#WeArePlay
Discover the stories of people from all over the United States building apps and games businesses on Google Play.
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Meet Bernard from Bloomington, Indiana. His app Yorescape takes people on virtual tours of historical sites around the globe.
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Meet Dr Rosita from Alaska. Her team made SHI: Language Games, which uses interactive games to preserve traditional Southeast Alaskan tribal languages.
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Meet Brian and Patrick from Minneapolis. Their app Voloco has over 50 million downloads worldwide - helping aspiring singers, rappers and content creators perfect their sound.
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Meet Atif, Sara and Aziz from California. They’re co-founders of Tarjimly, a free translation app used by doctors, aid workers and NGOs worldwide to communicate with refugees.
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Discover more stories from people across the world
Explore now
Founder
Bernard Frischer
Company
Flyover Zone
Location
Bloomington, Indiana
Downloads
33,700+
# of employees
5
While studying classics and archaeology in Italy in the 70s, Bernard was in awe of a physical model reconstructing the entire city of ancient Rome. It was then that the idea for a virtual travel experience first occurred to him. 50 years later, he was able to make this vision come to life with Yorescape. The app recreates historical cities and civilizations digitally for users to explore the ruins of ancient Egypt, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, and Mexico. Bernard recently added the Agora in ancient Athens. One day, he hopes to cover sites in all four corners of the earth.
"We're passionate about what we do and wanted to share that passion with as many people as possible. Google Play has a large, global reach, so it makes it possible for us to do that"
President
Rosita Ḵaaháni Worl
Company
Sealaska Heritage Institute
Location
Juneau, Alaska
Downloads
1,300+
# of employees
80
The traditional Southeast Alaskan tribal languages of Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian had almost died out. With just a handful of birth speakers left, the Sealaska Heritage Institute - led by anthropologist and Alaska Native Dr. Rosita Worl - created an app to preserve them. Launched in 2014, SHI: Language Games uses interactive games and recorded voices to engage learners. Widely used in schools and by adults reconnecting with their heritage, the app was initially offered in Tlingit, with Haida and Tsimshian versions released in 2023. They also plan to introduce a virtual reality function, allowing people to immerse themselves in the culture and explore these historic communities further.
"Learning to fully accept our culture, art, and language has only come about in the last decade. It's a beautiful thing that we are now preserving our language and making it part of the public sphere"
Co-founders
Brian Stevenson
and Patrick Flanagan
Company
Resonant Cavity
Location
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Downloads
50,000,000+
# of employees
9
Musician and composer Patrick wanted to improve the sound of his own vocals, so he created a pitch correction app mainly for his own use. When a side project app he developed with colleague and friend Brian didn’t perform well commercially, the pair revisited his original title and polished it up for re-release. On Voloco, aspiring singers, rappers and content creators can perfect their sound and achieve near-studio quality vocals using just their phone. Next, they’re launching direct messages and social features to allow people to discover new artists and grow an audience.
"We’ve loved the development we’ve seen with Google Play. It’s made distributing apps to millions of people easy and safe"
Co-founders
Atif Javed,
Sara Haj-Hassan
and Aziz Alghunaim
Company
Tarjimly
Location
Mountain View, California
Downloads
48,300+
# of employees
12
Atif spent his childhood interpreting for his refugee grandmother, so he understands the pain of language barriers. He met Aziz at MIT and together they built a translation app to help during the height of the Syrian refugee crisis. It grew into Tarjimly: a free translation app used by doctors, aid workers, and NGOs worldwide. Social worker Sara, who supports refugee communities, joined their founding team. Tarjimly - meaning 'translate for me' in 12 languages - has over 60,000 volunteer translators in 150 languages, and the team provides paid work for around 100 refugee translators. They're now leveraging AI to increase their reach and grow Tarjimly's global language repertoire.
"Google Play has been absolutely critical in reaching refugee and immigrant communities around the world that need our language services"
Co-founders
Jacek Duda,
Paul Coleman and
Mark Spencer
Company
DroidEFB
City
Huntsville
Downloads
100,000+
# of employees
3
When software engineer Mark discovered his passion for flying planes, he realized he couldn't find an app that gave him all the information he needed. Most apps with weather forecasts, flight charts and location tracking weren't affordable or accessible. So he teamed up with friend Paul and engineer Jacek, also fellow pilots, to build DroidEFB (Electronic Flight Bag). The app has all the tools a pilot needs to navigate inflight issues and travel safely across the United States. Next, they are in negotiations with other countries to access flight charts and expand their business overseas.
"As soon as the app is ready to use in other countries, it'll basically be like flipping a switch on Google Play - it will help us reach all these other markets"
Co-founders
Jennifer Ryan,
Lindsey Noto King,
Stewart Price,
Brett Ables
and Kenny Kung
Company
Croux
City
Birmingham
Downloads
2,400+
# of employees
4
Jennifer's restaurant was still in its infancy when the pandemic hit. Like many entrepreneurs in the service industry, the flight of talent from the sector threatened to cripple her business. Keen to support the workers, including moms and individuals working in multiple jobs, Jennifer teamed up with fellow hospitality veterans Stewart, Lindsay, and Brett, as well as tech brain power Kenny, to create Croux. The app offers trusted talent access to flexible work across the hospitality industry along with instant pay, health and wellness benefits, financial support, tax expertise, and a community of like-minded people seeking financial freedom. Now live in 7 markets, Croux's next focus is expansion into big sports and entertainment events.
"The efficiency and control we gain by using Google Play is critical to our company's success. It's so easy to manage and monitor the distribution of our app"
Founder
Gordon Telepun
Company
Foxwood Astronomy
City
Decatur
Downloads
100,000+
# of employees
2
Board-certified plastic surgeon Gordon has always been fascinated by space and fondly recalls watching the moon landing on TV as a child. It was viewing a partial eclipse on a beach in New Jersey aged six that sparked a lifetime passion for solar events. Years later, he went on to achieve his dream of witnessing a total eclipse in Zambia, where he realized how challenging it was to perfectly time celestial photos. This inspired him to create Solar Eclipse Timer in his free time, an app that uses geolocation to countdown to the perfect shot. Since launching, it’s helped thousands capture stunning pictures. Now, he's working on perfecting the app's next version for upcoming major eclipses.
"My goal is to help novices be successful in capturing photos of their first eclipse, because it can be an overwhelming experience that's difficult to get right"
Co-founders
Ashlee Ammons
Kerry Schrader
Company
Mixtroz
City
Birmingham
Downloads
1,000+
# of employees
3
Ashlee and her mom Kerry had a shared frustration: they found it tricky to engage with new people at events. So they put their heads together to create a networking app. With no tech experience, both left successful careers to build a platform that could spark meaningful connections and help avoid awkward encounters. Mixtroz lets people attending events connect and engage easily with one another. After the pandemic, they evolved the software, adding new features so that Mixtroz can be used for virtual meetings.
“My mom and I are helping to change the face of what entrepreneurship looks like. My mom is not a millennial. We are showing that technology is for everyone. We love being part of that movement”
Co-founders
Andrew Stone
Nick Sloan
Company
Random Logic Games
City
Birmingham
Downloads
45,000,000+
# of employees
10
Andrew and Nick started Random Logic Games while working together at a tech company. They had design and sales expertise but no knowledge of app-building. So they hired a developer team to help them make simple mobile games. The business exploded when their breakout title, Guess the Emoji, captured people's affection for this new form of communication. Since then, they’ve had many viral successes, with installs jumping from tens to thousands in a day. This year, to support growth, they’re moving the majority of their business to Google Play.
“Any developer regardless of location, and with very little money, can sign up to Google Play and get started, which is what we did. Then there’s the amount of scale and reach that you can achieve”
Co-founders
Elliott Potter
Jared Mattsson
Patrick Sullivan
Company
Linq App
City
Birmingham
Downloads
42,200+
# of employees
20
Originally studying music, Elliott moved into tech after becoming fascinated with coding and automating manual tasks. He met co-founders Jared and Patrick at a tech startup. Working on a marketing tool, they realized how complicated it could be to share contact details with potential clients. So they created Linq, a digital business card for people to connect and swap details. Scanning a QR code instantly downloads a person’s profile to your phone. Linq has made big strides over the past year, with the founders securing large-scale investment and growing their team.
“We were just three guys around our kitchen table and now we have employees. I would encourage anybody with an idea to just try it”
Stories from Alabama
New
Jacek, Paul and Mark
DroidEFB
Huntsville, Alabama
New
Jennifer, Lindsey, Stewart, Brett and Kenny
Croux
Birmingham, Alabama
New
Gordon
Foxwood Astronomy
Decatur, Alabama
Ashlee and Kerry
Mixtroz
Birmingham, Alabama
Andrew and Nick
Random Logic Games
Birmingham, Alabama
Elliott, Jared and Patrick
Linq App
Birmingham, Alabama
Founder
Doug Bourne
Company
Audio Tour Alaska
City
Anchorage
Downloads
400+
# of employees
1
Doug fell in love with Alaska shortly after graduating from college. He became a tour guide at the famous Denali National Park before teaching at an Anchorage university. As much as he loved Alaska's culture of remote living, he also identified opportunities to integrate tech into areas where it was less common. After using a travel companion app while out of state, Doug resolved to create his own app to guide newcomers through the wonders of Alaska. Combining GPS functionality with fascinating audio narration, Audio Tour Alaska provides a guide to the state's history, culture, and wildlife. Doug has future updates planned to expand the app's functions and geographical range.
"Google Play has a huge worldwide market. That’s important to me, as I’m targeting people from overseas visiting the U.S. It’s a no-brainer"
Founder & CEO
Dan Newman
Company
Alaska Premier Auctions and Appraisals
City
Anchorage
Downloads
7,300+
# of employees
45
Dan started his career in tech production for news stations right out of high school. A decade later, he switched lanes professionally and attended auctioneer school, swiftly becoming a certified auctioneer. Combining his tech skills with a passion for auctioneering, he created Alaska Premier Auctions. This platform allows people to bid on everything from vehicles to jewelry, antiques, and collectibles. They recently moved to a 44,000-square-foot facility to accommodate their expanding inventory and meet growing demand. Looking forward, the team aims to expand into new markets and establish a physical footprint outside of Alaska.
"We take pride in being community-focused, engaged and responsive. We readily seize opportunities to demonstrate our commitment by saying: 'We're here for you and we'll take care of things'"
President
Rosita Ḵaaháni Worl
Company
Sealaska Heritage Institute
City
Juneau
Downloads
1,300+
# of employees
80
The traditional Southeast Alaskan tribal languages of Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian had almost died out. With just a handful of birth speakers left, the Sealaska Heritage Institute - led by anthropologist and Alaska Native Dr. Rosita Worl - created an app to preserve them. Launched in 2014, SHI: Language Games uses interactive games and recorded voices to engage learners. Widely used in schools and by adults reconnecting with their heritage, the app was initially offered in Tlingit, with Haida and Tsimshian versions released in 2023. They also plan to introduce a virtual reality function, allowing people to immerse themselves in the culture and explore these historic communities further.
"Learning to fully accept our culture, art, and language has only come about in the last decade. It's a beautiful thing that we are now preserving our language and making it part of the public sphere"
Founder
Patrick Dulin
Company
Here and Now Systems
City
Anchorage
Downloads
600+
# of employees
2
Patrick wanted a modern way to tackle alcohol abuse. As a psychology professor and addiction therapist for over 20 years, he often sees problems go unnoticed because of the stigma surrounding alcoholism. So he created two apps: Step Away and Stand Down, confidential ‘management tools’ that help people spot and track triggers and issues, then change destructive behaviours. Tailored support encourages progress, and success is celebrated over time. Ongoing trials show that the apps work, helping to reduce drinking by up to 50%.
"A lot of people don’t want to go to a therapist. The stigma is huge. We are taking away the barriers. This is a way for people to privately get help right there on their phone"
Founder
Bob Kaufman
Company
Alaska.org
City
Anchorage
Downloads
1,700+
# of employees
3
Climbing Denali Mountain made Bob realize that in Alaska, local knowledge is everything. The trip inspired him to relocate and set up a company that shares local insights. He'd always felt that life is an adventure, and wanted others to have the same experience. With The Alaska App, people can get travel information and hear stories of the land and its people – as if they were chatting to a local. Over the past year, the growing number of independent travelers in Alaska has contributed to the app's popularity.
“You reach a whole different demographic with Google Play. There are young, adventurous people, who’ve never camped in a place like this, who’ll come to Alaska and hire someone to drop them off in the wilderness”
Founder
Ezra Jay
Company
Greenstand
City
Anchorage
Downloads
5,000+
# of employees
6
Greenstand is a non-profit organization and movement founded by Ezra, a medical response bush pilot. With the help of a vibrant open source community, they created an app to monitor the impact of tree-planting projects, and their app Treetracker follows the progress of newly-planted trees via geotagged photos. This helps to fight deforestation, and build transparency into tree-growing projects. Greenstand has around 60 active members plus several hundred contributors across the US and beyond. The Treetracker database currently contains over 2.1 million trees.
“Google Play is available in over 190 countries, and that was key. Android was always the common language and common operating system that allowed us to gain access to the farmer on the ground”
Stories from Alaska
New
Doug Bourne
Audio Tour Alaska
Anchorage, Alaska
New
Dan Newman
Alaska Premier Auctions and Appraisals
Anchorage, Alaska
New
Rosita Ḵaaháni Worl
Sealaska Heritage Institute
Juneau, Alaska
Patrick
Here and Now Systems
Anchorage, Alaska
Bob
Alaska.org
Anchorage, Alaska
Ezra
Greenstand
Anchorage, Alaska
Co-founders
Tedis Baboumian
and Nirit Rubenstein
Company
Dovly
City
Phoenix
Downloads
150,000+
# of employees
20
Nirit and Tedis both moved to the U.S. as children and witnessed firsthand how absent or low credit scores affected the options available to their immigrant parents. Later, as adults working in the finance industry, the pair discovered they shared the same dream: to help people take charge of their futures through better access to credit. With this goal in mind, they teamed up to create Dovly, an app where people can dispute errors on reports and boost scores. Dovly is expanding its suite of financial tools with two new offerings: Dovly Build, aimed at helping people improve reports, and Dovly Thrive, which will enable accounting novices to get ahead by establishing a credit history.
"Since launching on Google Play, we've seen our user base skyrocket, with hundreds of thousands embracing Dovly"
Founder
Ashley Nowe
Company
Get Mom Strong
City
Tucson
Downloads
30,700+
# of employees
2
When Ashley gave birth to twins, she suffered from diastasis recti - a common condition from pregnancy, which separates abdominal muscles and can cause back pain, pelvic pain and a visible bulge. She healed herself with pelvic floor physical therapy, but was shocked to discover this wasn’t commonly available to everyone. Now she's on a mission through her app, Get Mom Strong, to give access to rehabilitation and fitness plans to help moms heal and get strong. With more than 700 workouts as well as pregnancy, mobility, and Barre programs, Ashley plans to expand her offering to support those going through menopause.
"Google Play is honestly so easy to work with - whether it's getting approvals or doing updates. The team is great at answering questions, giving feedback and we always get a response within 24 hours"
Co-founders
Scott Quinn,
Mike Malaska
and Mitch Waerea
Company
Malaska Golf
City
Phoenix
Downloads
2,000+
# of employees
5
Mike has been involved in sports his entire life, transitioning from baseball to golf and finally to teaching, where his focus was on helping people translate their natural abilities into athletic success. After being named America's best professional golf teacher in 2011, Mike aimed to share his teaching style globally. He partnered with engineer Scott and creative marketer Mitch to develop Malaska Golf. The app guides beginners through the five-step process of learning golf, from picking up the club to building a proper swing, while also assisting experienced players refine their technique. Next, the team plans to allow golfers to upload videos of their swings for personalized tips and feedback.
"We're dedicated to helping people struggling with body aches or pains avoid poor instruction that could aggravate their injuries. We want them to be able to play golf without that pain"
Co-founder & ceo
Gregg Murset
Company
BusyKid
City
Scottsdale
Downloads
100,000+
# of employees
12
Gregg, a father of six and former financial planner, is passionate about instilling money confidence early on. His app BusyKid lets parents reward their children for chores like babysitting and lawn mowing. Money is added to the child’s account via bank transfer or credit card. Children are empowered to choose how much to save, spend, donate, or even invest. During the pandemic, with more children at home, BusyKid's usage flourished. The app also helps families to get their kids into good habits from a young age.
“The BusyPay feature is essentially a QR code a kid can show their neighbor after mowing their lawn, and have the neighbor pay them with a credit card. It facilitates kids being more entrepreneurial”
Founder & ceo
Gary Denham
Company
Wamba Studios
City
Scottsdale
Downloads
25,000+
# of employees
10
Gary was interviewing the original designer of Waffle Smash for a job. The designer told him the reason why he created the game - to help his son, who has cerebral palsy, with mobility and finger dexterity. Moved by this story, Gary offered to acquire the rights and work with the designer to overhaul and develop it. The app, featuring Waffleton the Waffle and his mischievous breakfast friends, is a connect-three game focusing on hand-eye coordination. Launched a few months ago, it’s already been played by tens of thousands of people around the world.
“As an entrepreneur, I can't ask for more. The core of any successful business is for people to see your product and easily acquire it. Google Play has empowered independent game makers to get world class distribution directly”
Co-founders
Ron Robertson
Ken Robertson
Company
Picmonic
City
Phoenix
Downloads
202,900+
# of employees
20
Studying for his medical board exams, Ron couldn’t remember much of what he’d learned in med school. Out of frustration, he created pictures and stories to help him remember tricky terminology. It worked, and he passed with flying colors. Keen to share his solution, he teamed up with his brother Ken to launch visual learning app Picmonic, with a mission to modernize education. The app, which now has four versions, helps medical students across 120 countries to learn and pursue their dreams. Picmonic was acquired in 2021 by online education platform TrueLearn.
“We get students telling us that Picmonic made the difference between them failing and passing exams, and that it enabled them to continue to pursue their dreams. That feels amazing to myself and the team”
Stories from Arizona
Co-founders
Brooke and David Condolora
Company
Brain&Brain
City
Rogers
Downloads
3,700+
# of employees
2
When graphic designer Brooke and film editor David saw a documentary about making video games, the pair were inspired to make their own titles together. Combining their creative skills, the duo started with Doggins, just for fun. The game's enthusiastic reception led the pair to work full-time on their game studio, Brain&Brain, and launch Burly Men at Sea. Based on the Scandinavian folklore Brooke grew up reading, the game's lovingly rendered visuals are inspired by Norwegian fishing villages. It follows the seafaring adventures of three bearded fishermen. Their next passion project, Raincaster, brings the same visual and mythical sensibilities to bear on the folk tales of the Ozarks where the pair currently live.
"Our games seem to generate a lot of joy in players. We've gotten emails from people saying how much our games mean to them, which makes us very happy"
Founder
Chris Thompson
Company
Empathy Health Tech
City
Bentonville
Downloads
450,000+
# of employees
5
When Chris was struggling with addiction, meeting the right group of people helped him achieve sobriety. Reflecting on how important these people were in his recovery journey inspired him to create Sober Sidekick, an app that takes people out of isolation and connects them to a supportive community. Dubbed the "empathy algorithm", as soon as someone posts on the app, they're connected to a volunteer ready to listen and offer their help. Dedicated to using data to improve recovery, the team recently built unique machine learning to predict relapse. Next, they're launching an accompanying program, Empathy Messenger, to offer even more support via group chats and one-on-one messaging.
"My mission is to create a world where people don't have to walk through their darkest moments alone"
Founder
Derrick Surratt
Company
Federal Forecasting App
City
Camden
Downloads
4,200+
# of employees
2
Ex-soldier Derrick first discovered federal contracts through an entrepreneur friend who had built wealth from nothing. When he achieved his own success through contracting, Derrick became determined to help others follow a similar path – particularly those from disenfranchised communities like disabled veterans and disadvantaged women. This led to the creation of the Federal Forecasting App, a platform that consolidates current and future contracting opportunities. The app has empowered small businesses and individuals to compete for and win multi-million dollar contracts. A recent update allows people to upload capability statements, showcasing what they have to offer. Derrick hopes to continually develop the app and help even more people realize their dreams.
"With the Google Play ecosystem, you have all your tools and analytics under one umbrella, where you can track everything and access it instantly"
Founder
Christina Bharara
Company
Christina Bharara
City
Rogers
Downloads
66,000+
# of employees
1
Christina, a self-taught developer, created her first app over a decade ago to learn Hindi, her husband’s native language. She then started blending the language lessons with simple games, finding that playing while learning incentivizes people. Her next game will be a love story set in India, with language quizzes at the end of each chapter. She also wants to revisit and develop her other published titles. For Christina, the joy of being an independent developer isn’t about the number of downloads, but the opportunity to be creative with no limits.
“I’m trying to see how people learn a language best. Having a little gamification in there, like solving the topics, helps people feel accomplished. They have an incentive to go back and learn more”
Founder
Ron E. Harbut, M.D, Ph.D
Company
Nanolume
City
Hot Springs
Downloads
3,000+
# of employees
1
After 28 years as a doctor, Ron had helped a lot of patients. He found, however, that many struggled to explain the nature and intensity of their pain. So he created Pain Tracker & Diary, an app that uses visual aids to record complex or chronic pain in a comprehensive way. The patient can show the diary to their doctor, and determine if treatment is working. Ron launched first in English-speaking countries, then expanded. He continues to develop the app based on feedback, and recently added a feature which lets people remotely submit pain data to physicians.
“Medically speaking, it allows patients to better understand what they feel, and allows me and other doctors to pick the best drugs to treat the type of pain they feel”
Co-founders
Justin French
Company
AngelEye Health
City
Little Rock
Downloads
67,300+
# of employees
39
Justin worked as a software developer at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Doctors and nurses in the university’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) saw how hard it was for new parents separated from their babies. Justin joined forces with the medical team, and they created a streaming video service, enabling parents to stay connected with their newborns when away from hospital. The AngelEye Mobile app started in the university hospital and is now available in 130 NICUs across the US. A recent new feature lets moms track and log their breast milk inventory, and parents chat with lactation support staff.
“It’s very difficult during a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit stay for families to be engaged with their baby, or engaged with the care team. Our role is to use technology to make that possible”
Stories from Arkansas
Founder
Bria Sullivan
Company
Honey B Games
City
Los Angeles
Downloads
3,757,200+
# of employees
1
Bria worked for some big names in the tech world, but wanted to start her own company based around what brings her joy. Bubble tea was something she always associated with good times with friends, and wanted to encapsulate that same feeling in Boba Story. In her game, players have to restore an old boba shop by designing the decor and a drinks menu, to serve bubble tea to cute characters inspired by Japanese anime. She recently added a garden with beekeeping to harvest honey, as well as a host of new boba flavours, teas and magic ingredients. A keen cook and baker herself, Bria hopes to release more cuisine-themed games in the future.
"I want to be an example for my community of someone who can live off of making fun things, own my own company which adhere to my ethics and my values, while also prioritizing my family"
Founder
Craig Tinsley
Company
Fresh Dope Games
City
Los Angeles
Downloads
37,800+
# of employees
1
Craig developed a passion for video games as a child. While at college, he decided to pursue a career in game development. Inspired by his own experience as a rapper — he’s been writing and performing since 1997 — he launched the game studio, Fresh Dope Games. Soon after followed the hip-hop-inspired releases, Rap Quest and Rap Quest 2. In these games, players learn how to write verses, simulate dungeon rap battles and top the charts, levelling up as they gain lyrical skills. Craig works as a mentor to black youth in technology creation and hopes the Rap Quest titles provide positive representation for hip hop culture. Next, he hopes to introduce one-on-one rap contests in his games and has a head brimming with ideas for new releases.
"Google Play made it possible for me to plug in different features to my game and test them out on a more frequent basis. In general, the publishing pipeline is easy without hurdles"
Co-founders
Atif Javed,
Sara Haj-Hassan
and Aziz Alghunaim
Company
Tarjimly
City
Mountain View
Downloads
48,300+
# of employees
12
Atif spent his childhood interpreting for his refugee grandmother, so he understands the pain of language barriers. He met Aziz at MIT and together they built a translation app to help during the height of the Syrian refugee crisis. It grew into Tarjimly: a free translation app used by doctors, aid workers, and NGOs worldwide. Social worker Sara, who supports refugee communities, joined their founding team. Tarjimly - meaning 'translate for me' in 12 languages - has over 60,000 volunteer translators in 150 languages, and the team provides paid work for around 100 refugee translators. They're now leveraging AI to increase their reach and grow Tarjimly's global language repertoire.
"Google Play has been absolutely critical in reaching refugee and immigrant communities around the world that need our language services"
Co-founders
Alice Mongkongllite
Michael Gao
Company
Chin and Cheeks
City
San Diego
Downloads
471,500+
# of employees
2
Married couple Alice and Michael were using an instruction book to train their dog Loki. Finding it impractical, they looked for an app instead – but struggled to find something that suited them. So, with the help of a celebrity dog-trainer, they created their own. Puppr breaks down training into easy-to-follow steps, from basic obedience like “sit” and “stay” to advanced tricks like “fetch leash”. Dog owners loved it, and it soon won the Google Play Editor’s Choice title. Recently, Alice and Michael added a feature that lets owners live-chat with pro trainers.
“Google Play, and just Android development tools in general have been very beneficial for us. Developing an app is not easy, but all the technologies just come together and that’s been amazing”
Founder
Jenova Chen
Company
Thatgamecompany
City
Santa Monica
Downloads
16,800,000+
# of employees
93
While studying at film school, Jenova asked himself a question: could a game make you cry like a movie could? With a mission to go against mainstream gaming and touch people’s humanity, he created thatgamecompany. His latest release, Sky: Children of the Light, is a peaceful social adventure. Players return fallen stars to their constellations by solving mysteries, making friends and helping others. Jenova wants to evoke emotions – like compassion and vulnerability – in his players, and many consider his games therapeutic. Sky is constantly evolving, with new attractions, seasonal events and expansion of levels.
“We never really think about inventing technology. We're trying to touch people's humanity, and technology enables us to do that. Over two billion people use smartphones, and they are craving more diverse content”
Founder
Ivana De Maria
Company
StoryPlace
City
Los Angeles
Downloads
26,000+
# of employees
4
After graduating in Business and Law, Ivana moved from Boston to LA – where she now works as an actress, producer and entrepreneur. Her love for true stories led her to her create StoryPlace: an online community where people can share their stories in a simple journaling style. The app also runs competitions, giving contributors the chance to have their stories adapted for content. StoryPlace now has 30,000+ stories worldwide, with one movie, three TV shows, a book and a podcast currently in development. Next, Ivana plans to add e-learning tools to help people improve their storytelling skills.
“The main audience is usually people who want to express themselves, but don't. People who maybe don't feel like their voice matters in other spaces. That's a very important thing I've seen.”
Stories from California
New
Bria
Honey B Games
Los Angeles, California
New
Craig
Fresh Dope Games
Los Angeles, California
New
Atif, Sara and Aziz
Tarjimly
Mountain View, California
Michael and Alice
Chin and Cheeks
San Diego, California
Jenova
Thatgamecompany
Santa Monica, California
Ivana
StoryPlace
Los Angeles, California
Co-founders
John Gribbin,
Laura Seago
and Erich Luedtke
Company
Curable
City
Denver
Downloads
170,900+
# of employees
8
Laura, Erich and John have all experienced chronic pain in their lives, which was what bonded them as work colleagues and friends. Under John's lead, the trio began practicing various alternative therapeutic techniques to reduce their pain and over time saw their conditions improve. Empowered and inspired, they wanted to share what they'd learned, combining their skill sets to launch Curable. The app offers a guided recovery program for chronic pain sufferers, using a wide range of science-backed techniques including cognitive behavioral therapy and meditation. They recently launched a subscription plan for healing video workshops, and are continuously working toward their goal of helping as many people as possible get relief from persistent pain.
"We're providing the tools that can empower people to heal themselves. They're really the ones doing the healing work — but the impact has been extraordinary"
Founder
Clint Bounds
Company
Plan to Eat
City
Loveland
Downloads
186,700+
# of employees
4
With two young kids at home, Clint and his wife were determined to eat well, save money on groceries and organize their meal schedule. This inspired him to polish his programming skills and build Plan to Eat, an app which combines recipes, a calendar and a shopping list so families can stay on top of meal planning. People love how it takes the stress out of food shopping and scheduling the week’s dinners. They recently added nutritional analysis so parents can gauge how healthy their food shops and meals are. Next, they plan to incorporate health coaches, allowing people to make even better nutritional choices.
"Having a plan of what to shop for, what you're going to eat, it removes a lot of stress. You're basically paying your future self a favor"
Founder
James Eberhard
Company
Fluid Truck
City
Denver
Downloads
100,000+
# of employees
174
A naturally curious person driven by innovation, James has a series of successful companies to his name. While launching a tool and equipment rental platform, he identified a surging demand for commercial vehicles. This sparked a shift in focus, leading to the creation of Fluid Truck. The app allows everyone from pop-up florists to global business giants to hire a single van, truck or a fleet of vehicles with just a few clicks. James has recently transitioned out of the company. Looking forward, the Fluid Truck team is working with major partners to help in zero-emission deliveries.
"Google Play analytics are super helpful for seeing where your downloads are coming from. This allows us to tailor the app to better reach its audience"
Founder
Daniel Miller
Company
Daily Workout Apps
City
Steamboat Springs
Downloads
42,000,000+
# of employees
1
In 2009, Dan quit his job as a manufacturing engineer to be a stay-at-home dad with newborn twins. As they grew older, he craved a new challenge and wanted to get fit. So he taught himself basic coding and built an app, Daily Ab Workout. People loved it, and Dan ended up translating it into 35 languages. He now has 14 apps on Google Play, and his flagship app Daily Workouts has over 10 million downloads. It features short, step-by-step videos to target and strengthen the major muscle groups.
“I just jumped into it. I didn't have a developer background and I quit a good job to try this idea in app development. It really worked out and it's been an incredible journey”
Co-founders
Om Gupta
Dmitry Nikolenko
Company
CryptoBees
City
Parker
Downloads
3,500,000+
# of employees
3
Om and Dmitry were colleagues at a software engineering company. One day over lunch, they were talking about how tedious and inefficient they found some of their tasks. They decided to take action, and set about building an app. miMind is a simple but powerful mind-mapping tool for organizing thoughts, laying out schemes, and sharing them with friends and co-workers. It helps people to be more productive in a fun, visual way. Om and Dmitry developed miMind using their own technology, which they recently made available to other developers.
“Google Play has been our primary tool to reach people because we haven’t had any funds for marketing but we still managed to move to the top of our category”
Co-founders
Matt Larson
Rustin Banks
Company
Human Improvement Project
City
Boulder
Downloads
1,200,000+
# of employees
4
Matt is a philanthropist and serial tech entrepreneur. One day he posed a question to fellow CEO Rustin: what’s the single most important thing we could do to improve our families’ wellbeing? To find answers, they founded the Human Improvement Project, working with leading psychologists and neuroscientists on research that led to creating In Love While Parenting and The Happy Child. The apps – translated into 15 languages – offer free insights and lessons to help couples develop lasting relationships while raising happy, well-adjusted children. Matt’s next goal is to partner with organizations to reach as many families as possible.
“Google Play has helped us reach a global audience from financially bigger markets to lower income ones. In our perspective, every child’s worth is exactly the same and we want to reach people where they are”
Stories from Colorado
Founder
Peter Keefe
Company
Planter
City
Mansfield
Downloads
217,000+
# of employees
2
Peter thrived in his role as a mechanical engineer for nuclear submarines. However, a burning desire to work remotely propelled him into the world of coding. A passionate gardener, he developed Planter: an intuitive app that streamlines garden planning through a drag-and-drop interface. With a vast selection of herbs and vegetables, Planter advises people on optimal plant positioning and scheduling. It also provides support for people worried about pests and diseases. Peter has big plans for the future, as he hopes to tailor the app to more countries, roll out notifications, and add flowers.
"More than half of our audience find the app on Google Play, and they are a very diverse set of people from outside and inside the United States"
Founder
Bienvenido David III
Company
TeamEXtension
City
Seymour
Downloads
6,800+
# of employees
10
Bienvenido's mission is simple – to encourage more kindness. As a programmer, he founded his own company and had been making corporate apps for years. After a period of self-reflection, BeKind was born. BeKind sets people daily kindness challenges, ranging from simple tasks like calling a parent to checking on a neighbor. The app is a hub to share acts of kindness with friends, read daily positive news stories, and earn charming badges - like 'Dreamer' and 'Good Egg' - for their good deeds. Bienvenido has partnered with universities and businesses to create customizable versions of BeKind and is planning to increase his marketing to spread the good vibes further.
"I'm a spiritual person and I was thinking about life and about loving others, loving nature, loving animals – I feel like we need more of that"
Founder
Mike Falk
Company
RDH Software
City
Windsor
Downloads
2,850,000+
# of employees
1
Mike originally trained as an electrical engineer, but found his true calling in software development. He spent years building apps for large companies, but decided to branch out on his own in order to experiment with the Android operating system. While out on his bicycle, Mike noticed the inaccuracy of standard GPS altitude readings, inspiring him to create My Elevation. The app identifies the ground level at any point on the planet, which is invaluable information for hikers, cyclists and anyone curious about topography. Next, he hopes to add an offline mode, allowing people to determine their elevation even when they're unable to connect to the internet.
"The entire Google Play toolset is great for understanding what's working and what's not. It allows for deep dives to identify and fix any issues"
Founder
William King
Company
Night Cat Productions
City
Clinton
Downloads
4,800,000+
# of employees
1
William caught the technology bug while working as a marine engineer. He studied computer science and, after helping a friend build an app, started searching for his own idea. A colleague’s ironic comment about some terrible weather provided the spark. What the Forecast?! is a weather app that tells you, with a healthy dose of humor, what it’s like outside. William’s company Night Cat Productions now has three titles, including What the Future?! and Back Seat Navigator.
“I feel like if I can make people laugh – a little bit – then somebody’s life is a little bit better than it was”
Co-founders
Nick
Jessica
Alex Ortner
Company
The Tapping Solution
City
Newtown
Downloads
588,000+
# of employees
18
Nick is a filmmaker, writer and now, app developer. In 2007, he made a documentary about “tapping” therapy – also known as Emotional Freedom Technique – which combines modern psychology with ancient Chinese acupressure. His follow-up book became a bestseller, but Nick realized that an app would be the most effective way to reach more people. With the help of his siblings Jessica and Alex, Nick created The Tapping Solution. The app now features 400+ meditations for lowering stress, improving sleep, relieving pain, and more.
“Therapists and coaches working with clients say ‘When I'm not there at 2am, on a Tuesday night, and my client has an anxiety attack, they can use this tool to feel better.’ That's what motivates us”
Founder
Viva Chu
Company
Good Boy Studios
City
Greenwich
Downloads
794,000+
# of employees
16
Viva studied computer science and always had a fascination for games. When he got his new puppy, Coder, he couldn’t help flooding social media with pictures. Seeing the joy people got from sharing, Viva decided to use his developer skills to create something fun for the community. Pet Parade is a photo contest app that lets owners play games and share pictures of their pets – from cats and dogs to parrots and hamsters. Photos with a high “cuteness score” earn rewards, such as toys, treats and gift cards from pet supply stores.
“Having Pet Parade within Google Play, where we can see the reviews, is really great. The tools are great too; being able to test different marketing messages, images and videos is very important to us”
Stories from Connecticut
New
Peter Keefe
Planter
Mansfield, Connecticut
New
Bienvenido David III
TeamEXtension
Seymour, Connecticut
New
Mike Falk
RDH Software
Windsor, Connecticut
William
Night Cat Productions
Clinton, Connecticut
Nick, Jessica and Alex
The Tapping Solution
Newtown, Connecticut
Viva
Good Boy Studios
Greenwich, Connecticut
Founder
Vitalii Petrosyan
Company
Langly
City
Lewes
Downloads
46,000+
# of employees
24
A 12-year mobile development expert, Vitalii speaks four languages and is passionate about bringing international collaborators together. His company, Langly, unites team members from across the U.S. and Europe and has many successes with translation tools. Recognizing the popularity of translation apps for language study, Vitalii and his team created Langly - Word Games & Learning. The app transforms language learning into a series of engaging free games - helping people grow their vocabulary, improve their grammar and boost their speaking confidence. Students can use Langly to perfect their English skills across various proficiency levels, with even more content planned for the future.
"The Google Play Store is a great place to interact with our audience around the world. I love all that we can do with Google"
Co-founders
Joe Brew,
Iulian Circo,
and Paul Rieger
Company
Hyfe
City
Wilmington
Downloads
65,000+
# of employees
22
Iulian's experience in global humanitarian and public health set the stage for his collaboration with co-founders Joe and Paul, whom he met on projects in India and Africa respectively. The trio realized that while there are clear metrics for measuring body temperature and blood pressure, it was difficult to find tools for assessing coughs. This inspired them to create CoughPro, where people can track cough frequency and patterns, obtaining concise data to their healthcare provider. The team's vision is to use this information to predict medical events and even point to a diagnosis. Looking ahead, they aim to incorporate behavioral therapy for chronic coughs as well as introduce a wearable device to better monitor respiratory health.
"Listing on Google Play proved to be one of the best things we've done. We got our model into the hands of thousands of people all over the world. This has given us the opportunity to gain high-quality, highly diversified data"
Founder
Josie Liz
Company
The Josie App
City
Wilmington
Downloads
9,000+
# of employees
1
Josie, a social media aficionado, started as a blogger and quickly transitioned noticing the shift towards video content creation. As a youth gymnastics and dance trainer, she grew inspired to translate her passion for exercise and digital media into The Josie App. Built and run single-handedly, the platform offers a library of follow-along workouts and live streams. A mom of four and a grandma, Josie targets an audience of women aged 30 to 70 and focuses on creating a supportive community around the app. She recently introduced monthly challenges and is planning a new series specifically designed to address abdominal muscle separation during pregnancy.
"My childhood was tough, but there was always this voice in my head saying there's something better for you. It drove me to not settle and accept my circumstances and always push for something more"
Co-founders
Sam Dolbel
Company
SINC
City
Wilmington
Downloads
158,000+
# of employees
10
Sam used to run construction companies, and often wondered how to log hours worked by employees spread across multiple sites. With no software available, he decided to create his own. The SINC Time Clock app lets employees keep track of their hours, and employers monitor tasks performed. This saves tons of time and paperwork, and gives insights to help with quoting for projects. With many construction companies moving to multi-site working, the app has seen significant growth. In 2021, SINC logged 5 million employee shifts from 6000+ businesses around the world.
“You don’t need a technical background. You can just teach yourself everything now on the internet. While it’s a super complicated problem that we’re solving, it’s not as out of reach as people might think”
Founder & ceo
Surinder Sharma
Company
Smart Kidz Club
City
Bear
Downloads
476,000+
# of employees
5
Surinder worked for many years in the publishing industry. Her second child wasn’t that interested in books – and Surinder, an avid reader - wanted to change that. So she started Smart Kidz Club as a passion project for her kids’ school. Soon it became her primary business. An educational content platform, the app offers content such as read-to-me eBooks, learning games and toddler sing-alongs. Surinder now has three apps, and her library of 1,000+ books and 5,000+ resources is updated regularly based on parent feedback.
“In fourth-grade classes across the whole USA, 65% of kids are below proficient in reading. So we hope that every parent can use our app to actually bring up the reading levels of their kids”
Founder
Vivek Dave
Company
RV App Studios
City
Wilmington
Downloads
370,000,000+
# of employees
55
When his daughter was born, Vivek already had a successful game company. But as a new dad, his perspective on life changed. He wanted his daughter to be empowered, and knew this would begin with a strong education. Inspired to help her and other families, Vivek and his team started creating free educational games alongside their revenue-making apps. The popular Puzzle Kids features animal-themed shape matching, guess-the-object and jigsaws. Vivek often hears stories of success, such as non-verbal kids who start talking because of his games, or illiterate adults learning math.
“I am lucky I have been able to bring my passion and purpose together, and I am able to make a living out of it”
Stories from Delaware
Co-founders
Anu
and Raj Bhaskar
Company
Hurdlr
City
Washington
Downloads
427,800+
# of employees
16
As immigrants from India, Raj and Anu's parents worked hard to succeed with various small businesses. Motivated by their parents' entrepreneurial spirit, the tech-focused brothers created Hurdlr: an app that assists in financial management by simplifying receipt capture, expense logging and profit tracking. With its easy-to-understand interface, the app has helped drivers and couriers, and allowed small business owners to take control of their reporting. Dedicated to the Hurdlr community, they want to develop the app well into the future by building in enhancements at people's request and perfecting their automation features.
"I love the stuff we're doing; it's fun. I was just in a taxi to the airport and the driver asked me what I do. He told me that he uses accounting software on his phone. He showed it to me, and it was our app"
Founder
Jonathan Mills
Company
VetsApp
City
Washington
Downloads
167,500+
# of employees
1
After a decade in the U.S. Air Force specializing in technology and satellite communications, Jonathan noticed a glaring issue. His fellow veterans struggled with accessing healthcare and benefits, which were scattered across various websites and organizations. Determined to address this gap, he created VetsApp - offering veterans a streamlined route towards services: including job fairs, benefits applications, appointment scheduling and telehealth, and veteran discounts from major retailers. Recent updates include two calculators: one for determining disability ratings and the other for estimating compensation. Next, Jonathan plans to add features that will help veterans and their families automatically discover available discounts and flag overspending.
"Because I am a veteran, it's a privilege to have created the app for other veterans. I don't consider it work, it's something I love."
Co-founders
Tyler Ewing,
Jordan Bookey
and Felix Lloyd
Company
Beanstack
City
Washington
Downloads
421,000+
# of employees
38
Felix's passion for shaping young minds started when he became a teacher straight out of college. After being named DC Teacher of the Year, Felix and his wife Jordan starred on a popular investment television series where they showcased an online resource for children's books tailored to their likes and needs. With instant backing, the pair later founded Beanstack, a reading motivation app for schools and libraries which gamifies learning with challenges and competitions. A recently added feature allows institutions to connect their Beanstack accounts, boosting participation. Next, the team plans to build a 'create your own goal' element which allows people to set their own personalized challenges.
"Our three values as a company are awesomeness, love and inclusion, and it feels like Google Play is aligned to those values"
Founder
Justin Park
Company
Intergalactic Education
City
Washington
Downloads
2,000+
# of employees
2
Since he was a teenager, Justin wanted to make video games. So he taught himself to code and went on to study computer science. His company, Intergalactic Education, creates games focused on space, science and math. It now has five apps, in which players can learn about launching rockets, discover new planets, and play sports in a microgravity arena. Justin works in partnership with schools in the local area, inspiring kids to learn useful skills, be curious about space and – of course – have fun.
“We're trying to teach kids that if they study hard, they can go into the space industry when they graduate”
Cto
Frederick Schaedtler
Company
Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
City
Washington
Downloads
100,000+
# of employees
50
An outdoor enthusiast, Frederick works for Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and oversees the TrailLink app – a database of public paths created from former railroad corridors. His team has converted geospatial data of these trails into over 40,000 miles of mapped paths. Using this data, TrailLink allows people to discover trails nearby for cycling, jogging and walking. Since the pandemic, more people are looking for local outdoor activities – and most trails found in the app are urban, multi-use and accessible. TrailLink has filters for terrain, distance, use, popularity, and people can upload reviews and photos to share with friends.
“We wanted to cater for all audiences and be as inclusive as possible, so it was a no-brainer to add the TrailLink app in Google Play for everyone”
Founder
DeShuna Elisa Spencer
Company
kweliTV
City
Washington
Downloads
14,300+
# of employees
2
With her background in journalism, DeShuna isn’t a typical tech founder. Frustrated by the lack of Black representation on-screen, she decided to do something about it. She created kweliTV, a streaming service that acts as a platform for Black voices. It works with 430+ global filmmakers – 91% of African heritage, and 50% women. Over the past year kweliTV has doubled in size, and is currently adding 20 new titles a month. The team is working on adding a chat feature, as well as crowdfunding for its filmmakers.
“Google Play has played a huge role in us getting to the next level. In the past year it helped us boost our subscriber base”
Stories from District Of Columbia
New
Anu and Raj
Hurdlr
Washington, District of Columbia
New
Jonathan
VetsApp
Washington, District of Columbia
New
Tyler, Jordan and Felix
Beanstack
Washington, District of Columbia
Justin
Intergalactic Education
Washington, District of Columbia
Frederick
Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
Washington, District of Columbia
DeShuna
kweliTV
Washington, District of Columbia
Co-founders
Nicki Tessler and
Mandeep Dhillon
Company
BeMe Health
City
Miami
Downloads
167,500+
# of employees
44
Nicki is a trained psychologist with two teenage daughters. She noticed that the mental health industry wasn't connecting with Gen Z. So she teamed up with Mandeep, an attorney and child technology advocate. Together, they created BeMe, an app just for teens. On BeMe, teens can track their moods, learn how to manage their emotions, and set goals for themselves. Built alongside a teen advisory board, Nicki and Mandeep's goal is to use technology to help all teens become the best versions of themselves. Next, they want to go global and extend the audience age to 22 and help young adults navigate more of their early adult years.
"Being available on Google Play gives us access to the most important cohort to us: Gen Z and Gen Alpha. It's a support vehicle that's been tremendous for us"
Co-founders
Henrik Anderson and
Jessica Facusse
Company
Little Lunches
City
Miami
Downloads
440,000+
# of employees
2
In his youth, Henrik, a former professional hockey player and triathlete, always prioritized health and wellness. This passion extended to his wife, Jessica, a professional chef. When their family grew, Jessica began sharing the healthy meals she prepared for their children on social media. Her posts resonated with many, inspiring the couple to transform those posts into an app; Little Lunches. Developed with guidance from dietitians and pediatricians, Little Lunches offers parents personalized meal plans, a trove of healthy recipes, and expert advice on child nutrition. The couple recently launched a companion social network for parents to connect with each other. Henrik and Jessica also plan to use AI technology to further extend the tailored dietary advice.
"We just really wanted to get to the root of the problem, empower parents to make healthier choices and show them how accessible healthy foods aren’t as intimidating as you think"
Co-founders
Alexander Max Kaplan
and Italo Roldo
Company
Linguado
City
Miami
Downloads
2,600,000+
# of employees
10
While traveling around Brazil, linguist Alexander realized that a native tongue was vital to understanding a culture. During his trip, a chance encounter with business entrepreneur and Silicon Valley native Italo, led him on a path to creating a solution for struggling tourists like himself. Years later, while Alexander was visiting Italo's business in Portugal, the pair bridged the gap between language and business to form Linguado. More than a mere translator app, Linguado is focused on cultural exchange, matching people to native speakers filtered by nationality, language, and even region. Next, the team is working on Linguado Passport - a pocket guide for travelers, including flight information, accommodation, and local slang phrases.
"I think there's a lot of incentives with Google Play which can help startups, especially for early-stage companies. When we want to get builds of the app approved and released, it's so easy"
Co-founders
Gustavo Rodriguez
Juan Pablo Mejia
Company
BabySparks
City
Miami
Downloads
4,655,800+
# of employees
18
When former investment banker Gustavo became a parent, he learned that 85% of a child’s brain is fully developed within their first three years. He wanted the best start for his son, but couldn’t find resources tailored to his needs, including possible developmental delays. So he partnered with Juan – who’d had plenty of startup experience – to create BabySparks. The app allows parents to track their baby’s developmental milestones, offering personalized daily activity programs plus research-based articles. Recently, BabySparks added a premium feature that lets parents talk directly to experts.
“The most rewarding aspect of our work is we're democratising access to support and having lifelong impact on millions of children and families”
Co-founders
Mike Newman
Sharon Newman
Company
Big Duck Games
City
Miami
Downloads
253,400,000+
# of employees
4
While working at a big tech company, husband and wife Mike and Sharon started developing apps as a side project. As they realized they could make money doing something fun and creative, their hobby became a career. Within months of launching, their simple but addictive puzzle game Flow Free was number one in the US. The aim is to match colors with pipes to create a flow – without pipes overlapping (otherwise they’ll break). Big Duck Games now has eight titles on Google Play, and over 250 million downloads.
“This game was our first child. We made it and it's had quite a lot of impact and enjoyment for players. It's lasted way longer than we could have ever expected. It's been amazing to do it”
Co-founders
Jonathan Meson
Marcos Meson
Company
Visual Blasters
City
Miami
Downloads
39,600,000+
# of employees
7
When brothers Jonathan and Marcos were kids, they’d spend hours splicing VHS tapes to create stop-motion animations. Now, their company’s most popular app FlipaClip makes this process easy, and is loved by people around the world. It lets you quickly learn photo or frame animation, draw pictures and turn them into gifs – then share what you’ve made on social media. Recently, the brothers launched Animatics: contests to challenge the creator community. Despite millions of downloads, they feel they’ve only scratched the surface, and have big things planned for the app.
“What keeps me motivated is the work of the creators who enjoy our app. It is pure entertainment and exciting to see”
Stories from Florida
Founder
Marcus Blackwell
Company
Marcus Blackwell
City
Atlanta
Downloads
10,000+
# of employees
1
Marcus has played the piano since he was little and enjoys different genres, from classical jazz to gospel music. But despite thriving musically, he was intimidated by math at school. This struggle inspired him to create what he wished he’d had growing up: a creative way to practice math that rewards you with music. On Make Music Count, kids of all ages use the piano to learn their multiplication tables, fractions and algebra. Believing math resources should be available to all, Marcus recently made the app completely free. And, as both subjects are universal, he hopes to scale globally to help as many young people as possible hone their math skills through music.
"The ability to make quick app updates on Google Play is the best feature. It means you can keep your audience engaged and keep things exciting within the app"
Founder
Quin Christian
Company
Fyouture
City
Atlanta
Downloads
141,000+
# of employees
1
During the pandemic, Quin reflected on his own mortality and the legacy he would leave behind. Concerned about not being there for his children in the future, he decided to record his advice to them in voice messages. These messages covered various areas of life, including finances and relationships. This concept inspired Fyouture, an app that allows people to schedule voice messages for loved ones. The new "predictions" feature gives users a fun way to predict upcoming events such as sports results and stock market fluctuations. Next: Quin is looking for an established space partner to send physical Fyouture messages into space by 2028.
"I wanted to start capturing memories and sending them to the future so that my kids can get them at an age that's more appropriate for them"
Founder
Anatoly Lubarsky
Company
x2line
City
Atlanta
Downloads
5,400,000+
# of employees
2
Anatoly's path to game developer was unconventional. He did not grow up a gamer. Yet his love of visual design and software development led him to create many web and mobile-based games. His most successful title is Baby Adopter, where people babysit and dress up virtual children. This game was a hit with a diverse range of players from new parents to retirees. Anatoly has since become an expert in game development, building interactive experiences for avid players and non-gamers alike. His next project is aimed at teenagers, and uses clothing design and make-up elements in an engaging role-playing game.
"Google Play allows me to closely monitor how my games are performing and how people are using them. I can fix issues quickly, and that's so helpful"
Co-founders
Christian Zimmerman
Nate Washington
Company
Qoins
City
Atlanta
Downloads
11,360+
# of employees
10
Christian and Nate know what it means to struggle financially. Christian was the first in his family to finish college, and after graduation he could barely pay his student loan or personal debts. Nate couldn’t afford to go to school, and for a while had to sleep in his car. After meeting at a networking event and sharing stories, they decided to create an app. Qoins is a personal debt manager offering tools and advice to help build healthy money habits. So far, it's enabled thousands of people to pay off over $20 million of debt.
“We're just a tool for making those changes in your financial life, to make better decisions. And I did that for myself, but that's what we're doing for our customers as well”
Co-founders
Jenna Jambeck
Company
Southeast Atlantic Marine Debris Initiative
City
Athens
Downloads
92,500+
# of employees
2
Environmental engineer Jenna always loved technology. She took computer programming classes as a kid, at a time when girls weren’t encouraged to pursue tech. She developed the Marine Debris Tracker app after seeing colleagues struggle to manage data on ocean waste. It allows volunteers to report the litter they find in oceans and waterways – such as plastic bags, straws and fishing gear. This information is now helping policy-makers and businesses take action. Since the app was put on Google Play, over 5 million debris items have been logged in 90+ countries.
“Yes, I had this idea, but it's so much bigger than me now. Many people are engaging with it. That's special. And it wouldn't have happened, honestly, without a platform like Google Play”
Co-founders
Hannah Lucas
Charlie Lucas
Company
Bee & Bug
City
Atlanta
Downloads
18,400+
# of employees
2
Diagnosed with a chronic illness that causes fainting spells, Hannah was bullied and sexually threatened at school. She found herself unable to cope and, following a suicide attempt, came up with the idea for an app. Her brother Charlie is a self-taught coder and built the prototype, aged just 12 at the time. notOK is a digital panic button to get someone immediate support via text, phone call or GPS. The kids pitched it to their mom, and the family hired developers to work with Charlie. Today Hannah is 19, in college, and CEO of this non-profit.
“I made this app for my sister, and what motivates me is never having to see anyone go through what she did. She had zero support because no one knew”
Stories from Georgia
Founder
Adriel Almirol
Company
Starch Digital
City
Honolulu
Downloads
40,300+
# of employees
2
Growing up in Silicon Valley, Adriel fell in love with tech and video games from a young age. He had a budding career testing games for a major developer and worked in video production for an arcade company. However, the paradigm shift of the pandemic prompted Adriel to learn software and game development to create his own title: First Person Hooper. The game combines his love of arcade games and basketball with lush retro graphics. This, and the expertly simulated mechanics of the jump shot on touchscreen has made First Person Hooper a hit with fans. Next, Adriel is focusing on another basketball release that focuses on the three-point shot.
"Because basketball is such an international sport now, I wanted to be able to reach people everywhere. That’s why I released the game on Google Play"
Founder
Jean David Hsu
Company
Panic
City
Kailua-Kona
Downloads
35,000+
# of employees
2
Growing up in the south of France, Jean got his first computer at 12, sparking a life-long love of technology. While working in the U.S. as an engineer and traveling frequently, he was often frustrated by the limitations of online maps and found it difficult to find the most exciting places. This gave him the idea for AI Map: an app that uses artificial intelligence to offer personalized insights and recommendations for landmarks, restaurants, and attractions. Now living in Hawaii and enjoying fishing and swimming in the sea, Jean's next goal is to enhance the app with advanced AI to further improve the travel experience.
"I travel a lot and I'm always looking to find out where things are happening. I created AI Map to get the most out of my visits to new places"
Founder
Tina Fitch
Company
Hobnob
City
Haiku
Downloads
500,000+
# of employees
5
Tina worked for nonprofit NGOs overseas and built a travel tech company based in San Francisco. After returning to her home state of Hawaii, starting a farm and having children, she turned her attention to helping develop the startup community there. Noticing how people spend more and more time on social media but often struggle to effectively organize plans with friends and large gatherings, she was inspired to create Hobnob. In the app, hosts can craft beautiful personalized invites for their event and send them digitally. Recently, she added chat features, photo and video sharing options to build anticipation for meet-ups and help people foster more happy memories together.
"Google Play offers a highly responsive team that consistently supports app optimization across the platform. We look forward to a continued close collaboration with Google to achieve our future goals"
Founder
Mark Watkins
Company
The Hawaii Project
City
Kailua
Downloads
7,800+
# of employees
1
Mark has always been an avid reader. He gave his teenage son a copy of one of his favorite books – but it sat unread on the shelf. Ten years later, living far away in Chicago, Mark’s son finally picked up the novel and started to read. They began discussing it, texting back and forth. Inspired by this, Mark created Bookship, a virtual book club app that gives people a shared reading experience. Readers can meet online to discuss books, browse recommendations, post photos of favorite passages, and connect with authors.
“People are finding strangers from all over the world to read books with, creating relationships that didn’t exist before, and that’s really exciting”
Co-founders
Dr. Steven Businger
Paul Cynn
Company
Rainbowchase.com
City
Honolulu
Downloads
300+
# of employees
6
As Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Hawaii, Steven has spent most of his life watching the weather. He and co-founder Paul decided to create a rainbow-finding app “to make people happy”. By combining radar and satellite data with the position of the sun, RainbowChase tells you when and where a rainbow is visible. Initially focused on Hawaii, they expanded last summer to the West Coast, and plan to reach all US states next. Steven and Paul want to help people experience the simple magic of rainbows across the world.
“We want to bring smiles to people's faces. That's our main goal. And to make people look at the environment, look at the sky. It provides people with an additional view of their surroundings”
Co-founders
Simone Kirstein, Ph.D
Dennis Jost
Company
Kulana Media Productions
City
Honolulu
Downloads
6,000,000+
# of employees
2
Simone has built over 100 apps from scratch, from design to coding. She originally made Vacation Countdown for herself, as she’s always loved counting down the days until her next adventure. It’s now her most popular app, with new features added regularly. Kulana Media, which she runs with co-founder Dennis, currently has 28 titles on Google Play, including countdowns for birthdays, retirements and weddings. Simone and Dennis are proud to help people share the excitement and anticipation of big life events.
“I didn’t do any marketing until a couple of years ago, but because we just put a good description, nice images and screenshots on the store, I feel like Google Play did the work for us”
Stories from Hawaii
Co-founders
Tyler and
Tracey Fouche
Company
The Short Years
City
Post Falls
Downloads
83,000+
# of employees
3
Like many parents, Tyler and Tracey delighted in capturing their first baby's milestones. But while pregnant with her second child and still breastfeeding her first, Tracey wondered how she'd ever keep up. So, she and Tyler launched The Short Years Baby Book app which helps parents document those special moments in just five minutes a week. The app prompts parents to upload photos and answer a couple of questions which are turned into printed chapters sent to their home as each milestone is reached. Inspired by the success of Short Years, they’ve recently launched Story Snap which nudges people to document their memorable moments as they unfold.
"It's like the American dream - we set out to build something and we did it, and Google Play has helped us distribute it"
Founder
Scott Henscheid
Company
Autopilot Studios
City
Caldwell
Downloads
6,000+
# of employees
1
Growing up next to an airport, Scott developed a passion for aviation. In fact, it was his interest in aircraft that led him to create websites about the aviation industry, launching a 20-year career in web development. After becoming a licensed pilot, Scott faced challenges accessing accurate weather information for flying. This inspired him to create Aviation Weather, an app that provides pilots with temperature, barometric pressure, cloud cover, wind direction and speed data from global reporting stations. Looking ahead, Scott plans to build an app for experimental aviation, helping hobbyists maintain compliance with builder's logs as they construct their own aircraft.
"Building the app has been a fantastic experience. I love showing it off to my pilot friends. It's been a great way to learn new skills while creating something I can personally benefit from"
Co-founders
Heather Wheeler
and Joanie Demer
Company
Krazy Coupon Lady
City
Boise
Downloads
4,775,500+
# of employees
131
When Heather introduced former college roommate and fellow stay-at-home mom Joanie to the coupon craze, the pair quickly became hooked on saving money for their families. Joanie even started a blog to share their tips and tricks, which became so popular it attracted 1,000 daily visits. This success led them to create Krazy Coupon Lady - an app where people can find deals, follow their favorite retailers and stack promo codes for maximum savings. Looking to the future, Joanie and Heather aim to make their app the number one resource for Americans looking to cut grocery costs, with plans to enhance personalization, historical tracking and automation.
"We love our Google Play reviews. We use them internally in our organization to build team morale and remind everyone why we're showing up and doing this work every day"
Co-founders
Mandi Hamilton
R.D. Sortor
Company
Get Along
City
Idaho Falls
Downloads
1,600+
# of employees
3
Couple Mandi and R.D. love travel and adventure, and created Get Along to find like-minded people. The idea was sparked after R.D visited Colombia. As he couldn't speak any Spanish, he struggled to find a local who could show him around. The app allows people – at home or on holiday – to find and join nearby activities, or organize their own. From white water rafting to mountain biking, or a simple walk on the beach. Mandi and R.D. encourage people to use the app to connect and embrace new experiences.
“If we can put our own little mark on the world, and change even one person's life, that warms our hearts. We love helping people make a really good friend, or have an awesome time somewhere”
President
Michael Blood
Company
Matraex
City
Boise
Downloads
2,510,000+
# of employees
8
Michael started coding as a teenager. He loved creating snippets of software to solve problems, like helping people list their antiques on auction sites. When a story hit the news that 3.3 billion email addresses were released on the dark web, Michael built an app so he could check if his own passwords were hacked. Then he pointed his family and friends to it, and it grew from there. Hack Check is now Michael's most popular app, one of 15 online security tools made by his company Matraex.
“I like how on Google Play you can just pin the apps you want to pay attention to and get the most important stats on them on the dashboard, like number of people using them, income and in-app purchases”
Founder
Jason Hausske
Company
Cauze
City
Boise
Downloads
1,100+
# of employees
5
Jason worked in the tech industry for decades, and moved into apps when he discovered an unmet social need. He saw that people wanted to give more to charity but were often overwhelmed because donating was spread over so many platforms. Cauze was created to empower givers. It lets people search and donate to over 1.5 million non-profits, then post it on their personal profile so that friends and family can follow and donate too. After two years on Google Play, Cauze passed $2 million in donations, raised investment, and began expanding internationally.
“l like the speed at which updates can be made and approved with Google Play”
Stories from Idaho
Co-founders
Ama Marfo and
Emmanuel Buah
Company
Airfordable
City
Chicago
Downloads
36,200+
# of employees
7
Ama and Emmanuel are from Ghana and connected through a mutual friend in the U.S., where they moved for university. While studying, they both struggled to return home to visit family due to the high cost of flights. This inspired them to create an app that enables people to fly without paying the full amount upfront. The pair are dedicated to providing travel opportunities to those that otherwise couldn't afford it and recently added options for breaking up payments for hotels and resorts too. Looking ahead, they aim to continue removing travel barriers, exploring features to help ease anxiety and facilitate group trips.
"Google Play keeps track of how many times there's been a crash. So when it happens, we can go and take a look at what that issue is. This helps us keep crash rates as low as possible"
Founder
Sebastian Gosztyla
Company
Seabaa
City
Chicago
Downloads
10,000,000+
# of employees
2
Born in Poland and raised in the U.S. from the age of 10, Sebastian loved making his school projects interactive with animations. While studying game development in college, he noticed how smartphones, though exciting, had the tendency to isolate people. This motivated him to create a game that would bring people together with their devices. On DUAL!, players join up their screens to shoot from one phone to the other. The idea resonated, with the title quickly surpassing 10 million downloads on Google Play.
"Having the widest reach and getting the game to as many devices as possible was the goal. Using Google Play helps us achieve that"
Co-founders
Justin Dwyer,
Blesson Abraham,
Julian Allen
and Jay Patel
Company
Cambio
City
Chicago
Downloads
45,500+
# of employees
5
Blesson's first company, funded by credit cards, left him with severe capital issues. In 2008, during the housing crisis, Jay's family went bankrupt. Justin, driven by his loved ones' financial struggles, wanted to help those from underprivileged backgrounds. After connecting on social media, Jay and Justin sought solutions for bad credit scores. Jay then met Blesson, who convinced him software could fix the problem. Together with coworker Julian, they created Cambio. The app negotiates and resolves collections debt and improves scores by identifying and removing errors from reports. Next, they're developing a B2B app that equips businesses with an AI-powered credit resource.
"Not many jobs out there let you wake up each day thinking, 'I built something that's actually helping someone right now, maybe even someone I pass on the street'"
Founder & ceo
Sam Glassenberg
Company
Level Ex
City
Chicago
Downloads
300,000+
# of employees
135
Sam had a successful career in game development. He comes from a family of doctors, and one day his dad asked him to create a game to train medical professionals. Sam built it over a few weekends, published it and forgot about it. Two years later, he discovered it had been used by 100,000 medical professionals, and studies showed it improved their performance. His company Level Ex now makes games to accelerate specialist skills, from cardiology to anesthesia. In 2021, they launched Top Derm, which educates in recognizing disease on skin of color.
“We're able to attract top talent from the games industry and healthcare because of the company’s mission. They want to use those skills, not only to create great content but also to help doctors and patients”
Co-founders
Dan Novaes
Kiran Panesar
Company
Mode Mobile
City
Chicago
Downloads
30,000,000+
# of employees
102
Dan’s first business, importing goods, was making $2 million per year when he left high school. In college, he built a music-streaming site that attracted millions of listeners. With experience in profitable startups, he joined forces with his friend Kiran, a software developer, and in 2018 they made what is now known as the Mode Earn App. It lets you earn money through everyday activities like playing games, listening to music, and more. With 30 million+ downloads, it’s paid out tens of millions of dollars to people worldwide. They’ve recently launched a “self-subsidizing” Android smartphone called Mode Earn Phone.
“Our vision for the next five years is to fully subsidize the phone and data plan and give it to everyone for free. If we could do that, we’d change the world for billions of people”
Co-founders
Mark Lawrence
Larry Kiss
Company
SpotHero
City
Chicago
Downloads
1,000,000+
# of employees
210
After amassing thousands of dollars in parking-ticket fines, Mark and Larry thought there might be a need for a parking reservation app. So they built SpotHero, which in its first decade, parked more than 40 million cars in 300 cities. It's now helping millions of drivers in 7,500+ locations across North America sort out stress-free parking: airports, garages, lots, on-street and valets. They recently launched on Android Auto, allowing drivers to see, navigate to and redeem SpotHero reservations via their car’s head unit.
“Distributing on Google Play has allowed us to streamline our marketing efforts, and acquire an Android audience at scale. Without a stable distribution channel we would not be able to maintain consistent acquisition levels”
Stories from Illinois
Founder
Bernard Frischer
Company
Flyover Zone
City
Bloomington
Downloads
33,700+
# of employees
5
While studying classics and archaeology in Italy in the 70s, Bernard was in awe of a physical model reconstructing the entire city of ancient Rome. It was then that the idea for a virtual travel experience first occurred to him. 50 years later, he was able to make this vision come to life with Yorescape. The app recreates historical cities and civilizations digitally for users to explore the ruins of ancient Egypt, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, and Mexico. Bernard recently added the Agora in ancient Athens. One day, he hopes to cover sites in all four corners of the earth.
"We're passionate about what we do and wanted to share that passion with as many people as possible. Google Play has a large, global reach, so it makes it possible for us to do that"
Founder
Dr. Louis Tay
Company
ExpiWell
City
West Lafayette
Downloads
16,200+
# of employees
1
Originally from Singapore, Dr. Louis Tay is a professor of Organizational Psychology. Frustrated by the limitations of online surveys, he created an app to gather in-depth information, including diary entries and mood tracking. ExpiWell has been used by market researchers to gauge product responses and by clinical psychologists to study patients' moods. Thanks to the innovative platform, investigators are able to gain valuable insight into their subjects beyond what they would get from questionnaires alone. Looking ahead, Louis envisions the app as a community platform where people can share experiences on various topics and find support for issues like bullying.
"As a startup, the feedback we get from participants via Google Play has been very helpful. It's allowed us to improve the app substantially and increase our rating"
Representatives
Alex Sindorf,
Kate Howe and
Tom Lageveen
Company
Indy Hunger Network
City
Indianapolis
Downloads
44,000+
# of employees
11
Kate first got into hunger relief through volunteering at her local food pantry, but soon became dedicated to helping solve the crisis at a state level. In 2016, she joined Indy Hunger Network, a coalition uniting various organizations assisting those facing food insecurity. When their helpline experienced longer wait times during the Great Recession, they partnered with local authorities to create Community Compass. The app allows residents of Indiana to instantly find information about free groceries, meals, and places where they can use food benefits. Kate, Alex and Tom - the main team behind Community Compass - strive to continually improve it. Next, they want to increase accessibility for people of all ages, including infants and seniors.
"Instead of just handing out food every week, I wanted to tackle the bigger issue: how can we fix the system that keeps people needing food help?"
Founder
BáiYù
Company
Project Ensō
City
Mooresville
Downloads
139,000+
# of employees
1
Queer developer BáiYù loves writing stories, and started making games aged 16. Part of a game-development community, BáiYù wanted an affordable way to help get their creations out. So they set up Project Ensō, publishing queer visual novels and narrative indie games. With 10 titles on Google Play, BáiYù supports developers by polishing their games before release. They often get feedback saying the games changed people’s lives. The most popular is Yearning: A Gay Story, in which gamers play a newly-out gay man navigating his freshman year of college. New titles are being developed, all featuring characters not often represented in mainstream media.
“By bringing these stories to mobiles, you give young people the ability to explore gender and sexuality with more privacy. I wish there was something like this when I was growing up, because it would’ve changed my life”
Founder
Katara McCarty
Company
Exhale App
City
Indianapolis
Downloads
3,500+
# of employees
1
Katara grew up affected by issues still faced by many Black Indigenous Women of Color (BIWOC). She was abandoned by her biological mother, became a single mom at 19 and escaped an abusive relationship. Realizing the traumatic stress that she – and others – held onto, she wanted to create something to counter the effects of oppression. With the help of her husband Ryan, she made Exhale, the first emotional wellbeing app for BIWOC. She wrote meditations and breathwork techniques, recorded them in her closet, and found a DIY app-making platform. Exhale is now available in 55 countries, and won a 2021 Webby award.
“We wanted to make it as accessible as possible. So putting it on Google Play was a no-brainer”
Founder
Wale Mafolasire
Company
Givelify
City
Indianapolis
Downloads
710,000+
# of employees
96
Wale often found himself failing to donate in church because he didn't have any cash – and there was a long queue for the card machine. He’d always plan to donate later, but life got in the way. So in 2013, he created Givelify. Indiana University research guided the team in the app’s design and in better understanding the psychology of philanthropy. Givelify lets you donate – in three taps – to your place of worship, or any non-profit cause. Over $3 billion have now been donated through the app.
“Google Play helps you to get started very quickly. You don't have to go build everything yourself. The Android platform has very good documentation and design guidelines, even if you’ve never built an app before”
Stories from Indiana
Founder
Matt Bognar
Company
Matthew Bognar
City
Iowa City
Downloads
4,500+
# of employees
1
Amateur film photographer Matt says watching photographs develop in his homemade darkroom feels like magic. But with his day job as a statistics professor, he knows it's a lot about math too. In an effort to achieve perfect photographs, Matt has masterfully calculated exposure times, even in low-light conditions, for various analog film. His app, Exposure Assistant, utilizes his data and rids photographers of complex manuals, establishing a simplified route toward properly exposed images. The app has been an eight-year passion project which, in response to feedback, he updates regularly including a recent feature which alerts people of new film. With an ever-growing fan base in South America, Matt plans to translate the app to advance accessibility and global reach.
"Photography has been such a great side hobby for me and I guess at this point in my life, I think if I can do something useful for people, I'll do it. That's why I'm here"
Founder
Tyler Carter
Company
Cargo Nerd
City
Ames
Downloads
800+
# of employees
5
After earning a mechanical engineering degree, Tyler began his career in heating and ventilation. However, seeking more inspiration, he went in a different direction by pursuing an MBA and starting a software company. When his relatives in freight factoring asked for help building their platform, Tyler jumped at the opportunity, leading to the creation of the Flexent App. It streamlines operations for freight factoring companies by automating submissions and running reputation and credit checks. Its most significant impact is helping truck drivers get paid faster, which is a much-appreciated outcome particularly for independent operators who often face cash flow challenges. In the future, Tyler hopes to add more features like document scanning to enhance fraud detection.
"The review process with Google Play is fast, making it so easy to publish new updates and fix bugs"
Founder
Gianfranco Berardi
Company
GBGames
City
Des Moines
Downloads
200+
# of employees
1
Gianfranco always had his sights set on making games. After college, he worked on software for slot machines but was dedicated to his own projects on the side. Wanting to design titles that spark curiosity and nurture creativity, he focused on educational releases that are accessible to everyone. This led to the development of Toy Factory Fixer, where players have to take apart and rebuild badly assembled toys. It's a hit among families who love playing it with their kids. Next, he plans to release a non-violent dungeon crawler that prioritizes exploration and conversation over combat, furthering his mission to create meaningful games.
"My vision is to make educational games that could encourage curiosity and support creativity. I want anybody and everybody to be able to play. That's the impact I hope to have"
Co-founders
Adam Keune
Ben O'Connor
Alec Whitters
Company
Higher Learning Technologies
City
Coralville
Downloads
4,500,000+
# of employees
45
In dental school, Alec used paper flashcards to study for his exams. Eventually, fed up with having to carry them around, he had the idea to create an app. Together with his friends Adam and Ben, he built Dental Boards Mastery. It offers exam simulations, video lessons, quizzes and easy-to-follow explanations, so that dentistry students can revise for important exams on the go. It was a big success, and their company now has 120+ educational apps – most of them for health sciences – available in 190+ countries around the world.
“Google Play made it possible for three guys in Iowa who are passionate about changing education to go after it. How would we have built an education company and reach people in so many countries without this platform?”
Founder
Lee Bellon
Company
Eggtooth
City
West Des Moines
Downloads
129,400+
# of employees
4
Like many, Lee and his family became tired of receiving unwanted gifts, and struggling to choose the perfect present for others. Lee wanted to solve this problem, so he developed Wishfinity. It's an app that lets people create a gift list and share it – via text, email or any social channel – with friends and loved ones. Lists can include any kind of gift: products, experiences, subscriptions or cash. Wishfinity also acts as a social network, where people can interact and get inspired by each other’s choices.
“I think the reason our apps have 5-star reviews is because we try to listen to customers, make them happy, and act on their feedback as quickly as we can”
Founder
Mike Montoya
Company
Skater Dad Software
City
Eldridge
Downloads
97,400+
# of employees
1
Mike is a chemical engineer who loves programming as a hobby. He was inspired to create Santa Skate by his young daughters: he wanted to make a kid-friendly game, with simple controls, for them to have fun. Though Mike had no ambitions to achieve high downloads, the game was a big hit and inspired him to keep going. He was even more surprised when his second release, Apple Spider, was featured as Game of the Week on Google Play. After this great response, Mike is currently preparing a new combat-style shopping game, inspired by Black Friday.
“As far as impact goes, I really just wanted to have the reputation of making games that are just for fun. I try to keep them simple and pure”
Stories from Iowa
Co-founders
Kevin Quinley,
Ryan Hannebaum
and Brandon Ebert
Company
ParPoints Golf
City
Salina
Downloads
1,200+
# of employees
4
Brothers-in-law Brandon and Ryan have played in a golf league with friend and business partner Kevin since graduating high school. As Kevin was helping Brandon’s sons understand how the scoring system works, he was struck with an idea for a new app. Ryan brought his design experience, alongside Kevin's golf and professional expertise. With the help of their children as testers, ParPoints Golf was born. This app allows players to score points by making par, while tracking and improving their scores. Keen to give kids further access to the sport too, they recently partnered with a youth golf organization. Their next step is finding a distribution partner to bring the app to even more golfers.
"We knew the app would be a great solution for the youth golfer, we wanted to create an experience for them to enjoy the game more"
Founder
Vanessa Jupe
Company
Leva
City
Westwood Hills
Downloads
600+
# of employees
2
Having worked in web development and digital product management, Vanessa is a seasoned tech professional. But after becoming a mom, she was struck by the lack of support for women balancing careers and motherhood. Her struggles led her to create Leva, an app offering breastfeeding tips, baby growth tracking and mindful meditations. Moms love the ongoing support through every transition in early motherhood. Leva includes access to lactation consultants, mental health coaches, nutritionists, and doulas, and recently launched additional features for dads and other caregivers. One day in the future, Vanessa also envisions transforming Leva into a comprehensive life service for women, including retirement planning and menopausal support.
"A lot of the inspiration for Leva came from the period of my life where I really needed more support transitioning into motherhood. I wanted to help other women access better care"
Co-founders
Lauren Hays and
Megan Dalton
Company
The Matrescence
City
Prairie Village
Downloads
50+
# of employees
2
As a NICU nurse working with premature babies, Lauren saw firsthand the struggles new mothers faced. After experiencing postpartum anxiety and depression herself, she set out to provide women with better support after childbirth. Partnering with longtime friend Megan, a fellow mom with tech and marketing experience, they created The Matrescence: an app to help women find community and expert advice on beating the baby blues, breastfeeding and more. Parents can also find mindfulness content, including meditation and journal prompts. Dedicated to supporting local maternal causes, the duo are proud to partner with a nearby diaper bank too. In the future, their goal is to integrate with hospitals and OB-GYN offices to reach more mothers in need.
"In the beginning, before we had our developer, I was able to get the app published and up and running on Google Play because it’s so user-friendly and straightforward"
Co-founders
Deborah Gladney
Angela Muhwezi-Hall
Company
QuickHire
City
Wichita
Downloads
4,200+
# of employees
10
While working as a career and education advisor, Angela saw the struggles people faced trying to find work – especially without a decent CV or access to computers. During the pandemic, it became even more evident that people needed to find work quickly. So she partnered with her sister Deborah, a PR professional, to create QuickHire. The app connects job seekers with the latest opportunities, focusing on the retail and hospitality sectors. A popular new QuickHire feature lets people add a video introduction to make their CV stand out.
“Originally, being able to connect people to jobs quickly, effectively and efficiently was our big thing, especially in the pandemic, when people were losing jobs. Now, we're very much focused on career development and talent retention”
Co-founders
Ken Lord MD
Vinay Shah MD
Rohit Krishna MD
Company
Cloud Nine Development
City
Overland Park
Downloads
140,000+
# of employees
10
As smartphones became popular, eye care professionals Ken, Vinay and Rohit decided to create an app. They wanted to share their passion, and be at the forefront of technology. Eye Handbook makes diagnostic and treatment tools easily accessible to physicians and eye care professionals. Almost a decade after its launch, Ken and his partners came up with a new app to expand their reach. With Eye Patient, people can find information on eye conditions, test and track their vision, and connect with their doctor. The three plan to keep improving their apps to meet patients’ and doctors’ needs.
“Google Play is easy to work with. From a distribution standpoint, the reach is in 190 countries. The platform has broadened our capability to be in many people's hands”
Founder
Rick Perry
Company
Starflower Solutions
City
Olathe
Downloads
410,000+
# of employees
1
Rick is always looking for new problems – because he loves to solve them. His company Starflower Solutions makes apps to help people do complex math in a simple way. He created his first and most popular app, a car loan payment calculator, as a final project in community college (and got an A). He now has seven apps on Google Play, including calculators for mortgage payments and restaurant tips. Rick’s latest release is Farm Feed Calculator Pro, helping farmers to work out weights and percentages of different supplies.
“Creating apps is fun and it is psychologically rewarding to see people downloading them. It is motivating to notice that I’m helping people solve problems”
Stories from Kansas
New
Kevin, Ryan and Brandon
ParPoints Golf
Salina, Kansas
New
Vanessa
Leva
Westwood Hills, Kansas
New
Lauren and Megan
The Matrescence
Prairie Village, Kansas
Deborah and Angela
QuickHire
Wichita, Kansas
Vinay, Rohit and Ken
Cloud Nine Development
Overland Park, Kansas
Rick
Starflower Solutions
Olathe, Kansas
Founder
Dustin Auxier
Company
Dustin Auxier
City
Louisville
Downloads
200,000+
# of employees
1
A lover of video games from a young age, Dustin experimented with creating his own using a popular RPG-making tool. He developed the first Enchanted Cave game in his freshman year of college, and it garnered enough of a following to successfully crowdfund the creation of the sequel Enchanted Cave 2. This top-down adventure pays homage to Dustin’s love of the 16-bit ‘90s titles while still appealing to casual gamers. The enthusiastic reception to his series has enabled Dustin to live his dream of developing as a full-time job. He is currently engineering a new RPG alongside updates for his releases.
"Google Play Pass has helped create a resurgence of interest in the game. As new countries are added to Play Pass, it reaches a wider audience"
Founder
Sam Hogan
Company
Sam Hogan
City
Burlington
Downloads
4,670,800+
# of employees
1
Armed only with an Android tablet, Sam was determined to learn programming by watching videos online. As a gaming enthusiast from a young age, he was 14 by the time he released his first game on Google Play which became a viral sensation at his high school. After several releases, Sam managed to create another hit: Stick With It which captivates players with challenging platforms and obstacles. It also features a cast of squishy and endearing characters. Now, fueled by the enthusiasm of the community, Sam has set his sights on expanding his expertise in app development, with plans to venture into non-gaming projects.
"Feedback on Google Play is really important. It’s a good way to know what your customers are looking for. If there are complaints, then the feedback is super valuable"
Founder & CEO
Dr. Stevens Bonhomme,
D.B.A
Company
Feedcoyote
City
Louisville
Downloads
13,400+
# of employees
8
Growing up in Haiti, Stevens developed an entrepreneurial spirit from an early age. After moving to the U.S. and freelancing as a translator and math tutor, he saw the challenges self-employed people face, such as working in isolation and missing out on business opportunities. To address these issues, he created Feedcoyote — named after independent-natured coyotes. The app provides freelancers with a supportive community and productivity tools to grow their businesses faster, as well as fostering collaboration among freelancers, helping them build networks and work on larger projects together. With a goal of promoting diversity and global connection, the platform is available in six languages with plans to add more soon.
"We want to welcome all languages, all kinds of freelancers and all kinds of backgrounds to ensure we build a global community that can facilitate earning opportunities for everybody"
Founder
Kenny McPeek
Company
Horse Races Now
City
Lexington
Downloads
514,700+
# of employees
1
A thoroughbred horseracing professional, Kenny was disappointed to find his sport wasn’t included on a leading app. Determined to change that, and make a difference to the industry he loves, Kenny launched Horse Races Now. The app lets people stream live races and replays from North American racetracks, share race updates via social media, and follow their favorite horses, trainers and jockeys. It also explains how racing works, and brings in newer, younger fans – a rewarding driver for Kenny. He plans to keep growing the app by adding international data and multiple languages.
“I think we’ve delivered the sport to a lot of young people that weren’t previously involved or didn’t know how to follow it”
Founder
Darren Keese
Company
Cypher Cove
City
Lexington
Downloads
7,630,000+
# of employees
1
Mechanical engineer Darren became fascinated by live wallpapers. Just for fun, he taught himself how to make them, to customize his phone’s home screen. His company Cypher Cove now has 21 apps, including Audio Glow, which brings music to life on a phone with graphics that move to the beat. The popular Digital Embers, a live wallpaper, shoots hypnotic brightly-colored patterns across the screen to follow your fingertip. With customizable options, people can reflect their personality through their phone. Darren is currently busy working on updates and new themes.
“I enjoy the freedom of developing for Android; I can do it part-time, decide what projects I actually want to work on, and how much time I want to invest in them”
Founder
Jonathan Erwin
Company
Red e App
City
Louisville
Downloads
133,000+
# of employees
25
With 30 years’ experience in tech companies, Jonathan knew how inefficient workplace communication could be – especially for those who don’t work at a desk. So he created the Red e App, a mobile-based hub that lets employees connect with their managers, access documents from anywhere, get benefits information and receive training. The app helps workers to feel more engaged and efficient in their roles. Since launching, it’s had a major impact on industries like construction, manufacturing and hospitality. Next, Jonathan wants to keep improving the app, and partner with software companies dedicated to workforce management.
“The turnaround, the efficiency, the productivity and the security, which is very big for us, have all been efficient on Google Play. And without any headaches or conflicts”
Stories from Kentucky
Co-founders
Evan Smith and
Jason Tate
Company
Pixel Dash Studios
City
Baton Rouge
Downloads
1,094,600+
# of employees
25
AI engineer Jason and animator Evan met while working on football games together for a studio in Louisiana. When that shut down, they decided to stay in-state and partner up to launch their own company, Pixel Dash Studios. Fueled by their love for 90s motorcycle combat games, they co-created their own biker gang title, Road Redemption, that takes players on a thrilling cross-country rampage. The game's nostalgic punch has resonated with players. The pair are always working on improving their graphics, and recently added a smooth 60-frames-per-second mode. Next, they’re continuing to put Louisiana on the map for game development with a new release coming soon.
"We’re very involved in the Louisiana games scene, and are always looking to help grow the industry here. We've supported other companies in getting their games funded and published"
Founder
LaDonna Welch
Company
Mrs. Welch Creates
City
Bossier City
Downloads
600+
# of employees
1
LaDonna, a robotics and coding teacher, suffered from postpartum depression when her second child was born. She had never considered therapy before, but after finally speaking to a counselor, LaDonna discovered the comfort of positive self-talk and the added support of a mental health provider. Recognizing the stigma surrounding mental health among African Americans, she sought to find a solution of her own and leveraged her tech background to develop Ebony Notes. The app designed specifically for the Black community helps people unlock their full potential through motivational and encouraging affirmations. She plans to keep improving the app and hopes to partner with some big names that provide support in Black communities.
"So far, I've received overwhelming words of encouragement. I have also had high feedback about the impact that the app is having on others"
Founder
Julia Kumari Drapkin
Company
ISeeChange
City
New Orleans
Downloads
3,800+
# of employees
10
For over a decade, Julia worked as a climate science reporter, where she witnessed firsthand how environmental solutions often failed to meet local needs. This inspired her to create ISeeChange, an app that allows people to record and explore the impacts of climate change in their community. Residents can use the platform to share stories and crucial data often overlooked by mainstream media. Her goal is to provide insights for cities and researchers, leading to policies that foster safer, climate-ready communities. To date, the program has generated over $25 million in stormwater infrastructure investments and facilitated cooling standards for urban heat. Looking ahead, Julia aims to expand the platform's reach and continue to build global partnerships.
"We’re on a mission to reach communities across the globe. So being on Google Play, a platform with huge reach where people can easily find you, is critical to our success"
Founder
Tymeka Lawrence
Company
Tymedia
City
Slidell
Downloads
385,000+
# of employees
10
Tymeka has always loved video games and being creative with computers. When her kids started mobile gaming, she noticed that there were very few authentic African American characters. So she created Kitchen Clout, a competitive cooking game that weaves in community culture, live-recorded music and culinary skills. Her trivia game, Know It or Blow It, features African American characters, based on her own family. Tymeka plans to update the games with new features, and release more titles to keep combatting underrepresentation.
“I was looking for games that featured more African American people and more of our culture. I didn’t see that. So, I thought that maybe we could create something, for others looking for the same thing”
Founder
Laurel Hess
Company
Hampr
City
Lafayette
Downloads
27,000+
# of employees
14
Laurel, a working mom, was fed up with spending her weekends washing her kids’ clothes. She wondered why doing laundry wasn’t as simple as ordering groceries online. So, after doing some research, she decided to create an easy-to-use, affordable laundry service app. Hampr helps people reduce their chores by picking up their laundry, and returning it clean and folded the next day. It also helps the people doing the laundry to make some extra money from home. Hampr recently expanded to 15+ cities across eight states.
“It surprised me how much 'favoriting' would impact the washers. When they see a heart next to their order, they know they did a great job, which gives them pride in what they do”
Founder
Joe Landry
Company
JPL Technical Solutions
City
Baton Rouge
Downloads
50,000+
# of employees
1
Joe has loved technology since the age of five and studied computer engineering at college. It was the norm, living in Louisiana, to keep an eye on storms during hurricane season. Joe couldn’t find an app for this, so he built Tropical Hurricane Tracker. It uses forecast data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to give people live updates on storms – including push notifications – so they can make quick decisions about their safety. Joe aims to expand to other parts of the world.
“I love seeing feedback and hearing how the app has helped people make decisions and be safe during hurricane season”
Stories from Louisiana
Founder
Lauren Henkin
Company
The Humane Space
City
Rockland
Downloads
6,000+
# of employees
6
As an architect, artist and photographer, Lauren has always had a creative and curious mind. She observed how people became more introspective during the pandemic. She began to research the positive impact of curiosity, awe, and lifelong learning on physical and mental health. This inspired her to create The Humane Space. The app boosts well-being by guiding people through immersive learning and contemplation prompts. The team recently added a whole new section, Mind Journeys, which offers guided visualizations to spark the imagination. Next, they’re planning on partnering with major cultural institutions to bring people even more inspiring art to ignite curiosity.
"On an app, art becomes so widely available to people. They don't have to travel to a particular museum. We can bring them a beautiful Rodin sculpture on their phone every day"
Founder
Mark Westover
Company
Sky Forward Design
City
Portland
Downloads
3300+
# of employees
1
After majoring in engineering and working in software testing, a colleague introduced Mark to coding. He quickly became hooked when he realized the power of programming and its potential to solve problems. To hone his skills, he started building Android apps at home. His first success was an alarm clock app that required people to answer trivia questions to prove they were awake. Excited by this creative process, he ventured into game development. This led to Cube Spark, a simple, yet fun, color-matching game built with competitive leaderboards. Mark's future goals include starting his own studio, and releasing a new incremental title focused on apocalyptic defense strategies.
"Google Play has really great analytics. The power of the Firebase Analytics platform has been extremely valuable to me. Being able to actually get some insight without having to talk to every single person that has tried my game is extremely beneficial"
Co-founders
Michael Odokara-Okigbo
and Shalom Odokara
Company
NKENNE
City
Portland
Downloads
84,300+
# of employees
4
When Michael wanted to learn Igbo, his native language, he found that traditional learning programs couldn’t help. He teamed up with his mother Shalom to create NKENNE, meaning “of the mother”, a learning app specifically for African languages. People can learn with lessons, blogs, podcasts, and real-time conversations. Michael points out that African languages are the foundation of human communication and he is proud to be at the forefront of the preservation effort and the community he has subsequently built. Next, he hopes to offer people 30 languages by the end of 2025.
"The great thing about Google Play is that it's international. There are so many people who use Google Play all over the world. About 85% of our audience are on Android"
Founder
Kerry Gallivan
Company
Chimani
City
Yarmouth
Downloads
250,000+
# of employees
1
Kerry has a big passion for the outdoors. One day while hiking, he was inspired to create something to help people have the best possible experience in America's national parks. The Chimani National Parks app offers maps and guides for 400+ locations across the US, including parks, monuments, seashores and historic sites. People can also collect badges and earn points for each park they visit, and create a wish list of places they’d love to see in the future.
“I'm a perpetual entrepreneur looking to solve problems, so I can help people have the best possible experience in our national parks.”
Founder
Amy VanHaren
Company
Pumpspotting
City
Kittery
Downloads
8,000+
# of employees
4
After her second child was born, Amy returned to running a marketing agency. She was traveling the country and still breastfeeding, shipping milk home. One day, struggling to use a breast pump in an airport restroom, she felt fed up and isolated. This moment sparked the idea for Pumpspotting. It shows you the nearest places to pump or nurse, gives access to lactation consultants, articles, and a community of mothers for connection and support. In the past year, Amy overhauled the app after a funding boost, and – via their work programme – it’s now available to 30,000 employees in Maine.
“I bought a 40-ft RV and turned it into a nursing suite, living on it for months while traveling across the country. It was a literal vehicle to unite parents and introduce them to the app”
Founder
Christopher York
Company
Blue Ox Family Games
City
Caribou
Downloads
1,750,000+
# of employees
19
As a kid in the 80s, Christopher programmed simple games for fun. A few decades later, the rise of smartphones allowed him to revisit his passion. When his mother fell ill, he started making word games to keep them both occupied during her treatments, and later set up Blue Ox Family Games. 7 Little Words, a bite-size word puzzle, took off unexpectedly in 2011. Now with a team of 19, Christopher still finds it unbelievable that – from a small rural town in Maine – he can reach hundreds of thousands of people every day.
“It's amazing that from a small rural town in Maine, surrounded by trees and farms, every day we can reach people all over the world”
Stories from Maine
Founder
Kris Osk
Company
Checkmate Creative
City
Westminster
Downloads
400,000+
# of employees
3
Kris grew up watching cartoons and movies in the 80s and early 90s, leaving him with a fondness for pop culture from the era. After working as a writer and designer of tabletop games, he decided to go digital and start his own mobile games studio, Checkmate Creative. His popular role-playing title 80s Mania Wrestling Returns is inspired by his childhood passion, set in a nostalgic old-school world of wrestling where players enact the role of a manager. Next, the team plans to release another nostalgic title, this time a trivia game focused on 80s pop culture.
"Google Play has been a tremendous support without which we would never have achieved success at this scale. It is the reason I was able to actually form a company around my passion and ideas"
Founder
Steven Boynes
Company
Ultabit
City
Baltimore
Downloads
181,600+
# of employees
1
A great interest in tech since childhood led Steven to study computer engineering. During a college slump, he started running to boost his spirits and it was then when he saw a poster with a quote about pain being a weakness leaving the body. It instantly made him feel better and inspired him to seek other encouraging messages. With his experience in programming and mobile app development, Steven created Daily Quote - Positive Quotes. The app offers daily motivational expressions to help people overcome adversity and achieve their goals. Building on his desire to support others through words, Steven plans to keep making improvements to the app.
"The most rewarding thing is receiving feedback through emails and reviews. People often tell me, 'I was going through a tough time, and this app really helped me'"
Co-founders
Idris, Zeki, Yahya and Haroon Mokhtarzada
Company
Rocket Money
City
Silver Spring
Downloads
8,782,300+
# of employees
260
Haroon has always had an entrepreneurial spirit, earning pocket money mowing his neighbors’ lawns and shoveling snow as a kid. Later, as an adult, he and his brothers Idris, Yahya and Zeki, would often go to the basement to brainstorm business ideas. Reflecting on the difficulties of tracking subscriptions in the digital, cashless age, the siblings got inspired to create Rocket Money: an all-in-one personal finance app for budgeting and subscription management. Their goal is to make money more transparent and help people naturally generate healthy spending habits. Building on their desire to support people with their finances, the brothers' future vision for the app is to use AI to provide further financial guidance, coaching and advice.
"Distribution is important. And Google Play makes it easy for people to find apps that are useful for them. It connects millions of people with things that will add value to their lives"
Co-founders
Ryan Hanna
Benjamin Young
Gregory Coleman
Company
Sworkit Health
City
Bethesda
Downloads
9,602,600+
# of employees
14
In 2012, Ryan was in the US Army Reserve, working as a computer technician. He hated the gym but had to stay fit for the army. Wanting a more engaging workout, he taught himself to code and built an exercise app. He wore a green-screen suit to make the videos, and his wife recorded the voiceover (under a duvet). Sworkit is all about customization – users choose exercise type, length and the instructor’s voice. It became popular and was bought by Nexercise, where co-founders Greg and Ben helped Ryan expand. Sworkit is now in 13 languages, supports businesses with “company challenges”, and is used in 15,000+ schools worldwide.
“We can innovate faster with Google Play. We can get our releases out faster, get feedback and fix bugs quicker. You need to be a fast-moving company to give people the support they need”
Founder
Greg Anderson
Company
Simplicial Software
City
Baltimore
Downloads
63,000,000+
# of employees
1
Greg was a software engineer and had the urge for something more creative. He loved gaming and remembers writing games on his TI 83 calculator in middle school. So he founded his company Simplicial, and began developing apps and games. Nebulous is a real-time, multiplayer game with one mission: grow your “blob” by collecting dots and gobbling up other players. Set in space, it’s deceptively simple while obeying the laws of physics. Players can team up with others worldwide for mini games – like Battle Royale and Capture The Flag. One of nine Simplicial titles, Nebulous has 50 million+ downloads on Google Play.
“It’s been really exhilarating. I enjoy the freedom of setting my own requirements and working on my own creations. Overall, it's really helped me grow as a developer and as a business owner”
Founder
Dominic Crapuchettes
Company
North Star Games
City
Kensington
Downloads
500,600+
# of employees
10
Since he was a kid, Dominic loved playing and making board games. After a near-death experience during his time as a captain of a fishing boat, he decided to switch careers and started programming. He set up North Star Games - a company that makes beautifully illustrated digital and physical games with a science backbone. The award-winning Evolution, a “strategy game of adaptation”, is used as a study tool by hundreds of educators. North Star Games recently expanded Evolution with climate components, and their upcoming title Nature adds new elements to the ecosystem such as avian species and different biomes.
“There's a couple of things I really like about Google Play. One is the bug reports – that's been very helpful. And the new managed publishing tools have been awesome”
Stories from Maryland
New
Kris
Checkmate Creative
Westminster, Maryland
New
Steven
Ultabit
Baltimore, Maryland
New
Idris, Zeki, Yahya and Haroon
Rocket Money
Silver Spring
Ryan, Benjamin and Gregory
Sworkit Health
Bethesda, Maryland
Greg
Simplicial Software
Baltimore, Maryland
Dominic
North Star Games
Kensington, Maryland
Co-founders
Rotem and
Omri Shor
Company
Medisafe
City
Boston
Downloads
7,400,000+
# of employees
73
Once, Rotem and Omri’s diabetic father accidentally took a double dose of his medication. Alarmed, the brothers sought a solution to help people who, like their father, have experienced similar emergencies. Together, business minded Omri and tech-whiz Rotem developed Medisafe: a personalized pill reminder and tracker. Featuring life-saving information on drug interactions, the app empowers patients to manage their medication journey and allows them to send reports to their healthcare providers. Today, Medisafe is used in 126 countries. The brothers are currently streamlining the app and have the ultimate goal of reaching 100 million people.
"It is very humbling that you can help so many patients and know that you are actually helping save lives"
Founder
Pat Kinsel
Company
Proof
City
Boston
Downloads
1,000,000+
# of employees
174
Pat has been involved in technology since college, dabbling with business ventures and working on product management for large tech companies. Frustrated by the lengthy process of getting a document notarized when stuck on the couch with a broken leg, he began researching the laws involving document notarization. Without wanting to deal with the hassle of finding a notary again, Pat designed the Notarize app. It enables people to legally and securely notarize any document in minutes from a mobile device, saving them stress, time, and money. Next, the team plans to introduce more transaction types and better anti-fraud services.
"Google Play is great. We love that it gives us the ability to ship products more quickly"
Co-founders
Stephanie and
Jeff McNeil
Company
Qeepsake
City
Newton
Downloads
253,800+
# of employees
12
Juggling life with five kids, Jeff and Stephanie yearned for a way to capture more than fleeting social media posts about their children's lives. Leveraging Jeff's web design and interface expertise, they identified a gap in the market: a tool to simplify memory-keeping for busy parents. And so, Qeepsake was born. The app acts as a personal editor, gathering both photos and milestones through daily text message prompts – and even allows people to create chapter books. The couple now have seven children and plan to expand Qeepsake's features further, including video functionality, so they can keep supporting parents in preserving precious moments.
"Hearing that we're solving a problem for parents brings remarkable gratification"
Co-founders
Tony Liu
Peter Lee
Billy Lan
Company
JobGet
City
Boston
Downloads
700,000+
# of employees
60
After seeing his mother struggle to find a new job, Tony teamed up with friends Billy and Peter on a mission to shake up the job-hunting process for hourly workers. They were shocked at how time-consuming and stressful it was, so they created JobGet: an app that speedily matches workers to suitable jobs. Candidates can chat to employers online, and get hired almost immediately. This year they added a Community feature, and are focused on making it even easier for people to connect. JobGet has won several awards, including the Global Grand Prize in MIT’s Inclusion Innovation Challenge.
“We had a user who could not find work. He downloaded the app, got hired and was so grateful because he can now support his daughter and wife. It is really hard to measure the exact impact because it is intangible”
Co-founders
Andrey Vyshedskiy
Company
ImagiRation
City
Boston
Downloads
1,000,000+
# of employees
15
As a neuroscientist, Andrey understands the importance of imagination in a child’s development. With co-founders Rita, Alex, Jonah and Lisa, he set up ImagiRation, which builds language tools for kids. Their app uses MITA (Mental Imagery Therapy for Autism), with fun visual activities to educate and engage, and is intended for long-term daily use. For Andrey, a highlight is enabling parents to become language therapists, by offering the right resources and guidelines. A recent clinical study of 6,000+ children with autism showed that those who used the app had twice the improvement of those who didn’t.
“The Association of Pediatricians recommends that these children have 40 hours a week of therapy but most only get a couple of hours. This app helps parents to fill the gap and become therapists themselves”
ceo
Patrick Wetherille
Company
FitNow
City
Boston
Downloads
19,100,000+
# of employees
47
Before Patrick started working at FitNow, he’d already lost 50 pounds with their app Lose It! – a calorie-counting food tracker recommended by a friend at a party. Now CEO, Patrick has transformed the business to be more profitable and sustainable, while keeping focused on supporting those seeking a healthier lifestyle. Lose It! has helped people shed over 100 million pounds in excess weight. During the past year, Patrick oversaw the buyout of their initial investors, making the company 100% employee and founder owned.
“Google Play has been really at the cutting edge of helping app developers do their best to optimize their marketing. The ability to test your assets is a marketer’s dream”
Stories from Massachusetts
Co-founders
Adam Oxner,
Fares Ksebati,
and Michael Allon
Company
MySwimPro
City
Ann Arbor
Downloads
400,000+
# of employees
10
Fares started earning medals for swimming aged just 10 and began sharing his passion through coaching other swimmers as an adult. When he was asked to create a workout plan for a friend while she was out of town, he got the idea to create a virtual training app. Partnering with fellow swimmers and software engineers Michael and Adam, the trio launched MySwimPro. The app offers personalized training plans for swimmers of all levels, and all employees are swimmers who meet up regularly for team practice. They’ve recently made the app available on wearables and, looking forward, want to continue to make the customized coaching experience better and localize the app across more countries.
"MySwimPro is about democratizing swimming training. A lot of people don’t have access to a coach, but using the app they can follow customized programs that meet their level"
Founder
Nick Schwab
Company
Sleep Jar
City
Detroit
Downloads
100,000+
# of employees
6
Fueled by curiosity, Nick began his career teaching himself how to build websites. The technical knowledge proved useful when, later, he moved to a new apartment and struggled to sleep because of a noisy neighbor. Trading in his job as a senior software engineer at a global car manufacturer, Nick created Sleep Jar, an app boasting an ever-expanding library of sleep sounds and stories to help drown out the world. With his kids being dedicated fans who enjoy listening to the ocean, Nick plans to release stories featuring multiple characters for a more immersive experience.
"Google Play opens up a world of possibilities for us as a company. It helps us to reach more people and to make more magical experiences"
Founder
Cameron Henige
Company
HouseBook
City
Ferndale
Downloads
94,800+
# of employees
1
After successfully fixing a music player at just eight years old, Cameron became hooked on repairing technology. In 2014, while working as a software engineer, a fire broke out in his apartment. Overcharged by an inventory company for the damaged items, he was inspired to develop HouseBook – Home Inventory. It's a digital inventory system that allows for easy and quick recording of belongings. Designed to help settle insurance claims faster and avoid the chaos of misplaced items, the app is now used by people of all backgrounds, including firefighters and dementia sufferers. Cameron plans to keep improving the app and has a new pet-finding project in mind.
"I just like the Google Play Android developer community. It feels like a real community of people who are always willing to help you figure out any problem"
Co-founders
Roger Bassous
Richard Bassous
Company
Rerware
City
Rochester
Downloads
4,000,000+
# of employees
2
Brothers Richard and Roger shared a love of computers from an early age, and eventually worked as software developers. 15 years ago, when mobiles were entering the market, Richard had the idea to create a backup app – because he hadn’t been able to find one. MyBackup started as a platform for saving contacts to SD memory cards. Over time it developed, and now people can backup their music, apps, photos, contacts and more to any Android device, card or cloud. Richard and Roger plan to keep updating their app, while maintaining its simplicity and reliability.
“Google Play has the channels, the reach and the distribution. We didn't have to do much, except post it”
Founder
Nadine Lee
Company
Throdle
City
Ypsilanti
Downloads
1,100+
# of employees
1
Nadine had long been a member of car-enthusiast chat groups, but wanted a better way to share her passion. So she created Throdle, a niche social network that lets people connect with other motorheads, explore car clubs, join events and show off their car collections. Throdle also produces video content to inspire enthusiasts and bring members' stories to life. Recently, the app became an official sponsor of the US motorsports series Formula DRIFT and offered exclusive behind the scenes content allowing fans to engage with their posts. Next, Nadine wants to promote more women-led car groups.
“For an app to succeed you need to build a growing community, but it is even more important to find a way to keep that community engaged”
Managing partner
Ken Morse
Company
Ilium Software
City
Plymouth
Downloads
63,900+
# of employees
4
When the first mobile devices were launched, Ken became very intrigued and decided to go into this industry. He joined Ilium Software to lead the company as devices became faster, smaller and more powerful. Their most successful tool, eWallet, organizes and protects all the information we carry in our wallets such as credit card numbers, IDs and passwords. The app became a trailblazer in the tech space, influencing many other password-management tools. Recent additions include biometric features that let people unlock their digital wallet using a fingerprint, iris scan or facial recognition.
“Google Play has a broad distribution as it's available on a variety of Android devices, so using it was a no-brainer for us”
Stories from Michigan
Co-founders
Brian Stevenson
and Patrick Flanagan
Company
Resonant Cavity
City
Minneapolis
Downloads
50,000,000+
# of employees
9
Musician and composer Patrick wanted to improve the sound of his own vocals, so he created a pitch correction app mainly for his own use. When a side project app he developed with colleague and friend Brian didn’t perform well commercially, the pair revisited his original title and polished it up for re-release. On Voloco, aspiring singers, rappers and content creators can perfect their sound and achieve near-studio quality vocals using just their phone. Next, they’re launching direct messages and social features to allow people to discover new artists and grow an audience.
"We’ve loved the development we’ve seen with Google Play. It’s made distributing apps to millions of people easy and safe"
Co-founders
Edwin Melendez
and Sean Higgins
Company
BetterYou
City
St. Paul
Downloads
7,600+
# of employees
28
After finishing college, developer Sean spent his time working on startups. Yet, in his free time he would spend hours watching videos and routinely forgot to phone his mom every week. He realized something needed to shift to make sure he made the call, so he teamed up with childhood friend Edwin to create BetterYou, an app which helps people avoid procrastination and build healthy habits. It lets people set goals in four wellness categories and maps out their day in the background, prompting them to stay on track. Having launched in-app health challenges Sean and Edwin are introducing a sleep challenge and a review of how people have done in the past year.
"Our promise is to help people find ten minutes here, 15 minutes there to do the important things they’ve been meaning to do like calling friends, going to the gym or getting seven hours of sleep"
Co-founders
Alina Matson
and Samara Fantie
Company
Glossbird
City
Hopkins
Downloads
2,500+
# of employees
5
Working 80 hours a week during the pandemic, Alina didn’t have time for exercise but still managed to play video games and scroll social media. This inspired her to seek a fun and easy solution to keep active. A job posting brought her to Samara, a gaming programming teacher, and together they built Fitment. It's an app that gamifies exercise and makes it both accessible and enjoyable. It allows people to fit physical activities into any routine in an engaging way. The team is now working on rolling out social features to make the platform more interactive, enabling friends to get fit together.
"Fitment is meant to be something people can easily adopt and enjoy, regardless of their fitness level or interests"
Co-founders
Keith Pichelman
Mike Lehne
Company
Concrete Software
City
Minneapolis
Downloads
61,296,300+
# of employees
30
Keith grew up playing computer games with his dad and tinkering with old phones. He was working in software engineering, selling simple games to mobile brands, when he felt inspired to make his own. He co-founded Concrete Software with Mike in 2003, and they launched their first blockbuster hit. Concrete now has eight titles on Google Play, from Golf to Gin Rummy. PBA Bowling Challenge is a favorite with fans, with 10 million+ downloads. Recently, they took part in Google Play's Indie Games Accelerator program, and are planning to launch an 80s-inspired arcade game.
“We’re really excited about Google Play's Indie Games Accelerator program. It's so unique. It feels like they're really here to help us out and bring us to the next level”
Co-founders
Maria Burns Ortiz
AnnMaria De Mars
Dennis De Mars
Company
7 Generation Games
City
Minneapolis
Downloads
16,000+
# of employees
11
After a successful sports journalism career, Maria wanted to build something inspired by growing up as a Latina in rural North Dakota. She teamed up with her mom AnnMaria, a teacher and computer programmer, and software developer Dennis, to set up 7 Generation Games. They make educational apps – in English, Spanish and indigenous languages – to improve math skills of Hispanic and Native American children. Making Camp Ojibwe is a village-building simulation where players earn points by answering math and social studies questions. During the pandemic, new funding helped get 7 Generation Games to more teachers and parents.
“We were so excited to see that kids who played our first game saw their math scores improve by 30% in the first ten weeks”
Developer
Shane Loeffler
Company
Flyover Country
City
Minneapolis
Downloads
119,700+
# of employees
3
On flights, Shane was always captivated by the view from the window seat. But as a geologist, he wanted to share the stories behind the landscapes. After receiving funding from the National Science Foundation, he worked with a team to develop and launch Flyover Country while studying at the University of Minnesota. The app combines geological maps, fossil locations, points of interest, and more into a live mobile view that people can follow as they fly. The app works in less carbon-intensive settings too, such as road trips, train journeys and boat trips.
“Being an earth scientist, I could look down at the landscape and see stories playing out.”
Stories from Minnesota
New
Brian and Patrick
Resonant Cavity
Minneapolis, Minnesota
New
Edwin and Sean
BetterYou
St. Paul, Minnesota
New
Alina and Samara
Glossbird
Hopkins, Minnesota
Mike and Keith
Concrete Software
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Maria, AnnMaria and Dennis
7 Generation Games
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Shane
Flyover Country
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Co-founders
Anirudh Aditya,
Rajat Dabral
and Ryan Hopson
Company
Tempospace
City
Clarksdale
Downloads
900+
# of employees
6
Ryan and Anirudh met at Mississippi State University, where they worked making beds in college camps over the summer to save up some money. United by a shared entrepreneurial spirit, they partnered with tech-whiz Rajat to build their first app: Tempo. Initially built as a messaging app for international students, Tempo is geared towards social discovery in which people are linked through a network of community-driven events, classes, and guides. Within the app, the trio has engineered an ‘AI tutor’, which not only teaches, but can also generate quizzes, make notes, and summarize topics. Next, the team aims to localize Tempo’s AI to support multiple languages.
"We are very tightly coupled with Google Play. We have a ton of products that we're using in the backend and front end, from Flutter to Firebase"
Founder
Real Maxwell
Company
Real Maxwell
City
Gluckstadt
Downloads
100+
# of employees
1
After decades of running nightclubs, Real became a stay-at-home dad in his mid-40s. Leveraging his animation and audio experience, he began learning to program. Hooked on game development, Real launched ONO, a puzzle game built around a runaway chain reaction that engages core brain functions. With no math or language barriers, the game is enjoyed by people of all ages. Real is planning a simplified, ad-free version of ONO with potential therapeutic applications for patients undergoing brain rehabilitation. He's also developing an idea for a game that incorporates an artificial intelligence chatbot.
"Creating a game is a reward in itself. It’s fun. Discovering a game idea or mechanic you’ve never seen anywhere else is a great feeling"
Founder
Antonio Padron Bravo
Company
American Fox
City
Brandon
Downloads
961
# of employees
1
Antonio became interested in app and game development when studying cybernetics at university. He moved to the U.S. from Cuba to be with his family and overcome the restrictions surrounding publishing in his native country. Antonio worked in hotel maintenance by day but developed his own game at night, all while learning English to eliminate language barriers. He launched Classic Sudoku Pro, a brain-boosting, numbers-based puzzle that caters to both beginners and experts. Being passionate about creating games and apps, Antonio plans to keep working on new projects and aspires to assemble his own development team someday.
"Google Play has all these amazing tools. It depends on what you want to use and how far you want to go. You can use everything for free. At the same time, your businesses grow"
Founder
Kaylin Brassfield
Company
Crystal Game Works
City
Hernando
Downloads
571
# of employees
1
Kaylin started drawing her own visual novels and making role-playing games in high school. After winning a business competition at college, she founded Crystal Game Works with the prize money. She now has seven story-driven games on Google Play. Kaylin is passionate about making Otome (Japanese-style dating simulation games), and is proud to say they're created by women for women. She wants to keep producing fun games that feature underrepresented groups – and hopes they'll have a positive impact on players' lives.
“I want to create games that I'm passionate about, like romance games that include LGBTQA+ people. I'm just writing the world as I see it.”
Founder
Anne Turner
Company
6 Brix
City
Madison
Downloads
2,800+
# of employees
1
Anne, a lawyer working with startups, always struggled with procrastination. When she noticed her teenage son was having the same problem, she decided to tackle it. Anne studied the psychology of putting things off, and designed an app. 6 Brix lets you create a to-do list for your goals, gently reminding you each day what’s important. Anne now uses it for new projects and her son uses it for viola practice. Her next step is to make the reward system more enticing, and expand 6 Brix to help as many procrastinators as possible.
“It's been an interesting road. It turned out that I had a worldwide development team. I've met a lot of interesting people on the journey that, when I started out, I never would have imagined meeting”
Founder
Toxey Haas
Company
Mossy Oak
City
West Point
Downloads
120,000+
# of employees
125
Toxey set up Mossy Oak in 1986, with a mission to connect people with nature. They educate and inspire on habitat conservation, sell outdoor apparel and make video content for fishermen, hunters and nature lovers. It’s a family business, and his son Daniel works as Marketing Director. Their app Mossy Oak Go offers free streaming content to all US states and Canada. People can learn things like freshwater angling, mushroom foraging, recipes for wild game or how to make a bird box. The app has also helped Haas increase their product sales.
“In the past couple of years, we’ve seen lots of people who live in major metro areas aspire to get outside and be in nature, from fishing to planting trees. Our app helps them do that”
Stories from Mississippi
Founder
Kevin Bradford
Company
RosiMosi
City
Kansas City
Downloads
20,000,000+
# of employees
4
Fresh out of university with a degree in computer science, Kevin began working in software development. On a trip to visit his nephew, he saw him playing with a basic online educational game and saw an opportunity. Collaborating closely with teachers, he gained insights into classes and the curriculum, leading to the creation of Preschool & Kindergarten Games. With a library of over 30 educational titles, the app makes learning fun and accessible - and has been praised by parents of neurodivergent children. Kevin's young ones serve as his most valuable testers, offering their honest feedback. Next, he plans to branch out into different languages translating the app into French and Spanish.
"Google Play has given me the opportunity to grow from a small, tiny, part-time hobby developer into a large business, taking on outside investment. That couldn't happen without Google Play"
Co-founders
Nic Weber,
George Faraj,
Diego Kaife,
and Stu Feldt
Company
Playbite
City
St. Louis
Downloads
521,000+
# of employees
5
Diego loved arcades as a child – the thrill of winning prizes and having all his favorite games in one place. After gaining a soccer scholarship, he moved from his home in Honduras to the U.S. aged 18. He taught himself to build apps and got a job at an IT company where he met fellow arcade fans Stu, Nic and George. Together they founded Playbite; an app version of an arcade, where people can try lots of games and play for prizes. With a current library of 45 games, they are planning to expand by commissioning new, up-and-coming developers – helping others to find a foot in the door of the gaming tech industry.
"We recently hired someone who is originally from and currently lives in Honduras. I'm thrilled to be bringing high-quality, high-paying, and high-skill jobs back to my home country"
Co-founders
Yuhang Sun
and Yue Wu
Company
DotNetIdeas
City
St. Louis
Downloads
549,400+
# of employees
2
Husband and wife Yuhang Sun and Yue Wu are passionate software developers. Yuhang’s talent was evident early on when he won an award for his programming skills in middle school in Beijing. But their journey into mobile applications began from their personal need for organization. Always making checklists for trips and daily tasks, they were inspired to create Packing List: an app for creating lists both from scratch and from templates. Building on its success, they released the specialized sister apps: Chore List, Party Planner and Meal Planner. Next, as avid ice hockey fans who play with their family, they are planning to develop an app for coaches to record and plan their training sessions.
"It's rewarding seeing how your app is improving people's quality of life. The feedback they give means they want to improve the platform — and that motivates us to make it even better"
Co-founders
Adam Coster
Sam Coster
Seth Coster
Company
Butterscotch Shenanigans
City
St. Louis
Downloads
4,987,000+
# of employees
6
Brothers Seth, Sam and Adam started Butterscotch Shenanigans back in 2012. A decade on, they’ve added two more family members to the team and have six games on Google Play. Butterscotch has a unique style: goofy and outlandish on the surface, beautifully crafted and thought-out underneath. In Crashlands, the player inhabits a galactic trucker whose shipment gets derailed by an alien menace, leaving her stranded on a foreign planet. The game was a big hit, and featured in many top-ten lists. The family take huge pride in their craft, always prioritizing players’ enjoyment.
”When we started and were still trying to figure out how to build the game, we found out that Google Play was very easy to work with. They have a nice focus on the developer experience”
Founder
Andrew Glantz
Company
GiftAMeal
City
St. Louis
Downloads
10,000+
# of employees
11
After a boss introduced him to the idea of companies with a purpose, Andrew designed an app to support his local community. He had been brought up to give back – and that's what GiftAMeal does. Each time a customer uses the app to take a photo of their food at a participating restaurant, a meal is given to someone in need through a local food bank. Andrew estimates that 300 restaurants have now taken part, donating over 850,000 meals. His team is growing, and next he wants to go national and work with larger chains.
“We've created a high quality app that people can find and download easily. Being on Google Play has expanded our audience tremendously, supporting more restaurants and providing meals to our community”
Founders
Joe Duemig
Rose Duemig
Company
Armstrong Software
City
Troy
Download
20, 700+
# of employees
2
In 2017, Rose and Joe were camping with their family. While at the RV resort, they planned to play mini-golf but it was closed, then missed a kids’ train ride, and couldn’t find the store’s opening hours. This sparked an idea: a white-label app for campgrounds and resorts to communicate with guests. Armstrong Software now serves over 100 US and Canadian resorts, and is expanding to towns and schools. Resorts update their own apps, which guests can use 24/7 to book excursions and even order firewood. Recently, the family did a road trip to research and improve their service.
“Our customers have expectations of distribution and Google Play has really helped. Are people using it? How many downloads do I have? We see the analytics, and we can go back to our customers”
Stories from Missouri
Co-founders
Jason Marr
and Jeff Hunter
Company
AnyList
City
Missoula
Downloads
1,300,000+
# of employees
3
Long-time college buddies and computer science graduates Jeff and Jason often did their grocery shops together and split the cooking responsibility while they were roommates. Initially a way to find grocery store deals, they created AnyList: an app for creating food shopping lists, compiling recipes and meal planning. Lists can then be shared with family, friends and of course, roommates. They recently integrated the app with major retailers meaning shoppers can easily check off items from their lists. Looking forward, the pair want to add an option to cue recipes for a later date as well as make suggestions based on people's previous cooking behaviors.
"We really pride ourselves on providing great customer support. We respond to all the feedback that we get and we're really focused on giving people what they’re asking for"
Co-founders
John Temple
and Nes Croft
Company
Temenos Dream
City
Livingston
Downloads
7,800+
# of employees
4
Fascinated by dreams and their symbolism, John has long studied psychologist Carl Jung's theories on dreaming. After years spent working for a tech company in the 90s, and then founding an online elder care service, he decided to turn his passion into a job. He teamed up with engineer Nes to create Temenos Dream – Interpretation, an app where people can record their dreams, decode them and share them with others. The team recently added an AI function to help people understand their dreams in more detail, and they are continuously working to refine and grow the app.
"Google Play helps us to launch a single product across 80 countries with just a few clicks. It's great"
Founder
Matthew Losey
Company
Firecon Studios
City
Great Falls
Downloads
10,500+
# of employees
1
A lifelong gamer, Matthew learned to code through the wonderful culture of knowledge-sharing within the gaming community. By avidly consuming online resources, he garnered the skills to make his own mobile titles. With a passion for art and design, Matthew created Ballz Deep: Physics and Idle – a physics-based puzzle game where players shepherd a cascade of tumbling balls through perilous obstacles. Packed with roguelike elements, unlockable upgrades and a novel prestige system, it has built a loyal community that shapes future updates. Matthew is currently working on a story-based idle game and plans to make a tower defense game for mobile players.
"The game has fostered a thriving online community. Their valuable feedback directly influences my development process as I continue to improve it"
Founder
Doug Fales
Company
Falesafe
City
Livingston
Downloads
1,500+
# of employees
2
A Livingston resident, Doug believes that Montana roads aren't snowplowed as much as other states in the winter. Partly because there are lots of roads but not many people. Wanting to make driving safer, Doug had the idea of creating PassWarrior. The app gives real-time information on road conditions or nearby incidents, and displays the latest snow and ice warnings – all easily readable on mobile. His goal is to provide safety and better quality of life in winter for fellow Montanans. He recently launched a new version of the app for neighboring Idaho, and has become a Google employee as of January 2022.
“For me, the goal is safety and improving the quality of life for fellow Montanans. One woman downloaded the app and said ‘Thank you, this takes my anxiety down for winter driving”
Founder
Mike Maser
Company
Big Sky Health
City
Big Sky
Downloads
2,500,000+
# of employees
31
When Mike saw the benefits of intermittent fasting in helping him recover from cancer, he decided to make his next venture his most purposeful. He bought the fasting app Zero, and took it under the wing of his new wellness company Big Sky Health. People add their goals in the app, which creates a personalized fasting plan supported by leading content from health and longevity experts. Mike wants to encourage others to maintain a healthy lifestyle – not just for a few months, but the rest of their lives.
“We can make the best fasting tools in the world, but if we limit our reach, we won’t realize our mission’s full potential”
Ceo
Jerry Bromenshenk
Company
Bee Health Guru
City
Missoula
Downloads
500+
# of employees
7
Jerry has spent decades researching bees, and how their sounds communicate danger. For the US Army and the Department of Agriculture, he trained honey bees to detect chemical agents. In 2019, he teamed up with three other scientists to create Bee Health Guru. It listens to a hive via a cellphone’s microphone and reports in seconds on its health. For example, if the queen has died, or there's a mite infestation. This rapid assessment saves commercial beekeepers money and helps build community databases. Jerry now wants to enlist beekeepers and beekeeping associations to continuously improve the app and map outbreaks of bee pests and diseases.
“Rather than having to do lengthy visual inspections, commercial beekeepers running on very tight margins can quickly determine things like which colonies might have infections, or are failing, which saves money and makes beekeeping more efficient”
Stories from Montana
Founder
Nathan Kolbas
Company
Simply Complex Apps
City
Lincoln
Downloads
1,038,100+
# of employees
1
Nathan has always been fascinated by the world of technology. Under his software engineer father's guidance, he would take computers apart and put them back together - and at just 14, he built his first app. Tell Me is a text-to-speech tool that allows people to communicate with those around them even when they’ve lost their voice. With an accessible interface and a slide-out menu of pre-written phrases, Tell Me empowers people with disabilities and short-term illnesses to have meaningful conversations with loved ones. Nathan recently reprogrammed Tell Me from scratch and hopes to continue building apps that can help people.
"It's incredibly inspiring to see how anyone, regardless of age, can create something with a global impact"
Co-founders
Patrick Daberkow,
Nick Topp
and Mason Foxvog
Company
TenFour Labs
City
Lincoln
Downloads
8,900+
# of employees
8
Patrick, a former college football player turned head coach, was struck by the high cost of game headsets. Over dinner he discussed this with his childhood friend Nick, and they agreed the communication system needed a new solution. Teaming up developer Mason, they created The Headset App which allows people to relay and listen to information across 6 secure voice channels. It quickly gained popularity among coaches, referees, bicycling groups, security teams, and even hospitality managers. Next, the team hope to be an alternative to the traditional walkie-talkie and envision expanding into more industries, like airports and farming.
"The process of publishing on Google Play is smooth, simple and refined. All the required steps are well communicated and the information is easy to access"
Founder & CEO
Sally Brunnell
Company
NaviSavi
City
Oxford
Downloads
1,400+
# of employees
4
As senior vice president of a record company, Sally's work took her around the globe. She realized there was a gap in the market for authentic but positive travel guides, so she set about filling it. She sought out tech contacts and travel professionals, meticulously planning her new business. After years in New York, she returned home to Nebraska following the pandemic and from there, launched NaviSavi. It’s an app built on user-generated content, boasting over 100,000 videos from 180 countries that showcase honest and frank travel experiences. Sally is planning a global push for NaviSavi's booking features, allowing more people to organize their whole trip within one platform.
"We’re finally starting to see female founders leading tech companies. Nothing was going to stop me from dreaming up an idea and running a company that's fully technology-based"
Co-founders
Kellee Mikuls
Richard Tom
Company
Swish Boom
City
Omaha
Downloads
900+
# of employees
2
Kellee is a commercial real estate broker and mother of three. When she struggled to be present during professional events – or find quality time with her husband – she had the idea of creating an app that would make it easier to book babysitters. Her brother-in-law and co-founder, Richard, is a software engineer and father of three. They worked together to design Swishboom, an app that connects parents and child carers through people’s networks of friends and family. Every babysitter comes recommended, doing away with interviews and concerns about hiring strangers.
“It's cool to see how people across the country are using the app. I've never been in the tech space before, but I feel proud that my idea is making people’s lives a little easier”
Founder
Luke Hansen
Company
CompanyCam
City
Lincoln
Downloads
227,400+
# of employees
169
Luke wanted a way for his family’s roofing business to organize job site photos, so he created CompanyCam. Contractors can take photos in the app, which are instantly visible to the whole team. Homeowners can also see how a project is progressing, which helps build trust between contractors and their customers. Luke hopes that CompanyCam encourages consistency, quality and accountability. The company is expanding, and constantly planning or adding new features and integrations - like a portfolio feature to help contractors attract new business.
“People search on Google Play for the kind of functionality we provide, and we run ads. So, we could not have the company we have without the platform. It wouldn't work”
Co-founders
Bryan Seck
Bill Udell
Lori McCarthy
Company
MyLink
City
Lincoln
Downloads
9,900+
# of employees
3
When Bryan worked as a homeless-outreach specialist, he helped people find shelter, get their car fixed and anything else they needed. He had a 100-page catalog of great NGOs in Lincoln provided by the Center for People in Need, but it wasn’t easy to share all this information. So Bryan partnered with Lori and Bill to create MyLink. The app – which works without Wi-Fi or 4G once downloaded – connects people with organizations that provide resources such as food, diapers, housing and mental health services. It also translates into multiple languages offline, for vulnerable communities that don’t speak English.
“My cornerstone belief as a person is equity. If everyone had an equal opportunity to succeed, we would be a different country”
Stories from Nebraska
Founder
Kristopher Gabelman
Company
Gilman Labs
City
Gardnerville
Downloads
30,000+
# of employees
1
Since his teenage years, Kristopher has been passionate about guitar - jamming across genres from blues to rock. After graduating with a software engineering degree, he turned his love of music into a business. Struggling to find a guitar tuning app that offered intuitive pitch-perfect results, Kristopher created True Guitar Tuner. The app empowers musicians of all styles, from guitarists to bass, banjo and ukulele players, to achieve perfect pitch. Kristopher has gained a young audience, so he donates instruments to local youth centers to get them into music. While he plans to keep enhancing True Guitar Tuner, Kristopher is currently developing a sports app as well.
"My friends’ kids use the app, and it gets them stoked to play instruments more. I’ve got the best feedback from them"
Co-founders
Anson Whitmer
and Tyler Sheaffer
Company
Mental
City
Reno
Downloads
50,000+
# of employees
7
Anson was inspired to study mental health by his uncle, who suffered from depression. He gained a PhD in neuroscience and went to work for a meditation app, where he met engineer Tyler. They knew that men can be hard to reach when it comes to mental health struggles and found that tech offered an immediate way to engage them, so they co-founded Mental: Strengthen Your Mind. It’s an app specifically designed to help men with features like physical challenges to teach coping mechanisms and AI counseling for those who may feel uncomfortable speaking to a real person. They’re now focusing on growing their AI memory to ensure they can offer the broadest assistance possible.
"Google Play has been fantastic for helping us get through to a new audience. It's really easy to work with and I love that it gives us tools to connect with new people"
Founder
George Meyer
Company
NearMe Entertainment
City
Las Vegas
Downloads
11,000+
# of employees
12
George was bummed after missing one of his favorite band's performance because he wasn't aware of it. With Las Vegas constantly buzzing with new shows, restaurants, and activities, even locals struggled to keep up. Determined to solve the problem, he became a rideshare driver to gain insight into the key issues before coming up with his solution: VegasNearMe. The free app puts everything fun to do or see in Vegas at people's fingertips. It includes great coupons and deals, resort maps, and thousands of curated video and audio clips. Next, George and his business partner Joe plan to take the NearMe solution global.
"We make use of so many other Google products and I love how everything comes together on Google Play. It's just been really easy and useful"
Co-founders
Alex Pasykov
Jake Vygnan
Company
Social Impact
City
Las Vegas
Downloads
7,030,100+
# of employees
100
Alex and Jake grew up in an environment that didn’t accept the LGBTQIA+ community. A shared friend introduced them, and they started building apps together. When they realized that queer people were looking for a platform that offered support and meaningful connections, they created Taimi. A dating app exclusively for LGBTQIA+ groups, it's also a social network where people can bond and feel safe. Alex and Jake are proud to partner with NGOs that provide mental health support for the community.
“Google Play is one of our key distribution channels as 50% of our audience uses the platform. I’d highlight the analytics on Google Play Console - it’s convenient and accessible”
Co-founders
Josh Simons
Baz Palmer
Company
Vampr
City
Henderson
Downloads
954,300+
# of employees
23
Josh had achieved rock fame in Australia, but failed to replicate his success in England. Without a manager, publicist and reliable band members, he found it hard to thrive in the music industry. Wishing there was a networking app to help, he was inspired – with fellow musician Barry – to create Vampr. The app is a collaborative platform, and has now enabled 7 million connections worldwide between musicians and industry professionals. With many early-stage performers using Vampr, Josh plans to add educational features about how the music industry works.
“We've gone from being a free platform that didn't generate any revenue to raising over 3 million dollars. Vampr is directly responsible for the creation of about 220,000 new original songs that have been released”
Founder
Al Mancini
Company
Neon Feast
City
Las Vegas
Downloads
1,430+
# of employees
1
As an entertainment journalist in Vegas, Al often found himself at the city’s best restaurants. He discovered a passion for food, and started writing about it. Al wanted to bridge the gap between traditional media and food apps, so he asked his network of chefs, critics and industry insiders: “Where do you send friends and family for a great meal?” Their recommendations formed Neon Feast, which lets Vegas tourists and locals find great food, from hotdogs to Michelin-standard dining. Next, Al plans to add more specialized lists, and explore expansion to other regions.
“Many people are intimidated by the idea of creating an app. I could never reach this audience without having an app available on Google Play. It's a way for me to connect to the most active audience out there”
Stories from Nevada
Co-founders
Robert Pitard
and Jason Noel
Company
RafflesNow
City
Windham
Downloads
3,400+
# of employees
8
Army vets Robert and Jason both found careers in tech after leaving the forces. They’d served in the Field Artillery but didn’t actually meet until years later through a car enthusiasts web forum. They became friends, and when Robert had an idea for an app, Jason was his obvious co-founder. RafflesNow: Raffle Fundraisers is a cash-free digital version of the 50-50 charity raffles that take place at many sport events. Robert had the idea while watching a hockey game when he had no cash, and all the ATMs were broken. They’re now marketing their business, and plan to launch in Canada soon, where 50-50 raffles are an even bigger part of sporting culture.
"Without Google Play we'd probably have half of our reach. Its scale makes a huge difference to our business"
Founder
Scott Adie
Company
Scott Adie
City
Manchester
Downloads
495,200+
# of employees
1
Scott has always loved playing bingo with his family – it's a tradition whenever they’re gathered together. An engineer by trade, he saw an opportunity to modernize the game, making it clearer and louder for his elderly relatives, while keeping it engaging for younger generations. Scott created Bingo Caller and released it without any marketing, but it quickly gathered traction. He says his game has become particularly popular in elderly care homes and homeless centers, where it’s now part of daily life. Scott has just redesigned Bingo Caller and left his job to become a freelance app developer. He is now working on ideas for more sociable family games.
"The suite of app performance monitoring tools offered by Google Play, including those for start-up time, crashes, and other metrics, is incredibly valuable to me"
Founder
Pablo Fuentes
Company
Rich-Apps.com
City
Manchester
Downloads
210,100+
# of employees
1
While studying computer science in Montreal, Pablo honed his coding skills by developing websites for his university. After moving to the U.S. in the 1990s, he created a computer game inspired by strategic card classics like rummy, which he often played with his mother and grandmother. His family became instant fans and the game quickly gained online popularity, leading to the mobile version, Skip Touch, where players compete against challenging AI. Keen to satisfy his loyal audience, Pablo continues to work on Skip Touch and other projects in his free time. Balancing this with his full-time job as VP of mobile applications, he finds relaxation in experimenting with new technologies to enhance his games.
"The ecosystem of card games has grown, but I've still kept a loyal base. I think that's phenomenal"
Co-founders
Len Morrissey
Mike Moore
Company
DraughtPick
City
Manchester
Downloads
200+
# of employees
4
Although Mike and Len came from different backgrounds – computer science and banking – they shared a love of technology and craft beer. This led them to create DraughtPick, an app that connects people to a wider range of breweries, based on their tastes. After officially launching in 2021, they've used their subscription service to partner with struggling breweries: they encourage members to spend their "draft tokens" trying out a new place in exchange for a free pint or appetizer.
“Google Play is great because it allows our app to be reputable. People can trust applications once they are available on this platform.”
Co-founders
David Coffin
Jennifer Coffin
Company
Cubby Notes
City
Dover
Downloads
20,700+
# of employees
2
Juggling parenthood and work can be difficult. When David and Jen had their first child, they wanted to know everything about his day – but constantly texting their nanny wasn't ideal. So David learned how to code, and together they created Daily Nanny. The app allows parents and childcare professionals to share information and pictures, log naps, meals, medicines and even developmental milestones. It can also be used to schedule a nanny's working hours. The couple's next step is to add a social feature, for parents to network and discuss their challenges.
“I’d like to create a community where nannies can discuss their profession, ask questions and get answers, and where parents can talk to other parents who might be struggling with the same things”
Co-founders
Bryn Lottig
Kendra Bostick
Company
Kikori
City
Durham
Downloads
1,000+
# of employees
6
Kendra was a school social worker, and Bryn an adventure program coordinator. They met at a Master’s program in Experiential Education – a methodology that promotes learning by doing. Facing a lack of resources for team building and social emotional learning, they decided to create their own platform. Kendra and Bryn launched Kikori in 2021, which offers 400+ activities for the classroom, as well as physically-distanced and virtual settings. They’re now looking to expand their reach, after receiving proposals for over 4,000 licenses.
“Social emotional learning is becoming more prominent, especially after the pandemic. Kids love the activities, and it's making teachers' lives a lot easier”
Stories from New Hampshire
New
Robert and Jason
RafflesNow
Windham, New Hampshire
New
Scott Adie
Scott Adie
Manchester, New Hampshire
New
Pablo Fuentes
Rich-Apps.com
Manchester, New Hampshire
Len and Mike
DraughtPick
Manchester, New Hampshire
Jennifer and David
Cubby Notes
Dover, New Hampshire
Kendra and Bryn
Kikori
Durham, New Hampshire
Founder
Matt Edzenga
Company
BlastZone 2
City
Cedar Grove
Downloads
33,600+
# of employees
1
Matt inherited his passion for video games from his father who always had some sort of gaming console or PC in the house. He composed his first video game, Blast Zone 1, on a graphing calculator. Years later, self-taught Matt learned to write 3D engine codes to create Blast Zone 2. This action-packed arcade shooter takes its cues from classic side-scrollers while paying homage to the games that inspired Matt. He continues to work diligently on the series, and is currently implementing new features to reduce latency and improve performance to showcase the capabilities of newer devices.
"My audience has a wide range. It includes younger children who play it for the first time, and older people who enjoyed similar games in their youth"
Founder
Kingsley Smith
Company
Quikthinking Software
City
Cherry Hill
Downloads
292,300+
# of employees
1
Inspired to tell the stories of African Americans, radio broadcaster Kingsley launched a series of apps centered around black historical figures. His title Black History Inventors takes viewers through the lives of 51 trailblazers, including the fascinating biography of Madam C.J. Walker, who rose from poverty to become the first female self-made millionaire in America. True to his radio background, Kingsley has released all stories as audio in addition to written text. He recently wrote a book about his broadcasting career, but now also plans to launch a game soon.
"I wanted to highlight the creative visionaries who were inspired by a specific need they saw in the marketplace, and who invented the solution to address that need"
Co-founders
Schoneck Shoaf
and Cesar Kuriyama
Company
1 Second Everyday
City
Edgewater
Downloads
3,800,000+
# of employees
16
When visual effects artist and self-confessed tech nerd Cesar quit his job and started an art project documenting his life in one-second clips, he didn’t expect it to become his business. But people loved it and kept asking if they could do it too. So, together with his best mate Schoneck from art school, he launched 1 Second Everyday: an app which makes it easy to record day-to-day moments and turn them into a movie. As well as adding new features to 1 Second Everyday, they are building an audio-journaling app, which will let people speak directly into their phone or smartwatch to document and keep their private thoughts.
"We were really early to Android, but it has paid off and being on Google Play has been huge for us. It’s enabled us to monetize the app and given us a whole new revenue stream"
Co-founders
Sergey Oreshko
Vasili Smaliak
Company
MyNetDiary
City
Cherry Hill
Downloads
3,600,000+
# of employees
20
Working in tech, Sergey and Vasili wanted to build a long-lasting business. They knew that people would always strive for better health – and food apps were scarce at the time – so they settled on nutrition. MyNetDiary is a calorie counter, food log and meal planner. Its food database contains over a million carefully-verified items. This year Sergey and Vasili have focused on new content, adding 500+ recipes and articles about nutrition. Their next step is to partner with professionals, such as personal trainers and dieticians, to increase their reach.
“There are hundreds of people saying that our service changed their lives. We have diabetic people using this app to get their glucose under control. That makes me happy, people getting healthier by using our app”
Founder
Jhamar Youngblood
Company
The Blast App
City
Newark
Downloads
400+
# of employees
1
Supporting disadvantaged people is one of Jhamar’s guiding principles. His interest in technology blossomed when his mother got a computer – the first person in their building to do so. After launching an app for women’s safety, Jhamar was approached by a mentorship program about a new project. Mentor Newark provides a safe, engaging environment for mentors and mentees to connect. It's currently being used in 15 high schools across the city, and next Jhamar wants to add some fun features to increase exchanges within the app.
“Google Play gives more access to distribution. We test on different Android devices to make sure as many people as possible can use the app”
Founder
Sapna Rajput
Company
Crazy Money
City
South Plainfield
Downloads
27,000+
# of employees
12
When the pandemic hit and many lost their jobs, Sapna felt inspired to create something of value. Crazy Money connects entrepreneurs with investors who have the funds to make new projects possible. The platform allows people to post their business plans, and investors to bid on them. For those who already have a company, Crazy Money lets them sell the business or stakes. Sapna’s next step is to reach out and support college students, who typically have brilliant ideas but little money.
“There are investors who are willing to put money into projects, but don’t have time to work on it. And there are people with ideas but no funds. My app is a platform where these people can meet”
Stories from New Jersey
New
Matt Edzenga
BlastZone 2
Cedar Grove, New Jersey
New
Kingsley Smith
Quikthinking Software
Cherry Hill, New Jersey
New
Schoneck and Cesar
1 Second Everyday
Edgewater, New Jersey
Sergey and Vasili
MyNetDiary
Cherry Hill, New Jersey
Jhamar
The Blast App
Newark, New Jersey
Sapna
Crazy Money
South Plainfield, New Jersey
Co-founders
Maximiliano Genolet
and Sebastian Ayala
Company
Muu App Nutrition
City
Albuquerque
Downloads
17,000+
# of employees
2
As an experienced vet, Sebastian spent his time traveling and working on farms, tending to animals in Argentina and Australia. One day while feeding cattle, he needed a tool to calculate the right amount of feed. To his surprise, no app existed so he enlisted his childhood friend and software developer Maximiliano to help create his own. They engineered MUU Nutrition - an app that uses scientific data to work out the proportions of protein, vitamins and minerals animals need - cutting down on feed waste and increasing milk yields. The pair also have an app for calculating pet nutrition and are developing versions for chickens, pigs, and horses.
"It’s been a long journey for both of us, but Google Play has been really good to us, it’s made everything so much easier"
Founder
Lan Qiang
Company
Practice Trades
City
Albuquerque
Downloads
9,400+
# of employees
1
During her MBA studies, software developer Lan identified a significant challenge in stock analysis: the need to gather data from numerous websites to obtain a comprehensive view of the financial markets. This gave her the idea to create an app that could do the legwork, compiling and analyzing this information. Enter DataMelon: a one-stop-shop for investors, providing market analysis and stock evaluation across all major currencies - including cryptocurrency. Lan recently added a real-time newsfeed to help traders make informed financial predictions. Next, she's laying the groundwork for a marketing campaign in the hopes of reaching more people.
"Mobile apps are the best tools. You can carry them with you and access them anywhere, anytime. That’s why I developed DataMelon for mobile"
Co-founders
Vitaly Vinogradow
and Alex Miranovich
Company
liveapp
City
Santa Fe
Downloads
1,000+
# of employees
3
Tech entrepreneur Vitaly started his career with an online electronics shop. Then he built a restaurant app and landed a job with a global fintech company. Now he’s on app number two, liveapp - Video Stories Nearby, which he co-founded with his friend Alex. It’s an instant video channel where people can discover what’s happening in their local area and get a real-time glimpse into bars, restaurants and events before they visit. It’s been launched in London, New Mexico, New York and San Francisco already, and Vitaly plans to grow that list soon. They've been working with businesses to draw in more live content and hope to become the go-to guide for exciting occasions and spontaneous socializing.
"We have seen a lot of interest from people and we see how our base is growing step-by-step. It motivates us to move forward"
Co-founders
Maurizio Leo
Colin Cochran
Joe Rakolta
Company
Terminal Eleven
City
Albuquerque
Downloads
19,933,300+
# of employees
3
Maurizio was a “typical engineer kid”, taking everything apart to see how it worked. After graduating, he joined an aerospace company, where he met co-founders Joe and Colin. In 2009, their prototype stargazing app came third in an Android Developer Challenge, and they used the prize money to set up Terminal Eleven. Their app, SkyView, lets people hold their phones up to the sky and see constellations, galaxies, planets and satellites overhead. The app now has millions of downloads worldwide, with the pandemic bringing a huge influx of people raring to get outside and try something new.
"There is an innate curiosity, people want to see what's happening above. Skyview helps them to unlock what's up there."
Co-founders
Andrea Landaker, Rachel Helps and Clarissa Helps
Company
Metasepia Games
City
Albuquerque
Downloads
50,000+
# of employees
3
Andrea is an elementary teacher and educates girls on STEM careers. She has written games since childhood, making choose-your-own-adventures on spreadsheets in the 90s. While raising her family, she founded Metasepia Games with her sister Rachel, and Rachel’s sister-in-law Clarissa, who draws the characters. They make games that help people be more mindful about relationships. Our Personal Space is a “marriage survival simulator” set on a space colony. Currently, Metasepia is experimenting with multilingual games, and a simulator about taking care of an older parent.
“Parenting and marriage skills are really important. But there’s no low-risk way to practise them. In a game, you can try things and see the consequences. Practice making good decisions and get those neural pathways in place"
Co-founders
Mengyuan Du
Company
Lubap
City
Santa Fe
Downloads
44,600+
# of employees
4
Computer enthusiast Mengyuan Du wanted to make an app that helped protect online privacy. Flash Number allocates people one or more temporary phone numbers and re-routes incoming calls automatically to their main number. This makes it more secure to buy and sell online, list multiple numbers for businesses, or swap details when dating new people. Mengyuan Du has been refining Flash Number's security to stop misuse, adding an images feature to text messages and voicemail. She's also lowered the cost for subscribers and improved the user experience.
“I like that you can have different stages of testing before rolling out. Even for the production, when you submit your new release, Google Play will automatically check it and run some testing reports”
Stories from New Mexico
New
Maximiliano and Sebastian
Muu App Nutrition
Albuquerque, New Mexico
NM
Lan Qiang
Practice Trades
Albuquerque, New Mexico
New
Vitaly and Alex
liveapp
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Joe, Colin and Maurizio
Terminal Eleven
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Andrea, Clarissa and Rachel
Metasepia Games
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Mengyuan
Lubap
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Founder
Muoyo Okome
Company
App Magic Entertainment
City
New York City
Downloads
581,000+
# of employees
1
Software engineer Muoyo is a prolific app creator, having built hundreds of them. His company, App Magic, includes a repertoire of weather apps, photo editors, and numerous games. One of his most successful titles is Color Noir Coloring Book. Featuring a variety of pictures celebrating Black culture and beauty, it offers a meditative experience. Upon launching, the app was flooded with positive feedback, fostering a thriving online community where people share their creations. Muoyo diligently updates the content, but ever the innovator, he's also developing new apps and experimenting with AI.
"I chose Google Play to reach a wider audience and ensure easy access and enjoyment"
Founder
Doron Kempel
Company
Bond
City
New York City
Downloads
260,000+
# of employees
70+
As deputy commander of a special forces unit, Doron negotiated the release of hostages. Now a tech entrepreneur, he has combined his instinct for protection with his love of innovation. The creation of the Bond platform was inspired by the need to protect the people he loves when they walk alone at night, or are alone in the vicinity of strangers. The security app offers immediate assistance, including video calls with security officers, and emergency calls. It can even deploy drones for a quick response and potential deterrence. Bond operates in 28 countries, providing individuals in vulnerable situations with a much-needed sense of security. Next, Doron hopes to make Bond as globally popular as insurance.
"We're dealing with something that is very precious to people, so we need to be on Google Play because it has tremendous credibility and reliability"
Co-founders
Anthony Edwards Jr
and Janique Edwards
Company
EatOkra
City
New York City
Downloads
100,000+
# of employees
2
Anthony has always loved technology, teaching himself to build websites during his school years. He joined the military to work on helicopter avionic systems, and after an honorable discharge, pursued a degree in computer science. He developed EatOkra with his wife Janique. After moving to a new neighborhood and struggling to find food that reminded them of home, the couple decided to create an interactive directory of Black-owned food businesses. The app allows restaurateurs to post menus and share stories of their cultural heritage. Anthony says that EatOkra has directed nearly a million dollars to Black-owned restaurants in New York City alone. Currently, they are enhancing EatOkra's AI to make it even easier for people to discover their favorite meals.
"This became a passion project. I built it from the ground up, and for four years I was that guy in the basement working all hours of the night to get it done"
Ceo
Matt Cooper
Company
Skillshare
City
New York
Downloads
3,100,000+
# of employees
190
Matt is passionate about online marketplaces, and believes that connecting teachers and learners can transform lives. He started his career in investment banking before working for several startups. He's now the CEO of Skillshare, an online learning platform with more than 30,000 video-based classes to inspire creativity and encourage growth through learning. People can subscribe to the catalog of classes, learn at their own pace on any device, and receive feedback from teachers and other students. Skillshare’s ethos is a free market for education, where anyone can learn and anyone can teach.
“Skillshare has amassed millions of members and 13,000 teachers from all over the world. There is no way we could achieve such a global audience without being on Google Play”
Co-founders
Andrew Garrahan
Kati Nawrocki
Company
ComputerLunch
City
New York
Downloads
20,000,000+
# of employees
5
Andrew is a computer programmer from Washington DC, Kati is an illustrator from Germany. It was New York – and a shared love of art – that brought them together. Their studio, ComputerLunch, now makes free science-based games that are beautiful to look at. Recently, they’ve worked on a huge expansion of their human evolution game Cell to Singularity, adding a whole new solar system. The couple is proud to have a diverse team, with women making up half of their team.
“Some people would assume that a company with as many downloads as we have would be a much bigger operation. We are very indie, a very small team. Google Play has helped us a lot with that”
Founder
Tanya Van Court
Company
Goalsetter
City
New York
Downloads
186,000+
# of employees
47
Tanya’s mom was a teacher, so she's always considered education vital for closing the gaps in society. After two Stanford degrees in industrial engineering, she'd made a career running tech businesses. When her eight-year-old daughter asked to open an investment account for her birthday, Tanya was inspired. She thought that, if she could give kids access to financial education, she might change their world for the better. So she created Goalsetter, a banking app that explains economic concepts to kids in a fun way – while helping the family build healthy money habits.
“Black and Latino families might have a negative net worth in the coming years. Part of my mission is to reverse that curse and close the wealth gap in America by providing financial education to next generations”
Stories from New York
Founder
Sheri Atwood
Company
SupportPay
City
Charlotte
Downloads
100,000+
# of employees
12
As a child of divorce, Sheri wanted to approach her own separation carefully and maintain a friendly dynamic with her ex-partner. Recognizing the potential complexities involved in co-parenting their daughter, she decided to create a way to simplify it. While also traveling the world as a Silicon Valley executive, she taught herself to code and built SupportPay. It’s an app that brings transparency to the costs of parenting. People can upload receipts, payment schedules and even split bills. It’s now expanded beyond ex-couples to anyone sharing life expenses, and Sheri hopes to build AI tools to make splitting costs and settling disputes even easier.
"I felt like there was a vast hole in tech solutions that serve my age range and my situation, so I’m grateful to be able to build an app that solves real-world problems"
Founder
Fred Stutzman
Company
Freedom
City
Chapel Hill
Downloads
1,000,000+
# of employees
22
While studying social media behavior in the mid-2000s, Fred experienced firsthand how addicting these platforms could be. In fact, when the café he frequented to write his dissertation first got Wi-Fi, he found himself checking his socials instead of working. This inspired him to create a desktop computer program that could block any and all distracting platforms for 45 minutes. He named it Freedom, reflecting the feeling that came from temporarily switching off the noise. Now a mobile app, Freedom is particularly popular with screenwriters, novelists, and other creatives who love how productive it makes them. The team recently added the option to lock media overnight. Next, they want to integrate with wearables too.
"We’ve created something that is touching the lives of people all over the world. And that’s thanks to being available on global marketplaces like Google Play"
Co-founders
Tom,
Jamie,
Connor and
Miles Jackson
Company
Foursaken Media
City
Raleigh
Downloads
23,000,000+
# of employees
4
From childhood, brothers Tom, Jamie, Miles and Connor all loved playing games - even making up their own pen and paper versions together. One Christmas, they decided to take their hobby to the next level and combine their artistic skills and programming know-how to create a digital game. Several successful releases later, and the siblings launched their own studio Foursaken Media with over 20 games spanning multiple genres — each recognizable thanks to their distinctive 3D graphics. In their hit action game, Noblemen 1896, players lead an army to victory against enemy squads. Despite their popularity, the brothers still run the company all by themselves, ensuring they maintain full creative freedom.
"We started our own company to enjoy what we do and have fun at our jobs. Even if a game does really well, we still have an appetite to create more because that’s what we love to do"
Co-founders
Grant Williard
Joe Elliot
John Williard
Company
JouleBug
City
Raleigh
Downloads
89,000+
# of employees
10
Combining his passions for technology and the great outdoors, Grant created an app to encourage people – in a fun and social way – to care about the environment. Together with co-founders Joe and John, he built JouleBug. The app weaves together gaming, social media and educational tools. With nudges, badges and a points system, people compete with friends and family to save the most energy and reduce the most waste. JouleBug has partnered with companies to run challenges which reward and incentivize its audience worldwide.
“When we added JouleBug in Google Play, the audience doubled”
Founder
Dan Gardner
Company
polyGeek
City
Asheville
Downloads
500,000+
# of employees
2
Dan was inspired to create RunPee after needing the toilet halfway through a three-hour movie. Using alerts, the app tells people the best time to escape to the bathroom without missing key scenes – and gives a synopsis of what they do miss. Following requests, Dan also built in warning alerts for extreme violence and animal suffering. On average, he adds three new movies per week, and over the past year, has completely rebuilt RunPee to improve its look and performance. Dan even met his wife through the app, when developing the Chinese version.
“Google Play is very transparent about what we need to do. There's not a lot of obstacles. Testing and releasing it to the public is really easy. I love it”
Co-founders
Nancy Su
Eddie Liu
Company
Inquiry Health
City
Chapel Hill
Downloads
1,555,400+
# of employees
2
Nancy and Eddie met at college as psychology majors. In 2014, they were searching for mental health apps and couldn't find any – so they decided to create one for people with depression. Eddie taught himself to code, and Nancy got advice from professors on content. They now have 20 apps, including CBT Thought Diary, a mood tracker to help people identify, challenge and reinterpret negative thought patterns. In the past year, they've updated their apps' interfaces, and added lots of new content. Their goal is to offer a single platform for all mental health needs.
“I like the scale at which I can make an impact through apps. It might not be the same as in person, but even if it's just a little bit, then it's very worthwhile. Our mission is to spread evidence-based information”
Stories from North Carolina
New
Sheri
SupportPay
Charlotte, North Carolina
New
Fred Stutzman
Freedom
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
New
Tom, Jamie, Connor and Miles
Foursaken Media
Raleigh, North Carolina
Joe, John and Grant
JouleBug
Raleigh, North Carolina
Dan
polyGeek
Asheville, North Carolina
Eddie and Nancy
Inquiry Health
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Co-founders
Kyle Courtney,
John Bakke,
Evan Carufel and
Adam Wogsland
Company
RentEase Development
City
Oakes
Downloads
100+
# of employees
7
Fifth-generation farmer Kyle spent several years restoring a century-old brick farmstead he bought. As the renovation progressed, he learned new skills and borrowed tools from neighbours. The experience sparked the idea for RentEase. Kyle called on his network of friends to seek out some co-founders and teamed up with developer Evan, attorney Adam, and entrepreneur John to launch the app that enables people to rent out items they're not using – like tools and machinery – to others in their community. The team is now focused on growing their business within their tri-state area, before expanding nationwide.
"I have a great team. None of us like failure - it's not in our vocabulary so we will keep grinding until we make this app a success"
Co-founders
Alice and
Marlo Anderson
Company
National Day Calendar
City
Mandan
Downloads
29,800+
# of employees
15
While wondering about the origins of National Popcorn Day, self-confessed tech geek Marlo was inspired to start a blog about quirky celebratory dates. It quickly gained media attention and popularity, leading him and wife Alice to turn it into an app. National Day Calendar is the alternative day source for people wanting to celebrate everything from Hug Day to Cognac and Cheese Day. Beyond the app, they’ve launched a podcast, comedy romance series and a cookbook centered on national days. They’re currently improving the app’s navigation to make it simpler for people to use and they plan to gamify the app with big prizes too.
"Our app is all about the power of celebration and how it can help people overcome obstacles in life"
Co-founders
Greg and
Amanda Kilwein
Company
Attractwell Studios
City
Fargo
Downloads
1,300+
# of employees
10
Husband and wife duo Greg and Amanda embarked on a wellness journey to improve their family's health, discovering the positive impact of coaching along the way. Inspired to share the benefits, they combined their backgrounds in health care and software industries to create AttractWell. It's an all-in-one app designed to streamline the lives of coaches by giving them access to essential business tools. It enables professionals to generate leads, grow email lists, manage websites, create memberships, and process payments. With the latest feature, people can now film and add course content directly from their smartphones without the need for expensive recording equipment. The couple also hopes to offer custom apps to coaches in the future.
"We’ve had a great experience with Google Play – it’s very expedient. You push the button and the app is available shortly without a lengthy approval process"
Co-founders
Kyle Weik
Company
Beach Interactive
City
Fargo
Downloads
3,073,300+
# of employees
3
Graphic designer Kyle has great memories of his childhood in wild Alaska, and wanted to combine his passion for the outdoors with technology. His company's main title, On My Own, is a survival adventure game that was first released on Google Play and now has over 3 million downloads. Its popularity spurred Kyle to launch an updated version, with enhanced artwork, better interfaces and more engaging characters. His next step is a sequel, already under development.
“The low barrier of entry that Google Play offers was a great way for us, early indie developers, to get in. It's been the most viral platform for us”
Co-founders
Brandon Medenwald
Company
Simply Made Apps
City
Fargo
Downloads
69,400+
# of employees
6
While working in a tech company, Brandon noticed that it was tricky to know which employees were at the office and which were off work – or on a lunch break. He decided to create Simple In/Out, with co-founders Bill and Justin. The app reimagines the traditional punch clock by automatically checking employees in and out of work. A decade after investing $100 each and setting up in Brandon’s basement, the Simply Made Apps team now has four apps on Google Play, helping businesses manage staff more easily.
“This app isn’t going to make us billions, but it allows us to do all the things we want to do, which is hire people and keep everybody happy while building amazing stuff”
Co-founders
Jake Joraanstad
Ryan Raguse
Company
Bushel
City
Fargo
Downloads
19,000+
# of employees
225
Bushel began as a tech company focused on agribusiness, and launched its first app in 2016. Jake and Ryan wanted to help farmers be more efficient and grow their businesses. They developed a mobile platform – tailored to each client – that syncs farmers’ operations with grain facilities. The apps include grain prices and cash bids, and allow contracts to be signed digitally. Next, Jake and Ryan plan to add information on topics like sustainable farming, and eventually build a fintech platform to handle transactions. Bushel now works with 2,000 grain facilities across the US and Canada.
“Our vision is about helping farmers spend more time with their loved ones at the end of a long working day”
Stories from North Dakota
New
Kyle, John, Evan and Adam
RentEase Development
Oakes, North Dakota
New
Alice and Marlo
National Day Calendar
Mandan, North Dakota
New
Greg and Amanda
Attractwell Studios
Fargo, North Dakota
Kyle
Beach Interactive
Fargo, North Dakota
Brandon
Simply Made Apps
Fargo, North Dakota
Jake and Ryan
Bushel
Fargo, North Dakota
Co-founders
John Arnold
and Jeremy Handel
Company
Handelabra Games
City
Cleveland
Downloads
235,600+
# of employees
7
Handelabra Games founders Jeremy and John were devout gamers from a young age. They met in the late '00s and bonded over a shared love of video gaming and development. After achieving success with their satirical President-on-President boxing title Uncle Slam, the duo were delighted to secure the rights to the beloved superhero tabletop game Sentinels of the Multiverse. This comic book-inspired card battler combines an epic comic book mythology with elements of intrigue and strategy. They are currently working on new deck-based games, including an expanded second version of Sentinels of the Multiverse.
"We love the community that has sprung up with Sentinels. We love working with them and watching them discover new things about the game"
Founder
Arijit Sengupta
Company
SmartRF Solutions
City
Dayton
Downloads
38,500+
# of employees
2
When Arijit and his family were moving home he found it hard to keep track of the endless boxes. As a university professor teaching app development and with an eagerness to get organized, he put his skills to use and built Moving Organizer Lite alongside his tech-minded son Sandeep. The app helps your move by itemizing, measuring and storing photos of each packed box. It's more than a business though; Arijit says the real joy is working with Sandeep. Father and son learned Spanish together to translate the app, and love updating each other on new tech and coding methods. They're now working on ways to help people share information with moving companies.
"My son is a perfectionist. When he works on the app, he wants everything to look beautiful. The front-end design is all him and I'm very proud of it"
Co-founders
Joshua McFarland
and Michael Dwyer
Company
Jernung
City
Cincinnati
Downloads
11,380,900+
# of employees
2
IT graduate Joshua was bitten by the travel bug after landing an internship with an international airline. After a spell of globetrotting, he taught English in China where he used an app to learn how to write 3000 Chinese characters in under a year. He was amazed he could retain them, and together with college friend Michael, it inspired him to launch Write it! Korean: an app which helps people master Korean writing in a fast and enjoyable way. In total, the Chinese-speaking pair have nine apps covering writing in other languages like Japanese and Hebrew. In the future, they plan to expand the content and add more features to help people memorize vocabulary.
"Having the app on Google Play has been the most important thing we did. It is simply so easy to use"
Co-founder & ceo
Matthew Benson
Company
eFuse
City
Columbus
Downloads
226,900+
# of employees
60
While studying entrepreneurship at university, Matthew wrote a 180-page report on the esports video game industry. His research became the business model for eFuse, a social network and media platform for gamers. They can showcase their skills, join communities based on their favorite games, and find opportunities within the industry: jobs, scholarships and tournaments. Matthew aims to empower aspiring creators and gamers, and help boost their careers. In the past year, eFuse has tripled its audience and raised investment of $8 million.
“Google Play has helped us broaden our reach. And it's been easy for engineers to interact and get things out quicker”
Founder & ceo
Madison Mikhail Bush
Company
Point
City
Columbus
Downloads
5,000+
# of employees
12
When Madison couldn’t find a good app to search local volunteering opportunities, she decided to create something herself. With no tech background, she pulled together a team of volunteer developers from all over the world. After a few years and lots of hard work, Madison and her team launched POINT. The app now helps over 700 non-profits nationwide manage their volunteering, from supporting the environment to helping foster children. Nearly 200,000 volunteer hours have been logged in POINT, as people venture into their communities to do good.
“With Google Play, we meet people where they are. We can give anyone using our app a starting point to do something good”
Founder & ceo
Steve Potash
Company
OverDrive
City
Cleveland
Downloads
16,000,000+
# of employees
500
In the 80s, lawyer Steve created an electronic law book – and its success helped him build OverDrive, a global digital book company. Over time, his career led him into app development. OverDrive's most popular reading app, Libby, is free and has revolutionized the way libraries connect with communities. Libby allows people to access a library’s e-book and audiobook collection from anywhere, on their phone or tablet. The app is available in 10 languages and has become a popular free e-learning tool around the world.
“We're one of the largest suppliers of digital books representing about 30,000 publishers, with content in over 100 languages. And Libby is made available through over 77,000 institutions globally, in 10 languages”
Stories from Ohio
Founder
Dr. Pinkey Patel
Company
Myri Health
City
Norman
Downloads
8,300+
# of employees
6
In the midst of a tornado warning tearing through Oklahoma, Pinkey found herself in the hospital, pushing back on a doctor to have the natural birth she wanted. Post-delivery, she was left disappointed with the aftercare she received. As a pharmacist, personal trainer, and pre and postnatal corrective exercise specialist, she knew she had plenty of knowledge to share. This led her to building Myri Health, an AI driven platform that transforms pregnancy and postpartum support. She plans to integrate with Google Health Connect for fully cohesive care. By working with rural and public health organizations, and launching in countries with higher maternal mortality rates, Pinkey wants to improve healthcare for moms everywhere.
"Google Play gives us a global snapshot. We're planning a product revamp and will leverage Google Play even more strategically to fuel our growth"
Founder
Josh Butcher
Company
Josh Butcher
City
Choctaw
Downloads
119,300+
# of employees
1
Josh's interest in coding began when playing floppy disk games on his first PC. But after a 20-year span working as a welder, he finally pursued his dream of studying for a degree in computer science. Used to spending hours looking up measurements for a number of welding settings, he decided to put his programming expertise to use and create Pocket Welder Helper, an app that provides welders and pipe fitters with all the necessary calculations in one place. Josh is particularly proud of how the app merges his welder career with his new profession as a programmer. Next, he wants to add a feature to help guide people through the complicated process of cutting pipe.
"When I started the project, I was motivated to do something that could combine both my professions as a welder and a programmer into one. The app helped me in both roles"
Founder
Deana Glenn
Company
Calmerge
City
Oklahoma City
Downloads
300+
# of employees
1
Deana, a nurse practitioner with a neurosurgery background, was frustrated by the lack of clear communication surrounding the snack rotation at her son's pre-kindergarten. This inspired her to create Calmerge, where parents can list and share details about their children's medical conditions and food intolerances. Motivated by her daughter's severe shellfish allergy, she is also involved in legislation requiring allergy training for teachers and child caregivers. Dedicated to helping parents communicate their children's health needs, the app is completely free for both schools and guardians. Next, Deana aims to add more languages and expand the app's use to churches and camps.
"Through giving teachers the ability to easily see who has food allergies, we can keep our kids safer when they are at school. It's important to help bring awareness and have this tool to protect children"
Co-founders
Edna Martinson
Clarence Tan
Company
Boddle Learning
City
Tulsa
Downloads
4,300+
# of employees
14
Clarence is a game design expert and Edna has a background in marketing and operations. They both share a passion for education and combined their skills to create Boddle - a 3D game helping kids learn math. Using AI, Boddle lets parents and teachers tailor learning content and track performance. The game's characters, 'boddles', have bottle heads. Each time a player learns something, the boddle fills up with knowledge – which can be poured out to grow things or for superpowers. The idea is that by collecting knowledge, kids can make the world a better place. Next, Edna and Clarence plan to add more subjects as well as allowing learning providers to upload their own content.
“It was great that we could have our game in Early Access. Being able to share the link and having parents and teachers testing it was really useful”
Founder
Philip Speake
Company
Ranchr
City
Poteau
Downloads
3,400+
# of employees
1
Thanks to Philip, mobile apps have reached ranching and cattle management. His Oklahoma farming background and a tech career started at a coding bootcamp led Philip to create Ranchr. The app helps small ranchers across the US, and as far afield as New Zealand and Australia, to manage their cattle records and statistics. Able to do this more accurately out in the field, the farmers save time and money. Philip is hopeful that, in the near future, Ranchr will connect farmers via forums and other communication tools.
“One thing I really like about Google Play is the fast approval time for updates; sometimes I can get something like a bug fix live and into people’s hands within 24 hours of submitting it”
Co-founders
Matt Srum
Ben Merrit
Company
Draykun Studios
City
Moore
Downloads
765,000+
# of employees
2
Ben and Matt are cousins. Through high school and college, they’d bounce ideas back and forth for game prototypes. After honing their programming skills, they founded Draykun Studios, named after Matt’s dog. Lab Chaos is an arcade game where you guide a blob called Fleck through different levels, shapeshifting from goo to metal and collecting “Goo-tonium” crystals. It's challenging and entertaining – which is Ben and Matt's main goal for their games. They're working on new Lab Chaos content for 2022, then hope to develop a new title.
“It's not our primary job. Both of us are fathers… I'm a single dad. And so it's amazing that we've been able to put something like this out, just from when we've had time in the evenings”
Stories from Oklahoma
Founder
Joel McDonald
Company
Joel McDonald
City
Portland
Downloads
128,000+
# of employees
1
Joel was making games at a young age, initially creating mods for his favorite first-person shooter. After graduating college, he started employment at a major studio. Captivated by a digital tree generator his friend posted online, he utilized its code to craft a game that stood in contrast to other mainstream titles. Prune is a tranquil and meditative cultivation simulator, in which players grow and shape a tree while protecting it from environmental dangers. Joel has recently added in new levels for the first time. Next, he hopes to find new ways to help others connect with nature.
"Google Play has helped me connect with a global audience. There are some markets where the game has done very well that I couldn't reach without it"
Co-founders
Kevin Long
and Sarah Smith
Company
The Dyrt
City
Portland
Downloads
2,683,900+
# of employees
25
Growing up in Northern Minnesota, Sarah spent her childhood summers camping with her family. As an adult, her passion for the outdoors was reignited when she moved to Oregon, a state renowned for its forests and mountains. Frustrated by the lack of online resources for campers Sarah, alongside her husband Kevin, created The Dyrt: an app where people can book campsites across the U.S. with the support of community-driven reviews and ratings as well as comprehensive route planning. Two new features were recently added to inform people of campsite cancelations and free camping spots. Next, the couple plan to take The Dyrt abroad, uniting campers worldwide.
"I kept a notebook in my car to write down which sites I liked. We just kept saying, why doesn't someone build this? And then one day we said, why don't we?"
Co-founders
Damon Slye
and Sarah Skibinski
Company
Mad Otter Games
City
Eugene
Downloads
1,800,000+
# of employees
6
In the 1970's, Damon fell in love with game development. Computers were in their infancy, but his passion blossomed into a successful 15-year career running a gaming business. After a long break, Damon returned with Villagers & Heroes, a classic RPG that transports players through a quest-driven fantasy world filled with wizards, warriors and monsters. The title has fostered a thriving virtual community, where they host in-game events and forge connections. Damon's wife and co-founder Sarah helps with creative writing as well as community management. Up next, they plan to introduce a new homestead feature, allowing players to personalize and decorate their in-game homes.
"With multiplayer games, people from all over the world end up playing together. They make friends, some have even gotten married"
Founder
Sam Cordes
Company
Pluot Studios
City
Portland
Downloads
100,000+
# of employees
1
When Sam was a kid, he enjoyed writing short stories and creating games to play with his grandad. In college he wanted to be a screenwriter, but then found his love for app development. Sam codes for a living and as a pastime; on evenings and weekends, he's been building apps for writers. The most popular is Pluot, which helps creatives plan a story, structure a screenplay and reorder scenes. Recently, after many requests, Sam built in the ability to add images to characters and locations in the app.
“I like the possibility of testing different logos and descriptions of the app in the store listing. I can then track which ones lead to more downloads and better reactions”
Co-founders
Ana Consuelo Matiella
Sada Naegelin
Company
De Las Mias
City
Portland
Downloads
270+
# of employees
3
An expert in health communication, Ana wanted to encourage Latinas to live a healthier life, and avoid problems the Latin American community is predisposed to. She partnered with her daughter Sada, who has an MBA in design thinking, and created De Las Mías – which translates as "you are of my people". The app includes healthy Latin American recipes, self-monitoring tools, fitness workouts, and a social support feature for women to share their achievements. To increase their reach, De Las Mías is partnering with community health centers dedicated to improving the health of Latinas.
“We quickly realized De Las Mias had to be a digital solution because so many Latinas are so wired. Many are early adopters of smartphones and social media, and often on Android and Google Play”
Co-founders
Jake Brownson
Farhad Shakiba
Company
Brainium Studios
City
Portland
Downloads
57,000,000+
# of employees
35
Jake and Farhad met at tech school, and teamed up in 2008 to make classic games for mobiles, such as Solitaire, FreeCell and Sudoku. Motivated by a love for exceptional design and user experience, they founded Brainium. Every detail – the way objects move on screen, the music and colors – is carefully thought through. They want players to enjoy themselves, and their feedback guides the evolution of the company. With 57 million+ downloads on Google Play, Jake and Farhad want to keep expanding, and are always looking for new talent to join their team and help them innovate.
“We are humbled by player feedback. It ranges from players saying our games help them relax, to others getting comfort when dealing with serious illness. These stories remind us that gaming is more than a way to pass time”
Stories from Oregon
Founder
Cherry
Company
The Trans Me
City
Bethlehem
Downloads
10,000+
# of employees
1
During her transition, Cherry had a lot of questions she struggled to find answers to. This inspired her to create TheTransMe: a space where transgender people can come together, make supportive friends and have their queries answered. It also allows them to post their transition journey, connect with doctors for medical advice and share their location to facilitate real-life meet-ups. A self-taught web designer and programmer, Cherry coded the app herself with help from a close group of tech-savvy, creative friends. In the future, she hopes to increase the reach of the platform and support more trans individuals across the globe.
"My goal with the platform is to offer support for people navigating gender dysphoria and transition within a safe community space, accessing a wealth of trans information"
Founder
Henry Borenson
Company
Borenson and Associates
City
Allentown
Downloads
100,000+
# of employees
1
Born in Cuba, Henry moved to Venezuela and then to the U.S. where his parents emigrated. He graduated college and became a math teacher at an under-resourced inner-city school, and then at a New York school for gifted students. Witnessing the universal struggle with algebra, he developed a patented system using visual guides and trained teachers in his method. His app, The Fun Way to Learn Algebra, was a natural progression, and he says positive feedback often comes from adults who struggled with math at school and have finally managed to make sense of it. He now plans to market his app abroad, helping others beat their algebra anxiety.
"We want people to enjoy math and have confidence in their abilities, and Google Play helps us to reach those people all around the world"
Founder
Shiv Gaglani
Company
Osmosis
City
Philadelphia
Downloads
500,000+
# of employees
112
Shiv was an aspiring doctor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine when he created an app with his anatomy partner to help med students learn on the go. It proved so popular he decided to work on it full time. Osmosis Med Videos and Notes features over 2,000 short, engaging videos, covering everything a doctor needs to learn. It has been adopted by medical schools from the U.S. to Australia and they've recently added a content series for advanced clinicians. While visiting schools around the globe and gathering valuable feedback from students, the Osmosis team continues to launch additional resources for other healthcare professionals as well as patients and their family members.
"It's an incredible privilege to turn a side project into something that's so successful and to meet so many people who have directly benefited from what we've built"
Co-founders
Luis von Ahn
Severin Hacker
Company
Duolingo
City
Pittsburgh
Downloads
100,000,000+
# of employees
520+
Growing up in Guatemala, Luis was taught that education could reduce economic inequality. His mom insisted he learn English from a very early age. As a young adult, he moved to the US to study math and computer science. He became a professor and met his then-student, Severin. Together they created Duolingo, an app offering free, quick and fun language lessons. It's now one of the most downloaded language apps in the world, teaching 40 languages. Duolingo recently became a public company, which the founders hope will increase visibility, help them improve the app and reach even more people.
“Google Play is an extremely developer-friendly ecosystem. We rely on the various features to monitor our app performance, build for the next billion users, run insightful experiments, and sell to a global audience”
Co-founders
Matthew White
Katherine White
Company
Whitethorn Games
City
Erie
Downloads
452,700+
# of employees
28
When he was younger, Matthew often felt like an outsider among his friends – preferring video games with character development and good storytelling over action and warfare. 20 years later, Matthew has a PhD in Education and runs Whitethorn Games, which he co-founded with his wife Katherine. Matthew says their games are simple to play and need no previous knowledge. They're aimed at people who are looking for gentle, stress-free escapism.
“I find Google Play is more developer-focused across the entire ecosystem, and the support structure is better - things like API documentation is up-to-date, perfect and easy to find”
Founder & ceo
Leah Lizarondo
Company
Food Rescue Hero
City
Pittsburgh
Downloads
7,700+
# of employees
40
Leah studied technology and public policy. When she found out that 40% of food is wasted, she decided to take action. After setting up a food rescue operation in Pittsburgh, she created Food Rescue Hero. The app automates time-consuming tasks such as coordinating volunteers, food tracking and transport logistics. Other rescue organizations are now licensing the app’s technology to fuel their growth. To date, over 80 million pounds of food across 16 cities has been saved – from grocery stores, caterers and wholesalers – and redirected to people in need. Leah hopes to reach 100 cities by 2030.
“Each food rescue takes from 20 minutes to an hour and we've done over a quarter of a million trips. You can check the app at any time to find a nearby rescue that you can do”
Stories from Pennsylvania
New
Cherry
The Trans Me
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
New
Henry
Borenson and Associates
Allentown, Pennsylvania
New
Shiv
Osmosis
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Luis and Severin
Duolingo
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Matthew and Katherine
Whitethorn Games
Erie, Pennsylvania
Leah
Food Rescue Hero
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Co-founders
Trisha Ballakur
and Maggie Bachenberg
Company
Pointz Mobility
City
Providence
Downloads
3,300+
# of employees
2
During her gap year, Maggie cycled across the U.S. in just 70 days. On her journey she realized that it was difficult to find routing information specific to cycling. While studying Environmental Studies at college she met Trisha - a Computer Science major who was looking to get involved in a startup. The pair decided to launch Pointz, a cycling-focused app where safer rides are mapped out displaying real-time conditions like bike lane obstructions and warnings. They have just released a premium version offering customizable route maps based on people's bike types as well as roadside assistance. Next, the pair hope to expand outside of the United States and into Europe and Asia.
"With Google Play, it's easy to upload and move things from internal testing to creating open and closed testing groups. We've been using that flow for a while, and it's helped to catch a lot of bugs"
Co-founders
William Gasner
and Rob Lucier
Company
Rob Lucier
City
Block Island
Downloads
7,000+
# of employees
2
Digital marketer William grew up just off the coast of Rhode Island, on Block Island. His uncle, product manager Rob, made frequent visits there in his childhood. In fact, their family have lived there for 12 generations. Now a massive tourist destination thanks to its Victorian-age buildings and picturesque lighthouses, the pair are determined to tell the island's story. On the Block Island App, visitors learn about the island's ecology and conservation, as well as what to do, see and eat. They've recently added a feature where businesses can advertise within the app. Next, the duo plan to introduce a social networking feature, fostering communication and local announcements sharing between islanders and visitors.
"The Block Island App is a piece of technology that, unlike flyers or physical guides, can consistently be updated while also being eco-friendly"
Co-founders
Greg Fine
and Abbie Kohler
Company
ResusciTech
City
Providence
Downloads
3,600+
# of employees
2
Abbie and Greg met in college, studying biomedical engineering and electrical engineering respectively. Working at a hospital, Abbie overheard an EMT saying how difficult it is to perform CPR, and she was determined to find a solution. While Greg's computer science background came in handy for coding, Abbie leveraged her medical illustration skills to sketch the app's initial designs. With the support of local organizations, they built SMART Certification, an app offering CPR and first aid courses with real-time compression feedback. In the future, the duo plans to offer higher-level training for medical professionals as well as expanding beyond the U.S. and Canada.
"I've always been interested in technology and tools for preparedness that can help people to retain their agency and their power during medical emergencies"
Founder
Mike Melillo
Company
Dockwa
City
Newport
Downloads
14,700+
# of employees
65
While living in sailing hub Newport, Mike was invited out boating with friends. He was tasked with booking a marina space, but couldn’t reach anyone – so the trip was canceled. Dumbfounded by the lack of software for the boating industry, he wanted to make booking more efficient. After extensive consultation with marinas, Dockwa was launched. The app reduces the typical 20 booking steps down to just one. It handles payments and customer information, saving time for marinas globally while increasing their bookings and visibility.
”On Android we are growing Dockwa faster than on other platforms - about 112% year over year. That's been quite exciting. Our Google Play store listing acquisitions have grown about 80% from the previous year”
Founder
Kyle Corry
Company
Trail Sense
City
Glocester
Downloads
9,900+
# of employees
1
Kyle has always loved the outdoors. Many of his favorite hiking spots don’t have cellphone coverage, which meant he could never use mapping apps. To solve this, he created Trail Sense. Using a phone’s sensors, the app provides navigation, weather forecasts and astronomy – all offline – even estimating avalanche risk. Trail Sense enables lovers of the outdoors globally to enjoy a digital detox, but still have the tools they need to keep safe. Kyle is currently working on an offline map feature, using signs found at the heads of hiking trails.
"Google Play has helped me reach more people, and that’s very useful in terms of developing the app. For example, supporting different grid formats for countries that display coordinates in different ways, like the UK"
Co-founders
Luke Fleury
Case Olszewski
Company
Dibbs
City
Newport
Downloads
1,120+
# of employees
35
Luke met Case while networking to raise money for his real estate business. As a contractor, Luke knew from experience that there was a notorious problem in the construction industry: the bidding process. He’d spend hours calling vendors, and struggle to get quality supplies at good prices. So he teamed up with Case – who had a background in software – to solve the problem and recently launched Dibbs. The app helps suppliers, tradesmen and homeowners in Rhode Island to save time and money by exchanging project bids quickly and easily. They’re currently expanding to professionals in Massachusetts, and plan to scale nationally this year.
"We’ve had some really great feedback from people who are saving both time and money using the app. We hope to see this impact across the country as we grow"
Stories from Rhode Island
Founder
Don Matthews
Company
TheSpinningHead
City
Rock Hilll
Downloads
2,000,000+
# of employees
1
Don began coding at the age of 13, starting with simple computer games. He later earned a degree in computer science and has worked as a software engineer ever since. When Android phones entered the market, he designed a timer app that was met with success and even garnered fan mail from people who loved its functionality. Balancing his role as a software architect with his entrepreneurial ventures, Don developed Car Home Ultra, one of his most popular apps. It helps people manage their phones from within their cars, featuring shortcuts and large buttons for navigation, music, and calls. With the recent introduction of a subscription model, Don continues to innovate and expand his app portfolio.
"I've heard from several people who have phones mounted to wheelchairs and they use my app to help them in their daily lives. I'm pretty proud of that"
Co-Founders
Omni Jacala
and Phil Ogden
Company
Drizzle Games
City
Greenville
Downloads
1,900+
# of employees
2
Graphic design graduates and avid gamers Omni and Phil started dabbling with game development during college. Their goal was to create something that captured the thrill of speed running: the act of playing a video game as fast as possible, where people advance levels rapidly. Their game, Gutsy the Guinea Pig, has the unlikely hero attempting to beat the evil cats of the internet by navigating obstacles and retrieving keys to free his friends. The co-creators have recently removed ads entirely to improve the experience and added ways for players to view hints or skip levels they find too hard. Next, they are working on a new color-mixing survival game.
"Google Play dramatically reduces the barrier for entry because anyone can put a game on Play Store and that’s huge for small developers who don't have large budgets"
Co-founders
Chris
and Ryan McGarty
Company
7th Gear
City
Charleston
Downloads
2,952,500+
# of employees
2
Twin brothers Ryan and Chris are old hands when it comes to mobile app development, having published a number of titles together. When they both fell in love with fishing, they noticed how difficult it was to get accurate forecasts of weather and tides - so they set about creating their own predictor and forecasting service in the form of Tide Charts. The app is not just used by anglers, it's also popular with tugboat captains, surfers, and shark tooth hunters too. Now, the duo is working on customizing the interface for different outdoor activities, ensuring a tailored experience for everyone from beach walkers to boaters.
"Monetization through Google Play has been instrumental. It's given us the flexibility to keep supporting the app and develop it into something truly great"
Founder
Melissa Halliburton
Company
BringFido
City
Greenville
Downloads
173,000+
# of employees
40
Whenever Melissa wanted to travel with her dog Rocco, she struggled to find hotels that would accept him. She had to call round each one to ask about their pet policy. Once, she almost missed a friend’s wedding when she and Rocco were not welcomed at a nearby hotel – and had to stay an hour away from the venue. That day, Melissa decided to create a pet-friendly travel database, which later became BringFido. The app lists pet-friendly hotels, restaurants and dog parks, with over half a million approved venues around the world.
"We are on a mission to make the world a pet-friendly place. Google Play has helped us with our global reach, and it is exciting to watch the number of people using the app grow"
Co-founders
Richard Leahy
Royce Cho
Company
Wander Technologies
City
Charleston
Downloads
7,000+
# of employees
4
It can be hard to find useful, inspirational and up-to-date information about the area you’re in – whether you're local or a tourist. That's why Richard and Royce launched Whim Social, a curated neighborhood listings app with news, reviews and recommendations for their hometowns of Charleston, SC and Charlotte, NC, and now cities like New York and Nashville. With the help of independent local experts, they’re putting dynamic local knowledge into the hands of residents and visitors: from natural disaster warnings to celebrity sightings.
"People are looking for things that are not the ordinary. There is an appetite for that kind of information. It can be news about live events, disruptions, natural disasters or anything that affects people locally"
Founder
Sean Brakefield
Company
Infinite Studio
City
Greenville
Downloads
30,484,300+
# of employees
2
Sean describes his company as a labor of love. He started creating apps in college, combining his passion for art with a knack for problem-solving. Infinite Painter, his most successful app, is an advanced digital painting resource. Budding and professional artists can customize their brushes, select paper textures and push boundaries with layering, perspective grid tools and an unparalleled choice of colors. Sean gathers all feedback to guide the company’s innovation, and has a five-year plan to disrupt and evolve the digital design space.
"It started off as a passion project, but I realized that there were people who appreciated some of the work that I was doing, and it grew into what it is now"
Stories from South Carolina
New
Don
TheSpinningHead
Rock Hilll, South Carolina
New
Omni and Phil
Drizzle Games
Greenville, South Carolina
New
Chris and Ryan
7th Gear
Charleston, South Carolina
Melissa
BringFido
Greenville, South Carolina
Richard and Royce
Wander Technologies
Charleston, South Carolina
Sean
Infinite Studio
Greenville, South Carolina
Founder
Justin Hoogestraat
Company
Surreal Development
City
Lennox
Downloads
5,000+
# of employees
1
Justin developed a passion for reverse engineering cars instead of growing corn and beets on his family's farm. At college they began building tuning tools to sell to motorists to make certain makes of vehicle go faster at a fraction of the dealership cost. When they were just 19 he created Gretio, an app that helps car owners repair and optimize their models affordably. The app scans the engine, hardware and software, learns from it, and provides a personalized setup for the driver. Justin plans to expand into electric vehicles and support more companies worldwide.
"People love the app because of the advanced diagnostics it gives them which is all based on the reverse engineering I do"
Founder
Matt Paulson
Company
MarketBeat
City
Sioux Falls
Downloads
50,000+
# of employees
20
A lifelong tech enthusiast, computer science graduate Matt was still in school when he created his first personal finance blog. Motivated by a desire to help people by giving them the tools to make informed financial decisions, the blog morphed into MarketBeat. Using the app, investors of all levels can navigate the stock market and make smarter, data-driven investments from their mobiles. He's recently redesigned the watchlist feature so people can monitor their stock portfolio on the go and the next iteration is in development with additional tools and functionality. In the future, Matt wants to provide more personalized insights based on investors' interests.
"Google Play's integration with Android devices ensure that people have a safe and enriched experience which helps us foster trust and reliability"
Founder
Carla White
Company
Hiro.fm
City
Sioux Falls
Downloads
1,000+
# of employees
2
Carla was an early adopter of mobile applications, launching a gratitude journal app in the early 2000's. Later, while working as an online coach, she discovered not everyone could make her live calls, meaning they'd miss out on important advice. One woman requested recordings be sent to her and after a while revealed the audios had equipped her to save her suicidal son's life. Inspired by their story, Carla created Hiro.fm: an app for experts to share knowledge and help people learn new skills in areas such as health, relationships and entrepreneurship. Hiro.fm will soon launch new features like video and image sharing in addition to audio, and flexible pricing to ensure accessibility for all.
"Google Play has helped us grow faster because it's easy to use and has enabled us hit a bigger market"
Founder
Scott Olson
Company
Collective Weather
City
Sioux Falls
Downloads
72,700+
# of employees
4
Science and technology have always been a passion for Scott, who started programming at the age of eight. He studied Atmospheric Science, and chased storms in his free time. Scott was looking for a business idea and settled on creating an augmented-reality weather app. Tornado Vision allows people to track tornados, hailstorms and lightning within a 45-mile radius. Primarily a safety tool, the app has also been adopted by storm chasers. Scott plans to build another app for weather enthusiasts, and develop Tornado Vision with more comprehensive data for first responders.
"We wanted our app to be available on Google Play so we can reach the masses and help more people be safe"
Co-founders
Renee Tinker
Mick Tinker
Company
Color My Life
City
Sioux Falls
Downloads
1,400+
# of employees
2
Renee has a degree in computer science, but her favorite hobby is distinctly non-digital. Over a decade, she bought so many paper crafting supplies that she couldn’t keep track of them. So, with her husband Mick, she created an app to organize her collection. Color My Life works as an inventory of craft supplies, with storage location, color tags and duplicated-item alerts. Renee and Mick plan to add a new feature to bring the community together, connecting crafters with suppliers they might not know. They also want to expand into other types of crafting.
"Google Play gives us great visibility on our sales. It’s really easy to track month by month how we’re growing. It makes us focus on the things that are going to make a difference"
Cto
Ed Rowe
Company
Farmers Business Network
City
Sioux Falls
Downloads
12,000+
# of employees
900
Ed is a computer scientist who joined FBN (Farmers Business Network) at the very early stage of the company. He was excited by the founders’ idea of using technology to help farmers. As their audience spends much of their time out in the fields, the company developed an app to make it easier to access information. Farmers can log activities like planting and harvesting, then use the data to improve their methods. They can compare seeds, use data to get better insurance and loans, bulk-buy products like fertilizer and crop protection, and connect with other farmers in the community.
"We feel like we've made a difference with helping farmers get better deals. They get better, more transparent information on things like product performance and product pricing. 'Farmers first' is our tagline"
Stories from South Dakota
New
Justin
Surreal Development
Lennox, South Dakota
New
Matt
MarketBeat
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
New
Carla
Hiro.fm
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Scott
Collective Weather
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Mick and Renee
Color My Life
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Ed
Farmers Business Network
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Founder
Tyler Larson
Company
Larson Media
City
Nashville
Downloads
29,400+
# of employees
1
As well as being a guitar maestro from a young age, Tyler fell in love with making videos using his VHS camera throughout his college years. He then started improving his own guitar tutoring skills by watching YouTube videos, and began to upload and share his own musical talents. This inspired Tyler to learn how to code and create Guitar Super System. The app was initially designed as a web application, but is now a subscription service helping people of all levels learn guitar - whether it's mastering technique or understanding music theory. Tyler has recently added a major update and next he aims to introduce live streaming to his international cohort of students and newcomers.
"Investing in an app makes me feel like I've got to really get the most out of it. So it's a really cool motivational tool as much as it is the foundation of my business"
Co-founders
Nathan,
Julius Hubbard
and Justin Zimmerman
Company
Firesight Studios
City
Greater Chattanooga
Downloads
54,400+
# of employees
3
Julius and Justin met while working as firefighters in Chattanooga, both coming from backgrounds where opportunity wasn't always easy to find. Justin was a programmer, Julius was a designer, and their complementary skill sets led them to collaborate on multiple projects before deciding to work together on their shared passion: video games. Julius brought his brother Nathan on board as an investor and consultant. Together, the trio created Palette Splash— a charming puzzle game where players mix and match colors to complete challenges. In the future, they aim to make bigger games and tell more inspiring stories.
"We went to Google Play first, because we knew it was a great way to get the game out there. It was a no-brainer"
Co-founders
Ted
and Antonia Alspach
Company
Bézier Games
City
Louisville
Downloads
1,155,000+
# of employees
8
Married couple Ted and Antonia love board games so much they started making and selling them alongside their tech careers in Silicon Valley. It led to the creation of Bézier Games and evolved into a full-time job. Noticing a growing trend in digital applications to help augment or enhance physical games, they decided to make apps to supplement the board titles they had developed. The first was One Night Ultimate Werewolf, which acts as a digital gamemaster, coordinating, narrating and providing timed countdowns. The app boosts the experience and makes it easier for new players to understand. It's proven so successful that the couple is currently creating new apps for their other games.
"We have complementary skills that help when running the business together. My wife is great at the things that I don't like doing, and vice versa"
Ceo
KC Estenson
Company
GoNoodle
City
Nashville
Downloads
5,889,800+
# of employees
45
GoNoodle's mission is to be a force of joy, health, and self-discovery for kids and the adults who love them. Their educational video platform, which encourages children to move, is used by 95% of US public elementary schools. With a career in digital media, KC joined GoNoodle as the CEO in 2018 to grow the business, strike new partnerships, and ensure that new content aligns with their mission. They now have a team of 45, and KC is delighted by the feedback from parents and teachers, who love to see their children and students activate their minds and bodies.
"We wanted to make sure our apps were available to as many people as possible and we really like the reach and scale Google Play provides"
Founder
Katy Allen
Company
Artful
City
Nashville
Downloads
126,600+
# of employees
5
Katy loves the experience of writing by hand in an elegant planner. She wanted something that was aesthetically pleasing and could sync with her and her husband’s digital calendars – but couldn’t find a solution. So Artful Agenda was born. She started with a web-based calendar, imitating traditional planners with colorful covers. Soon there was huge demand for an app, and its success has propelled the company forward. Katy is having a busy year: she’s hired a full-time developer, added a drawing feature, and made Artful Agenda more customizable.
When I launched the web-based browser, people asked all the time for a mobile app. So once we had that, that was when Artful really took off"
Founder
Roshan Gamage
Company
Roshan Gamage
City
Chattanooga
Downloads
15,000+
# of employees
1
Roshan taught himself to make video games as a young kid, and has always loved sci-fi. Wanting to make something different from anything he'd played, he created Enigmata: Stellar War. A space battle game, the player inhabits a Unit Commander whose job is to explore the galaxy and build a base to defeat enemy swarms. It had great feedback, so Roshan completely redesigned it to launch on mobile. His hard work paid off: Enigmata now has a dedicated following, and Roshan just updated the game with a new level.
"Around 2011, defense games were really popular, and I wanted to create my own spin. Something that was sci-fi, in space and different"
Stories from Tennessee
Founder
William Francis
Company
Cluck Eye Tea
City
Dallas
Downloads
33,500+
# of employees
2
Tech-focused William shares his lifelong love of video games with his son, and has long dreamed of developing a title with his help and input. Over the past two decades - enlisting a troop of 11 nieces and nephews as playtesters - William has created 6 games. The most recent is Sharks vs Mermaids, a precision shooter where players protect the treasures of Atlantis from a host of malevolent sea dwellers. William is responsible for the game's design while his musician son contributes with the soundtrack and effects. Popular with young people, Sharks vs Mermaids has recently earned a Teacher Approved badge. His next project is a game based on safaris and wildlife photography.
"I don't feel like I would have been able to do this without Google Play. The ecosystem is great for small indie studios"
Founder
Edward Balassanian
Company
Aimi
City
Austin
Downloads
122,600+
# of employees
25
Edward's entrepreneurial journey began at 12 when he started to code by modifying games. After attending university at just 16 and later embarking on a flourishing career as a software engineer, he was determined to set out on his own. Inspired by his awe of DJs who mix tracks live, Edward fused his passion for music and technology to create Aimi Player. The app allows people to interact with music composed in real-time by Aimi's AI, making it fun and easy for everyone to experience. Today, Aimi is loved by fans, artists and creators worldwide. Next, the team is developing features for more interactive experiences and plans to release a commercial version of the app for businesses.
"Our mission has always been to make music interactive and fun"
Co-founders
Leslie Omaña Begert
and Mark Begert
Company
FabuLingua
City
Austin
Downloads
10,000+
# of employees
9
When Leslie and Mark became parents, they were determined to make sure their children learned another language. Both speak multiple languages after growing up and working in different countries and felt it was an essential skill to have. When the couple couldn’t find the right tools to support their son and daughter to learn Spanish they created FabuLingua. The app helps 2 to 11-year-olds learn new words through engaging games and fun interactive children’s tales. Mark and Leslie have 16 stories in the app with 12 more in development. They are building a version for educators and plan to launch into international markets teaching English to Spanish, Hindi, Mandarin, and Japanese speakers.
"What we really value about Google Play is its excellence: the ease of use, the ability to quickly bring products to market, and the capacity for ongoing testing and refinement"
Co-founders
Courtney Caldwell
Dr. Tye Caldwell
Company
ShearShare
City
McKinney
Downloads
24,800+
# of employees
15
Tye, who owned a salon and barbershop for 28 years, and Courtney - a marketing professional - noticed a problem faced by many independent stylists. They had to sign long-term contracts or pay commission to rent space to work. So the couple created ShearShare, which lets stylists rent space by the day with no commitments. Over the past year they've added new features such as a beauty supply store, and an analytics dashboard to help fellow professionals maximize their earnings. With listings across 900+ cities, ShearShare just celebrated expanding their offices and getting a new investor on board.
“We are helping small business owners find professional space to work - when and where they need it, for a price they can afford”
Co-founders
Gerald Youngblood
Candice Youngblood
Company
Tankee
City
Austin
Downloads
91,100+
# of employees
6
Gerald and Candice’s son loves to watch gameplay. But the videos can often be mixed up with adult-oriented content, which concerned them. Gerald remembers a mentor from his old tech job asking him if, in five years, he wanted to tell his son he had helped to build a safer digital environment. The answer was obvious. The couple created Tankee, a family-friendly video platform and gaming network. Growing fast, it’s now started producing its own content. Recently, Tankee received the Teacher Approved badge from Google Play, as a high-quality app for children.
“Becoming a dad was the main reason behind developing this app as it only happened because my son began showing an interest in my job” “We couldn't connect with as many people and build the way we wanted without being on Google Play. We've interacted with so many in the Google ecosystem. It's made a huge difference for our platform”
Founder
Eric Mora
Company
CareSnap
City
Houston
Downloads
4,500+
# of employees
7
When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in 2017, Eric’s home healthcare business lost a lot of confidential paperwork and access to all records. As a result, he decided to switch to a mobile-first business model. Two years later, Eric launched CareSnap. It's a community-focused app that connects at-home patients with health agencies and caregivers, making the home healthcare system more efficient. Since the pandemic, he’s started licensing the platform’s software to other agencies in Texas and beyond.
“Sole traders tell us that they feel empowered to manage every aspect of their business after using our app”
Stories from Texas
Co-founders
Chandler Rogers
and Jace Kendrick
Company
Relay Health
City
Salt Lake City
Downloads
28,500+
# of employees
7
Chandler and Jace met while volunteering in New York and undertook computer science courses together in Utah. It was here, inspired by his own struggles throughout high school, that Chandler pitched the idea for Relay– an app that helps those battling addiction to break cycles of isolation and relapse. Through the app people can set goals, identify personal triggers, celebrate recovery milestones, and most importantly connect with others. They recently introduced a live meetings feature, offering an approachable way to chat about recovery. The duo behind Relay have big plans for the future, working with clinicians and AI models to recognize behavioral patterns and help people make better-informed health decisions.
"Google Play handles things like payment processing and currency conversion and that allows us to focus on what we care about most"
Co-founders
Gabriel Vanrenen
and Maria Ly
Company
Skimble
City
Salt Lake City
Downloads
20,000,000+
# of employees
2
As a youngster, Maria had the opportunity to join the Canadian national cheerleading team and compete internationally. Afterwards, she studied computer engineering and moved to San Francisco to work with tech. A lifelong gym and fitness enthusiast, she fused her passions to create Workout Trainer AI with her husband and co-founder Gabriel. Targeting from newbies to seasoned exercise fanatics, the app provides people access to thousands of routines powered by sophisticated AI to help match and recommend workouts with their goals. Next, Maria strives to continue her work by adopting new AI technology and accommodating the app to cultures around the world.
"The Google Play developer tools have really helped us expand our horizons. As AI technology and developer tools expand, I see us using them even more"
Founder
Corrine Ellsworth-Beaumont
Company
Know Your Lemons Foundation
City
Salt Lake City
Downloads
34,600+
# of employees
5
When Corrine lost her grandmothers and a childhood friend to breast cancer, she felt compelled to bridge the gap between awareness and education. Using her skills as a graphic designer, she created Know Your Lemons - an app and tool in early detection, helping women recognize signs and symptoms of breast cancer as well as educating them on mammograms and self-examination. With lemons as a visual stand-in for breasts, the app helps work around censorship and breaks down taboos surrounding breast health. Supported by a team of first-class volunteers - or 'Lemonistas' as she likes to call them - Corrine plans to bring gamification to the app where people can earn badges for completing monthly self-examinations and more.
"The app explains 12 symptoms, how to self-exam, and provides a screening plan that educates in such a unique way that makes it approachable and actually fun to be proactive about breast health, no matter your age or gender. Anyone can be impacted"
Founder
Geraldo Ramos
Company
Moises Systems
City
Salt Lake City
Downloads
7,050,000+
# of employees
40
When Geraldo was seven, his mom changed careers from civil engineering to computer science. Watching her work left him in awe, and he started his first tech company at 15. Geraldo also has a passion for music. His app Moises uses AI to remove voices and instruments from any video or audio file. Guitarists can take out the guitar part to play along; singers can remove vocals to make a karaoke track. Geraldo wants to empower anyone to be creative without needing expensive equipment. Moises was elected Best Personal Growth app 2021 by Google Play.
“Our mission is to democratise access to cutting edge audio tools to everyday musicians and empower creative potential. To do that, we need Google Play because that's the place where most of our audience is”
Founder
Jesse Mecham
Company
YouNeedaBudget.com
City
Lehi
Downloads
1,000,000+
# of employees
150
Jesse was studying to be an accountant when he and his girlfriend Julie decided to get married. With no money and a baby on the way, he had the idea to sell the budgeting spreadsheets he’d created for himself. In 2004, YNAB (You Need A Budget) was born. The app helps people – families in particular – prioritize goals and better understand their finances. With detailed reports showing spending throughout the month, it identifies areas for improvement. On average, new budgeters save $600 in their first two months, and $6,000+ in their first year.
“We want to be a potent force for good to people. Google Play is a platform that enables us to be cost effective and still profitable while allowing us to continue to grow”
Founder
Clark Stacey
Company
WildWorks
City
Salt Lake City
Downloads
46,560,000+
# of employees
55
An English Literature and Philosophy graduate, Clark got into technology by teaching students how to research online in the early days of the internet. He then became interested in text-based adventure games. This marked the beginning of WildWorks, which started with console games before becoming mobile-focused. Their flagship app Animal Jam is a fun, safe virtual playground where children can inhabit their favorite animal while learning about science. Over the past year, Clark has included content created by players, to celebrate their creativity. His next step is to explore augmented-reality features.
“In the kids category, the rules are different. You need to be very respectful of the audience, their privacy and security. Google Play gives us the tools to do that”
Stories from Utah
Co-founders
Christine Dodson
and Sascha Mayer
Company
Mamava
City
Burlington
Downloads
97,400+
# of employees
53
As new mothers and colleagues, Sascha and Christine felt frustrated by the lack of private spaces to use a breast pump while traveling on business. Having met at a design studio, the duo used their expertise to create purpose-built Mamava lactation pods for work and public spaces. Accessed via the Mamava app, breastfeeding moms across the U.S. and Canada can find the nearest pod or lactation space in which to nourish their newborn comfortably and privately. Next, the pair are taking steps towards taking Mamava international, starting with U.S. military bases overseas.
"We monitor Google Play reviews and respond to them as needed, which is a super helpful tool to understand how people are feeling about the app"
Founder
Cyriac Joseph
Company
Painalog
City
Barre
Downloads
7,200+
# of employees
1
During a career break spent traveling the world, Cyriac discovered the benefits of Thai massage, igniting a passion to share it with others. Fusing this ancient practice with his deep fascination for Trigger Point Therapy, he used his degree in business administration and launched Painalog. The app helps individuals discover the source of their joint and muscle discomfort, and through a series of interactive prompts and instructional videos, they can learn tailored exercises for relief. Cyriac’s overarching mission is to bring the app to streaming services, and he works tirelessly to add value by continuously expanding his app’s knowledge base.
"I wanted to create something which would let me get this knowledge out into the world so it would be easy to use and available to everyone wherever they are"
Co-founders
Maud Maciak
and Gabriele Gigante
Company
GoWhee Technologies
City
Londonderry
Downloads
1,600+
# of employees
5
Maud always loved traveling and promised herself that parent life wouldn’t curtail her adventures. When her son was two, she and her husband took him on a six-month trip around Europe, and the experience sparked the idea for GoWhee. It’s a travel app that highlights inclusive days out, family-run eateries, and child-proof accommodation. Maud teamed up with engineer Gabriele, who she met online, to build it and they have recently launched a GoWhee stamp of approval for verified family-safe places. They are now planning a connectivity function that will enable parents to share their travel experiences.
"There’s something brilliant about going out with the whole family - out of the house, away from the laundry pile and the responsibilities, and you just go and create memories"
Co-founders
Dan White
Michael Nedell
Company
Localvore
City
Burlington
Downloads
5,000+
# of employees
3
When Dan left his job at a consumer money-saving company, he decided to create an app: something that saved people money, but also did good for the business community. With co-founder Michael, Dan created Localvore. It works by giving consumers in Vermont access to local restaurant offers in exchange for a small subscription fee. Localvore supports small businesses – it's free for restaurants to use – and promotes spending in the local economy. The app is proving invaluable for restaurants during the pandemic, and has supported 12,000+ citizens experiencing food insecurity through the Vermont Everyone Eats program.
“In our experience, when we're pushing updates through Google Play, it is straightforward and operationally efficient”
Co-founders
Michael Wood-Lewis
Valerie Wood-Lewis
Company
Front Porch Forum
City
Burlington
Downloads
5,900+
# of employees
24
Michael and Valerie were just starting their family of four kids when they moved to Burlington. But with few friends close by, they struggled to connect with their community. This sparked the idea for Front Porch Forum, an “online neighborhood grapevine”. The app helps neighbors connect and build community by sharing recommendations, buying, selling and giving away household items, and much more. Its purpose is to make the neighborhood a friendlier space. Michael and Valerie are keeping Front Porch Forum small and local, serving every town in Vermont.
“Google Play helped facilitate our reach and retain mobile-centric customers who were not satisfied with our mobile browser experience, and now they're glad to have the mobile app version”
Co-founder & ceo
Toby Sola
Company
Brightmind Meditation
City
Burlington
Downloads
9,300+
# of employees
3
"Finding that meditation made him feel healthier, Toby refocused his career on teaching it to others. Unimpressed by the meditation apps available, he collaborated with co-founders Christian and Loredo to create Brightmind. The app combines strategies and tools to help people integrate independent meditation into their daily lives – without having to rely on guided meditations. Toby’s mission is to offer high-quality instruction that's comprehensive and educational. He and his co-founders have just launched a major design update for Brightmind, alongside more in-depth content."
“We get emails from people suffering from chronic illness. Brightmind is opening up entirely new aspects of resilience that they never thought possible. It offers a bedrock of support for them, as they go through something really tough”
Stories from Vermont
New
Christine and Sascha
Mamava
Burlington, Vermont
New
Cyriac
Painalog
Barre, Vermont
New
Maud and Gabriele
GoWhee Technologies
Londonderry, Vermont
Dan and Michael
Localvore
Burlington, Vermont
Valerie and Michael
Front Porch Forum
Burlington, Vermont
Toby
Brightmind Meditation
Burlington, Vermont
Founder
Múkami Kinoti Kimotho
Company
Royelles Revolution
City
Herndon
Downloads
1,000+
# of employees
1
Múkami wanted to empower girls and non-binary individuals to pursue their dreams in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) after watching her daughter playing mobile games. She realized that challenges in mental health, self esteem and limiting beliefs are disproportionately impacting girls, particularly those from underserved communities — a fact which might put them off pursuing careers in this field. This inspired her to create Royelles: a game anchored in fierce female avatars, like a global peace ambassador named Mara on her first mission to Mars which is voiced by an actual NASA scientist. She's excited to release more empowering gamified stories and learning modules, and a range of extended reality and AI-powered avatars based on the game’s characters.
"Our goal is to transform the lives of millions of girls. And we feel like we can do that through Google Play"
Co-founders
Obi Omile Jr
and Kush Patel
Company
theCut
City
Tysons Corner
Downloads
1,500,000+
# of employees
31
Obi and Kush have been best friends since high school. While they pursued different paths through college, their shared passion for software engineering brought them back together after graduation. One day, a casual conversation about the difficulty both friends experienced in finding a good barber led to the creation of theCut: an app - and in itself a network - that helps people discover talented professionals. On theCut, barbers can create profiles, add images, and garner customer reviews. With a community of millions of clients and barbers from across the U.S. and an ever-expanding roster of features, the dynamic duo plans to expand overseas.
"The app has enabled over 2 million new connections between barbers and people who need a barber. That’s created over $2 billion worth of appointments"
Founder
Joe Frankiewicz
Company
Colorwork Apps
City
Vienna
Downloads
3,500,000+
# of employees
1
Joe gravitated toward the tech industry while still in college. Starting out as a tester, he taught himself to program and began experimenting with Android. After he first published a knitting app for his wife, Joe realized that app development could be a viable business venture. Frustrated by the night light and noise machine that they would take on travels to help the kids sleep, Joe began coding his own solution. The result was Beautiful Night Light – which uses a selection of soothing sounds, lights and images to lull adults and children into a gentle sleep using just their mobile. Joe has now over 15 apps to support everyday issues and tasks, from reading lights to a knitting buddy.
"Google Play has been super easy to work with over the last 15 years. Plus, there’s a big community to help newcomers get started"
Founder
Eric J. Klos
Company
DailyBreath
City
Clifton
Downloads
20,000+
# of employees
1
Eric, a health IT expert, was shocked by an article about a girl who became paralyzed after a preventable asthma attack. He felt he could do something, and got inspired to create DailyBreath. The app allows people to track their respiratory problems in association with environmental factors such as allergens, pollutants and weather conditions. By pinpointing triggers and giving personalized insights, DailyBreath helps people to reduce their risk of asthma attacks. Its most recent feature warns people about invisible particles from forest fires.
“Google Play seems to be very invested in startups. The developer platform is easy to use and there is a lot of functionality in it”
Founder
Glen Moriarty
Company
7 Cups of Tea
City
Virginia Beach
Downloads
1,000,000+
# of employees
30
Glen is a psychologist and his wife is a therapist. Whenever Glen was struggling with a problem, talking to his wife made him feel better almost instantly. Realizing that everybody needs someone to confide in, Glen created 7 Cups. The app connects people in distress with trained volunteers and therapists, who offer emotional support through anonymous text messaging – as voice calls can be intimidating for some. 7 Cups now has “listeners” in 189 countries, covering 140 languages. The newest feature is a feed with personalized insights to help people feel better.
“There is a huge demand for mental health care and there aren’t enough therapists. Humans helping each other is a way to sort it out”
Co-founders
Padmanabhan Ramaswamy
Sam Meek
Major General Ray Smith
Company
Sandboxx
City
Arlington
Downloads
999,300+
# of employees
40
Veterans Sam and Major General Smith know that support from friends and family is key for a successful military career. After serving in the Marine Corps, they decided to create something to facilitate communication with recruits isolated in basic training and deployed service members. With help from software engineer Swamy, they created Sandboxx - an app allowing friends and family to write letters and upload pictures, which are printed and delivered to service members. Military families rely on Sandboxx as a powerful tool to stay connected, with 6 million letters shared annually between service members and their loved ones.
“We know that service members who receive letters through Sandboxx are more likely to make it all the way through basic training”
Stories from Virginia
Founder
Kate Tamera
Company
Euphoria
City
Seattle
Downloads
10,000+
# of employees
1
Kate had a harsh upbringing, so as a form of escapism she would spend time reprogramming her favorite games. A corporate career in tech followed, but she was dismissed soon after coming out as transgender and found herself coding websites to get by. It was while reflecting on how difficult and isolating her gender transition had been that she got the inspiration for her first app, Solace: a platform designed to help transgender individuals plan their transition and support them through the legal, medical and social steps. Other apps followed and she now wants to merge all of them under Bliss, currently a banking app for the transgender community, and make it a one-stop support platform.
"We want to help as many people as we can. We know how many folks out there need rescuers. And we're on a mission to make sure that no one gets lost in the fire of abuse"
Founder
Jason Stock
Company
Firecracker Software
City
Spokane Valley
Downloads
5,000,000+
# of employees
8
Jason's fascination with tech began in childhood. He devoured video games and even taught himself to build computers. But the spark for development truly ignited when a friend introduced him to the world of Android phones. Fueled by a need to conquer online word puzzles, Jason whipped up his app, Word Breaker, in just two nights. He now runs his own company, having recently launched an app to empower the blind community by teaching Braille. Inspired by his son's dedication to baseball, Jason's sights are set on a new challenge: create an app to help athletes optimize their workouts and training.
"I put Word Breaker online, and it organically started getting thousands of downloads every day. So, I owe a lot of that early success to Google Play"
Co-founders
Jordan Arnold,
Tony Tewes,
Rex Downham
and Ryan Hanft-Murphy
Company
Lightfox Games
City
Seattle
Downloads
2,555,800+
# of employees
13
From selling floppy disks to classmates at school to having seasoned game developers as parents, co-founders Ryan, Jordan, Rex, and Tony have always shared a deep connection to the gaming world. Forming LFG, they wanted to engineer a title that brought people together and create exciting co-op experiences. This became Knight’s Edge – a dungeon crawler multiplayer game where teams battle monsters in a race to come out on top. Next, they are hard at work launching their most recent release: a battle royale inspired casual physics fighter, Rumble Club, where up to 20 players can clash across a host of epic arenas.
"The acronym LFG for Lightfox Games is also Looking For Group. Because we want to create synchronous multiplayer experiences that bring friends together"
Founder
Chakrapani Appalabattula
Company
Bloomz
City
Redmond
Downloads
1,000,000+
# of employees
7
Because of a neurological disorder, Chaks spent nine months in and out of hospital – which led to anxiety about being disconnected from his kids’ schooling. To help protect other families from feeling this way, he developed Bloomz. The app is a multicultural, multilingual platform for parent-teacher communication. It allows schools, educators, and parents to safely and efficiently share information and ideas. Bloomz has recently grown beyond classrooms and became a unified communication platform for entire schools and districts.
“We focus on getting parents to become active partners in their child's education, because research shows that if you get the parents engaged, it can have a big impact on student achievement, test scores and equity”
Founder
Antoine Daher
Company
Patook
City
Kenmore
Downloads
700,000+
# of employees
1
Tony wanted to create an authentic way for people to make friends through an app. He noticed that existing friendship apps were often being used for flirting. He set about creating Patook (which means “hug” in Armenian) to encourage purely platonic friendship matches. The app is intelligent, and can even cancel conversations if flirty behaviour is detected. Tony has added a video-calling feature, and is now researching how to further support students and young adults who often feel lonely.
“My goal is for anyone who’s lonely, or wants to find friends, or be more in touch with their community, to find Patook.”
Svp, mobile studios
Nicole Opas
Company
Big Fish Games
City
Seattle
Downloads
180,600,000+
# of employees
294
Big Fish Games has been in the industry for over 20 years. Having started out making computer games, they now focus on mobile. Nicole and her team are constantly looking for creative ways to make games that are entertaining yet meaningful. Their latest release, EverMerge, is a world-building puzzle game that challenges the traditional fairy tale with a female protagonist. It’s had huge success, with 10 million+ downloads. In the past year, Big Fish has grown its team, with a focus on diversity initiatives.
“Google Play has fostered the creation of a larger developer community and provides technical approaches, policies, and best practices to ensure it’s a great player experience and a great developer experience”
Stories from Washington
Founder
Mohammad Nazari-Sharabian
Company
Zeeba Apps
City
Dunbar
Downloads
179,000+
# of employees
1
Civil engineering professor Mohammad always had a passion for the digital world but as an avid social media user, he was frustrated by the limited options for enhancing stories. To give people more choice, he built Fonto: an app that lets creators change fonts on their socials, boosting traffic by improving the visual appeal of their posts without any special settings. While he continues his work as a university professor, Mohammad hopes to one day make app development his main job. Besides Fonto, he is launching a mobile game and in five years plans to have launched a further ten apps.
"Although I don’t have a technical background I see huge potential in building apps like Fonto and want to develop more apps and games in the future"
Founder
Dr. Ali R Rezai
Company
WVU RNI
City
Morgantown
Downloads
1,500+
# of employees
26
As a neuroscientist and neurosurgeon, Ali’s priority has always been trying to keep his patients healthy. That mission led him and his team at the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute to create an app that could monitor those impacted by neurological and behavioral conditions, enabling earlier intervention and even preventing hospitalizations. RNI Health integrates data from wearable devices and medical records to provide a holistic view of a patient's well-being and behavior. Working with the person's medical team, they can help early with conditions like migraine, Parkinson’s and addiction, offering support and tailored treatment. Leveraging advanced data analysis, the team is now building a companion app specifically designed to aid in weight management.
"This is an evolution in medicine and healthcare, where we want to be proactive and have connectivity with our patients at home in an easy way"
Founder
Heather Cole
Company
MonRiverGames
City
Morgantown
Downloads
10+
# of employees
1
Teacher Heather developed a passion for game art and design through striking up a friendship with a game educator. She later ran a university game program before founding MonRiverGames, which helps students brainstorm and create original concepts. Her motivation was to provide local students with opportunities to explore game making as a career. Their first pilot group designed Purple House - set in a fantasy botanical world where players act as gardeners amidst otherworldly events. The latest group brought its concept to mobile. Many of the developers on the project have graduated and are now working in arts and technology professions. Heather aims to keep supporting her pupils to flourish and contribute to the local industry.
"Google Play is very helpful. We get things through really quickly and get feedback on what we need to improve for the next stage. Plus, it allows us to self-publish, which is great"
Founder
Natanel Eisenberg
Company
Concept & Innovation Group
City
Charleston
Downloads
12,200+
# of employees
1
Advertisers spend a fortune encouraging people to look at their images. Natanel – together with his college friend Chris – decided to create a game to add some fun to the process. In ConsumerBreak, players solve branded jigsaws and sponsored puzzles to win cash prizes, products and brand merchandise. The faster players finish puzzles, the higher they climb on the leaderboard. Natanel and Chris add new games regularly, with some featuring images from their audience to increase interaction.
“The app spawned from our creativity and a willingness to pursue an idea. We didn't know what it would take to get to where we are today, but we're still going”
Founder
Nicholas Kowalski
Company
Four Letter Word Games
City
Charles Town
Downloads
800+
# of employees
1
When Nicholas was a young kid, he loved inventing cardboard games with his friends – and built his first mobile game at 14. He was motivated by his mom, who’d let him off chores only if he was spending time being creative. Now a Computer Science major, Nicholas has reimagined the game he built at school. Germophobe is a skill-based arcade game where players fight pathogens with soap and sanitizer power-ups, and defeat evil “bosses” like Noon Nausea. Nicholas wants to keep developing Germophobe, driven by the satisfaction of knowing it’s bringing people joy.
“Google Play has helped me reach more people. Germaphobe was downloaded in about 20 countries, and I've not even been to 20 countries, so there's no way that could have happened”
Founder
David Trowbridge
Company
Clio Foundation
City
Huntington
Downloads
24,700+
# of employees
1
David originally created Clio for a history-class project at a West Virginia university. He wanted to entice his students to learn the history of the places around them. So, with no previous tech experience, he created an app to help them upload, share and store local historical research and interviews. Now, Clio has evolved to provide knowledge of museums and landmarks to all kinds of audiences across the US – with each entry created by a local historian. The app can also be used to book activities like historical walking tours.
“My students and I are collectively publishing something that is going to be used by the public. That brings us joy in every step of the process”
Stories from West Virginia
New
Mohammad
Zeeba Apps
Dunbar, West Virginia
New
Dr. Ali
WVU RNI
Morgantown , West Virginia
New
Heather
MonRiverGames
Morgantown, West Virginia
Natanel
Concept & Innovation Group
Charleston, West Virginia
Nicholas
Four Letter Word Games
Charles Town, West Virginia
David
Clio Foundation
Huntington, West Virginia
Founder
Aaron San Filippo
Company
Flippfly
City
Madison
Downloads
11,700,000+
# of employees
4
Aaron's rural upbringing limited his access to tech for much of his childhood. Nonetheless, he grew up fascinated by video games, and would look longingly at the 16-bit consoles of his youth in department stores. Inspired by the fast-paced, low-poly titles of the mid-'90s, Aaron and the team at Flippfly created Race The Sun: Challenge Edition. In this lovingly rendered racer, players bolt towards the setting sun, picking up speed boosts and avoiding obstacles along the way. With new gameplay modes and customizations in the pipeline, there's lots more on the way for players to enjoy.
"I was always fascinated with video games and tech. We'd go to department stores, and there'd be games on display. I'd just stand there for hours"
Founder
Jonathan Concepcion-Rodriguez
Company
Galactic Slice
City
Milwaukee
Downloads
2,520,000+
# of employees
1
Jonathan grew up in a Puerto Rican family in Brooklyn, later moving to North Carolina before settling in Milwaukee. He had always wanted to make video games, but ended up working in a warehouse in his 20s. After injuring his back at work, Jonathan pursued his dream and started an indie game company, soon releasing his first RPG: OneBit Adventure. The simple, pixel-based Roguelike survival game is now on its third iteration, with new character classes, professions and skills. Next, Jonathan wants to add in even more languages and incorporate story packs so that players can enjoy different game scenarios.
"I can get custom analytics on Google Play, and there are so many other tools provided by Google that make a lot of things very easy to manage and do"
Founder
Seth Westphal
Company
Westy92 LLC
City
Madison
Downloads
51,000+
# of employees
1
Fascinated by tech since 4th grade, Seth used to take apart electronics, igniting a passion for programming. He taught himself how to build apps, fueled by the belief that his imagination was the only limit. Still in high school, he created Checkiday, an app where people can research national holidays from all over the world. More than a decade later, Seth still works on it, personally verifying each holiday, how it's practiced and its legitimacy. With a database of over 5,000 occasions, Checkiday became a trusted resource for educators, students and journalists. Seth plans to add more detailed descriptions for each celebration and offer users accounts so they can follow their favorite holidays.
"Something I really enjoy doing is having a fresh idea, bringing it to life, and then publishing it and hoping that people also find value in it"
Co-founders
Justin Beck
Andrew Hanson
Company
PerBlue
City
Madison
Downloads
40,500,000+
# of employees
70
Bored with college homework, Justin and Andrew decided to create a mobile game. It became one of the first location-based role-playing games, with 6,000 downloads on the day of release. This was the start of their company PerBlue Entertainment, and the founders turned down lucrative job offers to pursue their dream of creating standout experiences for players. Now, their team of 70 is exploring different markets, while searching for new gaming trends and opportunities. Their latest title, Disney Heroes: Battle Mode, has over 10 million downloads on Google Play.
“Google Play has enabled us from day one to entertain millions of people around the world”
Co-founders
Colin Milligan
Zaid Altahat
Company
Sydetasker
City
Milwaukee
Downloads
1,000+
# of employees
7
While studying at college, Colin worked as a cleaner to earn some extra cash. Realizing the high demand for such services, he decided to use technology to scale up his business. He joined forces with Zaid, a local professor, and created Sydetasker. The app allows people to find skilled workers to do jobs like heavy lifting, cleaning and DIY – and lets workers earn money to supplement their main income. Launched in 2021, they’ve been steadily expanding into cities across Wisconsin.
“The coolest thing that I've seen is giving really nice people some supplemental income that they wouldn't have had without the app that we built”
Founder
Leonard Novati
Company
AfroCharts
City
Milwaukee
Downloads
100,000+
# of employees
10
Leonard was born in a Tanzanian refugee camp. As a momentary escape from hardship, people would gather around the radio to listen to music. When Leonard moved to the US, he was amazed by the technology, and how such small devices could connect people to the world. He taught himself to code, and embarked on a project which combined his passions. AfroCharts is a streaming platform dedicated to African music, which pays royalties to its artists. Leonard wants to promote the genre and showcase independent musicians from African countries.
“Google Play makes it easy for us to distribute the app, especially when there are updates. And we are constantly changing the app to meet what people are asking for, fixing issues here and there”
Stories from Wisconsin
Founder
Patrick Chavez
Company
GX Studio
City
Cheyenne
Downloads
765,100+
# of employees
1
Raised in small-town America, Patrick had been making his own software programs since the age of 13. Over the last decade as a professional developer, he has created numerous titles, including Lone Tower Roguelike Defense. This game allows players to farm, mine, and collect cards while protecting their settlements from invaders and the ravages of time. Patrick has watched it evolve into a thriving global community of players – including his six-year-old daughter – who test beta builds and provide feedback. He is dedicated to constantly adding new features and quality-of-life improvements to Lone Tower while developing new games and apps.
"Google Play has been great about helping and supporting small developers over the last few years"
Co-founders
Reed Merschat
and Colby Frontiero
Company
Salotto
City
Casper
Downloads
15,000+
# of employees
2
Reed and Colby have been friends since they were teenagers. For 35 years they've bonded over their shared love of different hobbies: motorcycles, cars, and most importantly pool. Recognizing the lack of a platform for non-professional pool enthusiasts to connect, they secured a grant and built Salotto. The app connects billiards players, allowing them to play competitively, track their progress and achieve international rankings. It has already facilitated the recording of over half a million games that would have otherwise gone undocumented. Next, they hope to deliver new connectivity features, like chat functionality, further enhancing social aspects for players.
"We gave the power to people to play when they want, where they want, how they want for as long as they want"
Founder
Mark Koep
Company
Campground Views
City
Laramie
Downloads
10,000+
# of employees
12
After launching a successful company helping small businesses get online, Mark and his wife sold everything, bought a van and traveled around the U.S. while working remotely. For 12 years they explored the country and discovered a love for camping and the outdoors. Realizing that many campsites are run by family-owned businesses, they decided to use their digital marketing expertise to help. This inspired them to create Campground Views, an app that allows people to virtually tour sites before visiting. By removing the uncertainty of the unknown, Mark hopes to encourage more people to explore the countryside. Their next steps involve uploading footage of more campsites across the States and introducing a direct booking feature.
"Our app is a way for people to go outdoors and enjoy it, even in a digital world"
Founder
Robert Savage
Company
Bluebird Languages
City
Jackson
Downloads
1,245,000+
# of employees
1
With years of experience in academic online language-learning, Robert entered the consumer market in 2020 with his company Bluebird Languages. A former teacher, he understands how to structure a lesson, and his interval–recall and pronunciation methods help to simulate traditional classes. Spanning 164 languages, from Hungarian to Haitian Creole, Bluebird apps offer over 6 million hours of audio lessons featuring native speakers. Robert has recently added features such as quizzes and voice analysis, and continues to keep the company small and personal despite its huge reach.
“Google Play was the go-to place for the app in terms of reaching a large, international audience. Android devices are everywhere, so you can reach all these different countries in all these different languages”
Founder & ceo
Story Clark
Company
TravelStorysGPS
City
Jackson
Downloads
22,400+
# of employees
12
Before starting her company, Story dedicated her life to land conservation. She wanted to help people build more meaningful connections with their surroundings, no matter where they were. So she assembled a team and created TravelStorys™, a large library of curated, geolocated audio tours in the US. The app started with content about Jackson Hole and Wyoming, and has now expanded across the country – with new destinations added every month. They recently launched their 200th tour, which features female conservationists.
“Google Play is very developer-friendly. Distributing on Google Play has helped us get updates out to people faster. It also helps smaller companies like us take advantage of lower service fees”
Founder
Justin Yun
Company
Studio Pareidolia
City
Cheyenne
Downloads
1,640,000+
# of employees
1
Justin studied computer science at college, learning the craft of video game development. Ship Simulator started life as a crabbing game, and evolved over the years into one of the most realistic mobile fishing games on the market. Justin did in-depth research for the app, speaking to professional fishermen around the world. He’s now working on a cross-platform sequel that will add a multiplayer mode and more social elements, to make it the definitive open-world fishing simulator.
“I've always seen video games as the greatest art form. I've been playing games since I was four, and I fell into the grassroots independent game developer community. I pride myself in sticking to that”
