Thanks to programming, how did I make $ 200k when I was 16 years old?
By: Thành Công
Tags: Mmo, Experience, My Life, Storyofmylife, Storytelling

9 years ago, I wrote the first software in Java. To add that I was in grade 9, 13 years old and with only 3 months of experience learning programming on my own. Over the next few years I made ~ $ 200k in income . And this is how I did it.

From gaming to programming

It all started when I got lost in the game world. I spend most of my time playing Call of Duty, Gears of War, Runescape and whatever game I can get. All my friends will meet in these games to play together and we gradually move from meeting outside to meeting online.

The most addictive game among them is Runescape . It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with this popular online role-playing game.

For those who don’t know, this game is built in Java. After many times waiting for the game to download data, I became interested in Java and software development.

Learning on Google, I began to realize that if I knew the code, I could build my own software. That thought blew into my mind. But that was just the beginning, and my interest in programming continued to grow over the next few months.

Not long after realizing the power of Java, I found a book called Java Self-Study in 21 days . I immediately downloaded Eclipse and started learning. I was fascinated by the book and though still a game addict, I grew to love my new hobby: programming.

After school, I go back to do housework, play games and code in sequence like a machine. It didn’t take me long to use my new programming skills. I wrote code-scanned code, built up random GUIs, and even wrote software to solve my Math homework.

At that time, I felt like I had a super power that no one knew about. Excited, I told my friend that I was learning Java and asked him to do it with me. He just shrugged and continued playing the game. So I went on alone and no one knew — not even my family .

Get deeper into the programming world

As the months passed, I started getting frustrated with the speed of plowing in Runescape. So I started looking for ways to cheat. Amazingly, there are tons of macros, bots, and scripts that you can hang 24/7 so they automatically play the game for you. This fascinated me. I tried every bot I found but found that most of them were trash. I kept trying it out until I stumbled across a community that offered a free bot. It can even run custom scripts. I joined this forum not knowing that in a few months my whole life would change.

This community is everything a child like me could dream of! Over the course of a month, I have tried out at least 20 scripts. There are some logging fights, some fights with monsters, and other scripts that do the quests for you. What these bots can do automatically without any oversight is amazing.

I noticed that the scripts were written in Java but I did not think about creating a script at the time. Immediately after using those scams, my account was permanently banned for reasons other than bots. I completely fell. I remember I was in my room, in tears because the account that I had spent hours in my life plowing was banned. I begged Jagex (the company that created Runescape) removed the ban but they didn’t give me any chance.

Turn lemons into lemon juice

For a week I was angry, sad and a little confused. I was angry and sad for obvious reasons — I lost something of value to me. However, I was confused as well. What will I do now? What will I spend my time on? What will I say to my friends?

There are many questions, but I have no answers. And then I decided to create a new account. The idea here is that I will use the cheats that I found to level back like old accounts quickly. I decided to go on a mission back to where I fell, but there’s a problem here.

My previous account had a high combat stats and at that time the community didn’t have many bots that could fight for you. So I went looking and happened to see a bot that can fight chickens and I said to myself: Why just chickens? Why not fight with monsters?

I came across the source code and that’s when I realized that with just a few modifications you can create a bot that can fight any monster in the game. With my new programming skills and a bit of creativity, I created GenericFighter — the first bot that can fight all in one.

After a few tries and tests, I’m confident that GenericFighter is ready. Any monster I set it up to fight with is perfectly defeated, and I’m excited not only to use it for myself, but to share it with the community.

In a matter of weeks, it quickly became one of the most popular bots on the forums and my Runescape account stats went up. I received a lot of praise, but it didn’t just end there. I started getting new feature requests and bug reports from forum members. I became addicted to programming, the rush to build a product loved by people kept me going.

This went on for a few months. Bot maintenance forced me to become better at coding and made me gain a deeper understanding of Java. At this point, I was completely ignorant of a bigger picture of life. I didn’t know that the founders of the forum had a plan to take things to the next level.

I have become addicted to programming. Everyone noticed.

I started spending less time playing games and most of my time was spent developing bots. I worked hard and people started to pay attention. One day, the founders of the community contacted me. They are building a premium marketplace for bots where bot writers can sell their scripts. I was a bit skeptical but decided to join. Soon after, I partnered with the owner of RSBots.net to sell a premium bot called AutoFighter Pro.

Compared to other bots, AutoFighter Pro is offered for a lower price of $ 12.99. I do not understand how money is divided between website authors, sellers and founders. But AutoFighter Pro has more than 30,000 purchases from the beginning of June 2009 to the end of October 2011. Please do the math 😉

Sales grow every month and almost never decline. As the platform expanded, the founders invited more new authors to join the sale of bots. The original team became larger and became extremely competitive.

Soon after, authors began to build copies of each other’s scripts and compete for functionality, availability, and price. Not only are you forced to code, but also sell yourself and your product. I quickly learned that every detail counts in the competition.

I have taken on the roles of Product Manager and Engineer at the same time. I listen to user feedback, plan new features, keep interacting on forums, and keep posting new updates — it’s come standard for me.

In this competition, downtime is unacceptable. Not only do users run these bots for personal use, but their businesses depend on them as well. Selling GP (the currency of Runescape) and high-index accounts back then was a fairly common form, and you had to work hard to meet market demand.

Trouble in heaven

From the first summer to the beginning of my senior year, my life consisted of a full day of school, an hour of chores, and a night of coding. This affected my performance to some extent, because I was too focused on creating a better product. Writing code has become my top priority and I spend all my time working on AutoFighter Pro.

When all the ideas are completed, my bot can now fight multiple monsters at once, automatically heal you, auto-respond to real players, and many other unique features. . But as you might have guessed, this cannot be sustained.

After a year of selling the scripts, there was a lawsuit against the founders. They fought hard for about a year but ended up losing the lawsuit a few days before my 17th birthday. This has resulted in them having to shut down all the premium bot and forum websites.

Honestly, when I first started, I didn’t plan to tell anyone what I was doing. I was worried because everything was going on but also worried because I didn’t know what to do.

So who did I tell first? I told my mother. Your response? Feeling curious, confused, and a little nervous. She doesn’t understand exactly what I’m doing, how I got involved and why people are paying for it. My dad responded similarly, but they were happy for me and as long as I was legally protected, they supported it. I never told anyone else until I graduated high school.

You may be wondering right now, what did a kid like me do with all that money? To name a few: I helped write off family debts, brought my family to Disney World to play and invest in myself.. Looking back, this opportunity could have come at a better time for my family and me. It was during the recession in the United States that, like millions of others during that time, we had a hard time — but I am proud to say that what I earned calmed the storm. .

Gaming and programming changed my life

I’ve been programming, designing and managing products ever since. Immediately after I stopped working with bots, I spent more of my free time learning Android programming.

In February 2012, I launched Follow, a Twitter app that tracks the people who unfollow you, who you don’t follow, and who follows you. In a few short months, the app has reached 20,000 downloads. I have written about how it achieved 150k downloads and now it has over 200k downloads.

After three semesters in college, I dropped out to start Puricode — a company that makes products. We want to build products for small businesses and startups while releasing products internally. Our first project was Runn, an on-demand delivery app for colleges.

After two years, we stopped developing Runn and focused on other opportunities. In addition to my own projects, I have worked as an engineer at some great companies: Nexient, Ford, Nima Labs, Gigster and Bird.

Right now I’m in Santa Monica, working for CodeSigned — the portfolio of brands, apps and media that I produce. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to turn my childhood hobby into a job and I couldn’t imagine what else I would do.

Thanks for reading this article!

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