During the month of December, we are featuring a series of profiles highlighting our Know What’s Inside™ members. We’re calling it “Behind The Apps” and our goal is to provide a little insight into the lives of our developers so that we can learn more about them and the apps they create.
In our first “episode” we introduce Ann Adair and her husband Jon, the creators of Thinkamingo.
“My husband Jon and I are the team here at Thinkamingo. We started our company a little over 2 years ago. After extensively researching the app marketplace, we decided to take the plunge! Moms With Apps has been integral to our success. We have learned so much from our colleagues there and are now very active in paying it forward. I had the wonderful opportunity to represent family-friendly developers at the ACT Fly-In this past May.”
When asked what inspired them to join the Moms With Apps program, Ann mentioned a blog that has offered guidance to many aspiring app makers. “We found out about MWA from our research of Pierre Abel’s blog. He was a huge inspiration and his blog was really the tipping point for us to pull the trigger and start Thinkamingo.”
Ann and Jon are both accomplished writers and these talents have contributed greatly to their app development. “We had been homeschooling our children and were very interested in educational tools and writing, so that’s where we started. We are both recreational writers and have participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for several years.”
A lot of writers make lists of ideas for stories, and Ann and Jon were no different. That led to their first app. “Over the years, we had collected many lists of things to help us brainstorm about story details. Our first app was Lists for Writers and it’s still going strong. I think it’s our favorite because it’s a really useful tool. We enjoyed making it and we still enjoy working on it and using it for our own writing projects.”
Thinkamingo has a large selection of apps all available in major app retail stores.
“We’ve added additional writing-related apps to our catalog with Story Dice, Spooky Story Dice, and Story Spark. We also have a pretend play app in the iTunes Kids 9-11 category with Spy Tools for Kids, as well as a series of customizable sports cards for football, baseball, soccer, basketball, and softball.”
Some fun facts:
- We don’t outsource anything.
- Our children help out with testing, research, programming, design, and marketing.
- 15 apps later, we’re still doing our own thing.
You can learn more about Thinkamingo, Ann, Jon, and their app catalog on their website: http://thinkamingo.com and http://MomsWithApps.com where they are featured as Know What’s Inside™ members.
Look out for our next installment of “Behind The Apps” soon!