Authors: Allen Wong
12
Graduating
After I graduated from college, I started my career in Pasadena, CA at EarthLink®, an internet service provider. It was your typical nine-to-five office cubicle job that every college graduate went to school for. The pay was competitive for an entry-level college graduate and the environment was casual enough that I didn’t feel stressed out. I recall the days when my colleagues and I started a Starcraft® LAN party during one of the moving days (they had moved to a new office building during my stay there). And when there was massive restructuring of the company (where some people lost their jobs and some had to move to another branch), I threw a Wii® party for everyone. We used one of the projectors and one of the conference rooms to play Wii games on a 12-foot wall. It was more of a going-away party, but we labeled that meeting as “user interface research”.
What’s interesting about EarthLink was that it had very bright-minded engineers and programmers, but the company was too slow to adapt. The massive layoffs wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t losing massive revenue each year. The problem was that they relied on their dial-up service too much, and never really expanded quickly enough to other services. It was the same fate that AOL suffered with their ISP branch. While other companies quickly adopted broadband technology over dial-up services, EarthLink was a bit too slow to jump the gun. They eventually woke up around the time that I arrived, and downsized their company to focus more on new technology and core services. And it was sad to see the downsizing happen, because that company lost a lot of veteran programmers and engineers who have been there for over a decade. There was even one guy there who graduated from U.C. Berkeley in his teens.
Nonetheless, I was ready to take on the world and to begin my career like everyone else was doing. I had side jobs such as fixing computers, developing websites and selling World of Warcraft items that I obtained through my programs. But, most of them were really just hobbies rather than actual successful businesses. I wasn’t so worried about making money at that point. I was just happy to have a great job and not have to worry about being unemployed after graduation.
The Phone Call
That all changed with a single phone call.
It is late at night at the apartment that I am staying at in California. It hasn’t even been four months since I graduated from college. It is my aunt on the other line. We speak in Chinese.
“Hi, Allen. How are you? I’m your aunt. Do you remember me?” She asks in a calm voice.
“Oh, hi, Auntie,” I respond back while half awake. “How are you?”
She says, “Do you know that your father passed away today? What are you going to do? You have to pick up your father’s body. I already told your brother about it. But I can’t get a hold of your mother.” It is two in the morning in New York. My mother is probably sound asleep.
“Wait, what?” I ask in disbelief. “My dad is dead? How? Why?”
“I don’t know all the details yet, but the hospital confirmed that he’s dead,” she responds. She now seems to be in a rush to get off the phone. I suspect that she was hoping that she wouldn’t be the one who’d have to break the news to me. “Call your mother when you can and book a flight to China as soon as possible. If you need someone to talk to, feel free to call me, okay?”
She hangs up.
That was the end of the worst phone call I had ever received.
Burned Into Memory
At that point, my entire immediate family was spread across the globe. My mother was in New York City. My brother was in London, after graduating from Imperial College with a Ph.D. My father was in China visiting his older sister. I was in California. We had a running joke in the family that the Sun never set on our family. It took my father’s death to finally bring us all together again for the first time in several years.
When we got to China, we headed for the morgue to find my father. I went in there with my mother to ID the body. She grabbed my hand really tightly when the coroner pulled the sheets back to reveal a naked body. She had a sliver of hope when we arrived there. She hoped that it wasn’t him and that it was all a mistake. That hope went out the window when we saw his face.
It was a surreal moment to see my father’s cold, motionless body in the morgue. His face was placed on top of what was left of his cracked skull like a Halloween mask. It was definitely him. There was no denying it. It was one of those images that were so disturbing that they burned into your memory. I could recall that image very clearly even years later.
The cause of his death is not something I wish to repeat. Those who caused his death were never punished. They have probably moved on now, and no longer feel guilty. Justice has failed my father.
However, I do not wish to go into further details on this matter. I’ve learned to forgive those responsible and to move on with my life. Dwelling in the past prevents you from moving forward, and stops you from leading a healthy and happy life.
“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one”
– Bruce Lee
13
Aftermath
The next few months that followed were the most grueling months I had to face. My father left us some inheritance money, but it wasn’t enough to last us forever. Most of our inheritance was tied in real estate and mutual funds, and we couldn’t access the money until we sold those assets. Unfortunately for us, he passed away at the beginning of the Great Recession of 2008. So, the value of the real estate and stocks he left us tanked and still has not recovered years later.
To make matters worse, my father’s sudden and unnatural death caused my mother to start having mental problems. So, I moved back into my mother’s house in New York to take care of her. This move across the country ended my relationship with my college girlfriend of over two years. It also meant that I had to look for a new job in New York.
My brother, on the other hand, stayed in London to continue being with his college girlfriend of over four years (they eventually got married in 2012). She had to stay in London, because she was enrolled in medical school there. The only problem was that during the global recession, nobody was looking to hire an entry-level Ph.D. graduate. Since companies had to cut back on their budget, they rather hire B.S. graduates and train them themselves.
My mother, who was a homemaker, was too devastated and mentally unsound to hold a job. This meant that for months after my father’s death, nobody in our family had a steady income, and we were only living off of our savings.
The mental as well as fiscal blow to our family would have crushed most families. These were adversities that we wouldn’t even wish upon our enemies. But none of us gave up. We were down, but not defeated yet.
Columbia University
It was not until I landed a job at a research facility in Columbia University that our family started having an income again. At the job, I helped with web development and helped marine biologists with organizing and displaying their data using computer programs. Together, we studied the deep sea and analyzed the effects of climate change. We also looked to discover new deep sea species, and to figure out new ways to combat the growing concentration of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere.
The salary was not very competitive. I was getting paid only slightly more than what the average American was making. But I took the job over my other higher-salary job offers, because it fitted more with my ideals of making this world a better place. Whether or not people believed in global warming didn’t matter much. There was no denying that there is a higher concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere now compared to decades ago because of our growing livestock, melting ice caps, deforestations, and burning of fossil fuels. Studying the effects of that was vital for the future of this planet.
Lifehack #21: Don’t wait around. Create your own opportunities.
This was around the time when the App Store started accepting new apps. I was very intrigued with the idea of having your phone do whatever you wanted it to do. It seemed like something out of a science fiction movie, and the possibilities for innovations were endless. It seemed like a great opportunity for me to do great things, and that’s what I needed in a life where everything else dragged me down. Rather than waiting and watching other people take advantage of the opportunity, I seized the opportunity when it presented itself.
At my job in Columbia University, I asked my employers if they could give me a MacBook® as my work computer. You needed an Apple computer to code and submit apps at the time, and I wasn’t rich enough to just drop $1,100 on a new MacBook. As soon as I got my MacBook, I learned how to code in Objective-C on my own by reading books and playing with the code. Ever since I was young, I had a fascination with learning new skills and using those skills to help people or to create things that helped people.
My father was the same way. And he was the one who taught me to persevere during stressful times, and to take my education onto my own hands. His passing was unexpected, and it pushed me out of my comfort zone. But before his passing, he had already left me the tools I needed to take on the responsibilities that ensued.
Since I was the only one making money at the time, I had to step up as the breadwinner for the family, despite being only 22. So I knew that I had to work on more profitable side projects during the times when I wasn’t working at my full-time job (i.e. nights and weekends). Thus, coding apps during my free time made sense to me. While my peers were slowly eased into adulthood, I was pushed into the deep end of the pool without warning. I went from being a dependent to an independent to an independent with dependents within the span of a few months. So, his passing fast-forwarded my life, and the burden, responsibilities and stress I received strengthened my character.
But I wasn’t always that strong. I admit that I had contemplated suicide during the days when life became too unbearable (because of my father’s death, mother’s mental illness, and stress from holding two jobs and a social life). But I could never go through with it. I had too many responsibilities and too many people relying on me to let them down. Suicide was a coward’s way out. I had only fantasized about it. Even just being in a temporary fantasy of nothingness made my life of misery a bit more bearable.
For those thinking about suicide, please realize that it is a stupid way out. As with stocks and roller coasters, when you are at the lowest point in your life, you are only giving yourself more room to go upwards. Why leave this world at the lowest point of your life? You’re going to miss out on all the wonderful things that have yet to come.
“When written in Chinese the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.”
– John F. Kennedy
This would have been a great motivational meme if it were true. But the truth is that the second character in the word crisis only partially means opportunity. The second character can mean other things as well. In fact, the second character in crisis has a closer meaning to “crucial point” than it does to “opportunity.” Thus to avoid spreading this false meme further, I will use a less eloquent quote from an unlikely philosopher:
“To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.”
– Bruce Lee
14
Age of the Apps
Some may think that it was pure luck that I made millions from apps. I don’t blame those people for thinking that way. It’s an easy-to-swallow way of comprehending the situation. But, luck had very little to do with it. Luck is when you win a lottery ticket. Making an app that has over a million dollars in profits per year? As you’ll find out, it takes a whole lot more than just luck.
“God doesn’t play dice with the world”
– Albert Einstein
My very first app was a browser. It was a great starting point, because everyone wants a good browser. You almost always want to create a product that has mass appeal. I wasn't satisfied with Safari's lack of the ability to hide its toolbars or lack of a privacy setting (which they added later), so I decided to create my own browser. The browser wasn't a million dollar success, but it was well received enough to stay in the Top 50 charts in the Utilities section. Back then, that meant that it earned about $50 per day.
It was sort of a gold rush in the beginning if $50 per day can be called a gold rush. It was also a gold rush in the sense that there was not much competition at the time. The big companies had not yet stepped in during the first year, so you were mainly competing against other independent developers. Since I knew how to do graphics design, web development, user-interface creation, programming, and marketing, I was basically my own company. Most developers were either great at coding or great at graphics design. But rarely were they great at both. And for those who were great at both, it was even rarer for them to know how to market their apps. Thus, I had an advantage over the rest because I could do all of those things. Nowadays, apps are created by a team of people, and you will rarely find apps created by just one person in the top charts.
In the beginning, the biggest challenge was that there weren’t many iPhone developers at the time, so you pretty much had to learn everything on your own without the help of anyone. Nowadays, you can just search on the internet for your programming question, and there will probably be a dozen developers who would have posted an answer to your question already.
The other big challenge was that your app could be cloned easily, since the app wasn’t complex enough. It wasn’t long before other browser alternatives started to pop up. I had to innovate to keep my browser on the top charts. One of the innovations was the ability to hide ad banners as you browsed the web. So I implemented ad-blocking technology into my browser app. I also wanted to make the browser have cool features that an iPhone could do, but a laptop or desktop computer couldn’t. So, I invented a way to scroll through websites by just tilting the phone. The more you tilted, the faster it scrolled.
App development tip #6: Have features worthy of showing off.
The ad-blocking and tilt-scrolling features were good enough to amaze the people I showed it to. Those features were what I’d call ‘hooks’. Usually, every popular app has a hook to it. Instagram® got popular because of its ability to turn your pictures into vintage-looking pictures. Pandora® got popular because of its ability to stream popular music for free. Those were what hooked people onto the app.
In addition, those hooks also act as bait for new customers. As I mentioned before, the best marketing you can get is from word-of-mouth. Meaning that if you have a feature that’s worthy of showing off to your friends, then it’s very likely that your current customers will show off the app to their friends. Then, their friends will want the app as well and download it.
People like to follow trends and don’t want to be the only ones without something. In the animal world, you see this behavior in groups of the same species. Similar birds tend to flock together and fly in the same direction. Schools of fish tend to travel long distances together in the same direction as well. Studies have shown they behave this way instinctually. These animals follow one another, because the ones that stray away from the group tend to end up as food for predators. The ones that stayed in a group have a higher survival rate and thus, are more likely to pass on their genes. The ones that strayed from the group have a lower survival rate (as well as a lower chance of finding a mate), so they are less likely to pass on their genes. If you keep up this trend for millions of years, then the only animals left alive are the ones who flock together.
People are very similarly behaved. If you look at clothing, it is not hard to see that a lot of people dress alike. And if you look at houses and cars, you would not see much variety either. The only ones who look different are the leaders and the independent thinkers. There are much fewer people of this type than there are people who just follow what other people do. And it’s not always a conscious choice being made. Some of the behavior is done subconsciously and can even be predicted. For example, there was a psychology experiment done involving a few people inside an elevator that opened from the front or the back. A majority of the people on the elevator was aware of the test and knew exactly which of the two doors was going to open when the elevator stopped. What they did was turn away from the door that was going to open next and faced the wrong door. The majority of the time, the person or persons who aren’t in on the experiment would follow the crowd and turn away from the correct door as well. It may not happen right away, but they don’t want to look like the odd person out. So, they eventually turn around. And if the majority of the group then turns back the correct way, the same people who were following also turns around again.
This behavior is not abnormal. Instead, our instinct to group together and work together to create a community has been passed on for millions of years. That is why it is more important to create features that set the trend, rather than create features that follow a trend. There are many clones of Instagram, and some are genuinely better photo editors than Instagram. But since Instagram popularized the whole vintage photo-editing feature, they’ve been staying on the top for quite a while.
This doesn’t mean that you have to be first ones to do it. Instagram actually copied that feature from other apps that had the same feature for months. Even Instagram itself wasn’t popular until months after their first release. But the first app to popularize a feature worth showing off to friends is the app that people will flock to. They are the trend-setters and everyone follows them, even when there are better apps out there that do the same thing.
Herds of buffalo don’t always travel in the best path. Sometimes they lead each other off of a cliff. Humans are not much different. They follow what’s popular, and what’s popular is not always the best choice.
App development tip #7: Figure out what’s lacking out there.
When I was using the built-in iPhone browser, Safari, I had a tendency to rotate a website by accident. This usually happened when I was trying to read a news article while laying on my bed and the phone tilted enough to cause the screen to rotate. This made it hard for me to read articles, because I would then have to read lines of text sideways. That is why I added the ability to lock the screen on my browser and allow the users to choose when they want the screen to rotate. This feature was so well-received that Apple stole the idea from me (or should I say, was inspired by me), and coded the rotation-lock button in its core operating system.
The people working at Apple tend to create their own versions of an app after seeing how successful an app feature has become. For example, there have been many podcast apps out there before Apple decided to create its own podcast app. Even more recently, it is rumored that the company would release its own streaming radio app after many radio apps have already appeared in the App Store for years. So, don’t expect your feature to remain exclusive for much longer. This is especially true if you do not patent the idea. But there are still perks to being the first one to introduce a feature to the world. Your app will get the news and blog coverage that will help raise awareness for your app.