The most downloaded apps on the Apple Store are almost always made by multi-billion-pound companies – think Hasbro, Activision and EA. But while big developers dominate, Taiwo Omisore’s one-man creation, MultiWords, is on the rise.
His competitors hail from Silicon Valley but Taiwo grew up in Walworth. His obsession with computers arose from long afternoons in his South London living room, playing video games with his brother.
“My mum made the biggest mistake by getting a Nintendo Entertainment System from one of her colleagues in the early ’90s. Me and my brother would play Bubble Bobble, Mario, Duck Hunt – we were hooked,” he said.
At school, a teacher recognised Taiwo’s IT talent. “My primary school teacher encouraged my parents to get a computer so we got a Windows 95 PC – and that’s when my life changed forever. We were one of the first families to get the internet in our local community.”
Despite the struggles of a 28k dial-up modem, further weakened by his mum’s incessant phone chatter, the family home quickly became a computer room for the local community. People would pile in looking for advice on setting up emails and Taiwo was happy to help.
Still only a child, he became savvy with HTML and was the go-to person if you wanted to change your Bebo or MySpace homepage. “I was intrigued by how computer systems work and how you can manipulate them. I always going on the system files and tinkering with things.”
Despite having an obvious aptitude for computer technology, Taiwo found himself working in a non-tech role at Tesco in Welwyn Garden City – miles away from home. He loved his colleagues but “hated the job with a passion”.
He was commuting fifteen hours a week and wanted to make the best of it. So he started developing simple games on the train. “I would go up to people on my commute and ask them to play my game. They would give me some really honest feedback because friends and family are gonna say it’s the best thing since sliced bread.”
In 2014, Taiwo released his first app – Spacebots – to “little fanfare”. “It took me six months to build and it only got 200 downloads in the first year. But I loved the fact that anybody, from Costa Rica to New Zealand, could download it.”
Almost ten years later, now working for an advertising company, Taiwo has released MultiWords. Following in the footsteps of games like Wordle, it’s simple, educational and highly addictive. At the time of writing, it was ranked 17th in the ‘Word’ category and rated 4.7, with a host of rave reviews.
Commercial success hasn’t come easily to Taiwo, nor has it necessarily been his aim. The Walworth-born developer has created twenty apps and this is the first to see mainstream success.
Even now, Taiwo is only set to make £300 from the app in its first-month post-release. This could rise rapidly as more people downlaod the app but it Taiwo says it shows how hard it is for developers to make money. “My friends think I’m raking it in and it’s really not like that,” he laughed.
Nowadays, Taiwo from Kennington is taking time out to speak in local schools about the opportunities in the tech industry. “I want to help encourage students to realise that there are many opportunities out there for them, regardless of who they are and their background.”
