How hard can it be to create an app? That’s the question my startup co-founder and I asked ourselves when we reconnected at an apps conference for speech language pathologists in 2012.
The iPad had been out for almost two years and the App Store was flooded with apps aimed at the pre-k students and those in the lower elementary grades. But very few apps in the speech language area were geared toward the upper elementary to high school age range.
Our speech language private practices were comprised mainly of 4th through 12th grade students and we knew they would not be interested in apps featuring fluffy ducks or audio that says, “Good job!” At the conference lunch break, my co-founder Beth Lawrence and I pondered the idea of building an app ourselves.That discussion launched our journey.
The Nuts and Bolts of Building an App
So how difficult is such an endeavor? When we first started, it seemed impossible. It would be too expensive, too time consuming, and out of our comfort zone. Yet, neither of us wanted to give up.
We started working on our ideas in 2012 and founded Communication APPtitude (CommAPP) officially in 2013. We had ideas for visual vocabulary iPad apps, which ultimately became the apps InferCabulary and WordQuations, but we needed a software app developer who understood our vision and was affordable.
We found two creative guys from Virginia who got our vision and priced it so we could bootstrap the apps ourselves.
Then we had to get our creations into the App Store by setting up an Apple account and having the developer submit each app. We now have five apps in the App Store.
Finally, we had to have supportive families, and we couldn’t have done this without ours. They cheered us on, shared our social media postings and told us to keep going when it got more difficult.
While building our business and apps was not an easy process, we have persevered. This summer we built InferCabulary Pro, a web-based, visual vocabulary tool for teachers to use with the entire class.
It’s in beta testing this fall in schools. How did we get here and what have we learned along the way? We hope to share that with you in the weeks to come.
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