Of Love And Android App Development

17.2.12 The Reporter 0 Comments

For these guys, it was all about love.

"LOVE" is hardly a word we associate with coding, let alone SOFTWARE coding. When we say "coding," half-geeks like me think Matrix's logo and promo flyer design. When we say "coding" the keywords that hit me look like these:


And yet, if there's anything that hanging out in Levitan Software taught me, it was LOVE that drove them to keep going at it. Coding, that is.

Marvin and Dexter hardly seem to be the stereotypical coding geeks that are in my head. They certainly don't look like this guy:


In fact, if I ran into them at Gaisano Capital in Kalibo, Aklan, I may not figure out that they're the guys who churn out game after game in homegrown Levitan Software. I'd probably pass them off as the regular Kalibonhon, happy to go about their days, in NORMAL fashion.

And yet, "Normal," hardly describes what they do.

Would you call being an iApp developer "Mundane," "Normal," "Regular?" Would you call developing Android Apps for a living as a "Regular Job?"

I don't know about you, but the first time I heard that an Android App company called Kalibo its home base, my jaw dropped.

And when I stepped into the Levitan Software office:


I was awed... By how easily I could have passed it off as an extra-posh (in Kalibo standards), extra-nice Accounting, or even Graphic Design office. Hardly would you call it a place where programmers do their thing.

Things like apps that made it to the top spots of the iOS weekly downloads, for instance.

Things like 52 apps for the iOS, 15 apps for the Android, and 13 apps for the Amazon Appstore and a self-sufficient business model that these guys are actually TURNING DOWN offers for coding projects.

Things like an ad-driven business model that has survived and thrived since 2008, too.

I envisioned a programming company to have a messy place, with computer peripherals and wiring snaking over and making a modern-day jungle of wire canopies mimicking a literal jungle's vines. If that's my stereotype of a software company, then I met the complete opposite.

Levitan Software was rather neat and cozy. Homey, yet cool, professional and, at some points, even dainty. 

Asked how he got the idea to start a software company in the heart of Kalibo, founder and CEO-in-denial Heinz Militar just simply and succinctly says, "Because there isn't one in the area yet."

I was beyond incredulity at that point.

Heinz Militar, head honcho of what I call the Google of the Visayas, has big dreams, but an ego that is inversely proportional to that: he refuses to say that he is the CEO of the firm. Rather, he tells me that his staff are the owners of Levitan Software.

And indeed, with a business model centered on sharing the ad profits from the sales and downloads of their apps, the Levitan Software staff ARE enjoying the fruit of their labor, more than Heinz himself.

Levitan Software shot up to profitability thanks to the dress-up apps they hosted on flash game websites and communities like Mochi Games. These websites will allow devs like the guys at Levitan Software to host their games and both website and the developers will get a share of ad revenue.

Heinz recounts, with equal incredulity at how mere dress-up games actually pulled in their money.

More than the dress-up games though, Marvin and Dexter shared with me the secret of how they continue to churn out app after app: They make games for the love of making games.

Given the fact that I feel, with equal intensity, the abhorrence for programming as much as these guys have the passion for it, I kept asking,

"So why do you do it?"

Marvin, with all the patience that a guy barely out of his teens can muster, after having been asked "Why do you do it," at least thrice, finally told me:

"You're a Blogger, right?"

[Err, correction, this is a Web Magazine by the way, but I tolerated that statement, after all, I do blog for my own websites.]

"Yeah? I am." [What's your point?]

"Well, why do you do the things that you do? It's because you LOVE what you do, right?"

"Yeah?" [Hmm. He DOES seem to have a point.]

"Then it's exactly why we do the things we do: we LOVE programming. We LOVE finishing making a game. We're excited to play the game after we finish it. We love having finished a game/app project. So it's exactly like why you blog: Because we love what we do."

And that, my Android Alliance Ph friends, is the essence of Valentine's. Love, in its fullest essence, and never more than in this story, isn't just limited to the huggy-kissy expression of it: it's the passion for what you do, and the commitment to what you're doing.

And with that, I picked my jaw off the floor, and left Levitan Software, feeling like Tinkerbell just poured a bucket of her pixie dust on me.

More on Levitan Software in the coming weeks!


P.S.

Congratulations to Heinz and Jocyl Militar for welcoming Baby Asaph Militar into their family!