The Day We Won IDR 50,000,000

Waiting is sucks. Expectation, anxious, hope, all mixed in one big emotion bowl that was tough to digest, and often, would make your stomach queasy. It was like heading for the biggest yet, and most important final match of the year. Lining up in the hallway heading to the field showered with millions of lights, with hundreds of thousands people cheering, waiting for your names to get called. Or, you know, just waiting for the dentist to call your name while you were waiting outside of his operating room. Inside, he was drilling into another’s tooth cavity and you swear to God you could hear some whirling sound drifted away from the room. All you want is just to get done with it, and know the end result. Did we win? Or completely humbled? Was he able to fix my tooth cavity and banish the pain away? Or do I have to make another appointment? Yes, waiting is sucks.

Sunday, June 12th, 2011, we were scheduled to meet at one of the ICC booth in JCC. It was Telesindo’s booth, a local phone manufacturer, and they had held a contest for Android apps. That Sunday was the day we were waiting for the winner of the contest. Our star, Komutta, was up against other talented developers’ products and we were lying if we didn’t say we want to win. Of course, the host had to make a reversed announcement, and saved the best, the first winner for last. There are thirteen winners, and every single name that was called before us, piled more pressure onto us, and inadvertently fired up all sort of panicky, desperation, and confused thoughts in our heads.

One by one, our competitor gets called as one of the winner, and for each one that gets called, our doubt grows, and we started to asked questions (inside our minds). We know most of our competitors, and we think that Komutta couldn’t be that far behind, and in fact, maybe even better than some of them. But when our name even didn’t called up for the second prize (which goes to Tasterous), we started to wonder whether our application form has gotten lost in a way, or something.

But it turns out that our name was called in last, and Komutta was officially the first winner of that contest, and we pocketed a sweet IDR 50,000,000.

It was exhilarating. We’re positively excited, and not just because the money. Oh, we’re going to use that money to a good use, for sure. But, it was the exposure, the recognition of our product that was more important. Further, these contests, tell us that we are on the right track. The industry recognizes the power of Android and the more they embraced it, the more benefits for us, developers, and ultimately, the better choices for customers. Everybody wins.

So, what’s next? As a team, we were rarely meet face-to-face, and therefore, we had a casual meeting setups after the show along with some small celebration. Nothing fancy, just a light lunch as we discussed about mreunionlabs future plans. Let me tell you, it would be an exciting times ahead. We’ll keep maintaining Komutta, keeping up with the changes on the field, and keep helping our customers to have the best use of it. Our roadmap states that there would be (maybe) some new features in the future. However, we’re also currently plotting on a concept for a brand new app that we are hoping, could become mreunionlabs’ next best thing. Hopefully, we could have more to share about this new app in the coming months but rest assured, we are excited about this app, and we believe, so will you. Stay tuned 🙂