Buzinga to Appster: An insider’s theory on why the app giants keep falling

In the last two years, two of the Australian app development industry’s biggest players have collapsed into liquidation, leaving customers with unfinished apps and the industry with some serious trust issues to contend with.
In 2017 it was Buzinga, a promising young dev house with a swathe of awards under its belt and a skyward trajectory. Now, as we round out 2018, the same misfortune has befallen Appster, one of the industry’s biggest names and most talked about success stories.
So how did it happen? How did two of the highest profile app development companies go under so suddenly and in such short succession? Everyone in the industry has their theories. This is mine.
I had the benefit of seeing the inner workings at Buzinga firsthand before it went under. The problems I saw there were simple to identify but not so simple to fix: an offshore development model which relied on what was essentially a ‘virtual’ workforce thousands of kilometres away; a rapid growth ethos that favoured inflated sales targets over the delivery of quality apps; and an over-reliance on custom from the volatile startup market. Read more

Joseph Russell - SmartCompany - 12 December 2018