(Originally published in 2017)
In 2013, Charles Hu and I (Eden Chen) met at a church in Hollywood, California called Reality LA. Charles had been working in the software industry for 20 years and I was burned out from 4 years in finance (investment banking and starting a hedge fund). I was working at the church at the time but I knew I wanted to move into tech. I had always been a fan boy of computers – I’d been a professional gamer at one point, I started hacking at an early age, and the most interesting aspects of finance were always the algorithmic ones.
Over the last few years since starting Fishermen Labs, we’ve gotten questions over and over about why we started an app development studio. Why not start a product company? Agencies sell at 2x revenue and product companies sell on just an idea… Why not work on product? Charles and I realized that our primary goal was not to make money (yes cliche as that is), but to create a unique work culture where the most excellent products are made. We both had worked at massive companies with red tape, oppressive management structures, and a lack of humility. We felt that the best way to leverage our skills and maintain control of this vision was to create a mobile development studio.
We still have a lot to learn and we’ve made our fair share of mistakes, but over the last few years we believe we’ve built the best (and certainly our favorite) team of engineers, designers, product managers, and project managers in Los Angeles. We are one of the fastest growing development studios in the US, and we’ve put out more apps in the app store than almost any company in Southern California.
We feel excited about launching this new blog. This is our opportunity to speak more about the tools we like, the standards we follow, the trends that are hot, the stories that inspire us, and perhaps most importantly the reason we build software.
