mobile-apps
(85)
Rowl wanted you to show up
First, an app to get you to the concert. Then, a greeting-card acquisition. Inside Rowl’s attempt to turn social attention into something people actually do.
Cheesecake Labs gets past the demo
A wallet without seed phrases. AI that respects the boundaries. The Brazil-born engineering company makes its case in the details that decide whether software gets used.
Brain Station 23 makes the complicated work.
A Dhaka-born software company found its opening in the awkward space between an app and the business behind it. Banks, supermarkets and pharma teams have been keeping it busy ever since.
Moofwd and the art of waiting three seconds
From campus apps to enterprise AI, Moofwd keeps returning to the same problem: getting new technology to behave inside the systems people already depend on.
Raj Sanghvi started with code on paper
Before he had a computer, Raj Sanghvi had a pencil and an interest in programming. The Bitcot founder has spent his career closing the distance between an idea and something people can use.
IOCOD Infotech builds for the day after launch
A software team in Kozhikode is making a case for staying close to the work - and close to home. Its story runs through financial software, customer communications, and the unglamorous business of keeping systems useful.
Eric Shapiro’s longest-running experiment is a friendship
He and his college roommate set out to build a five-person app business. Through changing markets and a sale to WPP, Eric N. Shapiro has kept returning to the same question: who would you like to build with?
Propel put the safety net in your pocket
A food-stamp balance was a phone call away. Propel made it a glance - and built a business around what happens next.
GM2 makes the messy parts work
A checkout that counts the sale. A document that finds its property. The Argentine software studio built its business around the details that make digital products useful - and became part of TELUS Digital.
MyFitnessPal made lunch measurable.
A food diary became a business by making an ordinary habit easier to see. Now MyFitnessPal wants to help decide what goes on the plate in the first place.
Never Work: Find your fit.
A career app asked people to look beyond their job titles. Its next idea was stranger: turn everyday experiences into clues about the work you could do.
Matthieu Rouif and the business of making things disappear
An afternoon lost in Photoshop helped send Matthieu Rouif back to entrepreneurship. At Photoroom, the former GoPro product manager is pursuing a deceptively demanding idea: make selling easier without changing what is being sold.
Mark Loranger and the price of keeping your company
After years in university licensing, startup banking and operations, Mark Loranger built Braavo Capital around a question founders can overlook: what do you want to keep?
Turbo found bigger business in fewer customers
The no-code company became Appify, moved upmarket, and learned that connecting a complicated business could be worth more than collecting another small account.
The Meet Group sells the room where strangers meet
A school yearbook became a network of social apps. Then The Meet Group found a second business: selling the tools that turn a live conversation into an economy.
Cogny wants clubs to recognize their own fans
A ticket, a jersey, a renewal reminder. Cogny connects the scattered pieces of a fan’s life so sports teams can make a more informed next move.
WhatsApp made distance cheap.
Three billion people came for a simpler way to talk. The business built around their conversations is getting considerably more complicated.
Alex Fedorov’s Case for One Fewer Idea
The OBRIO founder left a career in audit, built Nebula, and learned to put more of his attention into fewer things. A global marketplace, Ukrainian roots and fresh scrutiny now shape his next decisions.
Ilja Laurs and the trouble with a billion downloads
Ilja Laurs built GetJar by letting people use a developers’ testing ground. A billion downloads later, the harder question was how to turn all that attention into a business.
Life360 made “Where are you?” a business.
A family map became a daily habit for more than 100 million people. Now Life360 is finding out how far that habit can stretch - from lost keys to advertising.
AccuWeather sells the next move.
A $150 winter forecast became a business in knowing what to do next. Behind the familiar app is a company selling time to move people, protect factories, and stock the right shelves.
Telefan Gives Elusive French TV Films a Voice
French film director Laurent used Anything to launch a streaming app built around voice discovery. Telefan’s proposition puts specialist knowledge to work on thousands of hard-to-find French TV films.
Kaniyet Rayev and the business of a second use
First, he put London’s empty restaurants to work. Then a stubborn travel-app problem led the Boxo co-founder to a different kind of spare capacity: the apps people already use.
Anything vs Lovable, Bolt and the Race to Launch
A beautiful demo is a fine opening act. Compare Anything, Lovable, Bolt, Replit, Bubble and Cursor by what it takes to put a working product in customers’ hands.
Yevhenii Kostenetskyi and the arithmetic of play
He arrived at Genesis with a finance background and launched Impulse in 2018. Seven years later, its team reported 100 million downloads - built one small game, and one business experiment, at a time.
Picsart turned the phone into a studio. Now it wants the whole production line.
A photo-editing app born in Armenia learned that making things is social. Its next bet: the same people who remix a selfie will need to run a campaign.
Stitcher: the podcast business that outlived its app
A borrowed iPhone helped Stitcher escape the desktop. A decade of deals turned it into a podcast business whose most valuable work could happen far from its own play button.
Clickky put a price on attention. Then came the bill.
The Ukrainian ad platform turned mobile traffic into a business for advertisers and publishers. Its history asks a less comfortable question: what, exactly, have you bought when you buy a user?
Automatic Labs gave old cars a new voice. Then the line went dead.
A plug-in adapter made ordinary cars report their troubles, remember their journeys and call for help. Automatic’s rise and shutdown reveal the bargain hidden inside a connected device.
Scorp and the art of outgrowing your first idea
A Turkish social app gave people fifteen seconds to speak. The company behind it went on to build a much broader business around what people do with their phones.