Maria Seidman helps organize a monthly womens’ networking event for her business school alums in New York City but was frustrated with some of the options for creating a dedicated mobile app for an event. So she decided to create a DIY mobile app creation platform herself. Today, her brainchild, Yapp is launching as an online service where a consumer — even if they lack any technical or design skills — can create a beautiful mobile app in minutes.
As Seidman explains to me, she believes that one day everyone will be able to create a mobile app but doesn’t believe that one platform can create apps for everyone and that consumers, developers and even companies need different options for various skill sets. She’s targeting the consumer audience with Yapp, which wants to make it as simple to create an app as it is to create an online invitation.
Users simply go to Yapp’s homepage and can start creating an iOS app or an HTML5 mobile site in minutes. You can choose from a collection of themes for events, including weddings, book clubs, parties, fundraisers and more. Once the app is created, you can invite guests or attendees via email t0 view the app via Yapp’s native iOS app (called Yappbox) or via the mobile web.
Once the invitee downloads the Yappbox app, they can enter an event ID to get the designated application for the event. The app itself is fairly simple in functionality, and includes a home page, schedule, a news feed and a gallery of photos. Users can also sync their Facebook account. Organizers can also create push notifications to invitees for event news.
The startup has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Kleiner Perkins, North Bridge Venture Partners, Cue Ball and other individual investors.
