SYDNEY: Fifteen-year-old Ben Pasternak shot to fame in October last year after making a chart-topping iPhone game, Impossible Rush, while bored at school.
Now he’s in California, eyeing an internship with Facebook. A lot can happen in three months.
Impossible Rush, which briefly outranked apps such as Google, Gmail and Twitter on Apple’s App Store, has been sold for $US25,000 ($30,400) to French company Akkad.
Surprise success: Ben Pasternak and his chart-topping iPhone game, <i>Impossible Rush</i>, outside Reddam House, Woollahra campus.
Surprise success: Ben Pasternak and his chart-topping iPhone game, Impossible Rush, outside Reddam House, Woollahra campus. Photo: Dallas Kilponen
Ben won’t see any of that money — he’d already offloaded the app to Carlos Xavier Fajardo, the 22-year-old from the US who helped him market it — for a mere $US200.
But Ben is not fazed — he’s always maintained he isn’t in it for the money.
To put this kid’s insouciance into context, Ben has gained plenty of value in other ways from the app’s success, and the media attention that followed.
For starters, he’s had to knock back job offers from local tech companies. At just 15, and about to begin year 10 at Reddam House’s Woollahra campus in Sydney, he’s not legally old enough to drop out of school.
His mum, Anna, wants him to knuckle down and get his Higher School Certificate; and then, preferably, a degree too.
But that hasn’t stopped Ben from capitalising on his summer break.
Facebook’s internship department has invited the young entrepreneur to tour its headquarters. So has a vice-president at Google, after his own teenage son brought Ben’s achievements to his attention.
The teams at viral app Yo, and at Slack — a collaborative communication platform that has become a Silicon Valley darling — have also reached out to the up-and-comer.
And, for the first time, Ben is about to meet Austin Valleskey, the Chicago teenager who helped him build Impossible Rush.
The pair met in a Facebook group for high school hackers. Ben will take Austin with him when he tours Google and Facebook, scheduled for Friday.
“It’s pretty weird to finally meet all these people I speak to pretty much on a daily basis,” Ben told Fairfax Media from the Grove shopping centre in West Hollywood, where he is with his father, Mark, and younger brother, Jake.
Ben has always thought about starting a new venture himself, but says he’d “definitely like to get an internship” out of the trip.
Over the weekend, Ben will take part in Hack Generation Y, a global hackathon for high school students sponsored by Google.
Joining him will be Helena Merk, also 15, and James Harnett, 16 — two Americans he met in the same Facebook group.
Last year, Helena was one of 200 students chosen to attend Apple’s annual World Wide Developers’ Conference, and was featured in Seventeen. James, meanwhile, presented at TEDxTeen 2014 in London to launch the event’s iOS app, and has won a number of prizes at other hackathon events.
It’s clear who’s in charge, though. The plan is to dedicate the 30 hours of coding allocated by the hackathon to bringing Ben’s long-term project, an iPhone app called One, to life.
He’s been working on One for almost a year. Aimed at heavy social media users, it aggregates Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds all into the one place.
It’s designed and ready to go, says Ben — apart from the coding bit that is.
“They [Helena and James] seem to think we can do it [in 30 hours] but I’m sceptical about that because it’s taken so long to work on it over the past year,” he says.
While he’s “impatient” to get the app to launch stage, Ben wants to make sure it’s done properly. Once that happens, things could really get going for the young entrepreneur.
A prototype of One has already attracted interest from a potential investor in New York but Ben’s parents are wary of keeping their son’s youthful enthusiasm in check — particularly when it comes to money.
“The problem with Ben is I never know what’s real or what isn’t, and it turns out to be real — it turns out to be very real,” says mother Anna, speaking from their family home in Sydney’s Vaucluse.
Closing a deal would mean having to set up a company for her son and act as trustee, along with her husband. Ben himself admits it was “really scary” once things developed towards finalising a deal.
So for now, they’ve decided to wait until he has a finished product before they take the next step.
Mrs Pasternak believes it’s “too much for a child” to be focusing on building a business while still finishing high school.
“I don’t want to mislead anyone and, say, take the money and run,” she says.
“We want them to understand he’s 15. He can be very responsive and professional, and then drop off the radar because he’s going to the beach and jumping off rocks.
“It’s very tricky as to how much rope you give them.”
