Colleagues say it’s no surprise for Ben Sinclair to return from a slow weekend with news of new app he built on a whim. “I like to build stuff that I want,” Sinclair says.
If it’s Friday and it’s lunchtime and Ben Sinclair isn’t at Performance Marketing’s West Des Moines offices, it’s a pretty safe bet where he is instead. He’s making a beeline to the buffet line.
Mind you, he’s not there for the fare — Sinclair gives the food a review that’s lukewarm at best — but to satisfy another appetite.
Thanks to our sponsor
“The food isn’t the best,” Sinclair said. “But it’s mainly an excuse to get together and talk about radio stuff.”
Sinclair, 33, is a developer of Web and mobile applications by trade. But the West Des Moines native and Valley High School grad can’t seem to shake the hobby that leads him to spend many a Friday lunch break at the buffet with other members of a local ham radio club.
“It’s kind of nerdy, but I’m a ham radio operator,” he said. “That’s always been pretty much a ‘build your own stuff’ experiment, a ‘do things that have never been done’ kind of hobby.”
Though Sinclair’s slightly sheepish in discussing the pastime, it gets to the core of what makes him tick. He is driven by what he calls a “hacker spirit,” a desire to figure out the inner workings of a thing, and then make that thing work. “I’m always tinkering with stuff,” he said. “I’m always building things.”
That’s an attribute that serves Sinclair well in his day job and his non-9-to-5 pursuits.
By day, Sinclair is a developer at Shift Interactive. Shift, which Sinclair helped establish in 2010 as the interactive arm of Performance Marketing, gained additional autonomy on Jan. 1, when it officially became a fully owned subsidiary of Performance.
Shift made the move to cater better to clients that need interactive work done but aren’t interested in the full raft of services Performance offers. As Shift pursues those customers, Sinclair said the company will look to grow from a staff of four to a team of around 20. Matt Glynn, Sinclair’s partner in the new operation, said Sinclair is well-suited for the new challenge.
“Figuring (new things) out is … part of the adventure for him,” Glynn said. “And he needs that because the agency world is very repeatable, or can be — you know, (handling) the same set of issues a little bit differently.
“That’s why the Shift world really works for him.”
Sinclair and Shift work with a stable of national and local clients that includes Hyperion Books, the University of Iowa, the Greater Des Moines Partnership and Dwolla. So, at times, doing a project for a client can give Sinclair an experience similar to working for a startup.
“Our flows and visions change, which seems hourly sometimes,” said Dwolla’s James Armstead, who has worked closely with Sinclair on the company’s iPhone app, “and Ben always embraces those changes and has never pushed back when making those changes. A true nerd wants to dominate everything he does.”
“… Ben always embraces those changes and has never pushed back when making those changes. A true nerd wants to dominate everything he does.” – James Armstead
But Sinclair really flexes his hacker muscle working on his own projects. He’s had a hand in several startups, and he sold one (online public résumé service BigSight.org) in 2009. Currently, he’s working on Uppward, a flight-based social application. Sinclair said Uppward, which rewards users for accumulating airline miles and connects them with other passengers on their flights, is experiencing exponential growth in terms of users.
Beyond that, Sinclair has been known to turn a slow Saturday into an excuse for building a new iPhone app. “He’ll come back from the weekend and be, like, ‘Hey, look, I made some crazy game because I was bored,’ ” Glynn said.
So Sinclair’s curiosity may occasionally lead him to restaurants that fall somewhere short of five-star. But, more importantly, that hacker spirit keeps him learning and building all the time.
“I do a few personal iPhone apps in the store — they’re actually mostly ham radio related,” he said, laughing. “If you haven’t noticed I’m a huge nerd. But that’s something I enjoy. I like to build stuff that I want, so that’s how those apps came about. You know, ‘I wish I had an app that did this,’ so I build it.”
Editor’s note: This article also appears in this week’s issue of Juice magazine. To learn more about our partnership with Juice, see our post: “Announcing our partnership with Juice.”
Image credits: Photos by Eric Rowley/Juice.
