Today we’d like to introduce you to Nick DeJesus.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
So this is awkward because my personal project isn’t really a business, I don’t make money off of it, not yet at least.
I am a really nerdy gamer, I travel around to different states to participate in tournaments for a game called Tekken. It’s a big game, many characters, lots of attacks with all kinds of information about each attack, it’s hard to get into and sometimes hard to keep up with.
After getting to a certain point, I figured that it would have been cool to make the information easier to get a hold of. Someone made an Android app that I felt could have gotten been a lot better. To myself I asked, “If this guy can make an app, so can I!”. At that moment, I was inspired to learn how to code.
Long story short, about 3 years later I’m running an open sourced project called T7 Chicken that caters to Tekken players. I have 25,000 users with 4.5 and above ratings/reviews and I’m running a small team of devs and designers to get it done. I’ve learned so much from this app, while it’s not a legit business, I look at this experience as a practice run for my future ventures.
Has it been a smooth road?
One of the biggest issues I’ve had to deal with in life is being broke all the time. This was another reason why I wanted to learn code, the salaries for being a developer are kinda ridiculous.
I regrettably went to school at ITT Tech, it was the only school I felt would accept me. I wasn’t a great high school student. They pitched this whole thing like, “Yeah, well, we know kids like you have potential so we don’t hold your old grades against you here”. Next thing you know I’m $48,000 in debt after 2 years with an associates degree that means little to nothing in our society. I couldn’t get a job with what they taught and I kinda didn’t think I’d ever get out of that debt.
Because of this, I decided not to go back to college to add on to that debt. I would have loved to go to Computer Science courses or something, but there are so many learning resources on the internet for free. I decided to learn how to code by myself which is a big challenge by itself.
I sacrificed lots of time with friends and family, locking myself in rooms during the weekend and going straight home after work. I’m happy to say it was all worth it in the end.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the T7 Chicken story. Tell us more about the business.
Again, it’s not a business. I’m trying to figure out how to monetize after releasing the app for free. I think the one thing that’s really important about this project is that everyone on it is as passionate about this as me. I started off working on it alone, however, I can’t feel 100% comfortable calling it “my” project. My artists and devs want to see the success of it just as much as I do, they also love the game and love their crafts as well. It’s a passion project in the truest form.
Because of this, quality work is guaranteed and everyone is literally having fun and enjoying themselves and doing what they can to make T7 Chicken as a brand grow.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
My main priority right now getting better at code. I want to be a one man dev team. I have other ideas and projects I’d like to pursue. The way I see start businesses, that you can’t really go wrong with is like this:
Think about something that sucks, then think about how you’d fix it.
It can be big global problems, or little inconveniences that we deal with on a day to day basis. If something isn’t the way you want it to be, chances are there are millions of people that feel the same way and would probably invest in your solution.
I’d hope to have several apps out in the iOS and Android app stores and I think further down the line I’d like to focus on education. Growing up around the urban areas of Boston, most of my friends growing up wanted to be nurses, construction workers or rappers. There is NO reason why kids growing up don’t know what options are out there as far as careers and skills they can learn. I feel very lucky to have gotten the little exposure I have to the business world that allowed me to adjust my sails for a better path.
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