Future Help Designs hires 5 iPhone app developers

metromode, 6/24/2010

Christian Marcillo and Glen Konopaske were a couple of Mac fanatics working in retail and robotics respectively, dreaming of running their own start-up when the economy hit bottom in late 2008 and they lost their jobs. That allowed the pair to act on that ambition, forming Future Help Designs in Dearborn Heights. It wasn't long before their friends wanted in, too.

"We started having our friends and co-workers come up to us, saying we know you're working on something," Konopaske says. "We don't feel secure in our jobs so we want to be part of it."

The next thing they knew, 16 people with 185 years of software development experience between them were sitting down and rattling off ideas on how to create iPhone apps. That yielded 52 ideas which eventually became three iPhone games, such as Pop!Pop!Pop! - a game based on popping bubble wrap.

"We didn't have anything specific in mind," Marcillo says. "We just started putting together ideas."

The firm now has 21 employees working on new games with higher-quality animation. Developers are also working on a game for school psychologists that should be released soon. The company hopes to incorporate more daily life activities into its apps and to add a few more employees this year.

"We're looking at what we can do to take these apps to the next level," Konopaske says.

Source: Christian Marcillo and Glen Konopaske, co-founders of Future Help Designs
Writer: Jon Zemke

Dearborn