Greg Avola and Tim Mather
Untappd, a mobile app and website that allows beer drinkers to check in and rate beers, has 1.2 million users, close to 8 million check-ins—and is run by two guys, part-time, in the hours after their full-time jobs.
Since developer Greg Avola and designer Tim Mather released Untappd in October 2010, the app has become an indispensable tool for both the beer geek and the brewer; the consumer can keep track of his or her preferences and discover new recommendations, while the brewery can gain real-time information of what people are saying about their beer and where they’re drinking it.
“One of the key core ideals that we have is to bring the breweries and consumer closer together,” says Mather.
For Avola, who says he has “always been fascinated with solving problems with technology” and Mather, who got his first computer in junior high and built “cheesy little websites since GeoCities was the cool thing,” the community is the bread and butter of how they built Untappd and manage its growth and new updates.
“For me, the most fulfilling experience is meeting a user at a bar who uses Untappd and loves it,” says Avola. “That’s why we do what we do, is for the user base, and everything we do comes back to them.”
This profile appears in the November 2014 issue of All About Beer Magazine. Click here for a free trial of our next issue.