Quitting my job

I quit my job as a research fellow last year, a few weeks after I attended WWDC 2011. I liked my job, it was exciting. We were implementing a scalable debugger that can debug thousands of processes. But, being in the academic environment, the only way forward is to publish more papers and get more grants. Publish or perish, like they say. Secretly, I longed for my PhD years where I can get my hands dirty with code and build something real (something that can be used as opposed to something that can be read).

I’ve been a long time Hacker News lurker. It has news pretty much about bleeding-edge tech, APIs, web apps, frameworks, etc. And of course, startup success stories from a company that builds Amazon EC2 load balancer to a one-man-company that builds a profitable online bingo card creator. The tech is exciting and the stories are inspiring.

I think I want to build startups.

In December 2008, I decided to try something new, something fun that could distract me from my thesis writing. Writing iPhone apps. It was amazing! I had lots of fun! I still remember the feeling when I got the money from the Apple App Store in early 2009. It was small compared to my salary but the feeling was exhilarating: earning my own salary! Furthermore, hearing positive comments from people that used my apps gave me lots of joy.

Scratch that. I definitely want to build startups.

After several months of deliberation, I quit my job. I knew what I wanted to build and the RFS confirms it. I want to build a development environment for the iPad. I think tablet will be the future. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve never seen a single laptop in any Star Trek episode that I watched. In addition, IMHO, I think I have enough experience in building tools for remote application development.

Last week, Apple approved my app. I’m really proud of it. For sure, it has bugs (I just submitted an update two days ago) but I can see the potential of it. Where people can develop apps just by using the iPad. Where students can learn programming just by using the iPad.

Getting the release out of the door is not the end, it’s just the beginning. The beginning of constant improvement and bug fixing. The beginning of a tool, that I hope, can be truly useful.

Note: I am really grateful for Tom Howard, Fenn Bailey, and Tim Bull. I met them last year during the Melbourne Mentor Live event and they have offered me a lot of advice and support. I can’t thank them enough.

Footnote: There were a lot of deliberation before I decided to quit my job. Hacker News is also filled with stories of failing startups. So, think through the whole thing first before making major decisions. Nevertheless, if you’re on the verge, just remember what Nike says: Just Do It!