This chronicle will basically be a digital online journal of my journey (from this point forward) and thoughts as I try to make ThinApp a household name and globally recognized brand (I'm the founder by the way. Sole founder. My name is Ken Davis for the record.). In some ways I guess this will be kind of theraputic and cathartic because a person could go crazy trying to carve out a niche in an already established industry full of know-it-alls, where everybody already thinks it's over-saturated and tapped out - when in essence the numbers clearly prove it's not. People really don't like facts these days it seems haha. Currently there are an estimated 2 to 3 million mobile apps in the world (and that's not even taking into account how many are actually even "active" ie. so it's probably less) yet there are an estimated 1 billion websites (yes, billion with a 'b'). I don't know, that kinda sounds like opportunity to me.
MON 1/16/2016 - So last this past weekend I heard back from 3 VC folks who I had reached out to on LinkedIn about ThinApp. One I was super excited about - and he basically spewed out a lot of stuff about how familiar he was with a lot of technologies trying to make it easier to build apps and something else presumptuous and that he could never see how it could build a long-term, lasting business (as I read his reply I was thinking to myself, this is what I get for reaching out to a way younger dude than me). Basically, after going back over his message, I realized he thought he knew more about the space than he really did. And for the record, I'm not trying to make it easier to build apps - I'm trying to make it easier for people to get apps made. Big difference. I'm not trying to make it easier for developers to build apps - and I know that's what he meant, because he also mentioned React. Most people are so developer-focused when they talk about Apps, which I have a big problem with - because I personally think most developers are inefficient, arrogant (to a fault) and over-priced. And frankly, ThinApp proves it.
Now, on the bright side, I met a real estate broker yesterday who I called on the fly about a nearby private rental listing and managed to get on the phone right away. I like that. Someone who's always on. He said he had appointments for 2 hours but lived nearby and would show us (my fiance and I) the place then. And he called 15 minutes early - and we went and saw the place. Love people like that. The place was pretty unreal and while standing there in the empty space we all chatted and I think he and I were sort of feeling each other out - sensing some similarities. I gave him a card when he talked about sending us more listings and we said we had a few more places to look at, but would get back to him.
Low and behold, not even an hour later he said he was checking out my site (this one of course) and was really impressed. He asked if I thought I had a need for a service that helped Apps get to the top of the App Store because he had another client who had a new startup that did that. He said if I thought it would be beneficial that he would make the introduction. And I did - and said make it happen. When I flood the market with awesome apps, it's going to create instand demand for this other guy to help people's app stand out.
I really appreciated the insight and the fact he looked at my site without me even asking him - even though that is probably not uncommon for a broker. But, I also appreciated the foresight to try to make a valuable connection with me and his other client. Anyway, that ended up where we're about to have coffee in an hour and talk about him doing some Brand Partner stuff with us in exchange for an immediate revenue share and potentially stock. He seems excited and said he already has tons of interesting clients who could either be potential customers or additional strategic partners to collaborate with.
Then on top of that one of my clients flew in to visit her family from LA and even though I thought it was just going to be she and I in a working meeting in the conference room, she ended up bringing her mom and best friend : ) haha. I was totally cool with that and like the more the merrier - I'm confident in what I did and used to being on display. I said I only wish I had known because I would've picked up Starbucks for them too.
So turns out her best friend (who apparently does her PR) also does PR for some very big brands - like Walmart, Pfizer and some others. She said she had just been in charge of a team where they did a mobile app for one of the larger clients and told me how grueling and insane the whole process was - this immediately after I was showing them just how easy we've made everything with mobile apps. They were all sitting there jaws open and asked me "What are you doing in Chicago?" to which I gave them an answer. She said had she known me a little bit earlier that they would've hands down given me the contract. Sounds like they may have spent a couple hundred thousand and taken around 6 months from what I inferred. Yeah, we would've probably done it for $25k to $40k gladly and been finished and had the app live in both App Stores in under a month.
And, and an old classmate reached out. Turns out he works for a big Healthcare VC in the Valley. I told him how I had a close, personal connection with a huge Healthcare exec who wanted to use and leverage my technology to make more robust mobile app tools for the Healthcare Industry - and he said when we had something (ie. a prototype) to reach out to him and he'd see what he could do. I'll probably be contacting my friend and starting the working prototype later this week. That's an interesting potential thing that I may divulge more about later - but there's some massive potential there - and thankfully this exec was smart enough to see it right away the first time we even talked about it when I showed him one of our Apps.
I have to keep reminding myself that there are a lot of really smart and successful people out there that see the value in what I'm trying to do - and that I've had Web App Clients for the past 2 years and mid-level mobile app clients for the past 7 or 8 months. You meet a lot of nay sayers and people who think they know everything, some of which will try to shoot you down - but you have to keep reminding yourself:
"When 99% of people doubt your idea, you're either gravely wrong or about to make history" -- Scott Belsky (who founded and sold Behance for $150M to Adobe)
People will soon see. The hardest parts are done. Now all I have to do is continue getting it out there. And I know a lot of people - and a lot of people need this, so it's only a matter of time.