Game Changers: Dermot Daly of Tapadoo

The common denominator of all JOE’s ‘Game Changers’ is that they recognised an opportunity and made it their own. Step forward, Dermot Daly of Tapadoo.

By Emmet Purcell

The world of mobile applications is one that is growing at a phenomenal rate and it's heartening to see so many Irish entrepreneuers and start-ups discovering the potential that a bite-size download can place in the power of one's hand.

For Dermot Daly, his foresight in quickly spotting the potential growth of the platform led him to Tapadoo, a bespoke service that engages with numerous high profile clients (O2, Openet) to discover their needs, analyse opportunities and eventually build multi-platform apps to grow their business. Before all that however, he made one simple decision.

"I was working in a place and decided that I wasn’t going to work there anymore. I left that job without a plan, to be quite honest with you," he told us.

"But I did have a Mac and an iPhone at the time and I’d been writing software for many years so I thought [after seeing the App Store] 'I think I’ll do this for fun, just to learn it', as I hadn’t been writing software as an enjoyable pursuit for quite some time."

Success came quickly for Dermot, so quickly in fact that he realised that app development was where his future lay.

"I wrote an application which, two days after it was released, went top of the iTunes charts and stayed there for six weeks. I got lots of great feedback and lots of great reviews too.

"Afterwards I noticed two things: I had really enjoyed the process and I was also pretty taken aback by the feedback, in that it was so quick and positive. At that stage I realised that this thing [building apps] was about to take off as a concept so I started to do it professionally."

Dermot explains what drives Tapadoo and how the company began

Although Tapadoo was originally only building iPhone apps, that soon changed as clients begin to broaden the focus of their requests.

"What we were finding was that last year for example, a lot of people were asking 'And how much does this cost for Android too?' and we were saying, 'Look, we build everything from scratch and it’s really high quality stuff so to do it on Android, it’s pretty much the same cost again.'

"And most people throughout last year were saying that they’d launch the iPhone and see how it goes but increasingly a lot have came back and said of Android, 'OK, we want it.' With a client O2 Money, Tapadoo had to design multi-platform apps, which wasn't for a problem Dermot and his team. If anything, he loves a challenge and tells us creative problem-solving and fully quantifying the needs of clients is one of the most vital services Tapadoo provides.

"We’ve got a two day engagement at the start and basically what we do is we go into a client and spend the first day figuring out what they want," Dermot sats.

"We want to know three questions which are:

1. Who are you trying to aim this at?

2. What would you consider a successful app

3. What are you trying to get your app to do?

"Obviously, that last bit is the lion’s share of our analysis proces. We will often spend our time during that process pushing back to the client and advising them on what is wrong or right for a mobile device. A mobile experience is very different to that on a desktop, so if something is going to be long and considered, you don’t want it in an app."

"The example I like to give is that people are not going to a book a holiday through an app; they want to sit down and look through Travelocity/Trip Advisor and discuss it with their partner. Some things are just not right for an app so after discussing that with a client we produce a wireframe diagram that fully and unambigously defines the app – every button and every interaction.

"That diagram belongs to the client at the end of the process, but at the end of those two days they own that diagram, that belongs to them and it’s valuable because it’s had our expertise and because we’ve fully described every nook and cranny of the app."

When Tapadoo initially meet clients, they analyse the business during a phase that typically lasts 2-4 days. After understanding the business requirements and offering their expertise, Tapadoo deliver the aforementioned wire frame document and a fixed price quote to develop the app.

If the client feels ready to move forward, the company will schedule in development and turn some of the wire frames into graphical mock ups for consideration. Tapadoo also manage the entire App Store approval process and if necessary, can negotiate annual maintenance of your app.

Sound like an interesting proposition? Of course it does.

If you'd like to get in touch with Dermot and the team at Tapadoo, feel free to visit their official website.