CHEERS: Camera360 audio camera enables mobile phone users to shoot audio photos (China Culture Daily)

Xu Hao, 34, neither studied abroad nor has he worked in a big company, but he did found his own way of developing a third-party camera app for smartphones.

Pinguo Technology Co. Ltd., Xu's company, offers Camera360 for the IOS, Windows Phone and Android operating system.

In the 2013 Fortune Global Forum taken place on June 8 in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, Xu released Camera360 v4.0 with an "audio camera" feature enabling users to record and embed sound while shooting a still photo.

At a banquet, one could photograph a toast and capture the corresponding ganbei simultaneously. Bottoms up!

"The charm of a photo lies in the record of a specific moment in our life. It may not be an exquisite picture, but must be an interesting one that evokes emotion and memory," Xu said.

Pinguo claims the original Camera360 app registered 40,000 downloads the first day of release on May 1, 2010, and the number soared to 100,000 in less than one week.

Man with dreams

In the basement of a skyscraper in Chengdu Tianfu Software Park, one of the largest software parks in China, Xu is working with 80 Pinguo Tech staff members whose average age is 26. Matrix Partners China invested venture capital in the young team in 2010.

"Though it's hard, we will stick to our dreams. Dreams make us forget loneliness and give us courage to make a difference," Xu said.

For Xu, life is busy, yet regular and enjoyable. He gets up at 7 a.m. After grabbing some bread, he sets off for the company. At noon, he would rest for an hour after a quick lunch, and then continue to work until late evening. After work, he goes back home to sleep at 11 p.m.

"He is a person filled with spirits of adventure and loves extreme sports. We understand that he is working under extremely heavy pressure, but he talks little about it,"  Shu Yangyang, channel manager of Pinguo Tech, told China Culture Daily.

Chengdu Pinguo Tech was co-founded by Xu and his elder brother in 2010 with Xu as the Chief Executive Officer and his brother the Chief Technology Officer. Xu says he and his brother are polar opposites; his brother is a calm and introverted man, working hard with little new ideas, but Xu himself is a dynamic person of unconstrained imagination and innovation.

"A man with dreams could make a difference without loneliness," said Xu in 2012 when Pinguo Tech was celebrating the second anniversary of its foundation.

Influence from his father

Xu's father is a photographer. Under his influence, Xu and his brother got interested in color and composition of pictures when they were little children. Later, the father sent the brothers to a children's training center to learn computer programming.

"My father was far-sighted. He had already realized that computers would be the trend of future development," Xu said.

"He has been doing business and is an inventor as well as an expert in the fields of physics, Chinese traditional arts and medicine. He is my role model," Xu added.

Having failed in arts subjects, Xu Hao dabbled in business after his graduation from senior high school in 1996 when he was 17.

With 300,000 yuan ($36,200) given by his father, the young boy started business with two of his classmates. They bought three professional editing machines and opened the first compact disc and music video recording studio in Chengdu.

Unfortunately, the price of recording was too high for the general public at that time, so the studio shut down in less than one year.

"It was a bold trial for me and also for my father who ventured such a big sum of money for my business," Xu reminisced.

In 2004, when he was 25, Xu developed image processing software and opened a studio for wedding photography based on it. The studio was hot at the beginning but soon declined when pirated versions of Adobe Photoshop flooded the market. The business closed in less than two years.

"I think all these experiences are rewarding," Xu noted. "I will stick to my business and continue to do the meaningful things."

Xu believes mobile photo camera apps will develop to be a closed-loop service integrated with the platform of mobile Internet and cloud computing. "We are now trying to transform Camera360 from a mere tool into a certain kind of service for customers," Xu said.

"Our immediate goals are to make Pinguo Tech profitable and to get it listed in overseas stock markets such as Nasdaq," Xu added.

(Source: China Culture Daily)