Wayfinder startup Apsy is making the app-building experience easier and more intuitive than ever.
About a couple of decades ago, smart phones became the perfect platform for a mobile application explosion for what seemed like anything—and now, from food delivery to finances, there is always an app for that.
As of the last 10 years, anyone anywhere with any idea can build an app, but Wayfinder startup Apsy wants to make the app-building experience even easier, more efficient and intuitive with their artificial intelligence, deep learning Software as a Service subscription model.
“We want to make app building affordable and elegant for custom apps, that’s our goal,” said Tooraj Helmi, Ph.D., founder and CEO.
A typical app building company may take upwards of six months or more to build the app and the customer may pay more than $100,000, according to Helmi. But Apsy builds apps in up to three months’ time with an average cost of $10,000, says Helmi.
Using A.I. and deep learning language software developed by Helmi at University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering, Helmi has created a software that “listens” to a person’s verbal description of what they are looking for in an app and uses that information to create a high-quality app.
“Behind this is my research…there’s a lot of natural language processing involved in understanding what the person is talking about and what their intent is going to be when building an app,” said Helmi.
After leaving his full-time job working with conventional app development companies, Helmi saw a unique product market fit after developing a VR app for artists to sell their artwork in addition to leading a team of engineers to build an app for Builder.ai.
Helmi met Apsy’s former CEO at UC Irvine, and the pair joined the Wayfinder program at UCI Beall Applied Innovation in 2021. After Helmi took the helm as CEO, the startup has raised more than $300,000 from investors and developed a business partnership with Ramesh Dontha, MBA, innovation advisor at Applied Innovation, member of UCI’s Parent Executive Board on the Dean’s Advisory Board and angel investor.
“I believe in Apsy because of its strong technology foundation with an A.I.-engine, profitable SaaS business model and easy to understand value proposition of cheaper, faster, and higher quality output,” said Dontha. “Apsy’s CEO Tooraj Helmi is an experienced startup founder having led a Y-Combinator-supported startup in the past.”
In April 2021, Apsy was one of five winners at Viterbi’s Maseeh Entrepreneurship Prize Competition. The team was also recently selected to participate in Long Beach Accelerator as well as TechStars Accelerator. They have launched a crowdfunding campaign on WeFunder to help fund marketing efforts with the upcoming launch of Gamma, their proprietary software, in September. Building an app is not always the most cost-effective for those with difficult budget constraints, according to Helmi. And in response, Apsy recently launched CryptoAps, a crowdfunding app that supplies projects with an opportunity to raise funds of up to $5,000 for their project to be developed on Apsy as well as provide more visibility and community for their prototypes. “I thought of the name ‘CryptoAps’ to protect their ideas and perhaps they can monetize those prototypes, which can then be converted into NFTs and sold on NFT websites,” said Helmi. Despite the fact the team has not yet launched their Gamma software, Apsy is already in revenue with a target of $1 million by the end of the year. They plan to use their investments and earnings to finance marketing efforts. “A lot of people say they wish they had heard about us sooner, so we need to get the word out there that people can build their app at a low cost and high quality,” said Helmi. Learn more about Apsy.
Graphics: Evans Akanno
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