Image from the iTunes app store.
The four person crew behind Uppward announced today that their mobile application aimed at connecting and rewarding air travelers had been approved by Apple and released in the iTunes App Store. James Eliason, Nathan T. Wright and Ben Sinclair of Des Moines along with Nate Becker of Brooklyn, New York, first announced their app last Spring.
Silicon Prairie News: What is Uppward and how does the business model for this type of mobile application work?
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James Eliason: Uppward is a travel application that allows users to add their upcoming flights from any airline. Once the user performs a virtual check-in on departure and arrival, we keep track of the users miles. We also allow real-world connections between people who might be flying together on the same plane. The business model can go many directions; sponsored rewards, discounted airfare, travel leads, etc. We expect to grow the app (and the business) through having our own Uppward app, as well as the opportunity to license our technology to the many travel related websites and apps that are already in the marketplace.
Nathan T. Wright: The application will grow if we can create a fun, unique and useful experience for our users. Their feedback is critical – so the majority of development and tweaking moving forward will be based on what Uppward users tell us. I believe that activating real-life rewards is going to really ignite this thing
What did you learn through the process of starting with the mobile web app rather than launch directly with a native iPhone app?
James: By building the mobile web app first, we were able to digest a lot of ideas both from the four of us and also from our small set of users that were on the mobile web app. We will be moving onto other platforms in the coming months, specifically the Android platform.
Nate Becker: Visually [creating the iPhone app] was pretty much starting from scratch. Designing the UI for the native iPhone app takes much more time to edit vs the mobile web app. During the process we chose rapid development vs. custom GUI because we can always go back and refine the design and usability. Our goal is to ultimately get it on the Android platform as well so we don’t alienate the current users that were using the mobile web app on those devices. We care about them too! I’m going to go back and refine the UX for the app in the coming months as we rollout new features this will include the Android app, too. A lot of people have also asked for Blackberry as well and I just wanted to say we haven’t forgotten about those users too. We want to get it right on one platform then expand out. Hopefully by the end of next year!
Through you’re all entrepreneurial, each person on the team has a different “day job”. How do you find the time and energy to work on developing a passion-project like Uppward?
Nate: When the project is right I’ve noticed I always seem to have more energy to do the extra work. However finding time to do this work has never been hard for me. My wife is on call at the hospital roughly two times a month so I fill that time with Uppward. The tough part is when we’re doing a big push, similar to this, I start overlapping into personal time.
Nathan: It definitely helps to have a team of four people who are passionate about the idea and each bringing different talents to the table.
James: From the beginning we all knew that this concept had a lot of potential. We all are involved in social media, mobile/web app development, design and business development. So taking time during the evenings and during the weekends to crank out the product is something that gave us a lot of pride.
