Making Brush Ninja Sustainable

29 March 2019

I made Brush Ninja mostly because I thought it was a fun thing to do, but it’s grown a lot bigger than I had imagined. The app is more complex, and has more features than I could have imagined when I started. I always new it had potential but I didn’t expect it to take off to the degree it has.

I built the first version of Brush Ninja in the evenings, and weekends, around paid work. I put it online and then it took on a life of it’s own.

I would really like to devote more time to the project. There are all sorts of things I would like to do to make it better, but I am one man and I don’t have the time or knowledge to fulfill it’s potential.

If I was able to devote more time to the project then I could make the project I have always dreamed of. For example a small handful of the things I would like to work on include:

The option to upload custom backgrounds
Pressure sensitive brushes (eg apple pen)
The ability to select areas (then move, rotate, or scale them)
A paint bucket tool
Support for Google Drive, and Google Classroom
Allow loading and saving of animations on the web app

My wishlist is a lot longer than this, but a lot of these are things that people have asked me about.

Costs

Currently my biggest cost is time. Any time I spend on Brush Ninja is time not spent earning money to pay my bills, and look after my wife and son. But there’s also web hosting, software licenses, hardware costs etc.

I have worked for myself for years, so I am quite good at keeping costs low, but they are still expenses.

In terms of actual monetary expenses (hosting, licenses etc) Brush Ninja is just about breaking even purely through the Mac App sales.

Patreon

So, I have setup a Patreon page. If everyone who used Brush Ninja gave me a dollar a month, then I could stop my normal work and focus on Brush Ninja entirely. Of course, that’s not realistic, and I don’t expect it to happen. But any additional income I can get will mean I can spend more time making Brush Ninja better - and makee me happy, and hopefully contribute to the happiness of others.

More about supporting Brush Ninja →

← Recent Brush Ninja Updates Brush Ninja Version 2 →

Need a new look?

Support Brush Ninja - Buy a TShirt.

Brush Ninja Version 2

01 April 2020

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. But I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of Brush Ninja over the last few months. As I mentioned last time, I’ve had to prioritise earning a living. Brush Ninja just about covers costs, but as a project I love it...

Mac App Released!

24 June 2018

After a couple of months of hard work, a lot more work than I had anticipated, I have finally released Brush Ninja on the Mac App Store! Brush Ninja is something I have really enjoyed working on, and I have a lot of ideas for improvements. Hopefully people like it...

Progress Update

28 April 2018

Recently I have been busy working away on Brush Ninja - but there’s not been much visible progress. My main focus has been on the next stage of Brush Ninja, and that’s making a desktop app. I want to turn this simple web app into something you can use properly....

‹ Back to Blog