Not Just Fast

“It’s not just doing it fast, it’s doing it big.” These are the words of serial entrepreneur Calvin Carter. Calvin co-founded i.con interactive, a high-end multimedia and Internet development company which he helped take from startup to merger/IPO. Since then he was involved in 20 startups, real estate and medical IP investments. At first blush, it looks like the guy can’t hold down a job. But some people have an instinct for business opportunity and Calvin’s one of them. He started i.con when others were trying to wrap their mind around this whole Internet thing. Recently he saw a shift in mobile computing, lead by Apple’s innovative iPhone.

When Apple first announced they were opening the iPhone to third party developers, Calvin saw a birth of a whole new platform. “The mainframe gave way to the desktop computer. The desktop gave way to the laptop, and the laptop is giving way to the iPhone,” says Calvin.

He threw himself in the middle of the Internet surge in the 90’s. Now he’s on the cutting edge of the ‘Internet in your pocket.’ Less than a year ago he founded Bottle Rocket to meet consumer’s desire to be conveniently connected anytime, anywhere.

This is not news. One estimate has iPhone apps (utility or game programs) at 13,000 and climbing from a dead start only 6 months ago. Bottle Rocket released eight programs virtually all at once. “I called them the essential eight. A friend renamed them to the crazy eight because I was crazy for doing this. Why not just do one? Then another. I did this because I wanted to rope-a-dope the App Store. I wanted to hit it with so many excellent apps that Bottle Rocket would instantly and forever be known as one of the top iPhone development companies in the world.”

In place of just going fast, Calvin’s BIG approach seems to have worked. Wings, a flight simulator, held the top 10 of 7,000 apps for a month. Voxie, a premium voice recorder and messaging app, still holds the #2 spot in business apps. GasBuddy was heralded as the new standard in cheap gas finding utilities, and Overnight caught on by efficiently managing express shipments. Due to third party interest, Bottle Rocket now offers custom application development to small and large companies.

• Wings – Flight Simulation Experience
• Voxie – Voice Recorder and Dictation
• Overnight –Express Shipping Manager
• GasBuddy – Finds the Nearest Cheap Gas
• Proxy Pal – Surf the Web Anonymously
• ZIP Finder – Simple ZIP Code Lookup
• Santa Wings – Rudolph’s Flight Game
• Mistletoe – Ask for a Kiss - You May Get a Slap

The common misperception in the Age of Speed is success is not ONLY about how fast you go. The way to get ahead is to add forethought to execution. Thinking big adds extra need for preparedness but, done right, $ signs might just flow from your head into your wallet.

Bottle Rocket and Calvin Carter are a good example of that!