Appspiration

I n my  previous post , I briefly mentioned what led me to quit my full-time salaried job with Motorola and jump into the world of entrepreneurship. The year is 2013 and I was starting off as a Solopreneur. I was skilled in developing Android apps as well as the technologies required to build a backend (server). But to grow the business, more had to be done. This is what I ended up doing, step by step: iOS Apps with no skills By this time, iOS was already a force to reckon with. So expanding the Apps to the iOS platform was the next logical step. For that I initially outsourced the App-work to a consultancy from Pune. After that relationship gracefully ended, I got a freelancer from Romania whom I found via freelancer.com . Interestingly, I was his first client on that website! I believed in his work even though he had no prior experience or reviews to show on that website. Hiring full-time engineers A year and a half later, I started hiring full-time Android and iOS engineer...

In my previous post I wrote about how the Apps got me a job in Motorola . Now work on the Motorola MOTOACTV smart watch was going on well. On the personal front, I had also released 3 Android chess apps on the Play Store (no iOS apps yet, since this was still a side hustle using tech skills which I knew). Meeting Anand The year was 2012, and a team from Motorola with me as the captain, decided to participate in a Corporate Chess tournament in the month of July. The event consisted of team matches as well as an individual tournament. The highlight of the event was also a chance to play a game with none other than the then world champion Viswanathan Anand, provided one finishes in the top 10. There was also an option for a dinner with him (paid entry!). Although the team did not fare well, in the individual event I finished 4th, which meant I was eligible to play Anand! What a moment it was for me, not only to personally see the world chess champion face to face but try my chess skil...

This week, I take a break from writing about my own entrepreneurship journey. Instead, here is an inspiring journey of Ragunathan Pattabiraman, founder of kuyil.org ,  who quit his full time job to help his musician brother make apps for Carnatic music lovers! Ragu found his niche in Carnatic music and went on to develop 3 apps along with his brother. All together, the apps now have ~200,000 downloads, and all organically! I sent some questions to Ragu via email and he kindly replied with in-depth answers talking about his family and journey. Sit back and get inspired! Asim: What was your motivation to develop these Apps ? Ragu: My main motivation was to build something for my brother. He is a musician who studied carnatic music. He is also my favourite composer (You can listen to his old album   here ). I was working at a software company. We are all one joint family. Financially we were fine and there was no pressure on him to earn. I was very clear not to pressurize ...