Exclusive: Interview with App Idea Whiz dhbellol
TC: You’ve been quite successful in these sorts of challenges – coming up with new and innovative apps. Tell us about your successes (the contests you’ve won, etc) and how they’ve impacted your life?
dhbellol: Since 2003, I have been participating in TopCoder’s competitions, I just find it invaluable as an opportunity to learn/try new technologies and compete in a global environment, plus monetary prizes help a lot to pay studies and expenses.
During this time, I had participated and won in the AOL/TopCoder OpenAim Developer Challenge, Ribbit/TopCoder Killer App Challenge, Microsoft’s – Code7 Developer Contest and lastly, Alcatel-Lucent/TopCoder Location-Based iPad App Challenge
TC: Where do you get your inspiration when coming up with a new app idea?
dhbellol: I usually find inspiration in two sources: First, looking and talking with non-technical people around me; they face common problems such as where I can find this information or they usually use phrases such as “it would be great if”. Second, looking at (tech and non-tech) news websites and after look any article, and I start to think in apps that could to solve that issue or that can be useful in that situation.
Additionally, a useful thing is to keep a list of ideas on your mobile phone, and populated it with ideas/issues that you saw during the day.
TC: What do you think about 100 Apps in 100 Days? Are you confident in your abilities to do well?
dhbellol: I find 100 Apps in 100 Days as a great chance to learn/try some of the Alcatel-Lucent API’s. And I also find very interesting the opportunity to try ELIPS, because using same code to create apps in multiple platforms is so useful.
I also feel confident with my abilities, however, TopCoders are always very strong competitors. I hope to do it well on this challenge.
TC: Tell us about what you do when you’re not coming up with app ideas?
dhebellol: When I don’t find good ideas, I try to find a couple of cool APIs to try (programmableweb.com is very useful to do this task) , and I read APIs documentation for find out what are possibilities and limits of the API.
Then I try to combine them in order to get an idea of a product that I will personally will use/pay for it, and finally, I check for what other similar apps exists (for example, check in Apple’s App Store or Android markets) to polish the idea because innovation is always a key factor to win.
TC: Finally, let’s play the word association game. You’ll get one word and you must answer with the first word that comes to your mind. Ready, go!
TC: TopCoder
dhbellol: Competition
TC: Happiness
dhbellol: Pursuit
TC: Win
dhbellol: Happiness
TC: Thanks dhbellol. Best of luck to you in the contest!