U-M students capitalize on iPhone apps with Phonagle

Wednesday, September 2, 2009 | Source: Concentrate

Add Phonagle's name to the steadily growing list of Ann Arbor-based start-ups looking to cash in on the iPhone.

The University of Michigan spin-off is a partnership between three U-M School of Information graduate students and one of the school's graduates. They are working with the School of Information and U-M's Center for Entrepreneurship to develop apps (jargon for applications) and games for the iPhone.

The Phonagle foursome (Sergio Mendez, Jeremy Canfield, Eric Garcia, and Benjamin Malley) have also received a little funding to push their 4-month-old start-up forward. Its first offering will be Outword, a combination geo-location and Scrabble game for the iPhone due out later this year. Future versions for other smart phones could also be in the cards.

"We'd love to expand to different platforms in the future," Mendez says.

Right now the fledgling company is focusing on establishing Outword and a few other apps. That means not only creating the program, but creating awareness of it. Unless a firm has five figures worth of cash to throw at it, that means viral marketing and taking advantage of social media outlets locally and spreading out from there.

"It's difficult to make a case for your applications," Mendez says.

Source: Sergio Mendez, co-founder and project manager for Phonagle
Writer: Jon Zemke