Toronto teen tech whiz raises $1.8M for mobile app

When a lot of his friends were heading off to university to tap frosh week kegs, Jordan Satok, then 17, was tapping into the collective frustration of mobile phone users.

He was one of them, after all, and like many of his peers, he struggled to sift through the seemingly endless sea of apps.

“I personally could not find apps,” he admitted. “I experienced the problem and pain myself.”

That pain led to some serious gain after Satok decided to ditch his university plans and instead develop and launch AppHero – which recommends iPhone and iPad apps based on a user’s interests and activities online.

Satok’s unbridled passion for the project would soon rub off on investors, who would pump nearly $1.8 million to date into his start-up Toronto tech company.

“For me I’ve always been so passionate about what I’m doing to the point of obsession. This is what I eat, sleep and breathe,” he told CityNews.ca.

“The investors saw that I was young and saw the passion and energy that I was putting into my business, and I think it stood out. What I’ve always tried to do is sell the investors on the dream, and they took a gamble on that.”

The venture capital started rolling in two years ago with $75,000 from Golden Venture Partners, allowing Satok to open a 170 square foot office and hire some help.  Since then several angel investors, and some major players, including Toronto’s OMERS Ventures, have stepped up to pad the burgeoning cash flow.

Satok is now 19. His team has grown to five employees, and AppHero is on version 2.0.  He hasn’t released official download numbers, but says it’s more than 100,000, and he plans to launch an Android version in the future.

There are some competitors out there, like Appsfire or AppGratis, but Satok says AppHero’s personalization sets it apart.

“Other services just show popular apps or apps on sale, but we show you apps we think you might like, and highlight deals on apps that are right for you.”

One of Satok’s key goals was to create an experience that was streamlined and simple, and he boasts that even his grandparents use AppHero.

“The reality is there aren’t very many steps and the steps are pretty simple,” he said.  “You log in, you help us learn about you and…then we make personalized recommendations. It takes 10 or 15 seconds.”

With over 800,000 apps available to iPhone and iPad users, Satok says technology can often complicate, rather than simplify our lives, and AppHero is designed to help.

The app’s algorithm actually becomes smarter with time, refining its results in conjunction with your changing interests and online habits.

“Our lives are busy enough as it is, we don’t need the stress of 800,000 apps that we sit there and question,” he said. “Most people won’t say technology makes their lives easier. Most people will say it means they are always connected, they are always getting messages. It’s just constant bombardment.”

AppHero is free, which leads to an obvious question: how does it make money?

Satok says the cash will eventually flow if the idea and the technology are solid.

“The truth is we are not too focused on the commercialization at this point. There are stages. In tech you start off with some central innovation…and then you try to build a business around that. That’s how most successful tech businesses were started,” he said. “They built Facebook, and they figured out the monetization after.”

Satok also has some advice for up-and-coming techies looking to cash in on the app explosion.

“What I push to people who come to me with ideas is think less about what you want to build and more about what people are looking for and how to get it to them.”

“Solve a problem that actually exists and focus on how to get it to the market…because there are over 500,000 million people with an iPhone in their pocket and you can’t just expect it to just magically take off.”

You can download AppHero here