We’ve gathered the planet’s top mobile talent together to re-imagine the future of app discovery
We built our first prototype in December 2010. Then we built more (and more). In the end it took us until 2012 to start releasing the type of technologies that make a difference. And that was just the beginning.
We (you, us: humanity) are now in the middle of a large shift towards mobile computing. Mobile apps, not browsers, are the proxy through which we now connect to the mobile internet.
Human publishers try to categorize their apps, but fail to do it accurately. So it makes sense to move towards digital stores that are automatically curated by computer algorithms.
While the traditional Internet focuses on users’ active search queries, the mobile internet doesn’t. On the mobile internet much of your content will be delivered to you without any explicit input in the form of a query. The mobile internet will "know" your interests and predict when it should show you certain kinds of information and content.
Meet the team
Matthaus
Matthaus heads the growth team at Xyo. By translating customer experience into product innovation, he keeps Xyo moving forward.
In line with his passion for helping ideas develop into products and companies, he is an investor and advisor to other innovative startups. He has extensive product management experience in commerce, online marketing and mobile content.
He also helped build up the MobileBeat conference series as co-chair with Matt Marshall. A regular blogger and speaker, he continues to contribute to the international conference circuit.
He holds a Masters in Business from the highly-ranked research University of Technology RWTH Aachen, where he also studied Mechanical Engineering, Production Systems and History of Arts.
Zoe
Zoe, the CEO of Xyo, is a technology angel investor and mobile industry entrepreneur. Since founding her first company in 1999, she has built up extensive experience in mobile software, mobile content, B2C products and services for mobile corporations. After executive roles at Deloitte and Jamba/Jamster, Zoe embarked on her sixth mobile technology venture Xyo. She is an engineer at heart with a strong background in electronics and informatics. This passion has led Zoe to be a founder of many successful software agencies and has enabled her to be at the forefront of technological advance for the past 10 years.
As a resident of Berlin, she has her finger firmly on the pulse of the European tech landscape and is an active business angel for early stage startups. Zoe's profound understanding of mobile and digital startups, coupled with her ability to recognize and leverage trends in her field, makes her a leader and mentor among startup scenes across Europe. She holds degrees in Cultural Science, Informatics and Electronics, and has always had at least one company running alongside her studies.
Marcin
Marcin Rudolf, with 30 years of professional programming experience, is the resident mobile technology guru in his role as Chief Technical Officer and cofounder of Xyo. His experience encompasses all things tech, from coding in assembly to managing large technology teams for companies such as Orange, Hewlett Packard, Newsweek, Jamster, Coca-Cola and Fiat. At Xyo, Marcin leads technology, data quality audits and testing. He focuses on the development and improvement of Xyo's core technology and has a constant drive and tenacity to solve any programming challenge put in front of him.
He holds a master in Computer Technologies from Warsaw University of Technology. He is a frequent online commentator and writer of all things mobile.
Regina
After 6 years at various mobile companies (Sponsorpay, DailymeTV, Social Games Observer), Regina knows this: mobile marketing is not a mini version of online marketing, but something completely different. It needs to be based on data, and requires an analytical approach, but it also needs to understand the mobile development process and build messages that consider not only the mobile consumer but the developer too.
With this in mind she roamed the tech scenes of Berlin and Sillicon Valley, talking both to mobile consumers and mobile app publishers, trying to link the right mobile products to the right consumers. With her passion for the topic, Regina also contributes to the mobile community with analyses on the subjects of ASO (App Search Optimization), mobile marketing, and mobile games.
Marcin
Marcin learned mobile the hard way - building mobile chipsets at the Warsaw University of Technology. His rough ride continued when he joined world's largest mobile content producer, Jamba/Jamster, and was charged with managing insanely complex mobile products. Back then, in the time of J2ME and Symbian, when developers cursed the world for Code Warrior SDK, and CEOs wanted to compete with iPod with music streaming Symbian apps, Marcin was in the middle of it all, trying to keep things somewhat coordinated.
He has stayed in mobile since: managing product development at various startups setting their feet on mobile ground for the first time, and, as Operations Manager at Nokia, coordinated product development for Outdoor R&D and helped integrating it with almost all the other Nokia services.
We're blessed to have Marcin at Xyo now, because there is no more experienced, methodical, and multi-layered product manager on Earth. He sleeps with books about Kanban, Scrum and ITIL under the pillow. His neck hurts. Yet still, with foresight and a hands-on approach, he organizes our days (and nights). Sometimes it feels like he coordinates the whole mobile world...
Elin
Obsessed with great ideas and their execution, mobile technology and our ever-changing digital behavior, Elin, a native of Sweden, built her first mobile app in Seoul, Korea, to try to do something different from the start. Since then, everything she's built or designed for mobiles has been different. The app camp she set up for kids to teach them to make their own apps was different. Different also was her Eyeem design that TechCrunch was raving about and which won at The Europas design awards. And the lectures she held at Beckmans School of Design and Bergh's School of Communication were all different.
At Xyo, Elin is heading design, and our users say that Xyo... looks different. As a merciless usability hacker, capable of disrupting screens of all resolutions and sizes and taming colors into breathtaking rainbows of UX, she's taken us aback with every new version of Xyo. First we're floored, then we simply follow (and sometimes to Elin's different parties. So we learned to be different. And we learned also that resistance is futile.
Tomek
Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer. Tomek is a front-end engineer.
And when he gets a good idea, he sticks to it.
Dominic
Dominic's life changed in early 2012 when he was gifted his first iPhone. Entranced by its sensitive screen and the magical buttons he could touch on it, he was often to be seen, head bowed, face lit by the glow, alone in a corner, talking to the machine, thus, talking to himself.
A chance encounter with the game Wingsuit Stickman introduced Dominic to the thrilling world of 'the stick people', a people he soon realized live in the phones, and who live lives similar to ours, only thinner and more exhilarating, more violent. Dominic knew instantly that here was a new species ripe for studying. Without delay, he began an intensive diet and training regime designed to shrink his body and organs quickly and without damage, and at the end of Spring 2013 he achieved his 'stick weight' and climbed into his phone.
Once there, after killing some fools, he immersed himself in the local culture and set about realizing some of the dreams that had eluded him in his life outside the phone. Now, Dominic is World Stick Tennis Champion, and a multiple Grand Slam winner, with most of his successes arriving on the sweet green grass of Wimbledon. His trophy cabinet is full, and growing. Inside his phone, he strokes their shiny surfaces with his stick hands, and feels his little stick heart all warm in his little stick chest, like a stick.
Sebastian
Sebastian is still deciding if he's a mobile engineer, a mobile marketer, or a scientist. After 10 years software programming he studied International Marketing – to learn how our soft brains tick. He found them ticking well, but felt a hard part was missing. So he decided to teach, and stayed on at the university to lecture on cross-media marketing and bridge the famous CMO-CTO gap.
Meanwhile he's been building the Mobile Future, and developing mobile strategies and app marketing campaigns for several companies. He successfully brings old brands to the mobile market (Omikron, Vichy, Wallendorf, EDF), and builds mobile presences for online gurus (Fact Finder, 1&1, xpicio). Of course he continues to develop his own mobile apps, just to test what works, you know... (Lohn, HabitSeed)
At Xyo, Sebastian does everything he's always been doing, all at the same time, by carefully designing our user acquisition strategy, measuring, coding, and running around between the devs and the marketing team.
Anna
Natasa
Krzysiek
Agnieszka
Anna
Łukasz
Clark
Mr. Kent is our newest asset at the Warsaw Technology Office. Despite only being hatched a few days ago, his mastery of web development and exceptional (.)net skills have made him a crucial asset to our Eastern Team, and none of them would be able to do anything anything that they do if it weren’t for him. With his forest of eyes and nimble hands he is a natural, supple multi-tasker. He is untiring, never takes a toilet break, and his watchful, hairy presence spurs the whole team on to ever greater efforts.
Mr. Kent has an excellent sense of humour, and many a stressful day has been lightened considerably by watching some poor fool struggling in one of the ‘joke webs’ this lovable colleague likes to spin in inappropriate places.