The majority of us is using WhatsApp, Facebook Messanger, Slack, Skype and many more everyday. “Being dependent on so many different messaging platforms is just plain frustrating. There are so many times where I have to switch from one browser tab to another, back to a messaging app, then to my mobile phone – just to pass some simple information or find an appointment with colleagues or friends. This is absolutely ridiculous — the way how we communicate is broken!” explains his frustration Stefan Malzner, grand mind behind Franz. “I wondered how it could be possible to bundle all the proprietary messengers into one app”.
This is how Franz was born. Franz is a free messaging app that combines chat & messaging services into one application. WhatsApp, Slack, HipChat, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Google Hangouts, Skype and Grape are currently supported with more to follow soon.
Once the Minimum Lovable Product was built, the product was posted on Product Hunt to see how the users will like it. It was an instant hit. “1200 upvotes and over 100 comments within 24 hours. From soon on Franz was the most upvoted Product of the day.” says Stefan in his article on medium.com
Stefan is Austrian and (interesting fact) is working as a full time graphic designer by Dvel. “Franz is a project that inspires me and I have a lot of fun with it. First of all it solves my own problem. I did not expect it to be that successful” says Stefan to 150sec.com. “I am and always be a graphic designer in my heart. However from young age I wanted to be able to bring ideas that I had to life, so I learned web-developement.”
Until now (09.03.2016) Franz had 22,000 installs, 10,000 daily active users, 140,000 sessions and 2h 10m average session length. Most used services include WhatsApp, Messenger, Skype, Slack and Hangouts.
The first version was developed for Mac so obviously a lot of people would benefit of the Windows application too. This is exactly what Stefan is working on. He is inviting users to test Windows Beta Program. Don’t miss the chance to be part of a new big thing!