Palmer, tech city

PALMER — If you thought hip digital app startups were reserved for metropolitan area’s only, Alopex, which operates out of a building that began as a chicken hatchery in the original colony, has got something to show you.

Looking more like an Apple Store than just about anything in the Mat-Su Valley, Alopex, started up by Palmer native Kyle Fox handles web and app needs for several companies.

“I saw (in Alaska) we were lacking a company that did digital stuff and really good web sites,” Fox said. “I had been doing backgrounds, interface design and building apps and came fresh out of college to start my own company.”

Two years in, Alopex runs websites for a number of Anchorage-based companies, including Native corporations, ktva.com and the web page, as well as the apps for the Alaska State Fair in 2014 and 2015.

Business at the office of five, which includes three developers — one a software developer — and illustrator Zane Ogle, has been steady, but to make a bigger splash Alopex needed to make something of its own.

“We thought, let’s have a sticker pack,” Fox said. “We thought we’d gain traction locally, show people in Alaska we were doing this and just kind of let loose. We made it go pretty quick, made a list of things, wrote ‘em down on scrap paper, he did some sketches and this is what we came up with.”

The result was a sticker pack of “Alaskanisms” and to their shock, the team at Alopex found themselves ranked No. 7 in North American iStore downloads until this week.

“It’s things uniquely Alaskan, about things Alaskan that we would recognize,” Fox said. “A few are generic, like skis and snowshoes, but then you have a pile of PFD case, two ‘Lower 48’ icons and one that says ‘Squarebanks’.”

The stickers are only available through iMessage on Apple products.

Fox said the unexpected surge to No. 7 had much to do with friends and family spreading the world.

“My sister works at the Apple Store in Anchorage and I knew something was going on when someone came to her and said, ‘have you seen this sticker pack?’” Fox said. “The biggest help has been fellow Alaskans writing about it, sharing it on Facebook.”

Fox explained that 66 cents of every dollar Apple brings in on app downloads goes back to the developer. Alopex is far from making back the money it invested, but, Fox pointed out, that was never the point.

“The amount of time that goes into illustrating each… it may take a few thousands downloads of downloads to pay for itself,” Fox said. “But we wanted to do a demo.”

Phase 2 for the design team at Alopex is to create a singular character that expresses emotions, thereby entering the strata of the much more popular stickers known as emojis.

For this effort, Fox is partnering with childhood friend Joey Murphy.

“We were next to Disney on the list and most of those were their most popular characters, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, showing different emotions,” Fox said. “While (Alaskanisms) are kind up clip art fun, we want to do a character pack.”

Fox said Murphy is working on a winged bear character.

In the meantime, Fox said the company is close to releasing an app for Apple Watches that will inform wearers of the presence and severity of earthquakes, as well as partnering with entrepreneurs to build an app that will help businesspeople find quick digital solutions.

Even as Alopex gains credibility and customers in Anchorage and beyond, Fox said there’s no rush or need to move from the old chicken coop, catty-corner from the Mat-Su Borough offices.

“I get called into a meeting maybe two times a month in Anchorage,” Fox said. “The advantage of us being out here is we can actually afford office space. I like it a little more quiet, andn our developers seem to like it, too.”