Getting started with an App idea

Quick story of how I took that first baby step towards building my App business (MyChessApps.com & FollowChess.com).

For this, lets rewind to the year 2007. I was posted in the US from my first job. I was already 4 years into the job as a Java Software Engineer. Back then, the Symbian OS platform was very popular. This was much before Android & iOS gained popularity.

Being a chess afficionado, I used to learn chess and participate in chess tournaments. Learning was mostly via software on the laptop. However, when it came to mobile, there was hardly anything. I owned a Nokia Symbian S60 device and could find only on good chess app called Chess Genius. But it was mostly for playing vs the AI whereas my need was of an app or tool to help in my learning process (i.e. solve chess puzzles and view games of past chess masters)

Seeing this void and trusting in my tech skills, the idea to develop something on my own popped into my head!

This is when I started exploring the tools and technologies that are required for developing apps for Symbian devices. C++ was the defacto standard but I was not very hands-on with that programming language. After some more research, I came to know that J2ME (Java) is also an option to build apps and I was already familiar with Java! Hurray!! So I just had to get started with the first line of code!

The 1st app, "iChess"

In an upcoming post, I will talk about the things I did after the App was ready and the joy of the first purchase from a complete stranger! Meanwhile, here are some relevant questions related to this first post:

Is it very risky to start something on your own?

Remember, back then I was already in a stable full-time job. I just started doing this in my extra time and on weekends! So I had nothing to lose, apart from the time and energy I would spend. And from a finance perspective, doing something like this hardly needed any money since practically everything was free (except a new personal laptop). All software tools were free. I did not even purchase a website since the App was still in an early development stage. Nothing to lose if nothing works out. So it was not even a "business" per se. Just an idea and some code. In another upcoming post, I will talk about how the simple idea became a business.

How long did it take to develop the first prototype?

It took about 1.5 months to come up with something decent and useful. Note this was all in my free time.

Did I always knew what I wanted to build?

In my case I just wanted to fill a gap in my chess learning, using mobile (since mobile was easy to access and it was with me wherever I went). So just scratching my own itch! More about this in a future post where I explain in detail on how I get ideas and how I organize them.

Did I have all the technical know-how required to develop an app?

Even I had no clue on what things are required to build something which I could use myself on the phone. The only thing that was in my favour was that I had decent 4 years of programming experience in Java. So instead of learning a new language (C++) to build apps, I just searched and found that Java (J2ME) is also an option to build an app. After that it was just a matter of downloading the required IDE (Eclipse; software in which I need to write the code) and SDKs (Software Development Kits; the code or language which would help run the app on the mobile or in a simulator).

More about how I outsourced the development of some apps and started hiring full-time employees in a future post.

How much money did I spend?

ZERO! All softwares & tools were free. Back then, the websites where the app was hosted was completely free and only charged a commission after the actual purchase. The only cost was that of a laptop, which anyways I needed to watch rented DVDs!

PS. If you are Starting up or wish to go down this path, leave a comment with your question and I will be happy to answer and assist you!

#GettingStarted #FirstStep #OriginStory