![]() Illustrators can adjust almost every aspect of their experience, from brush size to the app’s pressure sensitivity to the stylus. Artists can use the app anywhere that has Wi-Fi without hooking the iPad up to a Mac. Geared toward professional graphic designers or illustrators, Astropad Studio offers users customization and mobility. “We were like, ‘OK, we need to give this a shot.’ ” “There was just such reception from artists and designers, this was something they’d been looking for,” Ronge said. Serious interest from consumers convinced them to make the app a full-time commitment. Months later, they won the Minnesota Cup, a statewide entrepreneur contest. The duo launched the product in February 2015. “I was taking a lot of naps.”įounders Matt Ronge and Giovanni Donelli of Astro HQ first met as interns at Apple and now have had about 320,000 people who have downloaded a version of their app. “We were hitting burnout at that point,” Donelli said. They let go one of their clients and began racing to beat the rumored launch of the Apple Watch, which they feared would leave little media attention for anything else. After about six months of setting aside weeknights and one day per week for the app, some friends at Pixar showed serious interest. When they first got the idea for Astropad, they were working as a consulting team, dubbed Astro HQ, for businesses that wanted to make iPad apps.ĭonelli and Ronge spent a year and a half working on the app on top of their consulting gig. About 320,000 people have downloaded either version, Ronge said.ĭonelli and Ronge had first met as Apple interns. Now a team of five people, the fledgling start-up rolled out its second version, Astropad Studio, in January. Astropad, a Minnesota-based app launched in 2015, lets artists illustrate directly on an iPad without hooking it up to a computer. So Donelli and his business partner, Matt Ronge, set out to fill an apparent gap. Rather than drawing on a tablet and looking up at a monitor to see their progress, artists could work directly on the device.ĭonelli, who illustrates as a hobby, knew that most artists prefer Apple products. At the time, the device was making waves as a long-awaited solution for digital illustrators. A Microsoft Surface advertisement plastered to a bus stop shelter gave Giovanni Donelli his next business idea.
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