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MakeItApp – using Ubuntu, Node.js and Mongo on Azure to connect startups.

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Have an idea for a new app, but don’t have experience in coding or design, MakeItApp is here to help. Founded by five friends from Milan in 2013, MakeItApp is a free, talent sharing app.

“Our company is an app publisher that offers a complete ecosystem for teams to develop and monetize their apps,” says Federico Sessa, CEO of MakeItApp. “We are invested in promoting Apps for IoT and providing services for IoT on our Mobile BaaS.”

A Microsoft BizSpark member, MakeItApp is a mobile platform where people can create Apps together. A collaborative publishing house for mobile apps, MakeItApp applications primarily run on Android says Sessa, “The majority of our apps are developed for Android because of the size of the market. However, we are also branching out and developing apps on iOS and Windows phone.” 

MakeItApp connects startups who have an app idea to the industry’s best developers and designers making it easier than ever to bring startup proposals to life. It’s simple, people bring their ideas to MakeItApp and MakeItApp connects the idea with its community of developers and designers – all while allowing the idea originator to maintain control over the project and share future app revenue across the entire design, development and marketing team.

MakeItApp provides a stimulating online environment for each team, collaborating with BizSpark to provide free tools aimed at creating apps more easily. Their “App Angel” is there to assist project leaders, every step of the way - helping to define the project in detail, highlight a target market and determine and locate the best possible team members. With its dynamic work environment, packed with powerful support tools, MakeItApp provides users the means to realize the full potential of their creation. “Once an app is released”, says Sessa, “MakeItApp is in charge of promotion and marketing allowing the team to focus on what it enjoys most: creating new apps!”

Originally built on an Amazon platform, MakeItApp recently began looking to transition towards a new technology platform. In the crowded arena of cloud service provider and private data centers, Microsoft’s Azure platform was the clear choice for a company providing a diverse set of open-source-based services. “The compatibility of Azure platforms with open source software (OSS) has been an integral part of our success”, says CTO Giulio Roggero, “it has allowed us to use Ubuntu as server box because it is easy to manage and update for our technology stack: We are currently running Node.js and recently migrated our Node.js platform to Azure and it is running beautifully. We were surprised at how well Azure and Node.js work together.” More recently, MakeItApp began to migrate their RDS to Microsoft’s SQL Azure Database and their Mongo to Azure’s Document Database, and, according to Roggero, “we have already tested all our new Microsoft programs and they work very well!”

MakeItApp utilizes multiple Microsoft technologies to enhance the quality and usability of their product. Hosted on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, MakeItApp employs Azure features like virtual machine, service bus, cache, CDN automation, and networks and traffic management. Originally developed on an Amazon Web Services platform, MakeItApp is migrating to Microsoft’s Azure. “The main reasons we are moving to Azure is to reduce our infrastructure costs and because of the great service we receive from Microsoft. We are in Italy and we don’t receive any support from Amazon. Microsoft provides us with technical support and understands our needs. And Azure being open-source friendly is a must for our infrastructure.” says Roggero.

Navigating the murky waters of the startup industry can be difficult and at times seemingly impossible, but MakeItApp is out to prove that with hard work and successful partnerships they can defy the odds says Sessa. “2 years ago we only had an idea. We started our business by personally financing the operation money, to see if our idea would work. We proved that it does work … we have built a community, share revenue, publish, sell and make money to give back to the community. We have built a prototype and now we need to scale and build a real company. We believe working with Microsoft and the BizSpark program will help us scale our business.”


Federico Sessa, CEO of MakeItApp

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Microsoft is helping these startups succeed through its BizSpark program. To join or see other startup stories, visit us at our website here. To listen to our startups, check out these podcasts on devradio here.
 
About BizSpark: Microsoft BizSpark is a global program that helps startups succeed by giving free access to Microsoft Azure cloud services, software and support. BizSpark members receive up to $750 per month of free Microsoft Azure cloud services for 3 years: that’s $150 per month each for up to 5 developers. Azure works with Linux and open-source technologies such as Ruby, Python, Java and PHP. BizSpark is available to startups that are privately held, less than 5-years-old and earn less than $1M in annual revenue.

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