When my friend Jeff and I met in 2003, we were just a couple of nerdy engineering students looking up to the Google guys and dreaming of our own tech glory someday. It felt a long way off when we founded Occipital in 2008. With an emphasis on computer vision—trying to make computers see—we pecked away in a cramped office above a hardware store on Michigan’s Beaver Island. A $12,000 investment kept us afloat, and Apple’s new App Store—a virtual clearinghouse where developers like us can connect with iPhone users—gave us a market. But more than a year in, we still didn’t have a big idea.

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My Turn: How We Built a Successful iPhone App