As a freshman in college, Garrett Gee decided when the iPad 2 came out that he wanted to make a big impression and start his own business. He wanted to be one of the first people to create one of the best new apps for it. He got the new iPad right when it came out and went to work. He accomplished his goal of getting one of the top 10 apps for the device early on. He called the app Scan. This app is all about being able to scan codes for various uses. All you need is a barcode for something and the app can scan it and use it for various things. It is a very widely used app and continues to be today. As well, it has influenced further innovations.
Him and a team that he brought together was able to get $1.5 million from venture capitalists to further work on the application. They had over 21 million downloads by October of 2011. They have had even more since. I really liked this story because it shows a young entrepreneur who not only had an idea, but had an idea that needed to happen fast. Apps for things like the iPad are created very quickly. There are plenty of brilliant people who work on these apps and for a young man like Garrett to be able to create an app that was that popular is very impressive. He had to work extremely quickly and bring together a good team to further it. He used technology of his day, very new technology to start his own business. He now has the opportunity to make lots of money on this project and has a full blown team working with him. It’s quite impressive.
This is definitely an interesting case where you have a time frame that you want to get your own product out in because of how well it will catch on. However, I wonder exactly what uses this app has outside of the general principle of the thing. Regardless, it is very impressive that he has been given a whole team and so much money to continue developing something as seemingly basic as an app.