Romanian Startup Appscend Streamlines App Building For Performance

Appscend,Romanian startup,startup,startups,startup interviewA Romanian startup called Appscend is already one of the most popular app development houses in the country. They have 250 apps published in the Google Play and Apple iTunes App Store already. The startup employs 12 people at their home office in Romania and they plan on expanding this year into the US (New York) and Latin America (Chile).

Appscend offers their app development customers a more holistic approach to app development with the ability to go multi platform/cross platform and native at the same time. They’ve also taken the best pieces out of over 100+ development tools and streamlined them with a focus on performance when building out apps on any platform.

Sebastian Vaduva, Appscend’s CEO and co-founder told us:

finding the right tools for each phase of the app’s lifecycle is by far the most time intensive and resource consuming process for businesses trying to embrace mobility. This is the reason most of them fail or they postpone the process.

Vaduva says that with his companies “Ignite Markup Language” they’re able to produce and develop apps up to ten times as fast with no learning curve. They also provide a cloud based content system that Appscend customers can access directly giving their customers the advantage of being able to update their app without needing the original developer’s help.

Check out our interview with Vaduva below.

What is Appscend?

Appscend is the world’s first mobile performance based application platform. Specifically, Appscend’s holistic approach offers its customers the fastest cross platform development technology available on the market today, together with a complete list of backend technologies that ensure application & user management, a powerful push platform as well as app analytics.

The company was launched in May 2011 and in the past months, 2500 referrals, resellers and white label partners have actively relied on Appscend’s powerful technology and more than 250 applications, serving direct customers, were published in Apple iTunes and Google Play. Presently, Appscend numbers 12 employees and we are expanding by opening new offices in more mature and dynamic markets: United States (New York) and Latin America (Chile).

In layman’s terms, how does it work?

The mobile ecosystem is slowly moving to the cloud (from cross-platform development frameworks to backend-services and management tools) but the landscape is still fragmented and is lacking one holistic solution. Therefore, the need for one holistic application from which businesses and developers alike can benefit.

Today’s mobile landscape is crowded with 100+ software solutions for app development, app management and analytics. However most of these tools fail to deliver on the key issue at hand:

finding the right tools for each phase of the app’s lifecycle is by far the most time intensive and resource consuming process for businesses trying to embrace mobility. This is the reason most of them fail or they postpone the process.

Through these insights and building upon our expectation to create a powerful and secure platform, we have created Appscend. Simply put, companies can develop 10 times faster their mobile applications through an unique development language (Ignite Markup), while also focusing on the management and monetization process of their mobile apps, with functionalities such as: Content Management, Push Notifications, User Segmentation and Mobile Analytics.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Appscend has three co-founders: Andrei Marinescu, Gabriel Dobocan and myself. While still in our 20s, we have been friends and entrepreneurs for the past 7 years. We stated in college by building one of the strongest and most appreciated student associations in Bucharest (Romania) focused on business development and networking events for young professionals.

Since then, we have worked together in other companies, while also venturing on our own entrepreneurial path. Gabriel and Andrei are pros at coding and developing the platform from a technical point of view, while I am focused on business development, improving the product, growing sales and profitability.

Appscend is our second company and in the last two years we have grown a decade older in experience by creating and developing a more mature, scalable and international business. And to that, I would also add a very long friendship – we have been colleagues since high school.

Therefore, both our experience of working together and also our friendship, are some of the reasons for developing a fast-growing and secure project such as Appscend: we complement each other’s responsibilities and tasks.

Where are you based?

Appscend was started in Romania (Bucharest). In the following months, we will continue our expansion to other countries: United Stated (New York) and Latin America (Chile). The development office will remain in Bucharest, the rest focusing on sales and business development.

What’s the startup scene/culture like where you’re based?

Eastern Europe in general and Romania in particular are renowned for the pool of technical talent. However, the entrepreneurial ecosystem is stating to grow and mature through a series of programs, events, and conferences, pitching events that are bringing more attention to the startup scene. More startups begin to create global products and services; more investors start viewing the region as a business orientated community, not just talented programmers. I am highly confident that in time and with the necessary training, funding and initiatives, Romania as well as the rest of the region will grow a dynamic and profitable entrepreneurial ecosystem.

How did you come up with the name?

It represents what we do – cross-platform mobile applications. It is also simple, intuitive and powerful.

What problem does Appscend solve?

It unifies all the tools you need to develop, manage and monetize your mobile business solution throughout the entire life cycle of an application.  Through Appscend – with Ignite Markup Language – development gets an up to 10X speed increase with no learning curve whatsoever, due to its clean structure and simple tags the language uses. Appscend offers an interactive method to test the app customers are developing by using “Catalyst”, an application where you will be able to preview your work and test your app at every given moment. With Appscend’s cloud based Content Management System, customers can update their content and data on the go and distribute information worldwide seamlessly via a global Content Delivery Network. Moreover, there is a call-to-arms with Appscend’s notifications process, being more than a simple push-and-visit checkup. Through Appscend and upon permission, we retrieve demographical data – such as gender, location and age group. Additionally, you can store your own custom data attached to each user; set and retrieve it inside your app, use it to create custom segments relevant for your business. Appscend gives the possibility to generate user groups and custom segments, also receiving up-to-date reports that you can further on use by creating niche groups for targeted Push Notifications.

What’s your secret sauce?

Unity, technical innovation and constant development. Plus, all the reasons mentioned above.

What’s one dilemma you’ve encountered in the startup process?

Never thought about a dilemma when entering the startup process. But I must admit that creating a business in a young and still not mature entrepreneurial ecosystem is not as easy as it might seem. Testing, iterating, developing, educating the local business market and growing new opportunities have been the most important landmarks in the first year of developing the business. To that, I would also add unifying a team of 11 great professionals: dedicated, hard working and utterly ambitious.

What’s one challenge you’ve overcome in the startup process?

Most probably, and reporting to the local Eastern European market, one of the most important milestones is the educational process which you should go through while explaining the benefits of the mobile industry. Developing business mobile apps means more than just creating a mobile platform and launching the end result. It implies a close and direct management of the application and constant updates to the market’s needs. Nevertheless, it is understandable – the mobile market is still young and goes through continuous updates. I believe that in some perspectives, not only the start-up mobile ecosystem is maturing, but also the business community interested in exploring a new marketing and business frontier: mobile business applications.

Who are some of your mentors and business role models?

We were extremely fortunate to have mentors such as Doug Richard (School for Startups, UK), Bill Aulet (MIT) or local business-angels and experienced businessmen. We have also gone to several mentoring sessions, such as: “Entrepreneurship Development Program” by MIT University. Of course, what in the end turns out to be the best mentor of them all, is trying out on your own and not being afraid to fail.

What’s next for Appscend?

The following months are extremely important and we will focus on expanding and growing our presence in United States, Europe and Latin America.

Linkage:

Check out Appscend here

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