Mobile development is a competitive business to say the least. I’ve been developing mobile apps since 2008 and have witnessed the app gold rush as well as the lucky stars. They were there at the right place at the right time. Since then, app development has been mostly dominated by large corporations looking to profit off of someone’s idea as quickly as possible (i.e. Zynga clone wars). This has caused a negative stigma amongst many indie developers. The realistic notion they could actually live off of their apps they create has diminished. To put things into perspective, when I began tinkering with iOS development, it was during the jailbreak days. The only option was to deploy an app on 3rd party app stores to a very limited audience. And then came the App Store’s public release which was immediately hammered with junk. Fart apps and other worthless apps developed by developers trying to hit it big as quickly as possible were abundant. We saw everything from the mentioned fart apps to virtual beer drinking apps. Anything that was actually useful was rarely spoken about. It was a case of “too early” as far as innovation was concerned.

Fast forward to 2015 and things have changed drastically. Apps have evolved into a way of life for many and a life line for many businesses. They’ve completely changed the way we access information on the internet. While many of the concepts in app development have changed, the primary goal is the same. Deliver a specific idea to an audience actually interested in the idea. Focusing your app as an extension to your existing business is where the power of apps has the most potential in my opinion. It’s extremely difficult to create a new app idea and honestly think you’ll be successful purely from that one app alone. The truth of the matter is, for every app you create, there’s about 100+ other developers waiting to steal that idea. They’ll throw 30+ team members to stomp yours into the ground. This can be disheartening to many young talented developers as it feels as if it’s a constant uphill battle you’ll never win.

Develop an app for a reason. I personally don’t create apps any longer purely for the reason of “just because it seems cool”. There are entirely too many apps on people’s phones that rarely get used and to be blunt, are pretty worthless and bring no value to the world. We create based on demand for the specific cause to help others. This has become our focus over the years, “Create apps for a better world”. We are still very passionate about apps as well as using technology to help others and the one thing that keeps us going is passion, passion to put a smile on the face of others, passion to help a business succeed in helping others, passion knowing what we’re doing will help a non-profit get started and many more. We aren’t here for a golden ticket, we’re here because we love what we do and we love helping others. Go against all odds and create an app simply because you love to do it and love to help others.