n SEED ROUND: MEET THE FOUNDER
NICK BARBATO
APPA11Y
Not long after Nick Barbato left his cubicle job in software development to start
his own gaming company, he noticed a massive gap in the industry: a lack of
games for people with visual impairments. His El Dorado Hills-based startup,
AppA11y, aims to level the playing field with a focus on accessibility.
“There was nothing out there blind people could use,” says Barbato, who
cofounded the company with Lee Hobbs. “We develop social games and
apps, where blind users can play against and communicate with friends and
family who may not be blind.”
Three years after launching in 2012, the company began using iOS,
Android and its own technologies to enable the games to be fully
accessible and give visually impaired users more context through
touch screen and audio feedback. AppA11y has released two main
apps: Dice World (which has six games) and Game World (which
has eight games). After bootstrapping everything, Barbato
wants to raise funds, primarily to hire more developers to meet
demand.
restore older VW Buses
If I could have any other job, I’d................................................................
(I have one now that I want to restore, but all my
............................................................................................................
time is spent in front of the computer)
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thick skin and grit
A startup can’t be successful without............................................................
“Can’t
The book that best represents my approach to business would be.......................
Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds”
................................................................................................................
by David Goggins
.............................................................................................................
ability to support family
My biggest fear about launching was the.........................................................
without corporate job security
...................................................................................................................
find a career
If I could give my younger self a word of advice, that would be...............................
you are passionate about
....................................................................................................................
DOES MAKING A FULLY ACCESSIBLE APP TAKE LONGER TO DEVELOP? “For what we
do, it doubles the work to make it completely accessible. There are 280
million people (around the world) with visual impairments. Some peo-
ple are colorblind, others need magnification. We have a lot of settings
in our apps to tweak the interface to fit a specific impairment.”
DO YOU TEST THE GAMES BEFORE YOU RELEASE THEM? “We have a beta test
group of about 100 visually impaired volunteers. We get feedback and
make changes. Sometimes I think I have a genius idea and send it out to
users, and it gets rejected completely. Then we get hate email and need
to reverse the changes. You’ve got to have thick skin.”
For more on AppA11y, read Russell Nichols’ Startup of the Month
column at comstocksmag.com.
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comstocksmag.com | August 2019