It all started in 2016. Peter had just retired from his 2-year job after he figured out that working 9-2-5 is not the life he wanted. He had always dreamt of doing something socially meaningful. Something... big.
He wanted to build a better world.
But he didn't know how. It gradually came to him that changing the world requires more than just thinking. He stayed at home for the next 2 months, doing nothing but sleeping, eating and going (with no direction) online. His mom had to wake him up every single day, usually at noon. She got fed up with her only son lazing around while her colleagues' sons are out there making hot cash.
At one point, she couldn't hold up her temper: "While you are lying dead here, do you know that *hundreds of African children are dying of thirst every minute*? You have a better condition than them, but you *just waste it*!"
And that lit up an idea in Peter.
The world only gets better as each person gets better. Every day, he knew for sure, there were many people like him, being a couch potato while others, from birth to burial, could never be an inch close to his condition. "Rome isn't built in a day..." - He knew that, "...and so are good people". So he spent the next few months building Habitify - A habit tracker that helps people form good habits - in the hope of helping other people like him.
When he was building the app, he remembered his mother's words: "The app can help. But it can't if people don't have a phone."
That's when he decided to donate a majority of his revenue as water for African children! When a customer pays for the app, they are also donating to help dying children somewhere in the world. In other words, Peter says, "As one gets better in their daily routine, they are also making other lives better".
His business model soon received a lot of public attention. But it did not last long. According to the App Store policy, he was not allowed to have donation from within the app. Peter had to remove this feature from Habitify, of course with much regret and also to the surprise of his supporters.
Once again, Peter turns to another direction. This time, he focuses everything in building Habitify to be the most useful habit trackers. It needs to be the simplest app that saves people's time and effort, so they can focus 100% on getting better every day.
Till now, Habitify is nearly 2 years old (we are celebrating its birthday on 2nd August this year!). It has helped more than 250.000 people across the globe, with closely 1.2 millions of new habits created. "It's just a small number. Habitify still has a long way to go" - Said Peter, in his day-to-day black shirt.
