Student to build many apps in one year

College sophomore Dan Shipper started the year 2011 with a plan: to design and create as many apps as possible.

“I wanted to basically learn what works and what doesn’t when it comes to web application and how to take an idea from just being an idea and make it a reality,” he said.

Since then, Shipper has released about 12 apps ranging from Readstream — an app that compiles the text from links tweeted by users they’re following into “a really nice, easy to read format” — to his most recent success, a site called DomainPolish, which gives people feedback on their websites and tells them “what the average internet user thinks about it.”

The idea for DomainPolish came from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website, where computer programmers can post small tasks on the site and users can sign up to do them in exchange for about 10 cents. “[Mechanical Turk] is this really awesome service, but the problem is that it’s really difficult to use — you kind of need to know how to code in order to make it work and it’s really general,” explained Shipper. “I basically want to take that power and leverage it to make a very specific app that is really easy to use. So, what DomainPolish does is you give me a URL to a website that you’re working on and then I send that to Mechanical Turk and I have people review it and give feedback on it and say what they like about it, what they don’t like about it.”

The site launched in July and within in the first 60 days made almost $3,000. So far, over 90 companies have signed up for the service.

Shipper started programming in fifth grade because he wanted to start a business and felt that “the only way as a middle schooler that you can really start a really scalable business and build something valuable is to program. It allows you to build it essentially for free; the only thing that it costs is your time.”

Shipper continued programming desktop, iPhone and Blackberry apps throughout middle school and high school and moved onto web apps once he got to Penn, which was when he decided to try to release as many apps as possible. “Most apps I have done take about two or three days of work — but that’s like working 18 hours a day basically,” he said.

This led to his first major success last year, when Shipper, along with Wharton sophomore Wesley Zhao and New York University sophomore Ajay Mehta, developed WhereMyFriends.be, a website that maps a user’s Facebook friends. “We’ve had over 40,000 signups and over 4 million friends mapped since it was released in February,” Shipper said.

Yet not all of Shipper’s apps have been a success. Favoritething.me, an app that Shipper created last year, was designed for users to find out what their friends like best about them. “It completely flopped because everyone sort of wants to know what their friends like about them, but they don’t want to ask them … they don’t want to seem like they’re digging,” Shipper said.

“The really cool thing is that a lot of people sit around and say ‘Oh, I have this great idea, I wish I could do it,’ and then they sort of forget about it,” he said. “But if you can program and you have a great idea you can sit down and build it in a day or two — it basically empowers you to start creating things for no money at all.”

SEE ALSO

Dan Shipper: Steve Jobs, the immortal visionary

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.