What would you do if you came back to your apartment after a trip abroad to find out that your roommate had disappeared with the deposit, the locks had been changed, and your stuff was missing? I know my response would involve a large number of guttural screams and a healthy amount of crying.
Ajay, on the other hand, used it as inspiration to build Roomi, an app that helps people find ideal roommates. List or browse apartments, describe your lifestyle, and never get stuck with a nightmare roommate again.
After a ton of research, Ajay built Roomi from scratch — learning Objective-C in a few months using free online resources, hiring a designer, and creating a minimum viable product (MVP). He’s learned from past mistakes and really did it right this time.
If you’re still struggling to figure out your best next move, listen to this episode and follow in Ajay’s steps. You’ll come out with an awesome product.
Here’s what we chat about:
- Finding inspiration in absolutely terrible life events
- How to test your idea to avoid unnecessary work
- How failure can lead to success and the importance of the lean startup methodology
- Why you need solid research before doing anything else
- How to find and hire a freelance designer
- Giving equity versus paying your freelancer
- How iOS 7 changes everything
- Can you get users without doing any marketing?
- The single change that caused a 3X increase in app usage
- What it’s like at TechCrunch’s Startup Alley
- How to teach yourself to code
- Methods for finding advisors and mentors
Links mentioned in this show include:
- Codecademy
- Treehouse
- Ryan Carson’s The Naive Optimist
- Code School
- Rails for Zombies
- Skillshare’s Program iPhone Apps: Become an iPhone Developer
- Github
- Stackexchange
- Firebase
- Parse
- Crunchbase
Did you enjoy this episode? Thank Ajay on Twitter!
If you thought this episode of the podcast was interesting, take a few seconds and let Ajay know by clicking the link below to share via Twitter:
Click here to thank Ajay on Twitter!
Comments?
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The Novice No Longer Podcast intro music was composed by the talented Will Larche.
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