I joined ChaiOne in February 2010, after having recently released my first iOS app (Pocket Tabs), and I distinctly remember telling my wife that I could see myself doing this full time. Doing so would mean leaving the world of .NET development where I was already successful.

Switching from a big company to a small company, and switching from .NET to iOS and Rails was a huge change for me. It was a bit scary, but in the end I’m glad I made that change. It taught me to trust in my instincts.

ChaiOne is a fantastic place to work. I helped grow the company from 3 employees to over 50, and worked on some really great projects. I was intimately involved in fostering a company culture that I was proud of.

But the impact I have on the company has been a series of diminishing returns. When a company is young and small, the changes you make have a large effect. As you grow, you have to learn to let go and let others make decisions and take control of various roles & responsibilities. Eventually I stepped back and had the realization that the company would be perfectly fine without me.

There has also been this feeling that I’ve been experiencing for a while that I want to own my own destiny, and to do something on my own.

These two factors drove my decision to try something new.

After 5 great years at ChaiOne I’ve decided to move on.

As for what’s next, I’ll be doing some teaching, some consulting, and focusing on growing NSScreencast. Learning to trust my instincts has made this decision to go out on my own a bit less scary.

I’m going to miss my colleagues dearly, but I’m extremely excited for what’s next.