Where the time has been spent

Next Level Entrepreneurship: Breaking into the Mobile App and Web Design Markets

At Cal State Fullerton, I never imagined I would have the opportunity to delve into the video game industry. The possibility arose when my friend approached me with an idea for a mobile game for the iOS platform and an offer for partnership in the game once it was released. My job consisted of creating most of the graphics interface and marketing the product once it was in the App Store. I immediately jumped on the project in late 2011 and began teaching myself to create graphics in Photoshop.

Meanwhile, I opted to take an Entrepreneurship class which involved a student consulting project. Professor John Bradley Jackson’s “Marketing for Entrepreneurs” class brought on a fresh perspective as to how I could take the business further once the game launched in the app store. Through various presentations and projects, the class raised my levels of awareness as to how I could leverage various avenues to promote the app.

One of the most significant projects in the class opened the door for me to analyze a local business with a team of students in a sophisticated student consulting project. The semester-long project permitted me to garner real-world business experience that later gave me several valuable tools to market the app and also begin contract work designing websites for two consulting groups and a doctor.

The entrepreneurship class challenged me to apply the vast majority of my marketing skills and provided me with a clear vision of drive, passion and the conviction that it takes to start a new business. It also served to invigorate my motivation to finish developing the iOS game and release it to the market.

As the last weeks of the entrepreneurship course began to draw to a close, the iPhone game, officially titled “Lightning Assault” cleared Apple’s approval process and was officially released to the world on the app store. My feelings of accomplishment and excitement when Lightning Assault launched on December 3rd, 2012 were indescribable.

Then came the challenge of marketing the game. Naturally, the first approach was getting all my friends to download the app, a resource that quickly exhausted itself. Within a few weeks of the game’s launch, I had the website LightningAssault.com up and running, as well as several social media channels in an attempt to push traffic towards the website and collect downloads.

However, it was soon evident that I needed to go beyond the most obvious methods of raising awareness for our game. I decided to contact a friend in the journalism industry. She sent my name out, and I soon had an interview scheduled with the OC Register, which resulted in the following article.

Today, Lightning Assault maintains a small yet steady growth in downloads. There is still much room for experimentation in aggressive promotion techniques, yet it has been stated that the game holds potential for massive popularity. Above all, it stands as a beacon of the accomplishments of the three person team that created it, and as an inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs.

http://business.fullerton.edu/centers/cfe/success-Vincent.htm

I have not seen thee for too long of a time

Well, hello again blog. It certainly has been a while since words last touched your page. I was browsing over posts from years ago, and to my surprise I still find them relevant. They hold so much of personal meaning I gave them when I first wrote them, despite being very abstract.

After many experiences and much education over the past year, I have ventured into the world of first person. Not only have I cast off the third person, I also find that I apply greater consideration to what I write, am more aware of sentence structure and organization of ideas. Perhaps I came back here because of an indwelling fear of complete conformity, of unbreakable structure brought on by living with a routine.

I have discovered a great internal conflict with two aspects that threaten to tear my will in two. It is here that I wish to release the original flare of creativity that I began writing with, before my thoughts began to conform to influences of society's demands. I can still appreciate the skills and structure that I have been taught, yet the danger lies in allowing extinguishing that precious flame of creative freedom.

It has frequently been experienced that the most difficult part of any task is simply starting it, because so many other items vie for attention and focus is easily diverted. Now this piece has been written, and has created a crack in the dam through which the streams of creativity may creep, and eventually break through and flow.

The mind has been aroused, risen to its full stature, and begun to gallop across the endless horizon as it once did. It is gathering speed and fury to tear across the horizon as it once did, uprooting the original topic from its comfortable place at the top of the page, and dragging it, whipping and struggling, across the windswept plains of thought.