts for children and adults and we think they look great on paper. They also have the advantage of never smudging, sloping or being spelt wrongly. Once they are written and saved, the last page of the Rytyu becomes the envelope and we have made sure that they are simple enough that a five year old can make them. The envelopes can also be personalised with some wonderful illustrations and a seal with your own message if you wish.

To make Rytyu I had to find someone more technical than me to write iOS Xcode and a Designer who could bring the experience to life in a way that was easy to use and intuitive to follow. Luckily I found Stuart and Polly who are credited in the app and on this site. They both worked extremely hard on Rytyu and although it seems like a simple application it actually hides a lot of complexity from the user (like, I hope, all great products).

We have been brewing up for launch and I am excited to get to use my network to help me get the word out. If you think you might write a letter, personal or business or you want to make sure a few people see your message then Rytyu allows you to do all those things too and that is why we think it's great for families, friends and lovers. We also believe it's a great micro marketing tool for small businesses who want their message to get seen and read.

I just hope you enjoy the act of making a Rytyu as much as we do and that when you drop it in the postbox that you get that feeling of excited anticipation that you just don't get from any other means of communication. We like to say that you use Rytyu, because your words matter.

Now go make someone's day.

Justin.