Developer follows his dream to Silicon Valley

Apisit Toompakdee, a 29-year-old software developer who got his start at a company in Chon Buri province’s Sri Racha district, has embarked on a career as an entrepreneur with the launch of a start-up project in Silicon Valley.

He joined the local software company when he was a senior at Kasetsart University’s Sri Racha campus, studying computer science. Apisit is enthusiastic, always seeking to learn new things and looking for opportunities. At university, he always participated in computer competitions, especially the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec)’s National Software Contest. He also helped his professors to develop software and solutions.

“I got a job as a software developer at Team Work Solution when I was studying in my third year. I worked there for six years in total, and went from being a developer to being the lead senior developer and system analyst, and finally became a software architect. I left the company to study abroad last year,” Apisit said.

His plan was to study for a master’s degree at Carnegie Mellon University in the US state of Pennsylvania. While applying to study he decided to look for a job at the same time. 

“I did not have much money, so I needed to find a job to support my studies,” Apisit said.

After searching for 45 days, he got a job as a software engineer at a company in Oakland, California. He was hired to develop new products to complement the firm’s existing system, an application for iOS tablets. 

“I have been working here for over three years,” Apisit said.

He has a passion to develop products and services that will be used by a lot of people around the world. He keeps this dream in mind all the time, constantly pursuing it and seeing opportunities in anything that comes his way. 

One day while chatting as usual on Twitter, he was attracted by a tweet from Youssef Sarhan, or @ys, which read: “I have a very, very simple app idea that could be fun for sharing ideas. Looking for an iOS guy to help. Email me or tweet.” 

Apisit jumped at the opportunity.

“My Twitter friend, @ys, who I followed, asked for a partner to join his project to develop an application related to … sharing between tablets and computers via a browser,” Apisit said. He became a friend of @ys. Their work together went well from the start. 

“@ys and me never met. We worked together online via Twitter and e-mail. We spent a few days finding out the best way of working together, since we were in different places. He was in Ireland while I was in San Francisco.”

He and @ys worked together on a series of projects, mostly small ideas about communications application, looking for ways to make them unique. Finally, after working on ideas for almost a year, they came up with a messaging application they called Jupiter. Jupiter is unique because it allows people to chat by exchanging photos instead of text and voice messages.

“We have tried to give our app a different user interface from others. We developed a prototype and released it without doing any marketing. We just used social media, especially Twitter, to promote our app. And we used friends’ recommendations as viral marketing with zero budget,” Apisit said.

Four months since its release – without any promotional budget – Jupiter has seen approximately 1,500 downloads, with 850 registered users and about 150 daily active users and more than 20,000 photos uploaded.

“Most users are in the United States. There are many users in Europe and some across the Asia region, including Japan, South Korea and Thailand. We have not promoted it widely,” Apisit said.

The numbers of downloads and active users are not as important as the attractiveness to investors of the business idea behind the application, he said. 

“I was happy and proud when I received offers from an investor. [But my main priority] was not to build a product for sale to investors. @ys and I have the same passion – to have our own product that is used by people. The investment is [simply] a reward for our hard work,” Apisit said.

He added that the investor was also a user of the Jupiter app. He used it, experienced it and loved it – and decided to invest in it. 

“We were offered cash and equities in the company, named Social Print Studio, which owns the Jupiter app. And, we also became company employees. I am happy to follow my dream by moving to work at this company,” said Apisit.

He insisted that Thai developers have skills in developing new software and applications. They should continue to follow their dream and use their passion to turn it into an actual product or service, he said. 

His advice is simple: build something that you personally want to see exist. If nobody wants it, at least you know one person who does, Apisit said.

He said his life is just beginning. He feels he has just achieved the first step in realising his dream. And so, his journey continues. 

“If I can do this, I believe anyone can,” the young entrepreneur said. 

Apisit’s path from a boy growing up in the Thai provinces to Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur serves as an inspiration to young developers to keep working and follow their dreams, whatever obstacles they may encounter.