I started 2016 having worked at Niuwa for about one and a half months following the merger of Stubank and Niuwa. Because of the depth of talent at Niuwa and since I entered via a merger, I was relatively low on the iOS developer totem pole (we had 5 developers for one app). In late January I left Niuwa and joined DayDayCook as their first technical hire after the CTO.
DayDayCook is a company that creates recipes, videos, and other content. The company distributes this content through various video platforms both in and outside of China as well as through our award-winning iOS and Android apps. Our CEO, Norma Chu, was born in Hong Kong, raised in the US, and returned to Hong Kong after graduating college. She founded DayDayCook in Hong Kong in 2012, and expanded into mainland China in 2015.
Prior to my joining DayDayCook, the app development had been outsourced in order to quickly get the app up and running. From January to May I worked alongside our outsource company in developing, testing, and debugging the App. I also worked alongside our angel investors and product managers to design the Apple TV and Apple Watch MVP versions.
In March our company announced a $5 million dollar A Round of investment led by 500 Startups and MFund and we began hiring more talent for the app and our content development team.
Starting in May, another iOS developer colleague and I began work on a complete redesign of the iOS app in preparation for a global relaunch. We soon added a third iOS developer and worked day and night through May and June to prepare the new iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV apps for a global launch in three different languages (Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and English). Once we finally finished development and testing and submitted the app, we were rewarded with a week on the front page of the App Store in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. In Hong Kong, our app rose to the #3 spot on the Free Download ranks.
Following our promotion in July, I was promoted to iOS Team Leader. This was something that was almost completely unfathomable to me — a self-taught developer without significant experience. I’m tremendously grateful for the opportunity.
The end of the year was quite eventful as well. In September, we released our iMessage app simultaneously with the release of iOS 10 and were again promoted to the front page of the App Store. In October we raised a $5 million A+ round of investment from Alibaba. And we ended the year with the App Store naming us one of the top ten apps in Hong Kong and Macau.
I was incredibly lucky to land at such a wonderful company as DayDayCook, and even luckier to join the company at such a perfect time in its development. Many of my 2016 goals went unaccomplished, but I also succeeded in many unanticipated ways. After all is said and done, goals are just a concrete way to express personal growth intentions. I may not have achieved all of my goals, but my personal growth this past year has far exceeded my expectations.
