Rick Perry didn’t set out to become the calculator app guy. He was actually a marketing grad turned Android developer, who just so happened to love solving practical problems, especially the kind that make your day go a little smoother.
Questions like, what’s my car or mortgage payment if the interest rate moves a quarter point? Is that warranty rolled into financing? Are the fees reasonable? Calculations of that sort.
So, when existing mobile apps fell short, he decided to go out and build his own, and would even stress test it against his own car loan paperwork — right down “to the penny,” in fact.
His first Android app was born from a community college course he’d taken, where the final assignment was simple: make a working mobile app using Android Studio.
When he was done, he decided to put it on Google Play and see.
He didn’t have to wait long. He advertised the free version to get discovery going, then added a premium version for folks who preferred not to see any ads (and wanted a few extra bells and whistles to go with that).
One app became several and then a portfolio consisting of a mix of both free and paid versions across a dozen use cases: mortgage payments, tipping, even farm feed protein composition calculator.
He nested all of them under one name: Starflower Solutions, a wink to his home state, Kansas, and its nickname, the “Sunflower State,” but with a twist. Rick had stumbled on the “starflower,” liked how it looked, and got a logo made. And so, a distinct brand was born.
The user base grew too; in fact, into the six figure range over the life of his flagship Car Loan Payment Calculator app.
