Deniz Güney is a programmer and entrepreneur who has developed several mobile apps that have been downloaded over a million times. Born in Germany, he has been traveling the world for the past few years while working on his mobile apps. He is currently based in Bangkok, where he is continuing to develop new mobile and SaaS apps.
The first time Deniz Güney, who was 12 years old at the time, came in touch with programming was when he was introduced to the webdesign software “NetObjects” by his father. He started learning HTML and CSS, and was soon building his own websites. A year later, he became interested in games and started developing RPG games using RPG Maker 2003. Even tho he never published a video game, he learned a lot about coding and game design. “These were pretty cool times. I could create whole cities, characters and interactions between them, but at this time I really had no idea how and where to publish these games”, says Deniz.
He is pretty sure his involvement in coding and design helped him a lot. “It was definitely easier to learn how to code and design mobile apps later on, because I already had experience coding websites and games. This made the learning curve a lot shorter.” But coding mobile apps alone is not enough. It needs marketing skills, market research and good product management. For example, Deniz Güney’s apps got downloaded a hundred thousand times within one year, but without the proper marketing skills and knowledge it would have been impossible to get such results.
“You can’t just create an app and hope for downloads”, explains Deniz Güney. “I think you should always make a proper research and marketing plan before you start coding. I did some research and found out which app category and type is the most profitable, and then I started to develop apps that fit into this category.”
Deniz Güney has always been a dreamer who loves to travel around the world while working on his mobile apps. “I want to explore this world while working on something that I love. That’s why I chose this life.” For Deniz Güney, traveling around the world and developing mobile apps go hand in hand. It helps him to stay motivated and inspired.
If he could give one advice to new developers it is to get as much funding as possible first. “If you are like me and you start with just a couple of hundred dollars in your pocket, you should try to find a way to get more money, because it will be much easier for you to scale later on.” In his case, he earned enough money by himself through ads on the apps. “The more money I earned, the easier it got to grow my business. I could just spend more money on advertisements through various channels and grow my apps to earn even higher returns.” Luckily, he never needed funding from a Venture Capital company because he was able to grow his business on his own.
After earning some money, Deniz Güney could scale his online businesses and start hiring more developers to work with him. Right now, he is based in Bangkok and developing a SaaS called Linkful.io. It helps artists and influencers to turn their fans into customers. “It is a very exciting product and I love the idea behind it”, says Deniz Güney.
If you would like to find out more about Deniz Güney and his apps, you can find him on Instagram, YouTube, and other social media platforms under his nickname “Gun3ro”.