Who Is Jagat Bhuyan And Why Is He At Every Mobile App Developer Event?

These days, I can’t go to any mobile apps event (think SFAppPitch, SFAppShow, SFNewTech ) without running into Jagat Bhuyan at some point. A social butterfly who is always sharply dressed, I have mistakenly assumed Jagat to be an Angel, a dot-com-made-my-money-and-retired millionaire, a ‘just looking‘ investor and many other things before finding out he was none of the above.

Curious to put the question to bed, I finally got Jagat into a corner at a recent SFAppPitch event at pariSoma. Jagat told me that he was the Directory of Developer Marketing for a Company called appbackr. appbackr is taking a new unique approach to solving the problem that most mobile app developers face these days, which is

How do you fund your app development without being forced to give up a share of your App to potential Investors?

"It's all fun. That's why I am here!" - Jagat @ appbackr

The interview with Jagat covered a lot of areas and answered a lot of questions that I thought app developers and potential buyers would have, so I have broken it up into different parts. In this 1st part, Jagat talks about the people that create appbackr and then explains his unique role in the company.

Tell me about appbackr – the company and the founders.

Jagat: The company, well at this point, there’s been development on the company for about six or seven months. We did a private launch on June 8th, 2010. The founders – and this is something that really helps us – we have four original founders. Three of the four are entrepreneurs that have taken small companies and sold them to larger corporations!

The original founder – the CEO – is Trevor Cornwell. He sold a company called Skyjet to Bombardier seven or eight years ago.

Sam Zappas, he was a senior executive at ArtistDirect. I believe they took somewhere in the range of $97 million in strategic investment before they took it public.

Craig Hall is one of our lead investors. He sold a company called Skywire to Oracle for $250 million.

Our final guy, his name is Robert Clegg. Robert Clegg is a phenomenal product guy. He’s the mad scientist!

What’s your role in the company?

Jagat: I am what we’re calling a Director of Developer Marketing. As I mentioned in the beginning, it’s an interesting marketing kind of strategy here. For me, what we’ve set up is that first, we’ve got to get the applications in the marketplace, then we’ve got to drive the buyer.

It’s really a simultaneous thing, but I’m concentrating on the developer side. We do have someone in the company that is concentrating is on the buyer side, but it’s all one fluid strategy.

You also sound a little bit like a developer evangelist. Are you doing that unofficially?

Jagat: My background for the last two years — I was at Sun Microsystems and they had a program that catered to startup companies. I’m not a developer myself, but I’ve been in the developer world for some time now. I used to lead the business development for the US portion of that program.

I’ve been dealing with startups for some time. I’ve been dealing with developers for some time. I understand the pain and the dynamics that are associated with a startup. It’s all fun. That’s why I’m here.