By Imogen Crispe
A New Zealand company is hoping to take their DIY smartphone apps to the world.
App La Carte has created an online platform for clients to create and customise their own apps for iPhone and Android.
Managing director Andrew Malcolm says in the past creating apps for both formats from scratch for clients was time consuming and expensive, but App La Carte makes it easier and cheaper.
“People can go onto the website and create an iPhone app and an Android app at the same time,” Mr Malcolm says.
“It only takes an hour or two.”
Clients then must wait for the app to be approved by the Apple app store and the Android store before their customers can start downloading it.
He says this cheaper way of creating apps has opened the app market up to small companies and organisations who could not afford to commission an app before.
App La Carte apps are also integrated with Google Analytics so clients can check the progress of their app.
But it is not the first company to offer “make your own” apps.
There are numerous websites which allow users to make their own apps, some for free.
However App La Carte’s apps are designed and specifically targeted at retail, hospitality firms, and sports clubs.
Because the company is small, it is flexible and takes note of customer feedback.
“We’re very flexible, we’re very quick to react. We don’t have the bureaucracy of a big corporate,” Mr Malcolm says.
So far, he says, App La Carte is doing quite well and has received good feedback.
“Everybody is pretty happy with the deal.”
Since the company was launched in March, it has facilitated the creation of 30 apps for various companies and brands.
In the first two months Wendy’s hamburger chain and audio equipment firm Bang and Olufsen became some of their first clients.
Other large firms Pak N Save and Baker’s Delight are also trialling App La Carte apps.
But Mr Malcolm has high goals and is not yet satisfied.
By the end of June he hopes 100 apps to have been made, by the end of the year, 1000 and by the end of 2013, 5000.
“We are very ambitious.”
Mr Malcolm says the company wants to expand to international markets as soon as possible.
Next week he will be meeting with potential clients in Sydney and Melbourne and in June he will head to San Francisco in the US to talk to possible partners.
“The overall goal is to sign up as many clients as possible,” he says.
App La Carte has a setup fee of under $1000, and then clients pay a minimum monthly fee of $30.
3 News