Nedim Fakic, a very young aspiring developer.

Nedim is intresting. He is young. Only 17 years old when I interviewed him. He still has to properly start his career as a software developer. But even at his young age, he sounds to be ready to take on the world.

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Transcript

Jeroen Leenarts: 0:46

Welcome to another special episode. I'm sitting here with Nadeem for kitch. I trained it before we started recording and he says it. He says the pronunciation is quite alright. He's the author of iOS twiddly library. He has some interesting projects on GitHub. And he's actually trying to do some interesting stuff with capturing and translating audio on the fly for the clubhouse app. And what's also very interesting about Nadeem is that he's 17 years old and he will turn 18 this year. And he already indicated that he had some challenges along the way already because of his young age. And we'll definitely dig into that. So Nadeem, hi, welcome. How are you?

Nedim Fakic: 1:27

Hi, I'm very good. How are you?

Jeroen Leenarts: 1:29

I'm doing great. Actually. It's it's a busy evening for me. I'm doing some recording with in total, six people in the today and tomorrow. It's a bit busy, but we'll manage. You had some trouble today when your day started, right?

Nedim Fakic: 1:45

Yeah. Today I got suspended from clubhouse on a jurisdiction. Because I have been talking on clubhouse for quite a while now almost a month. And I have grown my audience, that kind of audience people that I follow and friends there. And they just just blocked me today suspend me temporarily before I have to send them something that I that I have a team, but I'm not 18. So it's just an issue there. So I have to wait till my birthday comes in few months. But yeah, I already built an account. And yeah, they can't really block me how blocked me many times how I can build new accounts and buy new numbers. So

Jeroen Leenarts: 2:32

yeah, it's a bit of a hassle. And since you're only 17 Yeah. Legally, I can I can imagine. But for you personally, it's it's a lot of trouble, especially essentially not looking into the 18 Plus kind of topics on that clubhouse was mainly the developers on club.

Nedim Fakic: 2:52

Yeah, I will say like, I have been going into rooms like iOS rooms Android, like, just, I have no reason to go to other rooms. Because I don't, I'm not really interested in people speaking those things. But actually, for me to get suspended on age of 17. That makes zero sense because Greta tunberg was like 17 when she spoken to UN, and she was like speaking to most powerful people in the world. So I just don't get it at this point.

Jeroen Leenarts: 3:21

I can imagine. So let's hope that things resolve when you're 18. And then this problem will be part of your history. Because only 17 years But already, from what I could tell quite active online. So how did you get started with computers? Because most people, they just get started with software development and computers like 17? Maybe. But I think you were a little bit earlier than that.

Nedim Fakic: 3:52

Yeah, actually, I started coding when I was 12. I mean, coding, it's hard, really hard work there. I started with the cube basic, you know, those old computers with blue background and yellow text. I started there writing my first programs, my first let's say project, it was just like few if command, see if I can buy basketball games, you know, just just a kid stuff. And it was interesting. I wrote my first four loops there. And it was quite fun. I started in school, actually. And after that I have actually go through learning curves of many languages. One mistake that I made when I was learning to code was to actually from QBASIC to C and C++. Yeah, that was one of the biggest mistakes of my coding career. Because I had, I wasn't ready for that at age 1312. I wasn't ready for that. You know, like, that's just the

Jeroen Leenarts: 4:58

that's like jumping off the deep end without any preparation. Really. That's what happens here, then you picked up c plus and then yeah, pick

Nedim Fakic: 5:09

up C++ and C. I thought they're the same thing. Actually, what happened is, there was some local course on C++ for kids that are in high school and it was like sixth, sixth, sixth grade in middle school. And we actually, I was there for a few classes, but I didn't really understand anything they were talking about because math was quite advanced for me because I was only sixth grade. And yeah, that didn't really work out well. But I managed to Oh yeah. Also I have Learning C++ in a way that, you know, you were writing code. And I was actually learning it step by step in my head to actually know every freaking keyword. Just like I wasn't thinking what I was writing, I just know there is input stream. And there is using namespace std. But I have no freaking clue what those two are doing. But sure, I have memorized it. So there was this weird thing with C++. But hopefully, eventually I switch to Java. And that saved me. You might think they are not the same and mean, quite right, but tinkers with Java. I found it to be way more intriguing. And the more for way more easy to follow, you know?

Jeroen Leenarts: 6:35

Yeah, it's a bit of a higher level language that allows you to think more along the lines of what your program is doing instead of what the computer or the system that you're working on is doing.

Nedim Fakic: 6:45

Exactly. And I don't know if you ever saw any C++ errors. Yeah, those aren't helpful at all.

Jeroen Leenarts: 6:54

They're even worse than the Objective C errors you can get from iOS developers really, because the C, the C plus arrows, they're like, sometimes you don't even know what they're trying to tell you.

Nedim Fakic: 7:09

Yeah, that's correct. And imagine being 1213 goes and even don't know English. Well, well, and that that wasn't good. So after that, I switched to Java. And I learned it with I think something was code academy.com. I don't know if it exists anymore. I finished those courses quite by myself. And I learned syntax. And then after playing around with Java, I actually switched to PHP is the latest thing going for me. And that was a thing where I first noticed my age difference. When I got to my PHP class, my parents had to actually give me drugs, we asked someone if I can even join, because of my age, but they thankfully gave me the permission. People that were running it, they were thrilled. And I was one of the best there. Because I had a I had eagerness to learn and be the best in that part. And this is not over exaggerating, because I remember I was 1314 and my mentor that I have quite nice history with back then. He actually pulled me up in front of class and said, Okay, let's, how did you solve that issue? Like, how did you thought about that? And it was some something simple, like how to pass data from a form without anyone knowing? And I was like, oh, hidden, just hit. Just hide it. He's like, Yeah, that is how it's done. How did you? How did you know that? I was like, Oh, just no, yes. And I was like, and I had to explain to the class that we're just people in college, and quite older than me. So also that towards the year I figured out how to debug. That's an important skill. Yeah. You know, when there's a code base when people ask you, Hey, can you help me and you are expected to help someone? Yeah, actually master that there. You know, like just looking at someone's code, and you have no idea what they were thinking when writing it. But yeah, that eventually helped me a lot going forward. And after that was just Synchron with easy run with other languages. From PHP, I switch to Python, then bash, I wrote bash I, oh, one thing I use Linux for about five years till I switch to Mac. So I learned a lot of Linux based stuff. I even wrote a program that you know, like when the Mac OS Catalina came out and there was like that switching with backgrounds for day and night. Yeah, I would think for buy in Python for Linux, but didn't really want well because I wrote it it worked but if you put it as launcher like if you put it to launch it crashes system for you can really get it up. So it was basically a virus at that point. So never released it. That one just deleted it completely. Yeah, I had a nice nice learning paths and did from Python bash. Yeah. And then web technologies node. I started no bloating. No when I was I don't know what age I was. But that was it was 2018 2017. And you had an Android. I loved Android. I work so many apps in Android Read Java. And then I learned Kotlin. And yeah, and then came iOS and my current position. And what I'm doing. Go iOS Swift and Objective C. So yeah, that's kind of a short memory of my programming experience so far.

Jeroen Leenarts: 11:36

So you already mentioned a couple of very interesting things in your story back there. So I will go by everything that you told. And then just try and dig into a few things here and there. So you mentioned that you have a position as iOS software developer. So yeah, actually have a paid job writing iOS apps.

Nedim Fakic: 11:59

Now, for legal reasons. Again, that isn't a paid job. It's an in scholarship. Yeah, it's internship and a scholarship. Yeah. And they are actually take took me under my company that I work for now, which I'm so freaking grateful. They got me under the wing of the hackathon. And I went to a few interviews with them, and not really not technical ones, just to talk what they're doing, what can I do? What can I help with? And they were like, so what do you want from us? I said, I want to learn iOS. I don't have money to actually buy expensive MAC, which will help me to do that. So can you help me there? And, of course, and they gave me a Mac, they gave me phone? iOS phone, and they were like, okay, there is, there it is. Now, here's your mentors. And hi, I'm so grateful for this. They gave me one of the best people on on the iOS team. They gave me a senior developers who are writing software for more than I was born. So basically, people that I work with, and first few months of my, of me being in a company is just amazing. I learned when I was a few, few months, and I had I learned how to write DCP and socket programming in Python. You can't find that anywhere else like, and especially where I live, there isn't a thing where you where you can actually do that. So I definitely had amazing experience. And I have habits still then I switched a few teams, I mean, teams in a way that I go and learn from them. Because my company is oriented with with white with a right b, and we build PB X's and stuff like that, you know that talking software. So I saw networking is one important part. So I learned and read a lot of books on networking, and IP layers, TCP layers, socket programming that eventually helped me build the library in net and standard part of the language. So yeah, I learned and then I was part which you probably are more interested in. They were like, Okay, you have this now I will give you a mentor, we will get you Rivendell a subscription and you go start learning. Yes. And that's the funny part. I loved it. You know, when people say, Oh, learning Oh, no. And for me, I had everything. Now I can actually learn what I want. And I started I started I have my first app that I ever built. While it was on my Instagram, and it was like simple random generator. And it was thing it was when I first started learning Swift, then I do projects that I work with my mentor on, like a GitHub clone where you can search repositories where you can do the all the networking stuff, and it was bad. Honestly, it's so bad. But it was my first queueing experience. With delegates. All delegates were one of the hardest things to comprehend for me. I don't know why. But J mentor actually had to write me down document that actually explains it into the depth why and how those work. And to when I look at it back to today. The guy helped me so much to actually understand that part, which is delegation patterns. And then I watched eventually I watched Udacity I watched one Stanford courses, I watched so many courses, and first few months when I wasn't working. So my work schedule had to be confirmed with my school so not they don't really care if I am I truly have to rephrase that. So they don't have to confirm it as official in my school, but it has to be for me confirmed that I can be in school and I can work. So I work only two days a week for a few hours. Because just how my schedule holds me. And so how I actually do that is pretty simple. I get back home from school, I put up my screens, whatever, turn on my Mac, login to company stuff and start working. And especially now when I'm everything is from home, it's way easier for me. And, yeah, it's just, it's just a way that I am used to now. And when I have any issues, I can ask my mentor, even on my personal projects, he was all about it. And he helped me so much. So yeah, like learning iOS, and company settings like this, I haven't seen happen anywhere else. And I am so so so grateful for that opportunity.

Jeroen Leenarts: 17:04

So the company that you have this arrangement with that you have like an extended internship, what is company called

Nedim Fakic: 17:12

biosystems. They are basically a company that was founded by a guy who was living here in my country, Bosnia. And he fled when there is Oh, I think before a little bit before the war 92. And he went to London, and he founded a company now there's like tons locations all around the world, but development part is happening in Bosnia. And that's where all our development staff is. But now also we are expanding to Canada. So yeah, maybe I will go there as well. Who knows? I don't know where I'm going to college.

Jeroen Leenarts: 17:47

So all kinds of opportunities. Exactly. So but just to unwrap a couple of things. You mentioned earlier that when you were 12 years old, that there was somebody that actually sort of like took you under his or her wing and and was mentoring you, and that you had a good relationship with this person helping you come to grips with software development and programming really. So how did that happen? How did you become interested in in software and computers and related technologies?

Nedim Fakic: 18:19

So it wasn't 12 to 13? But yeah, there was this guy that I heard well, in a few weeks back, there was a conference, and he was talk. He was speaker. So So was I, I was Speaker unsane conference as my mentor for

Jeroen Leenarts: 18:39

how did you how did you become a speaker as 12 year olds?

Nedim Fakic: 18:44

No, no, no, no, no,

Jeroen Leenarts: 18:45

no, not back? Well, we expecting now but I think you I thought you mentioned that when you were 12? Somebody was

Nedim Fakic: 18:53

No, no, no, no. Okay. I know what they he did take me under his wing, but just recently, I have spoken with him again. And I will speaker on same conferences. Okay, that is, so let me just explain how, how I got into software. So Young. So when was the course and the guy was so having said that, he was so helpful. I wasn't really a kid who taught, kind of think much about things in depth before it. I know how to do syntax, you know, like, I know how to, to write code. I didn't know how to think what I'm writing. So he was like, Okay, I know, you can write syntax, that's great. But hey, you really have to start thinking what you're doing. You're writing this. But why? Why are you writing this? And he's like, okay, let's, let's say this first thing before you code. And one more thing, copy stuff in your code base. Don't just type it off. Because I was like, Oh, if I type it, I'm going to remember it. Of course you are. But that's just going to be really, really long process. So basically, what happened is, he taught me how to think giving me all these insight assignments, that he wasn't really getting out of people. And when I come back with the solution, he said, you Google that? How did you know I google that? It's like, I know, you Google that. And why this is happening here. As Ira No. So you don't know why did you put it in? And yeah, that was like his way to actually help me go through thinking process. And now for loops are my just normal routine, but back then, that wasn't really a case. Because there was a nested for loops and stuff like that. So he actually what he helped me is helped me to learn how to think and he was the one who was actually main developer of largest website in my country. And that's why I got so so much into software when I saw him what he was doing, and I say that just Cool. Now, you can see some anything I want to do that is just cool. I want to know how to do that. I don't know how to build things,

Jeroen Leenarts: 21:27

it does show that it's important for, for young people to have role models that actually can show what things you can actually do. So you were very young, and then you were like, sort of like, tutored by this person to to not think in code, but more think about code. Yes. Okay. That's really cool.

Nedim Fakic: 21:48

You have to know, everyone can start typing stuff in, like, you just installed something and you start typing. But if you're not thinking about what you're typing, then there is an issue. And he actually found my issues, because I already know how to code and syntax, you know, like, I know how to write it, but I didn't know what I'm doing. So that was really, really helpful. And I am so grateful for that. And we talked, as I said, few few weeks back, and he was just man, you can so long.

Jeroen Leenarts: 22:20

It's also very helpful that's for if you ever coach somebody or you mentor somebody, to actually down the road, catch up again with the same person and see what happened to them and what they actually might have done with all the help that you have provided as a coach or tutor. Exactly, he helped a lot. So you also got a bit into PHP? How did that happen? Probably because she wants to do something on a website, I think,

Nedim Fakic: 22:48

yeah, I started learning how to build websites. I still hate CSS. And you can see that from my tweets. I think that's the devil's language. And it should be replaced. I don't know. I don't know what Wait, what but I really hated clickers, I can spend two hours aligning stuff with it, and just wasted freaking time at that point. But I see people who loves it, and who can do all those kinds of arts with it. So that's just amazing for me, like, I don't know if I do that ever, but to PHP is just the language that was pretty popular back then. And I started by learning backend of websites. So first few classes were just syntax of PHP, how variables work, why we use variables, if statements, how we use if statements for loops, and stuff like that. And after we finished the basics of PHP, we went on. So when the one really cool thing, and it's actually learning Parvo, and Laravel was kind of when I think about it, it might go to get over my head a bit. Because my mentor started really working on that site that I was talking about, so he couldn't really help me much. So I had also my I think I went to music school that back then. Yeah, I did. So my few classes, actually, from schools came along and inter inter Vien, you know, just into, it was just a mess. So I couldn't even be on classes. So I had to learn Opie from from YouTube, believe it or not, and just go before class and ask them a few questions if I had. Another guy, teacher is elementary teacher. But yeah. So we went on that progress. And there's still project on my GitHub called Blog, written in PHP four years ago. And it's basically a little blog that gives you ability to write posts into database bit, schema and stuff like that the first and fourth about migrations, believe it or not, I didn't know how they work or how, why they work, but they worked. So actually, when I think about it, the things that that during that project, were quite advanced for that time. You can it's special, you know how you have that those CRUD operations. But you also have those really cool showing of posts, comments and stuff like that. i Oh, yeah, Sign Out and stuff like that. So dashboards, and I actually learned a lot from it. And first thing I remembered doing is middleware. First time I did middleware, and yeah, PHP got me interested into web development. And it wasn't till 2017 18 Till I actually find out what API is and wrote my first API I've tried with PHP, but it was absolute nightmare. absolute nightmare with to pure PHP because I wasn't I didn't want to use a lot of well, because I had to revisit a lot of stuff. And so I switched to note also, I think about everything that happened to me and these in these ways, like issues That arouse. We're basically Linux oriented. So I had to learn a lot of Linux stuff back then how to start server How to Start demons or whatever it is there to actually get to PHP to work like there isn't some libraries and you have to Google. And that's when I actually find out what Google is. Because there's no freaking way you're going to know what any of those stuff on Linux, so you have to Google it. And

Jeroen Leenarts: 26:51

then imagine learning all this before the internet.

Nedim Fakic: 26:54

Yeah, I can. I mean, if people who wrote Google and who wrote Stack Overflow, just mind blowing for me. So yeah, learning Linux of the Stack Overflow over stack. Wait, there was also a one to one on Stack Exchange. And there is a few others. But yeah, it was basically learning by going and one thing that I can actually connect with, it's basically if you ride a bike, and that bike is on fire, and you're trying to change a tire. I think that's, that's really representative of situation with learning the next while learning PHP.

Jeroen Leenarts: 27:38

There's too much stuff going on at the same time and too much stuff that you have to know at the same time that it's quite overwhelming. Actually. I did hear you mentioned music school. Was I correct?

Nedim Fakic: 27:49

Yeah, I played guitar for 7867 years. I was quite good for first few years, but then I lost interest. So interesting, then it was just let me finish it. So yeah.

Jeroen Leenarts: 28:02

Cool. So do you still play guitar occasionally, just to enjoy yourself? Or just I haven't touched it. Three years? Give me a keyboard. Exactly. So um, let's see. So you have an internship at BAE comm. Systems? You did some PHP, you did some node, then Linux. Then you switched over to developing some Android related stuff, some apps there as well.

Nedim Fakic: 28:29

Yeah, what actually got me to national television.

Jeroen Leenarts: 28:34

So what can you tell a bit about that story? Oh, sure.

Nedim Fakic: 28:38

So basically, I can start with my submission for the hackaton. When I was working, back then, they wrote me a really nice email saying how they are sad, they can't really give me access to hackaton. Because I am too young. And they think that I will become something great. But in that moment, they can give me access to it. So a few years pass, and I was the one actually creating a hackathon in my city. I Oh, in those years, I already connected with her half of tech scene out here. I got my connections in all the big companies. So I contacted all of them and got myself a sponsors. Got some friends in high school that are interested in building stuff, something like that, like hackathon to organize it. Yeah. And I actually created a hackathon. And it went really well. So and it was only if you're under 18. So do you like to see how that feels?

Jeroen Leenarts: 29:43

So instead of like, having people be 18 years or older, you have to be 18 years or younger,

Nedim Fakic: 29:49

you have to be in high school, but okay, that I didn't like if you're a team player, and you're in high school, you know, you can be 18 in high school.

Jeroen Leenarts: 29:59

That must have been a bit of revenge on your end, right? Yeah, exactly. But I think about it, like

Nedim Fakic: 30:04

you actually told me, I can do that, because I was young. And now I'm going to build a hackathon. That's basically who young people

Jeroen Leenarts: 30:13

is gonna join, because you're too old.

Nedim Fakic: 30:15

Yes, exactly. So I bought the hackathon. And we got some media coverage. But after that, and what really got me to national television is thing where I saw one thing occurring in my country is we have really bad air quality. If you think that USA has bad air quality, then you're really mistaken, because both counts, and especially Bosnia is really, really catastrophic at point. So 2019, I see this trend occurring at October, which was already happening year back, and I wrote this mobile app called mask and free air quality. I said, there isn't a way I'm going to make money out of this app. Like I don't want to, I just want for my parents for my friends to actually see what they are breathing in. And I built some simple interface with a black background circle, and a QA data from a cue World. World eqi.com Something like Alright, so I got it working. And I got one more cool thing is here, our stations also kind of works sometimes kind of doesn't. So I got that thing that no other apps had out on market, which is how to figure out if if data that you're seeing is actually relatable is actually alive right now. So yeah, I got that then. And then I was like, Okay, I have an app. So how can I advertise it? Because it's social app. In a way. It's solving the social problem right now. So I have to find a way to advertise it. And believe it or not, this worked. I went to call on call, I emailed a local newspaper. Yeah. I mean, local blog, but all city raised them. And I live in fourth largest city in the world in Bosnia. So it's basically really connected with other news outlets here. Yeah. So what happened is I connected, I contacted them, I got my story on there. And I got an after that, that day, I went to work. It was Bre COVID. So I went to work. And in while I was in work, basically what happened? I got so many emails. And I got so many so many emails, saying, can we do interview and also, before I, before I sent the email to first I also sent a Facebook message to Facebook message Dr. To national television saying, Okay, you see, I have an app. I have also created hackaton. back month ago, then. So do you think we can manage something out here? Because you know, you're saying young people here doesn't do anything, they they just sit and play games on computers, I want to actually show a different picture. And I got that an emoji on on Facebook saying, okay, all right. I was like, Oh, dammit, nothing. You just go back. And after that story launched on all those sites, the while I was waiting for my interview on on the local TV, I got email, I think, Hey, can you get to Saturday? There, we would like to give you we like to have 10 Minutes interview with you on Morning program. Oh, it's really work. It's really work. And have in mind, this is the largest TV channel and whole country and also fewer, and also other countries here. So I was possibly watched by, let's say, half a million people talking about an app I built hackaton I organized and tingles app had a little bit of an issue when I was live. And they wanted me to test it live. And they never told me what I have to type. So thank God, while I was waiting for my turn in in waiting room, my friend and I, who actually came with me to realize the support. We figured out where the bug is that was crashing my app for so many people. And it was when you enter a city name. And if it's one, one space out, app is going to crash because API is going to crash. Because it wasn't streamed. Yeah. And I thank God, I figured that out. So when I went to talk on television, they were alive, of course. And I first talked about a little bit of myself about myself about the app and stuff like that. And they're like, Okay, let's compare Beijing with with our city. Sorry. Okay. All right. had like, Oh, I'm praying, that's going to work. Because the camera is already zoomed in everything to know, this, if this fails, that's going to be epic fail, but hopefully didn't fail. Okay. And that was, yeah, that was story how I got on national television just about DMing people.

Jeroen Leenarts: 35:54

So the data of this air quality app or where did you source it from?

Nedim Fakic: 36:00

From world EQI? Site? Yeah, which is like the biggest AQa data endpoint, I guess. Okay, so yeah, this is just data from there.

Jeroen Leenarts: 36:11

And that's just public domain available. You can use their API if you want to

Nedim Fakic: 36:15

aku Exactly. Also they were I think they have great Per switch go through every country API with they had it for their IQ. So it was basically done for Bosnian because we are wanting top. Usually, yeah, usually on top tier. So we had a really good API right there.

Jeroen Leenarts: 36:36

Okay. And let's see, just to keep things going. So after this Android experience you got into iOS development. Right. So are you working on iOS apps at the moment? Or are you just still getting familiar with the app ecosystem and development there? You mentioned that you have the twiddly library available on iOS. So how did that happen? Oh,

Nedim Fakic: 37:08

twiddly is an app. Mail grade is a very sorry. It's alright. So quickly how twiddly happened. So I had this idea when I joined Twitter in April. I mean, I already had Twitter back then for about from 2015. But I closed that account, because it was quite useless. And I opened new one in April. And I was like, you know, what would really be cool? If I can share to my 300 People who follows me Instagram, something that I tweet, because if you, when you see on Twitter, you have like, not much followers when you start, you know, it's it's a natural thing to find audience. So I was like, Okay, that would be a really cool app. And I stopped there. I just stopped there, because I couldn't really figure out how to do it. So some time passes. And, yeah, I got to the point in June, where I started building that app. So how I started and how it turned out is very, very, very different. So as every app, I don't know if all developers go through this, but in apps and apps, you usually design have a design and you go by design. Yeah, not me. I think that I best make features if I just called them right from my head, which kind of is not good. But yeah, I learned that really, really, really, really quite late. So I started building quickly. And I made the first thing I wanted, I wanted for the app to when you fetch the API, Twitter stuff, when you fetch fetch a tweet, I wanted to actually shows it, and I can capture it as a photo. And that was quite easy, because there was tutorials on internet how to actually capture a UI view as an image. So that was quite easy part. And then I was like, Okay, what if I, what if I were to get the backgrounds? Oh, let's see if my phone can get me the photos, you know, from the photo album. And yeah, I managed to do that as well. Then I showed up on actually a glimpse of the app on my Instagram, where I had the Instagram developer profile, you know, like, people that follow me are mostly developers. So one guy goes, oh, you know, what would really be cool? If you put Unsplash or Pexels API for people to get stock images? You see that? This would really be cool. When you think about it. I was like, Okay, I'll try. I'll try. And because this is my summer break of school, and I was working on in company for a bit. I actually just, okay, let's, let's do that 111 morning, and I managed to get it working. I have Instagram Stories saved for a moment that actually worked out. And then there's like, Okay, how to actually now do pagination. You know, what is pagination that like, if you have API is going to give you 30 results. And there is pages for those results. So it's 123456, and so on. So what happened is actually I got the pagination work somehow. And I managed to get that point in the app, and I started sharing it with people. That is the time around around that time. I also met Stephanie. Stephanie Chu on solar. Yeah. And I shared that app with her and she was like, oh, man, this is so so so cool. She wasn't using Twitter back then. But she was like, Oh, I saw people doing these things with another software. But if you can do it to that quick, I think that there is potential there. Have you really, really, right there. And yeah, it was it was just me building features. And I was like, Okay, that's it. I'm done. I have what I wanted. So yeah, what now and then I, something happened to in one month. So I had, I couldn't really work. I wasn't feeling it. Also, one thing, if you're a developer and you're not feeling working for a month, just don't. It's way better if you can if, of course, if your own project, it's not if you're working for a company, if you if you can't really work on your own projects for a month, don't do it. Because it's it, you're just writing code that you're going to delete anyways. So don't do that to yourself. Just relax your brain a bit, and go on your own way. So what happened is, in August, I got back to the app, and I chucked out things that I didn't really like, I really didn't use it much. And I was like, Okay, this sucks. Right now me going every time and coping, just copying the link and fastening it. Okay, that sucks. You know, it just sucks. So what How can I fix that? And there comes my, I don't know if it's good trade or bad trade. But challenging myself. Sometimes it can be too much. This time it wasn't but there is a story and quickly where it where it is for a few few weeks. So I just went and you know that Apollo Reddit app, app store is quite huge. It can actually open any Reddit post, if with if you just get it linked. So okay, I want to do this, how can I do this, and then took me a few hours to actually find a right term, how that is called. It's called extensions. So there isn't really Apple way to do it. But there is a hacky way to date. So I found a way to actually, when you get the link from the tweet and said open with Whitley it opens up the edit screen where you can modify, tweet. And that was teaching. Okay, I fixed that. When I think so what is now Alright, so what can I do? What can I fix now? Oh, of course, I hate how I share things. I don't want to save it, I want to share it with Instagram instantaneously. And there's like, okay, there is an Instagram thing get how to do it. So let's just see that there isn't an Instagram SDK for it. But there is actually Instagram way to actually pass those data in as URL or whatever. So I got that working. And there was Instagram, and I will share it on Facebook. It's I have to integrate the whole Facebook SDK. So yeah, hell no, no, no, I think Instagram is enough. And if you want really to share it on Facebook, you can just pass it, you know, use the share extension from from Apple already built in, you know, like that thing where is shaped Facebook and whole other apps? Okay, I don't need to support that. So I was like, Okay, that's enough. Let me ask my friend, Eduardo. And add, what's up with with this app? What do you think he's like, Oh, this is really cool. Do you have an MVP? Or like, What the hell is MVP? And there is me googling this MVP. Oh,

Jeroen Leenarts: 44:47

mostly viable products, maybe final products?

Nedim Fakic: 44:52

What was it? It's like, Oh, you do have things that you want to go push it on App Store, man. You don't want to spend your whole year just working on one product. If it fails, you're going to feel so bad. I was like, oh, believe me. I got this. And I just start adding features left and right. And then Chris Messner from Twitter, I tweeted something like, oh, I have been working so hard on this. I really wanted to get out there and be like, hey, getting try it. As we is that guy who? Who invented hashtags. Like first Hunter on Product Hunt. Yeah, it was him. I was like, oh, no, you can throw it try this. You can really try it now before I fix everything and add things because, you know, I want to for him to get really good app. And in that time, I only supported one layout, it was just text. So what happened next is I got to the point where I figured one important thing and that is how to scale views on on iOS, you know, there's a scale by and that thing helped me so so so damn much. So how I figured this also boiler plate code and cold mass and layouts are so headache, headache given. But you know, now they're working and I can in a way modify them. But if but they are really really, really there for a good rewrite when it can when time comes. So basically I started by adding Okay, now you have a tweet with photo now you have tweet with two photos. Now you have to tweet the link. And then there is of course URL URL resolver. I don't know if you ever done that. But that's also metadata and stuff like that, you know, that title and stuff like that from from the page. So I done that I went with other layouts as well. Oh, cool tweets. That was also a thing that I didn't know there is that so I got that to work as well. And then okay, now I might get people to download it. And push the first one, there was a quick test flight before this. But it was like just to see if people would like it, what they were thinking if there was any crashes. And yeah, I just pushed it to the App Store. And I thought, Alright, this app is really cool. People will download it, like, don't have to worry on anything. And I was like, Okay, I'm going to turn off my notifications, I have to study I'm going to get so so many notifications on downloading the app, because I put the thing in the app, where I wrote the server in Google where it's actually just pinging my server to actually send me an email. If someone opens the app, I wanted to see how much I can get, you know, like that. forea. And didn't go as planned, of course, why would it? And people I mean, I got started downloads, like 100 downloads from Twitter, I got 100 downloads from that some app community on App Raven, because it was free. And no one used it. I see no point in that. But okay. And then I wrote to this guy from Twitter, we saying if you have a cool app, DM me, and let's let's, let's publish it to a more. And I got it on I more and some tech reviewer, put it in as best of January 2021. I was like Where the hell are my tomatoes coming from? Like, it was like 100 a day. And that point i It wasn't much. But for me, it was huge. And then I figured out, let me just Google my app real quick. And yeah, I found out that guy who was actually there. He actually, he actually was one who, who recorded the video. So I got downloads from him. And I was really thankful. So I went with another update. And let me just cut story here. It was the update for background video. You know, that was one of the hardest things I had to do in my iOS career. I don't know, maybe even in coding career, if you Foundation is a great framework, but for the love of God, it's so so hard to use, because there's so little documentation on it only apples augmentation. And I had no idea what I was doing, to be completely honest. And I had this issue where I wanted to crop the video fit aspect ratio of I think it was five, four, I'm not sure. And it was perfect Instagram ratio, because I because sweetly is basically for Instagram in this way, you know? And yeah, I man and I started that feature. End of 2020. And I finished this feature in end of January 2021. I worked so hard on that feature. It was a new API from Pexels for example, for getting the API from videos, you know those stock stock videos. And that was a right you know, you search for video, you download video, and you have to modify and you have those things. Oh, I have training to video in the app and video player. And then there is actually putting the damn tweet on the background of the video. And I figured that one out as well. And I actually managed to create the part of app that is just exporting the video and gives you a nice little progress bar how far it came and actually export your video. It Believe it or not, it actually works pretty well. And it's in really really high quality. And that was the most one most one of the most challenging and hardest challenges I had to take on. And it was my trade. I told you I go in and I go back. That's it. I don't quit. But I had to stop before a few few days, I had to stop because I wasn't going anywhere. I even introduced this thing, where I would code for 30 minutes, and I'll do 30 Push ups, and then again, go 30 minutes do 30 Push ups, nothing happened I didn't sell about and my hands hurt. So that fit was just a bad idea.

Jeroen Leenarts: 51:50

So by the sounds of things, the Twitter app is doing quite nicely for you.

Nedim Fakic: 51:56

Yeah, 750 downloads right now. But I think I think when I launch it with Product Hunt with cross with Chris, I think it will, it will be way, way bigger than it is now. And also I got some marketing advice from clubhouse marketing people, people that were in clubhouse marketing channels, and they roasted my marketing strategies, because it's non existent. So I got in, I got lots of lots of great advices that I have to actually take in this week. So yeah, good. Whitley is steadily growing. And I love how people are having time to actually leave a review. Because that just the best part, when you see someone actually using your app, that's just amazing. Okay,

Jeroen Leenarts: 52:42

I just wanted to start wrapping things up, because we've been already talking for close to an hour. What I find really interesting about your story is that it seems to me that you have this innate ability to just put yourself out there and and do the best that you can. And then wonderful stuff somehow happens. And it's, I think it's part personality and also parts, like putting yourself out there and trying to find people that are willing to accept you in their community and to actually help out. And it's really wonderful to hear. And I'm very curious to see what will happen with you and your career. And you as a person in the in the coming years when you come of age and can actually start working as a software developer, like full time. Still have some things to do in school, I can imagine. But hey, we're all we've all been young. And I think you're really enjoying yourself right now. Which is always good. So I just wanted to say, is there anything that you want to share? Are there any tips or advice that you want to give young people that are also looking into getting into software development?

Nedim Fakic: 54:02

Yeah, of course, one thing that I want to tell you is, don't wait for age of 18, you will probably get a lot of a lot of those things on your way that are just going to trip you over. But then you get up and you'll be stronger. And that's actually what is happening. Like it's, it's amazing when you can do those things and be that young. I saw a guy on Twitter, which is 15. And he's coding and he is getting exploits, and he is actually being a good bug bounty hunter. With John Hocking, I think so, just amazing for me, and I can't really imagine how much he has to go through to actually get to that point. So for people who are just starting, just go for it. If you think that you can't do it, take take a break, then try again. If it's really, if you can't really do it, like you see, you're just wasting your time learning things go through those. I from time to time I write my blog, and if it's a blog, or or it's just my take on some things, for example, in hash node on how to start as development gave bunch of resources and hash node also, I talked about how to actually look at bugs, believe it or not, how I managed to get out of those sticky, sticky issues, you know, those are just coding issues, and you have to actually figure out their logic and how to actually come forward. Also, one thing that I was using had part tips, words of wisdom. Just say my words of wisdom would be get out there. Don't get Don't. Don't, don't listen for for negative people. Don't just listen to them. Do your own thing. If you think you can do it, learn to do it, study, study, best to your ability, things that you're interested in. I'm not talking about school, school is another topic and just another thing, but just do your own thing like in the most profound way I can tell you is you have a goal. We'll get to that goal in a way that you know how it doesn't matter if you're just starting and you don't know how to use a Git, or you don't use how to use for loops, you will eventually figure it out, you just get that point where it just collect, click for you. And that's it. One more thing I can say is, if you think that you're, if you're just not doing well find a friend who is actually interested in same thing as you. And I think you will get better at it by explaining to someone else. So yeah, thank you for giving me the opportunity to give those tips and tricks

Jeroen Leenarts: 57:00

and no problem that game it was very interesting to listen to you, actually, because I hardly had to ask any questions here. We just you were just telling your story, front to back, basically, without any help on my end, which is great. And I've been around, and I'll make sure that the end result will be a wonderful recording on how you got into software development. And yeah, how it actually went thus far. And maybe in a couple years time. We can do this again, maybe earlier, we can have some more informal conversations, and then just reflect and look back on what happens in the meantime. And for now. Thank you so much for your time today. And take care and I hope you do wonderful things in the future.

Nedim Fakic: 57:48

Thank you, man. I really have to thank you for giving me this opportunity and see you on twitterverse

Jeroen Leenarts: 57:53

no worries that will happen.