Bizness Apps

Andrew Gazdecki used to run an online job board. It was back in 2009, when Gazdecki was a marketing student at California State University, Chico. At the time, mobile apps were still new--and all the rage--so the job board focused on connecting local companies with mobile app developers. While skimming listings in his dorm room, Gazdecki noticed a pattern: A lot of companies, primarily restaurants, were requesting near-identical products with near-identical functionalities. “If this could work for one restaurant, this could work for every restaurant in the United States,” Gazdecki recalls thinking. He sold the job board for a six-figure sum, enough to launch Bizness Apps, a mobile-app developer, in June 2010. In the seven years since, that company has grown to more than 100 employees and a valuation over $120 million. It’s expanded well beyond restaurants; Bizness Apps has developed apps for everyone from auto companies Michelin and Harley-Davidson to rappers Soulja Boy and Fetty Wap. Bizness Apps wasn’t Gazdecki’s first company, but it very well may be his last--even if it gets acquired. “The way I view this industry is that it’s one in a lifetime,” he says. “I just can’t see myself getting away from this.” --Cameron Albert-Deitch