A University of Wisconsin graduate and Madison local landed on this years’ Forbes 30 under 30 under the Enterprise Technology category.
For the past four years, Forbes has created lists in 20 different categories and chosen 30 people under age 30 who have started companies, made their name known and made a difference.
Max Lynch, a UW graduate with a degree in computer science, started a company called Drifty in 2012 with his childhood friend, Ben Sperry.
The goal of the company was to make it easier for people to build mobile apps using drag and drop techniques that are similar to photoshop, Lynch said.
The idea for Drifty started when Sperry was working as a designer at Planet Propaganda in Madison, Lynch said.
Sperry and Lynch recognized the inefficiency of rebuilding apps when qualified people, such as themselves, could just build over them, Lynch said.
In the past few years, the company has shifted its focus on a new idea called Ionic, Lynch said. Ionic is a tool which makes it easier for users to complete mobile framework. It is one of the top 50 most popular open-source projects in the world, he said.
The company has seen more than 330,000 mobile apps being used on Ionic and has also reached millions of unique developers over 2014, Lynch said.
The Ionic team is composed of 15 workers and they raised a million dollars in February of last year, he said.
Lynch said there is no set strategy that leads to success.
“The best advice I can give is that at the end of the day, there really are not any rules,” Lynch said. “There’s no strategy for being successful, there’s no plan, like if you follow this plan you will be successful. It usually doesn’t work out that way.”
It is much better for young people to be open and interested to new opportunities, Lynch said.
It is also important to prioritize finding jobs where students will be able to learn more rather than just making the most money in a short period of time because in the long run it may not pay out, he said.
Lynch, Sperry and many of their employees are UW alumni, which he said is something they are very proud of.
“It feels incredible,” Lynch said. “I am very proud to be on the list with some other really great names. I think it’s awesome to get that kind of recognition in Madison.”
*An earlier post stated Sperry worked at “Time Propaganda”
