From events to speakers to app launches, we have covered as much mobile app activity here in the Hub as we could in 2010. Along the way we have met some of Boston’s mobile heavy hitters, and today we are placing the spotlight on one of Boston’s mobile dev shops – 8 Planes.
The company celebrated their 1 year anniversary this month after a stellar year of being behind several well-known mobile projects to come out of the Boston area. But when you visit the 8 Planes website, don’t expect to get lost in a flashy interactives boasting their 2010 work. The faces behind the company are Colin Worth and Adam Duston. Worth (or should we say Dr. Worth) boasts a Ph.D. in Physics from Boston University. Duston spent time in the TechStars program, and graduated from the University of Chicago with an Economics degree and minor in Math and Computer Science. The pair met at one of the staple events in Boston’s startup scene called WebInno.
We had the opportunity to speak with Worth to get the scoop on the mobile apps 8 Planes has been behind here in Boston, as well as what it’s like to build a mobile dev shop from the ground up.
8 Planes 2010 Work
8 Planes has worked on a dozen projects in their first year, and with some of the fastest growing mobile companies in Boston. Heard of Appswell, the crowd-sourced app dev firm based here? 8 Planes just completed an app makeover for the company. What about Localytics, the mobile app tracking and analytics company based in Boston? 8 Planes worked on the software’s iPhone 4.0 upgrade.
Other projects 8 Planes has co-authored includes a popular new open-source video conversion utility for Windows and OS X called Miro Video Converter. Duston currently does work on the Miro Video Player itself, and Worth has been working on another OS X app for Miro that will launch in a few months. The duo has also written a demo app for one of the creators for GPush (enables notification of a new email from Gmail to be pushed to the front of your screen).
The duo, who has taught a class on iPhone development at Boston University for a professor over the summer, is also looking to work with area colleges. Worth is currently advising on an iPad App to help mentally impaired patients communicate with nurses at hospitals — a collaboration between a a BU professor and a doctor at Mass General Hospital. Duston is currently taking time to work on his own project, LangoLab, which targets the English as a second language market and he hopes to launch soon.
So You Want to Launch a Mobile Dev Shop…
You have slick mobile dev skills like Duston and Worth, and want to branch out on your own, but how do you actually get a company off the ground? If you want to follow in 8 Planes steps, the key is networking like woah and charging less than the market rate for apps to build up your portfolio. After spending time at Boston’s conferences and meetups, the pair got to know several people in the mobile and web 2.0 community. Word passed quickly by mouth about the pair’s skills and appetite for building mobile apps.
A year later, and the pair says they don’t even have to market the firm or go looking for work. “We’ve developed our reputation to the point where we don’t have to look for work because people in the community are recommending us to people in need of iPhone dev work,” said Worth.
Worth and Duston’s success did not come without skills, though. “Adam is a javascript guru/ninja and fluent in many computer languages. He previously developed records systems software for a major bank and earned rave reviews,” explained Worth. He on the other hand, has been programming since the ’80s for fun and also has experience working out complex technical problems and debugging large software systems. “In my last job, our team earned 510k certification for a full-body PET scanner software system we wrote in C++, running on a 12 PC Linux cluster. I did most of the algorithm and parallel-processing implementation, as well as algorithm development,” Worth shared.
You can reach Worth and Duston by emailing founders@8planes.com.
