Break time a breeze with student’s app

Nineteen- year- old Montreal student Joshua Miglialo is waiting on acceptance into university, and he’s hoping a free app he created will give him and his CV a distinct advantage.

Even if BreakBuddy, which came out on iOS and Android in January, isn’t what puts him over the edge as he looks to make the leap from Dawson College to McGill Law, at the very least Miglialo has a way to co- ordinate his pre- and post-class breaks, regardless of which program he ends up in.

“I faced this recurring problem my first year at Dawson,” he s ays. “My friends and I sent each other pictures of our schedules, and whenever one of us was on break, we’d go through these pictures to figure out who’s also on break.”

The simple app allows users to post their class schedules and breaks on a calendar that accepted followers can view. When someone goes on break, they can see who among their friends is also free, and with one click, call or text them to co-ordinate a meeting place.

Since launching at the start of the winter semester, the app has about 1,200 registered users — mostly from Dawson — on both mobile platforms.

Figuring there was a more convenient way to co-ordinate meeting with pals after class, Miglialo searched online but couldn’t find an app that worked. Impatient for a solution, he decided to create one. The only problem was, the commerce student had no programming experience.

“I posted a one-paragraph explanation of my idea on Fiverr, a website for freelance work services,” he says. Initial estimates from program- mers came back at between $3,000 and $4,000. Without the necessary funds, Miglialo put the idea on ice for a week and tried again. After casting a wider net, he found a programmer from India willing to help him for $200.

“That ended up being the first instalment,” he admits, because in all, Miglialo spent about $ 2,000 on the app. It took four months of daily interaction via Skype, numerous prototype trials and regular PayPal transfers. In order to make the target release date, the programming team grew to three — all full-time computer programmers in India who do this sort of freelance work on the side.

“I felt I got a lot from this project. I got paid in experience,” he says.

During development, the typically frugal Miglialo was tight- lipped. But to friends and family he confided in, they assumed he was being scammed out of his RBC summer internship money by an online huckster.

“There was risk involved. There’s no safety net with something like this. I was sending money to someone I didn’t know and hoping it would work out. But I also got to know them over the course of a few months.”

Next, Miglialo is aiming to translate BreakBuddy into French. There isn’t anything else stopping the app from spreading throughout Canada and the U. S., since the only requirement is a phone number from either country.

Increased exposure and usage could make Miglialo some tuition money.

“I’m sure I could make money with it, but I haven’t yet and it’s not my priority right now,” he says. “My focus was taking an idea I had and turning it into a finished product people would find useful.”