Steam for iPhone (2007)

In 2007 I was working my first 'pro' gig, but I couldn't help but feel there was more to this design stuff than editing Wordpress templates for people looking for a deal.

In a conversation with a friend, I realized that it was bonkers that I couldn't purchase a ton of steam games on my phone after a word-of-mouth reference and have it download to my network connected PC. It was such an obvious concept to me I mocked it up. Half-way through, I felt like I was on to something and submitted it to Valve.

To my surprise, they wrote me back. The team reviewed it and gave me a lot of amazing feedback over the phone. While ultimately they felt I was too junior at the time, they encouraged me to submit many more times in the future. I thought that was super nice of them.

Then, Greg Coomer, one of the founders of Valve emailed me. Greg used to be the guy with the valve in his face when their games loaded, before they swithed to the more ominous bald man. Greg personally invited me to keep sending them my work as time went on.

I'll never forget the first time I heard back from one of my heroes solely based on my own hard work. It was the motivator of a life time.