Startup Company Mobile
Alke Stilwell
What they do: Cityflo is an urban transportation app providing economical bus travel. The app provides booking, rescheduling, and live tracking features. According to Cityflo, 8,000 people have switched from car use to buses using their app.
What they do: RevenueCat is a startup that provides a platform for managing in-app subscriptions for mobile apps. Their software development kit (SDK) integrates with app code, making it easy to implement and manage subscription-based business models. RevenueCat provides features such as analytics, reporting, and subscription management to help app developers increase their revenue and retain customers.
What they do: Amber Group is a cryptocurrency fintech startup that was recently valued at $1B. The startup launched its mobile app in Q3 2020 and has since amassed over 100,000 signups. The firm has accumulated upwards of 700 institutional customers, consisting mainly of hedge funds.
What they do: Swapi is a loyalty point-trading mobile trading platform. Users can trade accumulated rewards instantly with other users via the Swapi application. These trades can be cross-brands to allow users to maximize their loyalty points. Demos are currently available for request.
What they do: Mobimatter is an eSIM marketplace app where users can shop available eSIM offers while traveling. The app has offers available from 30+ eSIM providers for over 200 countries worldwide. The free app has over 100,000 downloads on the Google Play store.
What they do: Polycam is a 3D scanning and LiDAR app for iOS and Android devices. The app lets users scan their surroundings to create 3D models from their photos. The startup currently has 100,000 paid users and over 1 million downloads in the Google Play store.
What they do: Getir is a grocery delivery service offering a real-time inventory for shoppers. The company delivers over 1,500 products per day ordered through their app. Deliveries are made day or night and the service is currently available across Turkey, London, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Paris.
What they do: Dukaan is an online store creation (and management) app. The platform offers customization options, custom domains, and additional plugins to specific to ecommerce brands. Dukaan currently covers over 200 different categories of business.
What they do: Powder is a video-sharing startup facilitating the recording and editing of video game footage. Users can record gameplay directly to the Powder app from their console, PC, or mobile. Editing is also possible in-app before distribution to various social media accounts. The startup has over 60,000 followers on Instagram.
What they do: Agora is a video-based beauty marketplace app. Users can use the platform to sell beauty products via 15 to 180-second videos. The app uses hashtags to help categorize products. The startup currently has over 50,000 registered users.
What they do: BigBrain is a quiz app. Users compete live in quiz topics of their choice with leaderboards ranking their performance. There are over 2,000 topics to choose from and new contests start every 15 minutes. BigBrain has been funded by four investors as part of their seed funding round.
What they do: Relate is a relationship support platform providing its users with counseling services. Its app has a wealth of resources to help its users tackle relationship troubles and conflicts. Relate has partnered with a relationship communications app Paired.
What they do: So Syncd is a dating app that uses personality compatibility to match individuals. It was created by sisters, Jessica and Louella Alderson, who saw a gap in the market for a dating app that prioritizes personality over physical appearance. The app uses a compatibility test based on the Myers-Briggs personality test, and has a loyal following of users who appreciate its unique approach to online dating.
What they do: Jigsaw is a personality-first dating app that partially hides profile pictures with jigsaw pieces. The app is intended to promote conversation which in turn slowly removes jigsaw pieces, revealing faces. Currently, Jigsaw has been downloaded by over 50,000 people on the Play Store.
What they do: Tiptapp is a social app that allows users to connect with their neighbors and communities by requesting or offering help with small tasks and errands. Users can earn credits by helping others and use them to request assistance for their own needs. The app aims to foster a sense of community and promote sustainable living by encouraging users to share resources and reduce waste.
What they do: Blinkist is a book summary app that aims to help busy individuals learn more in less time. The app offers condensed summaries of popular non-fiction books in various categories such as psychology, business, self-help, and more. With Blinkist, users can read or listen to key insights from books in just 15 minutes or less, making it a great option for those who want to learn on-the-go.
What they do: Buzzer is a customizable live sports notification app. The mobile application provides short-form sports content with real-time notifications to deliver news as it breaks. So far, Buzzer has been backed by nine investors, including former basketball player Michael Jordan.
What they do: Apna is a professional networking and jobs platform based in India. Users can schedule phone interviews and call employers via the app. In its first year, Apna amassed over 1.2M users.
What they do: Copper is an app-based banking platform built for teenagers. The banking app has an accompanying debit card which can be bought online or in-store. Features such as automated allowance are designed especially for a younger demographic. According to Copper, over 300,000 members use the app.
What they do: Collegia is an app-based auto-enrolment pension provider. The app can manage multiple pension schemes and provides a 25% government bonus on your investments. Collegia officially launched its mobile app in June 2021.
What they do: PupPod is an app-powered interactive dog game. The game enables users to engage with their pets remotely using their smartphones and a video feeder device. PupPod currently retails on Amazon for $199.00.
None of our inclusions try to reinvent the wheel. Instead, there is a focus on refining and improving. As part of this, AI features prominently in many of these startups. Which is likely to increase in prevalence over the next few years.
Designer. Specifically a UX "designer" as you say, who doesn't just draw screens, and won't draw any for weeks or months. They will not just use their knowledge but will go out and talk to users, observe how they solve the same problem today, and help create the scope of work, and design the basic functionality.
If you hire a developer first, they will build stuff that may or may not be of any value. If the company survives the first few rounds of building the wrong thing, you are still spending a hell of a lot in rebuilding, re-marketing, etc. etc.
The service you need first is someone to help you to define the functions your app is going to perform. So I'm not talking detailed screens and I'm not talking detailed tech questions. But I am suggesting you work with someone to get very clear on how the functionality of your app relates to your business plan. ie what features are most important on launch, which ones you are planning to develop soon after.
Once this information is clear then you would probably want to contact a developer for rough estimates on development costs/timeframes for each module you are building. They'll make decisions about which pre-built components to use in your project. Then you can weigh the estimates for each function against their projected financial value.
With this information you can get the UX guy to create detailed schemas for how the first release of the app will look from the outside. And you won't be wasting any time/money because the broad areas you're working on are already costed approximately with the developer. Then you can take the UX guy's output and send it to the developer to get much more precise estimates and you can make your final choices before pressing 'go'...
You will probably find that from a development perspective there will also be 'known unknowns' - no matter how skilled/experienced the developer they will not necessarily know off hand how long tasks will take. So often you'll need to pay them to explore these areas to get a proper costing. It depends how big/complicated your app is. Sometimes the developer will be keen to learn or to impress you and get your business so some of this they will absorb themselves.
Lastly, when the UX guy has done his job, make sure you get from your developer a proper costing for each module of the app. So we're talking something like:
First Screen - 300usd
API connection for 3rd party integration - 800usd
Video display page - 800usd
...and maybe even a break-down within each section.
Then make sure to get your developer to define a timeline with verifiable milestones for payment. So there may need to be advance deposits at some points depending on how your developer's business is structured but make sure that there are points where you can say 'when I can do X and Y and see for myself that it works' then 'payment is released'.
Sometimes the budget and the timeframe/milestones data will need to be revised but at least this can be a collaborative process between client and contractor. The better you communicate the more successful your working relationship will be.
With the best will in the world there are still often budget overruns but you can minimize these with the practical systems I've defined above and also by being as unambitious as possible with the technology within the bounds of what your business demands. So you can be as ambitious as you like with the business but always build the minimum sized tech solution you can because I guarantee you, the day your project hits the public, your plans will change and you'll be glad you've got time and money left over to respond appropriately:-)
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