2016-02-25 - Yapp!, Inc. founder and CEO Maria Seidman aims to democratize software for the masses.

Maria Seidman

Maria Seidman is the founder and CEO of Yapp!, Inc., provider of a user-friendly platform for creating cell-phone applications. A Yale University graduate, Seidman has worked for both Goldman Sachs and MGM. She also boasts an MBA from Stanford University. Through Yapp!, Seidman aims to democratize software for the masses. 

1. In your LinkedIn career summary, you write, “I am an entrepreneur, mom, and recovering big company executive. I am obsessed with mobile applications and democratizing software for the masses.”

A. From what, specifically, are you recovering?

“It’s a twelve-step process…No, I’m just kidding!”

I think I am recovering from a lot of practices you adopt when you work at a big corporation with a lot of inertia, bureaucracy, and rules, not to mention inflexible thinking. When I started Yapp! I had to relearn or “unlearn” a lot of behaviors. Before I met my co-founder Luke Melia, I was busy working on how the product would look, and I had this fifty-plus page product-specification deck that I had spent countless weeks developing. That’s the way we managed products when I was at Warner Brothers working with large groups of people on multiple teams. I documented our work and had project managers who did the same for all the specifications the product might have.

But when you are a small, fast-moving start up, as soon as you finish that document, all the details become completely irrelevant. My co-founder Luke introduced me to the process of working in an agile way. As a nod to Japan and Japanese culture, we use a Kanban system to break tasks down to the smallest components possible and quickly move them through our production process. This is one example of how I had to unlearn a previous behavior and learn other new behaviors, as well as a new way of thinking about how to get work done.

B. Please tell us what being a mom and company founder at the same time is like. What are the challenges? How do you manage them?

Being a mom and founder at the same time has been a wonderful experience for me. Some view this dual role in a negative way, i.e., I am giving up time with my children to pursue something else, to become a company founder. But for me, doing both is a wonderful balancing experience. I think I would be a really awful full-time parent because I would pour all my energy and my Type-A personality into my children, something that would not be healthy for them. My kids and my work not only balance each other, but they also inform each other. At Yapp!, as we build our culture and our product, I want to be doing something that when my kids grow up, they will proud of their mom for her significant work in the world. That desire is a major motivator.

Research has shown that no one can maintain productivity working nonstop. Everyone has to find an outlet. For some people, a particular sport or hobby serves this function. I enjoy sports and hobbies, too, but one of my main outlets that brings me joy is spending time with my family. Doing so is a way of recharging.

My third comment on the symbiotic relationship between being a parent and company founder relates to how some of my life and family experiences allow me to think better about our users. Our users are also busy parents, and they are also trying to manage all kinds of tasks using their mobile devices, our area of focus. My experiences as a parent myself help me to connect more authentically with a lot of our users.

C. What do you mean by your provocative statement “democratizing software for the masses”?  How did you become obsessed with this aspiration?

Sometimes people who lack access to something they want become obsessed with the idea of getting access. I was one of the first people to own an iPhone, and I was passionate about this new mobile device. But I also felt frustrated because I was not a developer, and I had not learned programming because my particular personality is not suited to that craft. I felt I lacked access to this amazing industry emerging right underneath my nose, and I became obsessed with this idea.

More generally, I have always been interested in this idea of taking something only a few people can access and making a version for the masses. Thinking back to my Warner Brother days, I watched what happened with YouTube from the sidelines. I was struck not only by what YouTube had achieved, but also what that achievement represented. In the past, only film makers like the ones I had worked with or television show runners could produce content for others’ consumption, but all of a sudden, that part of our lives was democratized. My LinkedIn profile comment is more specific to mobile, but more generally, related to my obsession with taking things only available to a few people and giving everyone access.

2. Obtaining an MBA at Stanford after graduating Yale, you became an analyst at no less than Goldman Sachs. Then, you worked for both MGM and Warner Brothers. Were you initially aiming for a corporate career? If so, what made you decide to become an entrepreneur? What are the pros and cons of founding a company relative to a corporate career?

When I was at Yale, I really wanted to be a journalist. I went to my English professor at the time and told him, “I know I am an economics major, but I really enjoy writing. I think I want to be a writer.” Looking at me with sad eyes, he responded, “Why don’t you pick a career that is actually going to pay the bills?” Now that I am an adult, I have some hindsight about his suggestion. What he was trying to tell me was that becoming a writer or journalist is extremely difficult. Successful writers are successful because they really cannot do anything else. By cannot, I mean that their passion is singular: They are so driven to write that they will continue to do so no matter what obstacles they face. I obviously did not have that conviction at the time that I would be able to say to him, “You not what? I don’t care if I starve. I do not care if I have to live on cup ramen. I intend to pursue a writing career no matter what!”

To be successful as a writer, this conviction is essential. It is also important to succeed as an entrepreneur. From a rational perspective, in terms of the probability of failure given the start-up failure rate, you have to really believe this is the only thing you want to be doing. It took me a while to realize that this was my particular passion.

Coming out of Yale, I had bills to pay. My parents were immigrants to the United States, so I felt a great sense of responsibility about making money right away after graduating. The sure-fire way to do that in 1999 was to work in investment banking on Wall Street. While at Goldman, I did initially have the dream of doing well there, but very quickly—a mere seven months into my employment—I realized investment banking was not for me. I did not do well in the environment, where I felt like a mere cog in the system.

Eventually, I found my way to different creative pursuits. When I wrote my essay for admission to the Stanford MBA program in 2002, which was before the iPhone, YouTube, and a lot of other transformative technologies, I explained that I wanted to focus on the intersection between how we consume media and technology. No bridge had really been made between Silicon Valley and Hollywood, and that is what I wanted to do. I tried to start a company while I was in business school. My big conclusion about that experience was that I really did not know enough about the industry to truly understand the problems that we were solving.

My idea was to enter a media company that was about to be transformed and really understand the opportunities and the marketplace. That is how I ended up at Warner Brothers, where my grand plan was to stay two years.  Then, after acquiring some experience and developing enough relationships, I was going to figure how to solve a problem they just could not. But I was having too much fun, I was advancing in the hierarchy, and it was an interesting time, so I stayed for seven years.

3. How would you describe Yapp!’s business model?  What is your “product”?  Who are your customers?  How did you conceive the idea for Yapp!?

I’ll answer your last question first to maintain chronological order. As previously mentioned, I wanted to create an application for a retreat for a women’s group in which I was involved. When I had this idea in 2010, the iPhone had already been on the market for three years, so I thought that since I could create a blog or website really easily, I should also be able to create an application even though I am not a developer. I realized that this was not the case. Few platforms were available and the ones that did exist were targeted either toward developers who did not know the language in which apps are written or at people who were willing to invest a lot of time to learn a new platform. Then, there were services that allowed you to create something that was not very useful.

The idea for my company came from this experience. The idea was not completely rational thinking about it. I could not even create a single app, so how could I expect to create an entire platform for creating applications? But as my co-founder has noted, logic is not my strong point. This realization made me aware of the need for a technical co-founder to complement my business skills. That is how I met and started working with Luke Melia.

Our product is a site where a user can create a mobile application mostly around events and groups in anywhere from a few minutes to a few weeks. The apps can be used for anything from a conference to a sales meeting, from a wedding to a sports team or book club or any other group where people need to connect, and they want to share information on schedules and events. The site is for people who do not need a full-scale application, which can cost from $50,000 to over $1,000,000. Group and event organizers and small businesses that want to involve a group of customers in sales activities are our target users.

In terms of our business model, we do offer this product for free. Teachers, classrooms, and non profits tend to use this product. We also offer Yapp!+, a premium subscription plan, where people pay $500 or $1000 per year for advanced functionality and customization. Additionally, we have a custom services group that creates apps on our platform that require more customization.

4. WhatsApp and Facebook seem to be used the way LINE is used in Japan for scheduling and sharing information among groups of people.  Would you say these companies are potential competitors, or would they be potential complimentors?

I would say they are both complimentary, but sometimes competitive, too. Sometimes they are an alternative, which is slightly different from being competitive. The relationship of these companies’ products to ours all depends on what the user is attempting to accomplish. If you take Facebook for example, we work with them the way many developers do. We allow you to sign in with Facebook, incorporating your information into our application. Many of our users link their Facebook page to their app on our platform. The user lives in both places, the way a person might have a Twitter profile they may use with fans for support and to provide information and use Facebook for a different purpose.

Facebook does have a group or events type feature, but what you can do within Facebook is limited. Many people will have a Facebook group to announce events, especially to a more anonymous type of audience. But you do not see companies having sales conferences where they are discussing their strategies for meeting their quotes during the next quarter. This is an example where our service seems like the same or competitive, but is in fact, very different. The same can be said of WhatsApp. To some extent, we are both communication tools in much the same way as WhatsApp, Skype and your telephone are communication tools but used for different things. Like WhatsApp, Yapp! also includes a group messaging feature, but it is very different from WhatApp’s.

5. What companies are Yapp!’s main competitors?  How does Yapp! differentiate itself from them?

More and more competitors appear every day. The concept that you need a portfolio of application to manage your work and personal life is definitely gaining steam. Our main point of differentiation is ease of use. Yapp! is very simple to use. We compromise complexity and customization in order to provide simplicity and real ease of use. We offer fewer features than competitors, but that is because we only provide users with features we believe they need. In this respect, I think what makes us different is that you can create and publish an app on our platform faster than on any other. And we guarantee that it will always work, always be update, and the whole process will just generally be a great experience for you and your audience.

6. The 2014 Entrepreneur article about your selection as an entrepreneur of the year notes that you conceived of the idea for Yapp! when you were trying to create your own app to allow members of your women’s group to connect and plan events.  What advice would you give to women who aspire to become entrepreneurs like yourself?

I do not think there is any real difference between men and women in this regard. Once you have the idea, the next important step is finding people who will pursue that idea with you. I am a strong believer in having a cofounder, someone in the trenches with you who really shares your values. Your idea will morph and change. As it does, you will have to pivot and maneuver. If you are successful as an entrepreneur, you will have a team of people who share your values working with you, people who will go through the highs and lows with you. I think ideas are great. They are the kernel that jumpstarts the business. But once it is going, the people you are going to pursue your idea with are the number one concern.

7. Here in Japan, smart phone use is increasing and pc use declining, especially among young people, and we seem to be moving to “wearable” technologies.  Have you observed the same trend in the US?  How do you think SNS technologies, including devices, will evolve over the next five to ten years?  What will the “big picture” look like then?

Japan has always led the States in technology adoption, particular around mobile devices. Even in the U.S., over 80% of the population have a smart phone. We are near full penetration. Naturally, pc- use is declining. Wearables, however, are relatively new. The Android watches have been on the market for a while, and the arrival of the Apple watch has been announced. This market is in its early stages, particularly in the technology domain. I think we are going to see a lot of shake out of companies that do not survive. In the end, I think that there is going to be a lot of fall out. As human beings, we are not going to wear a million different devices on our bodies. Especially given the other devices in our lives and the other locations we go that are also smart equipped: our cars, thermostats, refrigerators, locks. Basically, everything around us is becoming connected. At what point is this too much? What survives and what doesn’t remains to be seen.

I also wonder what the leapfrog technology is. Are wearables a temporary technology? Are they going to be leap frogged my something else? Five to ten years is a long time. People are working on ingestibles. Other, on chemical technologies. Who knows? I am not a futurist by any stretch of the imagination. I might be proved wrong, but I am not bullish on the Apple watch. I was a very early adopter of Pebble, but I never wear it anymore because I find it very redundant with my other portable device. Pre-sales of Pebble have so far proved me wrong, so we will see!

8. What are your hobbies and interests?

I have already mentioned my family and my kids. I have a seven-and-a-half year old son and a two-year old daughter. Raising them today with all of the technology they can access and all that the future holds is a hobby and passion in itself for me. Topics like education and the effects of technology on early childhood education happen to be a personal interest, a passion that intersects with my professional life.

I am also a tennis player. I played tennis in college, and recently, I have started playing again. Now that my son is playing often, I need to brush up. I can’t let him beat me! More generally, I love all kinds of outdoor sports. They are a great outlet, an opportunity to let off steam and think of some great ideas.