Colina & Hripsime Demirdjian Of ScreenKit App: Five Things I Learned As A Twenty-Something Founder

Always start with an MVP. Don’t spend all your time creating a dream product. This never pays off because users like feeling a part of the evolution of a product. Also, we’ve learned that you should always aim for speed over perfection. Perfection is a subjective matter, and in most cases, what you think is great for you may not be reciprocal on the other end.

As part of our interview series called “Five Things I Learned As A Twenty-Something Founder”, I had the pleasure of interviewing JJ Rathour.

Colina & Hripsime Demirdjian are co-founders of Twinstar Creatives, the company behind apps such as ScreenKit, StyleKit and more! The sister team is listed on Forbes’ 30 under 30. ScreenKit app is the #1 choice to customize your iPhone and iPad home screens with aesthetic themes, icons, and widgets. It helps make your app icons, backgrounds, and widgets look aesthetic and fabulous! With over 8 million users raving about ScreenKit and 10,000+ 5 star reviews, the trendy app icon kits and widgets are a crowd-pleaser.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

We were both studying law at the time we decided to explore tech as a career path. We recall coming out of a long lecture and a group of us all chatting about what we collectively wanted to do after graduating and the different opportunities we wanted to seek, including travel. Hearing what our peers had set out to do, we felt extremely unclear about whether we could foresee ourselves pursuing law as a profession. Being creative and forward-thinking individuals, our 20s would be some of the most remarkable years of our life. Taking the safe route would give us a good life but, unfortunately, not feed our entrepreneurial DNA. One significant trait we had acquired over the years was our ability to engage and reach audiences across several social media accounts to over 1 million followers with our curated content.

We rarely spoke about our passion to our parents or friends because none of our peers would understand what we were doing. One of our account listings was based on an emoji theme, and from that, we started testing how the future of emoji would look like. Being part of the online generation, we saw the app space holding an excellent opportunity to fuse our tech, creativity, and social growth passions. At the time, the app space was at its peak, with Apple also planning to launch their brand new iMessage store. The idea of creating an app (despite having no tech background) sounded exciting and challenging enough for us to be motivated about it. That was the first time we started looking into the tech lens as a creator instead of a consumer.

Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you started your company? What lessons or takeaways did you take out of that story?

One of the funniest mistakes that we made in the early days was telling people to download our app from the iTunes Store instead of the App Store. Thankfully, we’ve never made that mistake ever since!

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

Our company’s unique in that we create apps to solve complex problems with innovative tech solutions. We empower users by developing apps that will allow them to have more creative freedom, enjoy a certain lifestyle, and truly live out their best life. Every experience feels personal, well-thought, and truly magical from start to finish. Establishing a unique and tailored approach to each user allows us to gain their trust, increase their loyalty, and ultimately share the product with their friends. This has allowed us to organically grow our apps to reach 1.2 million new users per month.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

Much of our success is a direct result of our users. We would not be where we are today without their continued support, feedback, and positivity about our apps. Our users are our most prominent advocates and our biggest teachers. They keep us on our toes by always asking us to go further than what is currently possible.

Are you working on any exciting projects now?

We are constantly working on exciting projects. It’s the reason we wake up each morning. We are currently developing new apps which we believe will allow us to continue to dominate the graphics and design space. We are also creating new blockchain-related projects. We would love to share more about this once it’s released.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

In our early days, we reached out to the Make-A-Wish Foundation and we were grateful to collaborate with our app in which proceeds from sales would be donated to their cause. We have ever since yearned to do more to fundraise for various initiatives.

By sharing our story, we also hope we can help inspire more female entrepreneurs to enter the tech space and help shape the future of how we interact with technology.

Do you have a favorite book that made a deep impact on your life? Can you share a story?

Our favorite book would probably be The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau. Chris shared a very truth-speaking story on how to live a full life, focused on achieving your fullest potential, and how to thrive personally, professionally, and financially.

Chris’s perspective on how your mindset is more important than your skillset strikes a chord with how we approached and overcame the early challenges in navigating the building and launching our app tech company.

What are the main takeaways that you would advise a twenty year old who is looking to found a business?

Our tips to help you thrive in the tech space are:

• Always start with an MVP. Don’t spend all your time creating a dream product. This never pays off because users like feeling a part of the evolution of a product. Also, we’ve learned that you should always aim for speed over perfection. Perfection is a subjective matter, and in most cases, what you think is great for you may not be reciprocal on the other end.
• Stay flexible. With emerging trends always occurring in the tech space, it is essential to adapt to new things and seek opportunities even if they don’t naturally appear to work well with your idea. Your ability to adjust your product and align them with market trends will create your market appeal.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might see this. :-)

It would probably be interesting to chat over coffee with Elon Musk. Some of his approaches are unusual and very ambitious, yet he captures people’s attention and creates excitement about pretty much everything he is working on with his various endeavors. We would love to ask what inspires him and who his influences are.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

We’re active on social media, mainly on Instagram and Twitter @demirdjiantwins. If you’re starting your project or want to say hi, please don’t hesitate to send us a message.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!