Matthew Carroll sat up straight and looked at his employees.
Around him sat two other staff members and a co-founder for Niche Mobile, a Gainesville app-making business.
"We've got to be serious about what these projects will entail," he said.
Fresh into the adult world and unsatisfied with the prospects of entry-level programming, Carroll and his co-founder Garrett Strobel, both UF alumni, have started their own business. They're set to launch their newest, and so far biggest, app this winter: Dub Studio, a user-friendly music maker.
The rise of mobile devices in the past few years has driven Carroll and Strobel to cash in on a digital boom.
They said they feel Niche Mobile has the potential to grow from a small technology startup to become part of the big leagues, just like Facebook did and Apple before it.
"This new frontier is open to all these people," Strobel said. "I love exploring the possibilities."
Strobel, 26, and Carroll, 23, started Niche Mobile at the beginning of this summer.
Since then, they've pumped out five apps for Android products - Gator Parking, Who Data?!, Wubdub Dubstep Generator, Loop ‘N' Go and Dubstep Wobble Bass. The apps range from a parking locator for UF's campus and several Dubstep sound generators that give off wobbly, base-heavy music.
"The first one that puts us on the map - we're both still waiting on that," Carroll said.
The company of about 10 people meets in the office of music-streaming business Grooveshark while it's saving up for its own office space and working off a "shoestring budget," Strobel said.
Sitting at a borrowed wooden table, Carroll explains he's not in this business to get filthy rich.
"The reason I think we're here isn't so much business reasons but realizing our own goals," Carroll said. "If there's ever a time in your life to try something risky, it's now."
Starting a business may be hard, but he's not going to give up this dream without a fight, he said. He's been working toward it since he was a preteen.
Growing up in DeLand, Carroll coded his first website when he was 12. He was hooked.
From there, he taught himself HTML, CSS and Flash. High school brought IB and AP programming classes and competitions.
From there, he earned bachelor's degrees at UF in mathematics and computer science.
He'll graduate from UF's master's of digital arts and sciences program in May.
Carroll said he's glad he's been a part of the master's program, but he also is excited to graduate so he can focus on making apps.
He picked up his Motorola Droid X and loaded one of Niche Mobile's apps, Gator Parking.
Speaking about the apps he coded, he leaned forward and waved his hand around the phone.
Facing the phone away from himself, he pointed to features that tell the user where he or she can park on campus and hovered his hand over the glowing screen as he spoke.
Strobel, who sports a short, trimmed beard and mustache, sat next to him. He smiled when he talked about the creativity of their business.
Every new skill thrills him, Strobel said, because it puts him one step closer to a finished product.
"Some people, I think, just love to make and create stuff," he said. "My whole life I've realized I've been in love with ideas."
Strobel, a Boca Raton native, was attracted to biology in high school, but he was soon drawn to art in college. He created moving sculptures with pulleys and metal levers.
"It was about imagining things and figuring out how that thing is important and realizing it into a finished product," he said.
As he got closer to his senior year, he realized he was interested in programming.
He learned to create a Breathalyzer that sent drunken updates to Twitter and a heart monitor that emitted ultrasonic signals when the subject's heartbeat raced.
He earned a bachelor's degree from UF and graduated from UF's master's program in digital arts and sciences this past summer.
The duo met in the master's program and both took classes at Grooveshark University, designed to teach young entrepreneurs how to create, market and sell mobile products.
From there, Niche Mobile was born.
So they meet up with their staff every week - even on UF gamedays - to prepare and coordinate. They discussed coding the way a football coach talks about offensive plays: with straight, serious faces and detailed diagrams so everyone can visualize the final product.
Sometimes they'll hit a roadblock, such as a piece of code that doesn't work the way it should. But Strobel said that's all part of the process.
"None of us are experts on this," Strobel said to a staff member. "I don't have these answers for you."
"We'll just do the best we can," Carroll said.
UF alumni Matthew Carroll, left, and Garrett Strobel, right, started Niche Mobile. The company specializes in cellular phone applications.
