How I Built Two Apps While Working Crazy Hours (“The Other 9 to 5”)
This past summer I released two apps, Travel Hackr, an app that provides free airport wifi passwords so you can text, check email and update social media while at airports around the world and Cache Messenger, an app that lets you send hidden messages inside other text messages. Releasing these apps gave me a huge sense of accomplishment but I couldn’t have done it without faith, hard work and some extremely helpful resources.
I remember it like it was yesterday. It was summer 2016 and I was growing tired and weary of taking iOS coding tutorials that taught me how to make simple to-do lists and Tic-Tac-Toe games. This was particularly frustrating for me because I was working late and had other obligations so I wanted to use my time most effectively. I began searching for an alternative and came across Devslopes’ online learning platform. Taking one look at the curriculum and the introduction videos, I knew right away that this was the course for me. Devslopes stressed project-based learning and the instructors always gave us pro tips like proper error handling. Most importantly, when I completed a project I had the confidence that I could reproduce it with little help. I also used YouTube to supplement my learning for some of the topics that were specific to my app. With the combination of those resources I was able to capitalize when lightning struck…twice!
Cache Messenger
In September 2016, I was on the train late one night, heading home from work, when my friend texted me a funny photo. I laughed out loud causing the passenger next to me glance over at my phone. I was so annoyed by the invasion of privacy that I decided that there has to be a way to hide your messages and not leave them exposed on your chat screen. From that, the idea for Cache was born.
I began building Cache during what I call the “Other 9 to 5”, meaning 9PM to 5AM. My work schedule can sometimes require me to work until midnight so I had to dedicate whatever time I had to development, even if it was in the middle of the night. Opportunity is rarely convenient. I made it a goal to do at least 2 hours of meaningful coding every night during the other 9 to 5. Using what I learned in the Devslopes and YouTube courses, I was able to sketch out the app via wireframe, plug into a real-time database (Google Firebase) and get coding. By January 2017 I had a working prototype and even had an investor interested after seeing me pitch at an event. I decided to continue building and with a target launch date in May 2017. This is when things took a slight detour…
Travel Hackr
In May, I took a break from Cache to avoid burnout and attended a bachelor party in Curacao. While en route to Curacao I was stuck in the airport and was annoyed that I didn’t have any internet service to check details, news or even contact my family. I knew I wasn’t the only person with this issue but I knew there was something I can do about it. When traveling, we are given passwords to airport Wi-Fi hotspots all the time so why not centralize that data in one area and make it available to travelers worldwide. And that is how I came up with the idea for Travel Hackr.
Managing My Time
Getting back from Curacao was a little bittersweet. I enjoyed my vacation but I realized it was back to work…this time with two great ideas to work on and a full-time job. I have heard many speakers talk about compartmentalizing your goals and that is what I did. I created a Google Sheets doc for each app idea with the following tabs: Features to Build, Bugs, Design, Launch Checklist. Each item on each sheet had a status and a start/completion date. Creating this spreadsheet helped me focus on one goal at a time and one app at a time.
After planning out the roadmap for both apps, I decided to focus on Travel Hackr in the short term since it needed less development time and was for the most part a static app. I began crowdsourcing passwords and scraping known passwords off the web and assembled them into an Excel CSV file. In one of the Devslopes courses I took, there was a Pokemon Finder app that taught how to parse CSV files. I watched that lesson again along with their Firebase Tutorial and set out to build the app. Two and a half weeks later, I submitted the app to Apple and it was approved. It was such a good feeling getting my first app approved.
But I couldn’t bask in the moment for too long because I still had Cache Messenger to complete.
I took a look at the Google Sheets doc that I had for Cache and was a bit taken aback by just how much work was left to be done. I dedicated the next two months to focusing on completing Cache and set a short term goal of at least one meaningful Git commit every coding session. I’ll admit that that was challenging because I would get stuck on problems for days. When I did, I always went back to my roots and consulted Devslopes or Brian Voong’s YouTube tutorials.
After nearly a year of development and many long nights hunched over my laptop, I launched Cache Messenger on the App Store on August 4, 2017. To date, my apps have gotten thousands of downloads and amazing feedback from users around the world. I would like to thank Mark Price and the Devslopes team along with Brian Voong for their instruction that led to these apps. My biggest takeaway from these courses is “Don’t Shortcut the Process.” So many tutorials teach you how to complete a task without explaining the hows and whys. Take the time to understand what each piece of code is doing because it will make troubleshooting that much easier.
I would also love for you to check out both apps on the iOS App Store (Android versions coming soon):
Download Cache Messenger on the App Store here.
Download Travel Hackr on the App Store here.
Thanks for reading and happy building coders!