Joe Apps' overwhelming success has Burlington man ready for challenging, busy future

Joseph Apps is a name you’ll likely be hearing quite a bit in the future.

The 30-year-old, born and raised in Burlington entrepreneur is finding great success with his business Joe Apps Technology Support.

A familiar name to many, Apps has been sharing his story of success with others. In fact, this evening (Wednesday, May 15), Joe Apps and Burlington Public Library, Central branch are offering an evening of networking and hands-on creating in the library's MakerSpace, from 5 to 7 p.m. with the Burlington Chamber of Commerce's Business After 5 participants. Here, he'll be sharing how you can discover the right tools and technology to take your business to the next level.

He started the business in 2016, and since then, he’s helped more than 1,000 businesses navigate through technology and cybersecurity.

Through the power of technology, he helps small- and medium-sized businesses achieve success. Starting on his own, he’s grown his business to employ 11 IT professionals.

“We believe with the workforce and the skill set that we have we can serve a good amount of Canadian businesses and help them reach their goals of being innovative, learning, onboarding, and taking on clients.”

Apps said his elite team of IT professionals has one purpose: providing the highest level of technical support to its clients. Joe Apps helps with network infrastructure, software development and any issue that arises.

Think of it this way: if you run into a computer problem at your business, who can you call? Whether remotely, over email or in person, Apps said it’s nice to know that you can reach out to someone and get help quickly. That means no loss of productivity. 

And so far, so good. He’s so proud of his business that he firmly believes that in 10 years, he’ll be able to help more than 5,000 businesses across Canada. “We want to be at the forefront of that in Canada.

“Let’s ramp it up, let’s double it and do five times that!” he laughed, but he might not be out of range.

Especially considering the unknowns that come with AI, Apps is sure more and more businesses will rely on his company to ensure security.

“It’s time to take cyber security seriously,” he said. “Let’s position ourselves; we all know cyber security is getting worse.”

He said, you only need to look to the City of Hamilton to see what can happen.

Apps said he owes his success in large part to his parents “who immigrated here from England and taught their two sons to work hard to achieve success,” he said. “They instilled it in us their great work ethic. Always going going going, that’s inspired me, my dad he was always doing that.”

And, he said, he has to thank Steve Jobs for coming with the iphone, and thereby apps. Naming his business was simple!

Apps studied application and system development at Mohawk College and that’s when he started his business.

“I always wanted to be an entrepreneur,” he said. “In elementary school I had a candy store; later I operated a skate shot out of my garage.

For a while, he and a friend tinkered in the refurbished electronics business, doing cell phones and computers.

But, since he opened Joe Apps he hasn’t looked back. He has an office space at 3390 South Service Rd., and a satellite office in Vancouver, where his team thrive on solving issues together quickly.

They spend days on training and looking at different forums, ie. what’s the latest cyber security trend? How do we keep our clients ahead? How do we stay at the forefront of technology? Is there new stuff we can implement? 

“We’re always looking from this above perspective with all the businesses we work with, and that allows us to be ahead of trends,” he said. “That allows these clients to have the best IT structure so they can stay competitive and ahead in their business.

“Having IT issues takes time away from their core jobs and their superhero strengths.”

He said his ideal client would be a municipality or any business that takes cybersecurity seriously. 

“You need that third party to do the checks and balances,” he said.