
Ben Pasternak was so bored one day during science class he decided to design an iPhone game.
Careful
to not let his teacher see what he was doing on his laptop, he enlisted
the help of his whiz-coder friend Austin Valleskey,15, who lives in
Chicago, to build a game app in a matter of hours.
Much to the boys' surprise,
Impossible Rush has become a big hit on the App Store both in Australia and overseas.
It peaked at number 7 in Sweden, 16 in the US and 18 in Australia, above
apps such as Vine, Google, Gmail and Twitter, and has clocked up
300,000 downloads in the six weeks since it launched.
Like other popular games such as
Flappy Bird or
Tetris,
Impossible Rush is a minimalist affair: the player simply taps a wheel to match colours against balls which fall faster and faster.
For
Ben, a year nine student at Reddam House's Woollahra campus in eastern
Sydney, the game's success is vindication that his dream of becoming the
next big tech entrepreneur is achievable.
"Everyone I tell has the attitude that there are a million-plus apps out
there, [they say] 'what are the chances of your app working out? You're
just a 15-year-old kid'," Ben told Fairfax Media.
The boys weren't even planning to release the app, but Austin told
Fairfax Media that another friend, Carlos Fajardo from New York City,
gave them $US200 to take it off their hands and invest in marketing it -
to great success. Mr Fajardo is listed as the app developer on the App
Store, while the boys are listed as creators.
Ben said Mr Fajardo
made $1500 from paid advertisements within the game in one day, but says
he isn't bothered that he hasn't seen any of the money himself. His
mother, Anna, said he boys did the app as an adventure and from Ben's
perspective it wasn't about money on this occasion.
His greater
goal is to create the number one app in the world. After that he wants
to start something, not just toil for a big tech company like Apple or
Google where some of his newly made contacts work.
Since February, he has been working on another app called
One, to be launched by year's end. It puts a person's Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds all in one place.
Anna
said she and husband Mark had invested "thousands" of dollars into the
project, although she described it as "relatively inexpensive".
Mrs
Pasternak said her son's passion for technology began around the age of
eight, when he became "obsessed" with Club Penguin, a social gaming
site now owned by Disney.
He soon turned his attention to Apple products.
"He's a devotee – he used to queue up all night to get the latest product," she said.
At
14, Ben was the first customer in the world to buy the iPad Air,
filming the event with the help of a friend to post on his own YouTube
channel, where he reviews Apple products.
He quickly established
himself as a social media darling, and now has more than 200,000
followers on Instagram, and more than 40,000 on Facebook.
But it
was a family trip to Apple's corporate headquarters in Cupertino,
California, in January that spurred Ben beyond the world of selfies and
into something far more ambitious.
While he wasn't allowed to tour
the building, just visiting the on-campus Apple store was enough to
inspire Ben to start making his own apps.
Mrs Pasternak said Ben's father Mark gave him the idea for One, but the work has been all his.
"I don't think Mark expected him to just take off with it like that," she said. "He hasn't dropped the ball since."
While
Mrs Pasternak described her son as "busy" and "obsessive", she likened
it to having a child prodigy in the house, such as a gifted musician.
"He's channelling it in such a creative and beautiful way," she said.
"It
could be just gaming – so many kids his age just sit at home and play
games, but he's not interested in that. He's interested in creating new
technology."
The tech obsession isn't genetic. Mrs
Pasternak is a trained psychologist. Mark, however, is an architect -
which might explain Ben's love for design.
Ben's parents are
insisting he finishes school, and they want him to get a degree. His mum
is suggesting a gap year to test-drive his entrepreneurial ambitions
first.
"We won't count our apps before they hatch," she said.
Reddam House principal Dave Pitcairn said Ben had proven his detractors wrong with the success of
Impossible Rush, and had "absolutely no doubt" the teenager was headed for great things.
"He's awfully intelligent," Mr Pitcairn said.
Mr
Pitcairn said Ben was "very popular" and "charming" at school, and that
his people skills were "going to be phenomenal" out in the professional
world.
"He's got that twinkle in his eye and a naughtiness about him that is both endearing and frustrating," Mr Pitcairn said.
That
much is plain: Mrs Pasternak said she thought her son was out at the
beach with friends during this week's Labour Day holiday - in fact, he
was busy spruiking his successes to Fairfax Media.
"From our side
[Reddam House], we wish him all the best and we'll support him through
this," Mr Pitcairn said. "But he must make sure his school work is also
up to speed!"