The birth of BudCast
It was year 2005.
I had just moved to the United States leaving behind my family, friends, and a decently comfortable life for a well-paying job. At first, it was exciting to experience everything “new” but as the excitement of “new” faded away, I was struck with monotony and boredom. I was still a stranger on new soil. I was missing my friends and all the fun we had together.
Eventually, I made friends of my colleagues, most of them in the same situation as I was. We were a little gang who created our own cocoon to bloom happiness in each other’s company. We discovered bowling could be our get-together activity so every Friday afternoon as the workday came to an end and excitement of the weekend seeped in, we barged into a local bowling alley and spent a few good fun-filled hours. We laughed every time someone threw a gutter ball and we screamed and high-fived every time someone scored a strike. We were so thrilled by the game that we had even bought ourselves personal bowling shoes to avoid paying the shoe rental fee to the alley owner. Those were fun days. It seemed that I had recreated my lost world in a new country.
Over the period, our group discovered a lot of other fun activities to do over the weekend, but it was Bowling that forged a deep-rooted connection among us.
It was year 2009. Like most weekends, our group drove into the parking lot of the same alley but to our surprise, the alley had disappeared. Someone told us that a devastating fire broke out and burned down the whole place. Luckily, no one was injured but the place never resurrected. Our weekend shrine had perished. We were puzzled, just like a flock of birds returning to their nest on a tree only to find it abruptly vanished.
We found another bowling alley eventually, but it never felt the same. The cord had snapped. Our regular get-togethers slowly became infrequent and the group dismantled over the period as everyone in the group became more involved in their personal life.
It was year 2019. I was watching a music video on YouTube which was shot in a bowling alley. The couple in the song was having a gala time while taking turns to throw the ball. It instantly took me back in time, a decade ago of my weekend bowling bashes with my group as happy memories flashbacked. I wanted to experience that thrill all over again.
So, I picked up my phone and started making calls, asking each member of my group if they would like to reconnect for a bowling session over the weekend. It sure was hard to convince everyone to come bowl with me. Their priorities had changed and why wouldn’t they? Priorities do change over time. And I thought to myself:
What if I did not have to make a call to each one of them to ask if they would be interested in accompanying me for a game of bowling?
What if I could just broadcast my interest and let my friends (or anyone for that matter) see what I intend to do and contact me rather than I making individual calls and bothering them?
What if I could just eliminate the guesswork of who may be interested in joining me for an activity?
That’s when BudCast was born.
An app that would let me broadcast my interest to my friends, or public if I choose to and making new friends in the process. The app was designed keeping simplicity and intuitiveness in mind yet offering a granular flexibility of choices. The app not only served the purpose of connecting like-minded people sharing common interests but also inspired to cultivate new hobbies and promote an active and healthy lifestyle.
A few weeks after launching our app on the AppStore, COVID-19 struck—talk about timing! While the business idea didn’t flourish, it taught me the immense effort behind developing and marketing a website or app. Through it all, I embraced this mantra: ‘Go, get out—because of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt’.
