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Software success makes Yappy talk of town

Kohen Grogan took his business from his garage to St Georges Terrace and now has his sights set on the east coast and Asia. Picture: Bill Hatto/The West Australian.

At just 26, Perth-based digital entrepreneur Kohen Grogan’s client list already includes international brands such as McDonald’s, Thermomix and Pandora Internet Radio.

He is the inventor of Yappy, a social media app and marketing software platform that, among other things, makes it easy for users to set up and manage campaigns, harvest databases and track conversions from content across any platform on the social web.

The software has won him a lot of attention. In October, Mr Grogan was runner-up in the National Rising Star 30 Under 30 Awards and he was recently named one of three rising Australian tech stars in Virgin’s inflight magazine.

“I saw an opportunity because, frankly, fluffy bunnies that get a thousand ‘likes’ on social media don’t necessarily mean sales, ” he said.

Yappy Group formed in March 2012 and began trading five months later.

“We bankrolled this thing initially from my garage and with about $2000, ” Mr Grogan said.

In June last year, Yappy moved out of the garage and into offices on St Georges Terrace. About 18 months ago, the company began working with Thermomix, taking it from 24,000 Australian subscribers to 150,000. It has been working with Pandora — an internet radio service with more than 250 million users in the US — since January. In just a year, Yappy has helped it attract two million Australian subscribers.

The company sells licences for its software to clients or provides them with the services around it, such as running their social advertising campaigns.

“We’re at a stage now where we are going to start looking for investment, ” Mr Grogan said.

“The opportunity for what we do is massive but to take it to the next level we require capital.”

He said he hopes to open an east coast office within six months and one in Asia within a year.