Hushed – Second Phone Number – Calling and Texting – Interview with the developer of a fantastic app

Did you have any prior development or coding experience?

I’ve been in the world of software development for 20 years, and have worked on multiple products in different capacities. Hushed is AffinityClick’s flagship app and I am very proud of the impact it’s had on the privacy app market, as a top-grossing second number app for both iOS and Android.

What was the most challenging aspect of developing mobile app?

One of the biggest challenges we still face is from our competitors within the messaging space. As the technological landscape shifts, people’s expectations of what a messaging app can do grows exponentially. To succeed in this market you need to focus on a problem and solve it well, while still innovating. With Hushed our focus is on providing privacy to the consumer when using a secondary phone number. When we’ve encountered difficulties with our product is when we’ve strayed from that identity and tried to offer features that didn’t make sense for our user base (i.e. end-to-end encryption, direct messaging, video calling). We fare best when we stay focused on our original goal, being the best second phone number app on the market.

Justin Shimoon, the interviewee, is the founder and CEO of AffinityClick, a mobile development company focused on communication solutions. He created the Hushed secondary number app in 2012, out of a need to help people feel safe sharing their phone numbers while protecting their privacy. Justin is proud of Hushed’s evolution into a leading app on the mobile market.

Name a few of your favorite apps and reason you love them.

I like Uber for it’s UX design and the fact that it’s such an innovative concept; it’s the first
name in ride-sharing because it solved an existing transportation issue so efficiently, you
have to respect that. Plus it helped fuel the gig economy, creating new employment
opportunities. Twitter is great for real-time information and news updates. I also enjoy
Google News, it’s good at curating content tailored to my interests and showing me relevant
information.

How long have you been working on this app?

Hushed launched in the app stores in 2013, and we’ve been refining and updating the app continually since then to improve performance. Having the best possible second number app was always my goal, and achieving that requires frequent updates to our features. For example, we just recently launched our newest version, Version 5.0, which includes a complete UI redesign for improved user experience.

What need of the user did you have in mind when developing this app?

Hushed is an app for anyone who values their privacy. The goal of the app is to ensure phone privacy for both long-term and short term users. That means that Hushed is for anyone who needs a second phone number for a day, a week, or even years. Dating, selling, and buying in classified ads, traveling, and adding business phone lines are all excellent examples of why someone would choose to get a second number through Hushed. Whether it’s a temporary number or a permanent phone number, Hushed can accommodate.

In what way do you think your app is better than similar apps on the market? Please describe in detail what innovation you think you bring and what you are proud of in your app.

Hushed is different from other second number apps because we offer numbers for both long and short-term use-cases. Our customers can get a number for temporary use and burn it as soon as they’re done with it, or they can hang onto a second number permanently. Because we support both types of number retention, we’re more flexible to user needs than our competitors. We also offer multiple numbers, so we’re not restricting our customers to one type of secondary number—they can have it all! Our dedication to improving customer experience is another way in which we go above and beyond compared to similar apps.

What are your future plans and expected features of the coming new versions of this app?

We’re looking to add new features to Hushed like call recording, which is something our users have suggested. AffinityClick also has other projects on the horizon beyond Hushed, including a small/medium business product and a new data product, though I can’t really share any details of that just yet.

Assuming new users of your app are reading this page. What do you want to ask them to do (contact you about X, Share the app, etc.)?

I’d invite anyone interested in Hushed to download the app and claim a Free 3 Day Trial Number to try it out. We always welcome feedback, and I love to hear from our customers, so I’d encourage them to let us know what they think at support@hushed.com