While I was in school getting my degrees, I did some side work with a local startup incubator in Bellingham. I had always found that the hardest part of developing software was finding something to develop, so by hanging around a bunch of startup folks, I could always find somebody with a passion willing to build out an idea with me. It was through the connections at this incubator that I ultimately found my way to Kent and his project Jeally. Kent wanted to create a game that combined the social aspects of Instagram in a time sensitive manner. Basically the user would make a post, people would give it a vote if they thought it was cool, and if the post reached a certain number of votes it would receive a crown. The goal was to rack up crowns to get status.

Now, I found myself instantly thinking the same thing you were thinking, does the world really need another photo sharing app? I was skeptical at first, but I have to admit that it was Kent who got me on board. The man’s enthusiasm was contagious, and it really felt like he had a big picture plan. So I spent part of the Summer between my Junior and Senior year building a rough prototype of how the app would work, handed it off to Kent, and went back about my business.

Flash forward a year, and Kent has been busy. He enlisted the help of a profesional UI guys named Vince, who did some truly incredible work. He took our initial designs, and really made something visually stunning out of them, I cannot give the man enough credit. So Kent returns to me, designs in hand, and just like that, I’ve got a new customer. Kent’s timing however, could not have been worse, as I was already up to my ears in work for other clients. The trouble is, I am a pushover, and over dinner, Kent once again used his infectious enthusiasm to lure me back into the ring with Jeally.

The game plan: I would build out all of the backend models and data services. Then I would hire a developer to help me design out the front ends and get the app built. Building out the data services took about a week to get right, but nothing out of the ordinary. .NET hosted on Azure, same old same old.

It took a couple of tries to find a decent iOS developer to pick up the project though. I think a lot of this had to do with the fact that the client wanted the project built in Objective C as opposed to Swift, because he had heard it was ‘better’ (His enthusiasm was sometimes misguided). I finally found a guy on Freelancer.com who claimed to be out of Chicago, but as with all those freelancer sites, it could just as likely have been someone from Pakistan posing as someone from Chicago. You’ve got to treat those short term online contract sites for what they are, the Mos-Eisley Space Ports of the development world. Nobody is what they seem, and if they can get he job done, it’s not really worth it to ask any questions.

So, a year and a half after the first prototype, a rough version one of Jeally was born. Whether or not the idea has legs long term will ultimately be up to what the Jeally team can do. They are certainly going to be stepping into a monstrously saturated market, but hopefully this product gives them the opportunity to compete. Below is a quick walkthrough of the Jeally V1 application.