zaterdag 12 september 2015

NewConnect and it's progress.

Hello everyone,

last week I told you a short story about who I am and how the idea of NewConnect started. This week I'm going to share with you what progress we made.

The idea started with the name OneMileApp. My idea was to build an app that helps it's users to find people around them within a one mile radius. The people that are on top of the list, are the people that live nearest to the user. 
For example: If you are from Utrecht and you visit Amsterdam, you see the people who live in Utrecht on top of the list. 
That's the main idea it all started with.

After I met Vincent, I talked about last week, we added a few features that formed the app to how it is today. We changed the name in NewConnect and started to build. Every idea we came up with, we shared with our developers in New Delhi, and they built it from the ground up. We added a chatfunction, a map search and now the user is even able to set the radius from 0-1 until 0-30 kilometers. Users are able to block other users, make there own profiles and many, many more features to play with.

The app was almost done when Ashish, our lead developer in New Delhi, called to discuss a new idea with us. The idea was so great, that we fixed it in the app right away! NewConnect asks you to pick your home location. If you stay within 3 kilometers range of your home address, the app automatically sees you're 'Home'. If you go out of that range, the app understands you're 'Travelling'. That means that if someone from Spain passes your searchrange while you're at home, the app show this person on top of your neighbour, because the app knows you're at home. If you're at home, you want to see other travelling persons nearby. This all sounds difficult, but when you use Newconnect, it all comes clear!

Long story short: This app ROCKS! 

We had to change a few things in the app for Apple. We're in review again, but will be online soon!

Greetz,

Wim van Halteren


zaterdag 29 augustus 2015

NewConnect from the beginning.

Hi everyone! 

Yes..., everyone! Because I'm going to tell you about a new app that is made for everyone who leaves his own hometown once in a while. 

It's a real pleasure to introduce myself to you. I'm Wim van Halteren, I'm 28 years old right now and my core business is Van Halteren Boatcare. My company provides services to maintain all kinds of boats and yachts. Enough about that!

The story about NewConnect started in december 2013, I was driving around Amsterdam and I just finished a polishing job. In my car I was brainstorming about how fun it would be if I could just pick up my phone and find all the people from my home town who were in Amsterdam at that time. That night I searched for apps which could do such things and included this feature. I didn't find one, so the idea was born...

That week I started searching for people who wanted to help me, in the 'new' world of apps I found loads of people who wanted to reach out for a helping hand. I came in contact with some Americans who wanted to start this with me. I sent them my idea, which I named 'OneMileApp', and they were very excited to start. We changed the name into 'ClearFollow' and got a patent pending on it. At that time Cathelijne got involved, she is still working with us today. After a while some other projects started to eat a lot of time, so they decided to put ClearFollow on hold. I still want to thank Jason and Joshua for the trust, time and afford they allready put in the project!

I continued to search for the right people with the knowledge to bring our app and project to the next level. Then Vincent joined us, he took control of building the app and I started to collect money from investors. We sold 20% of our company to build it. In the weeks coming we sell another 10% for marketing budget.

At this time NewConnect is waiting for review in the Appstore. Once they approve our app, we will go online soon. Please check this blogspot every week for updates. Next week I'll explain the app how it works and what we all changed after concept to made it how it is today!

Thanks for reading!

Bye and greetz,

Wim van Halteren