My journey in Programming
Way back in mid August 2014, I was introduced into Android Mobile App Development by a college mate in KTTC where I was undertaking a Diploma in ICT. By then I was then a freelance web designer and did not know much of doing application from scratch. I got interested in doing a small app to house songs of worship and nyimbo za injili which we sing in church services. I had a old HTC Android Smartphone which I had inherited from one of my elder brothers and an old lenovo mini laptop. I use the two gadgets to build my first app which I called vSongBook (Virtual Song Book). So in November 2014 I was at home and one of my brothers saw I was busy on my laptop and was curios to see what I was doing. He then became my first consumer of the app followed by dad and other friends. That December in Mbale Annual Convention which is hosted by Mbale Believers Church I wrote a note to be read in one of the pre-services about the app. I was given a chance of 10 minutes to share the contents of that note by Pastor Alunga of Hamisi Church. Afterwords I was sending the app via Bluetooth to interested parties. It only had 100 songs of worship and 100 nyimbo za injili by then. A number of believers took my number so that I would inform them when its was done.
In April 2015 with the help of Brother George Gitau I was able to type the songs and released the app via my website vsb.tujuane.net which I had just acquired. I used facebook, whatsapp and sms to broadcast the good news. It was very expensive since I was still a student by then at KTTC. One on Facebook I stumbled upon a brother from Zimbabwe called Bro. Kevin Ngalonde who was also a startup like me but well established with a professional site and a Google Play store developer Account. I started chatting with him and I got his cellphone number and we could chat on Whatsapp for a while. He agreed to host my app on his account for free! That was in May. By August I had 300 downloads! I was not charging nor was I showing adverts because I don't like them in the first place. I also started working on a Quote of the Day app which was going to use my website to store quotes of the day from the branham.org webiste. I felt lead to do this though some brothers were not for the idea when I posted it online. They were wondering if I had the permission to do that. This app too ended up on Playstore.
In October 2015 while on Attachment somewhere in Kisumu I realised I needed a reliable source of income though I was staying with a deacon of a Kisumu Believers Church. I conceived an idea of using Safaricom's M-Pesa and Airtel Money to collect 200/= from anyone who installed the app. By December I was earning something substantial to spend as well save for future plans. It was until in 2016 that I was able to buy my own developer account for Playstore for 2500/=. I could not move my apps from Bro. Kevin's account to my own so I unpublished them there and started fresh ones on my new account. After saving for quite some time I was able to buy a developer account for Microsoft Windows Phone platform whose users were wondering why I am not producing apps for that platform. That was in january 2016 when I was now able to publish my apps on windows Phone Store.
I have been inventing new apps targeting believers like SermonPad (Android) and The Spoken Word (Windows Phone) but ever since I finished my studies at KTTC things have become tricky financially. Balancing between my own upkeep and that of my apps is not very easy. You may think am in it, but I will say am just starting
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