Southfield-based jacAPPS can claim something a lot of local software companies can't: being an early adopter of the app economy.
The company launched in early 2008, spinning out of a media consulting and consumer research firm. Its first app was creating a radio app for local rock n' roll station WRIF. It now has created 775 apps (mostly custom ones for clients) and is doing work with Ford today.
"In 2008 we saw pretty clearly how disruptive smart phones and apps were going to be," says Paul Jacobs, president of
jacAPPS.
Jacobs aspires to make jacAPPS one of the biggest players in the mobile field. It has hired one person to expand its staff to five people and it's looking to add interns. Now that jacAPPS has, as Jacobs describes it, the house app developer for
Ford's SYNC system, it is poised for a rapid ascent in 2013.
"We are interviewing more people," Jacobs says. "We're growing. We're also talking to investors. I want to be the largest mobile developer in the U.S. I think we are on our way to doing that."
Source: Paul Jacobs, president of jacAPPS
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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