Startup Helps You Pick New Apps

We sat down with Mahmoud Hafez, 32, CEO of the startup AppAdvice.com and Apps Gone Free. His site does app reviews and news. He recently spoke with Palo Alto Patch about the feeling around the web that Apple unfairly removed the app AppGratis because Apple wants to be the only way to promote apps.

Hafez is a recent member of AOL’s incubator First Floor Labs (FFL) and will be staying at the AOL building in a rented space across the way from FFL. His company employees 17 app review writers from around the country, while the core staff consists of five members.

Patch: Tell me about how the company got started.

Hafez: Alex [Vaugh], and I met in college at UC Berkeley in 2003. We started out making a local friend finding service, which helped you find things to do with friends in close proximity. iPhone technology wasn’t advanced enough at the time to support that, so we decided to do an app discovery site instead. The AppAdvice website first started in 2008; we were in Los Angeles at the time.

P: How did you end up at FFL?

H: We started talking to AOL’s mobile team first and they told us about the [FFL] program. Moving to the Bay Area meant more exposure and contacts too. We love the space at AOL: the shared atmosphere, amenities, open space and we’re super impressed with how many people we have access to. It’s so much easier to meet big companies like Zynga; they wouldn’t have come to our L.A. office. At the very least, it puts you at the level where you can picture us as a company.

P: What’s the business model?

H: We make money through the Apple Affiliate Program, but we’re looking to do ads — long term campaigns for companies that are highly relevant and tailored to the user.

P: Would you like to get acquired by a bigger company?

H: It’s not our focus. Only if they could help us solve something we can’t solve ourselves.

P: What differentiates your product?

H: It’s unique. There’s use new technology to drive recommendations using algorithms, but you still need the human aspect. 700 to 800 apps come out a day and you have to scrape through them. Humans curate and people like the human component. We try to write like we’re talking to friends and don’t take it too seriously. The shear amount of reviews we write too stands out, with about 30 articles a day, while other sites normally do five to six. We pride ourselves on finding cool, quirky apps.

The company is seeking iPhone developers and writers who are very interested and familiar with iOS to join their team.

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