Chapter One

Thank you so much for taking the time to interview with Chapter1! Let’s begin.

Due to your concentrated background in mobile development, I’d like to touch upon that area first. What drew you into programming and made you want to pursue it as your career - specifically, for mobile development?

As cliche as it sounds, my whole life I was constantly creating/building something. In the childhood it would be Lego sets or forts in the house, in teenage years I would film and montage movies with my friends and today I make apps. It is the feeling of a finished product which brings me joy and makes me going my whole life.

During my first trip to the US, my parents got me an iPod Touch 4g which only just came out at the same time with new iPhone 4. It was a birthday gift for my 16th birthday. I was instantly blown away with all the apps and games I found on the App Store. At the same time, more and more stories were published about independent developers getting rich from making apps (Angry Birds, Cut the rope). It influenced me a lot at that time, not the fact that people made huge money out of it but the fact that they found great success by doing something which anyone who owns a Mac could to. I started my research on "how to make apps for iPhones" and started learning programming from books I got at my local book shops and YouTube tutorials.

I was hooked instantly and since then I never doubted my career choices and never had a dilemma about my future job. I thought I was so lucky to find my passion so early during my school years when I saw my classmates struggling to find theirs.

What was the first app you created and published on the app store? What was that initial experience like developing an app from scratch and putting it out there for the entire world to use?

My first iPhone app development took a whole year. I started working on it when I was 16 and finished when I became 17. It took so long mainly because I was learning iOS development at the same time as developing the app itself.

The app name was Giftopedia. The app would find gift ideas for any person. The idea behind it was simple - enter one's age, gender and some other parameters and it would suggest a list of gift ideas suitable for the described person. I thought the idea was great because it seemed like it solved a really common and trivial problem for many people including me.

I started working on it and once the prototype was finished I found a designer on a local forum who was willing to draw design the app just for experience. He did a fantastic job! The app was looking clean but also had that holidays vibes which are related to gifts.

When the app was done, I sent it to App Store. It was a surreal experience - finally something I have been working on for so long can be on anyones phone. I made it completely free as well so my friends could try it and it was my first real project anyway. I went to school the next day and my classmates would tell me how cool it was. It was a really nice feeling.

Eventually, a couple years later when I was not working on the app for a long time already, I sold the app for $1000 and was really happy with it. But new owner probably didn't take care of it so it got removed from App Store.

What would you say is your proudest moment as a developer thus far?

1) The fact that R4VE helps a lot of people to produce something useful. Like covers for music singles/albums, content for Instagram feed or ads, designs for tshirts etc. It makes me happy that R4VE is used as a tool to produce things.

2) Also reaching the 2.000.000 downloads mark. For some developers it is not a big number but for me it is huge - it is two times bigger than the population of a city where I was born and live right now.

3) One day I woke up and found that R4VE was top 3 on Korean App Store. It left behind Instagram. It felt nice even though it lasted only for like 24 hours.

Let’s dive into your most recent venture. R4VE is “an urban photo editing app which fits modern culture and society”, where you can stylize any photo however you want with it's built-in features. How did you come up with this idea? How did you achieve the 100,000+ downloads from the app store?

I came up with that idea simply because I needed an app like this and couldn't find one. I wanted to make a badass photo app which would be kind of rebellious. An app which would be like street wear in a clothing world, art house films in the movies world or underground tunes in the music world.

I believe it was the key for success. People really loved the app for the selection of stickers it provided. The stickers in the app finally didn't suck, they were representing modern vibes and current culture. It helped the app a lot to spread just because people suggested it to each other.

How do you determine the items you place as your in-app micro transaction purchases ? Do you plan to expand your revenue model with R4VE in the near future (Such as partnering with sponsors and putting in ADs)?

Absolutely. Ideally, I would love to remove the in app currency from the app which is used to by additional content and make it free while adding sponsors and their "branded" stickers as a form of monetization. That is something I am looking forward to do this year.

And I really don't want to use AD banners as it ruins the vibes of R4VE a lot.

R4VE has garnered many reviews with an astounding overall 4.7 on the iOS app store! How do you maintain such high ratings on your app? Do you actively roll out features, fix bugs, etc primarily based on the community’s stance and opinions from their reviews?

Actually it was a solid 5 but new updates generally cause the reviews to go down a bit. Major changes which come to the app through the updates are sometimes difficult to accept even though they are for the good reason.

The app also had a custom rating request window which would pop up at some point of the app and ask user to rate the app. It had a cat photo from "Shrek" on it with large needy eyes. I believe it helped us to generate a lot of positive reviews! :D

Aside from R4VE, what else have you been working on upon graduation? What are your plans for yourself in the near future?

I work on some smaller projects as well. For example, two weeks ago I published a simple photo editing app Lomograph. I only developed it because it was really fun to me and I felt like people would like it. It applies effects on photos of "analog film cameras" from the 80s-90s. Very simple and yet fun to use.

In near future, I want to start working on a bigger scale project (with a team) which is not necessarily connected to mobile development.

Also I want to learn electronic music production and make an album. Hey, I already got Garage Band on my iPhone!

Any advice for our aspiring iOS developers?

1. Start small. First make a simple app with simple design and functionality. Then add more stuff.
2. Internet has all the information in the world which you might need to develop apps for free. You really don't even need to pay for courses or stuff like that.
3. Join a Slack group for iOS developers. It is really useful: https://ios-developers.io/
4. StackOverflow is your best friend!
5. Have fun with it :)