Chapter     1

Staring at the Bottom and Rising to the Top

The year was 2009; I was just finishing my freshman year at the University of Texas at Austin. I sat in my room, proud of my year. I had decided to pay for my own college education in order to take the burden off of my parents’ shoulders. I took a look at my banking information and nearly had a heart attack. I had less than $100 in my account and a loan of nearly $25,000 staring me right in the face. Keep in mind that this was only my first year of college. At the rate at which college tuition was increasing, I was sure to be six figures in debt by the time I graduated. I thought to myself, “I may have bitten off a little more than I can chew.”

Mentally exhausted by the financial pit ...

Get Appreneur: Secrets to Success in the App Store now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.