Tech Spotlight: Patrick Watson
Patrick Watson is no stranger to adversity. Born in Tampa, Florida in 1985 to impoverished parents in the process of divorce, Patrick quickly found himself grouped in with the poor kids at school. Jealousy of his peers, with their fancy cars and name-brand clothes, would lead Patrick to get his first job at Mcdonald’s at just fourteen years old.
After several years flipping burgers, Patrick would begin his first entrepreneurial endeavor, landscaping. Going door to door and taking on management responsibilities would prove to be advantageous for Patrick in later years. Once mowing lawns had lost their luster, Patrick, unable to afford college, decided to start his own business building ornamental Koi ponds for residential properties. Initially, a promising endeavor, Patrick’s first enterprise came to a tragic end when a trusted employee chose to steal all of the company’s profits and operating capital and ultimately flee the state of Florida.
Down, but not out, Patrick was determined to keep his entrepreneurial dreams alive. He would start a computer repair company, making sure to avoid reliance on employees. Although helpful, the PC repair income was not enough to pay the bills, so Patrick decided to enroll in college with the money he had saved. After receiving an associate’s degree from Hillsborough Community College, Patrick was disheartened to find that a degree in liberal arts didn’t lead directly to a decent salary. He would turn toward a challenging but higher-earning career path in engineering. After researching the highest paid engineering professions, Patrick settled on electrical. Unfortunately, very few of his credits from Hillsborough Community College would actually count toward this new five-year degree. He would have to start from scratch.
After eight arduous years of work and endless studying, Patrick would graduate from the University of South Florida with a degree in electrical engineering. It would not be the degree, however, which came in handy, but the new passion he had discovered along the way: programming. By the time Patrick had graduated from USF, he had taught himself how to code and published over sixty mobile applications, each targeting different audiences of people who had encountered challenges similar to his own. After only six months as an electrical engineer, it became quite evident his love for making mobile apps far outweighed his love for electrical engineering.
Over the past fifteen years, Patrick has developed and published more than ninety mobile applications for iOS and Android and has created apps for the Federal Communications Commission, the Department of Homeland Security, and multiple Fortune 500 companies including Target, Trimble, and Assurant. He now runs his own successful mobile app development company, Life Hack Innovations, and is part owner of the largest couple’s dating app in the world, with millions of active users in 220 countries.
This brings us to Patrick’s latest project, App-ify. It’s an app that makes apps! App-ify users can create a custom mobile app quickly and easily from their phone, without any knowledge of code, and publish it to Google Play or Apple’s App Store. App-ify is not only one of the first code-free mobile app creation solutions, but it also provides features and functionality unparalleled by competitors, including custom user role management, access and permission controls, instantaneous team collaboration, live messaging, support, and analytics, rapid website-to-app conversion, and much more! If your organization doesn’t already have a mobile app, but you feel it should, try App-ify now completely free!
Despite many challenges in his early life, Patrick Watson has earned success through patience and perseverance. His own unique version of the American Dream has finally come true, and he urges others to pursue theirs.
For more information, visit https://lifehackinnovations.com/
