Yes, Epic App Solutions is a real company. Yes, we have three employees and three contractors. But at the core, we're a two-man firm. My partner and I manage the operation, the projects, the engineering, and the network of people we bring in when needed.
That's how we save our clients money.
I don't need to keep a room full of developers sitting around collecting paychecks when there's nothing for them to do. We operate through management, experience, and a professional network that can be activated in less than 12 hours if you've got the checkbook and the project to justify it.
That's called running a business efficiently.
We don't take every project.
We turn work away all the time. Sometimes because it isn't a good fit. Sometimes because we aren't interested. Sometimes because we simply don't want to deal with the project or the people involved.
That's how professional firms operate.
A law firm doesn't have to take your case. A medical practice doesn't have to accept every patient. And a development firm doesn't have to build your application just because you've got money.
This isn't a drive-thru. You don't pull up, place an order, and expect us to say yes.
We're full-stack developers with decades of proven experience. We've spent our first careers building systems, solving problems, and doing things other people told us couldn't be done.
Now we're getting ready to step into our second careers.
And you know what I want to do?
Build kids' games. Build family entertainment. Build boats with my kid and my little brother, just like we've planned.
That's it. That's where I'm heading.
EAS is a very small company, but I like to compare us to nuclear power. Most development firms are just boilers. My partner and I have been tested time and time again, with projects thrown at us that other people said were impossible.
Our usual response?
Stand back and let us give it a try.
And more often than not, we found a way to make it possible.
We rarely take on new clients these days unless they're corporations, established businesses, or projects that genuinely interest us.
We also prefer working with marketing directors and agencies.
Can we handle marketing ourselves? Absolutely. We have that capability. But we'd rather let marketing professionals do what they do best while we handle the engineering.
They love what we build, and we love how they manage clients.
It's a good relationship.
Besides, trust me, you do not want two old engineers closing your sales.
One of us gives away too much.
The other tends to make people cry when they don't listen.
I'll let you figure out which is which.
So if you call either one of us, be prepared for something you might not be used to.
We're not yes men.
You might hear no.
You might hear, "No, thank you. That project doesn't interest me."
And yes, even if you point out that we're perfectly capable of doing it, the answer can still be no.
Being able to do something doesn't mean we're obligated to do it.
After decades of dealing with grown adults, their expectations, their complaints, and their endless bullshit, I've reached a pretty simple conclusion.
I think I'm just going to build games for kids.
Because, frankly, fuck adults sometimes.
Never pleased. Always griping. Always something wrong.
And before somebody gets excited, yes, adults play games too. I play video games myself. I love them.
But I don't want to spend the rest of my life building overly complicated shit for some neckbeard screaming from his mother's basement because a video game didn't go exactly the way he wanted.
I love video games, but I also know how to change a tire, defend myself, and skin a buck. Hell, I can clean a fish too.
There's a world outside that monitor.
Technology has given people the ability to hide.
You can create a personality, hide behind a screen, say things you'd never say to somebody's face, and pretend to be somebody you're not.
And that's fine until people forget there's a real world outside the digital one.
I call part of this first-person syndrome -- my own description of what happens when somebody spends so much time living through a screen that they start treating real people like characters in their personal video game.
They become the main character. Everybody else becomes an NPC.
And suddenly, accountability disappears.
I'm not interested in surrounding myself with people who operate that way.
Here's a question worth asking yourself.
How much time do you spend on social media every day?
Five hours? Six? Eight?
And is that really work, or are you just scrolling?
I've worked around marketing and technology for decades, and I'll tell you something: a properly designed marketing operation should be built around planning, automation, analytics, scheduling, and measurable results.
It shouldn't require somebody to sit on Facebook all day looking for ideas.
In a well-organized operation, routine social posting can take very little hands-on time. Actual marketing strategy, customer engagement, and campaign management are different responsibilities.
If you're spending hours doomscrolling and calling it research, you might want to examine what you're actually accomplishing.
Especially if you're doing it on somebody else's dime.
Technology is supposed to make us more productive, not give us a better excuse to waste time.
And that's pretty much where Epic App Solutions stands today.
We're small by design.
We're selective by choice.
We're engineers, not salesmen.
We build because we enjoy building.
We don't need every client, every project, or every dollar.
We've already spent decades proving what we can do.
Now I'd rather spend the next chapter building things that make people smile, teach kids something, bring families together, and maybe get a few more people off their asses and out into the real world.
And somewhere in between, I'm going to build some boats.
Epic App Solutions. Two engineers, a professional network, 25+ years of experience, and absolutely no desire to become another giant development agency.
We're not trying to be the biggest.
We're trying to enjoy what we build.