Business of Apps Podcast

#113: How Lose It! hit 2 million monthly active users with Erin Webster-Shaller, VP Marketing at Loose it!

Ok, a quick experiment - try to recall apps on your smartphone, that you’ve been using since the inception of the App Store?
And now, I am not talking about the native iOS apps, no-no, apps developed not by Apple. Can you think of any? If you do have some, at least one, it means the app hasn’t lost your trust and the trust of so many other people. It just works for you all and that’s why to this day it is still on the market.
Today, we’ll be talking about one of the apps from the early days of Apple’s App Store, that is still out there and has more than 2 million people using it regularly.
Today’s Topics Include:
Erin's background is in the biotech company in Boston and was involved in a wearable product development
7 ingredient recipe to stay afloat for years and years and grow your app's user base to millions of users
Ingredient #1 - Maintain an Effective Product
Ingredient #2 - Prioritise User Experience
Ingredient #3 - Active Free USer Base
Ingredient #4 - Empower & Encourage
Ingredient #5 - Key Promotion Times
Ingredient #6 - Data-Driven Decision-Making Process
Ingredient #7 - Stay Selective & Nimble
Android or iOS? iOS
Erin's first mobile phone. Pink Nokia Razor
What features would Erin miss most? Spotify
What’s missing from mobile app technology? Software and hardware feature to adapt the smartphone to different use case, based on the time of the day and location.
Links and Resources:
Erin Webster-Shaller's LinkedIn profile
Erin Webster-Shaller's Twitter handler.
Lose it! website.
Quotes from Erin Webster-Shaller: 
”Since then the company has grown sustainably, we've remained really small and nimble, which really differentiate us in the fitness app space."
"We have over 50 million people downloaded the product, collectively they've lost over 120 million pounds."
"When you look at the competitive landscape of companies that we've been competing with for the last 14 years, we all have taken very different approaches for the free versus paid landscape. Where do you draw that line? And for Loose it! I think the early team saw the value of  having a really robust free product."
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024

#112: How to hack TikTok with Mike Cimmarrusti, Co-Founder & CEO of Realize

By this time you’ve heard about TikTok countless times, on some occasions, you heard about it from your children, and on others when tech pundits were arguing that TikTok is the first solid rival for Instagram & YouTube & Snapchat video market empires.
But you may get this impression “well, this is not for me, it won’t work for my business, because I have no clue what to do with it”.
Well, in this episode we will do our best to change your mind.
Today’s Topics Include:
Mike's career spans sports, trading, and now being CEO of the leading home design app with 2 million users
TikTok's competitive advantage
How TikTok is different from other platforms conceptually
TikTok content creation best practices
How to approach the right Influencers and Creators
What Mike didn't like about TikTok
Android or iOS? Actually both iOS and Android
Mike's first mobile phone. Motorola Razor
What features would Mike miss most? Audible / Spotify / Google Maps
What’s missing from mobile app technology? Suggest what you get for dinner.
Links and Resources:
Mike Cimmarrusti LinkedIn profile
Mike Cimmarrusti's email address.
Realize website
Mike used these channels to reach out to influencers and creators to run an ad campaign for his app:
LinkedIn Post
Open Source Creator List
Quotes from Mike Cimmarrusti: 
”That when I realize that I want to spend the rest of my life helping people communicate visually."
"We landed on TikTok because it was really easy to create. We spent some time on it ourselves obviously to use the platform and realized this is really to consume and really easy to create."
"What I realized it was way less work and more likely to get viral if you just copy what is on the platform and tweak it toward you message"
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024

#111: Push Notifications with Nicole J Castillo, Senior Director, Mobile Products at NewsCorp

How do you get your app users’ attention and communicate something to them?
Well, if you could just be next to them, if you could just live in their neighborhood that would be easy to do. But you can’t live next to tens of thousands, even millions of people who use your app at the same time, right?
So what do you do? You use digital communication channels like email, in-app messages, and yes-push notifications. The latter is the topic of my today’s conversation with Nicole.
Today’s Topics Include:
Nicole’s 10-year journey spans telecom, real estate, and today it’s media & publishing
How push notifications stack up against other digital marketing channels
How many push notifications do people get on a daily basis and their attitude toward them
From what kind of apps people don’t mind getting push notifications
Types of push notifications
Challenges app developers and brands face when it comes to pushes
Nicole’s wishes for what to change in push notifications tech
Android or iOS? iOS
What features would Nicole miss most? Google Maps
What’s missing from mobile app technology? The tech will allow the balance between using your smartphone for so many things and yet not being addicted to it.
Links and Resources:
Nicole J. Castillo  LinkedIn profile
News Corp
Business Of Apps – connecting the app industry
Quotes from Nicole J Castillo:
”I think it’s obvious for push notifications as the way to leverage the economy of scale. You have push notifications, people are aware how they work. Anybody who has a phone for any number of years they know how to turn them off when they become annoying. But there has been a lot of rise in opt-in and opt-out options, Focus Time and the newest stuff with Apple’s lock screen.”
What we’re seeing is that one average we’re talking about 46 push notifications a day, like almost 50 a day and probably more depending on your type of apps”
I’m really interested to see the evolution, so I’m not necessary interesting in seeing a new standard, I really want to see where push notifications can evolve to.”
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024
 

#110: Making social media campaign go viral with Jonathan Maxim, CEO at HeyPal

Every app marketer would love for their app marketing campaign to go viral. Spending less by getting your potential users’ attention to spread the message about your app is pure gold.
Today’s guest is Jonathan Maxim, CEO at HeyPal and former marketing strategist. He talks about how to make your social media campaign go viral.
Today’s Topics Include:
What is HeyPal? Social language learning platform (no affiliation to PayPal)
Countries: HeyPal’s biggest blessing and downfall is supporting them all 
What is growth hacking? Where organic and paid campaign meet to play nice together 
KPIs: Measure click-through rate, downloads, cost per install, and retention
Going Viral: Cost per acquisition drops exponentially; growth is used to gauge success 
Common Mistakes: Are you going for reach, downloads, sales, or spread a message?
TikTok: How valuable are dance videos to society? Very powerful, free, relevant content
Android or iOS? iOS - Jonathan is an Apple fan, but admits Android is getting better
What features would Jonathan miss most? Voice notes feature
What’s missing from mobile app technology? Delegate and trust, not micromanage
Links and Resources:
Jonathan Maxim  LinkedIn profile.
Jonathan Maxim on Instagram
HeyPal website.
Quotes from Jonathan Maxim:
”We just crossed the million downloads mark, and it’s been an awesome ride. We had some viral moments with HeyPal, no doubt.">
"It makes it really easy to speak with somebody from another country if you’re trying to learn a language. The whole idea is to build a gap between curriculum learning and practice."
"It’s really the social glue on the language learning space."
"Social media is one component of the marketing strategy to make things go viral."
"The ads that have an influencer or a real human in them, they convert better. They have better click-through rate, better conversion rate, even though they cost less and the production quality is lower.”
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Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024

#109: Solving the AdTech Maze to make UA manager life easier with Ankit Rawal, VP - International Sales & Marketing at Affle’s MAAS

Every person on this planet who needs to get up on a Monday morning to tune in his brain to work and, basically, it never stops till Friday evening, would agree that it is tough.
Now, if you are an app marketer, there are several questions that are floating in your mind all the time - who are my app users? Do I know all kinds of app users that may need my app? How should I approach all these people? Where? What marketing channels should I use?
All these questions push app marketer over and over to brainstorm new ideas with a mind mapping app or just drawing diagrams on a paper, peering into data points on her or his laptop. Day in. Day out.
So on this episode we will try to address all those questions and make her or his life easier.
Today’s Topics Include:
Ankit's has 15+ years experience being in the IT industry under his belt, his background spans across companies like Microsoft and Oracle and many others.
The changes in AdTech for the last decade
Challenges in the industry
Helping advertiser to navigate the convoluted maze of the Adtech
MAAS platform capabilities
Android or iOS? One+ running Android
What was Ankit’s first mobile phone? Nokia 3100
What features would Ankit miss the most leaving his smartphone at home? Audio content to listen to on the go
What’s missing from mobile app technology? Advances on the VR and AR frontiers
Links and Resources:
Ankit Rawal  LinkedIn profile.
MAAS powered by Affle website.
MAAS powered by Affle profile on Business Of apps.
Quotes from Ankit Rawal:
”As the penetration of smart phone increased with both iOS & Android growing App stores were launched… It for the first time developers can build software in one part have easy distribution thanks to global appstores across the world. You could develop locally & sell globally… Hence it became a wild west advertisers were focusing largely on growth and volumes. .. with incent traffic, burst campaigns.. 
Unfortunately our Ad industry is notorious which I should also take blame for is the 3 letter acronyms CPM, CPI, DMP, DSP, MMP, CDP & what have you… which makes anyone outside it wonder Huh?? App is a conduit to any activity a user wants to accomplish be it shop, play, get entertained, study & more.”
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024

#108: How to market apps via Influencers with Nadia Bubennikova, Head of agency at BuzzGuru

So it’s Monday morning, you’re sitting at your desk, taking a sip from your coffee mug and go like “Ok, I know my app’s user base isn’t growing as I planned. That’s obvious. I need to try another channel. Hm….”
Let me interrupt your thinking at this point, that thing you’re looking for right now is Influencer marketing. This is how you can reach out more people that need your app and get them excited about it.
To unpack Influencer Marketing for you, I’ve got a today Nadia to talk about types of apps it fits the best, how to reach out the right Influencers, what to expect and more.
Today’s Topics Include:
What types of apps do fit for an Influencer marketing campaign
Examples of apps for those Influencer marketing campaigns were ran
In-house vs. hiring an influencer marketing agency
KPIs to assess an influencer marketing campaign efficiency
How Influencer marketing helps apps to go international
Influencer marketing trends for 2023
Android or iOS? iOS
What was Nadia’s first mobile phone? Motorola Razr
What features would Nadia miss the most leaving his smartphone at home? Apple Pay
What’s missing from mobile app technology? More features for the Health app
Links and Resources:
Nadia Bubennikova  LinkedIn profile
BuzzGuru website.
Quotes from Nadia Bubennikova:
”Basically on this platform we have coaches from different spheres that teach end-users on the platform how to get a specific skill, like how to play a guitar, learn a specific language, basically anything you can image. Seems pretty easy, like a nice feet for the Influencer marketing but there is a catch. That catch is that, in this case, our goal was not to drive not a general audience and the end user of the product that would learn some skills, but to recruit coaches of some very specific skills.
That would sound strange but for me the most awful would be disconnected from the campaigns, from the work because Influencer marketing never stops.”
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
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Berlin - 5 Dec 2024

#107: Apps and brands with Charlie Cooke, Head of Growth at Sidekick by Sorted Food

Let’s make a quick mental experiment. When I say brand, what pops up in your mind? Apple? Nike? Tesla? That’s right - all those are brands, in fact if you think about it you can easily count like a dozen of brands around you.
And there is more - you can think of some of the mobile apps on your phone as brands as well. Today, Charlie will help you to get a better grasp on how to apply a brand concept to your app.
Today’s Topics Include:
Charlie has been working with a variety of the startups across of multiple sectors like sport, property, language learning and now food.
What is brand
What role brand plays for a newbie app startup
How different generations, like Millennials and Gen Z, perceive brands
Common mistakes people do applying a brand concept to a mobile app
Android or iOS? Android, never dabbled into the iPhone stuff
What was Charlie’s first mobile phone? Nokia 3310
What features would Charlie miss the most leaving his smartphone at home? Spotify to listen podcasts everywhere all the time
What’s missing from mobile app technology? Features to decrease distractions the smartphone brings into our life.
Links and Resources:
Charlie Cooke  LinkedIn profile
Sorted Food website.
Quotes from Charlie Cooke:
"For me it’s really fundamental thing. A lot my thinking around it starts with, and maybe for lots of people, the Simon Sinek  “Start with Why”  book. It’s around why the company exists, like how we communicate our ideas clearly, build relationships with customers, it’s actually a starting point for a company.
I’ve started to see some research that there is that shift towards cause marketing, activism where where they kind of expect a brand to have a purpose.”
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#106: How we gained 200M+ downloads with Anton Volovyk, COO at Reface

Since the inception of the iPhone and its innovative App Store, we heard many success stories of apps that grabbed so many people’s attention because of their novelty, practical application or just pure fun. Some of those apps were brainstormed, developed and marketed by Ukrainians.
But that was before the war in Ukraine. Now, imagine if you own one of the most popular mobile apps of today and your home country was invaded. How do you reconcile the challenge of growing your app and the wa-a-a-ay bigger one caused by the invasion?
Today Anton will tell us the story of those challenges.
Today’s Topics Include:
Anton’s path in business - from hopes to joint financial corporate world to one of the most popular mobile apps of today
What is Reface
Reface underlining tech
Reface’s growth trajectory
Reface app creating & marketing lessons learned
Android or iOS? iOS
What was Anton’s first mobile phone? Motorola
What features would Anton miss the most leaving his smartphone at home? Calendar app
What’s missing from mobile app technology? Being able to use the iPhone as a bottle opener :-)
Links and Resources:
Anton Volovyk  LinkedIn profile
Reface website.
Quotes from Anton Volovyk:
"I think the link between our kind of machine learning magic, the product features, the product flow and content is what makes Reface so amazing.
When the user clicks on creating a Reface or Faceswap or any other mechanics than this request goes to a backend and the backend reroutes this request to machine learning production, which utilizes GPUs to create an output which then sends to the mobile.
It’s a hard question because I think every new technology, every new breakthrough comes with potential problems. It really depends on the main actors who try to handle this tech and then it may take the good and the bad turn. But in general, I think, the good thing is that a lot of companies who work in this space such as Reface, build a business around this technology and therefore it’s super important actually to make this area as ethical as possible.”
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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Berlin - 5 Dec 2024

#105: How we bootstrapped to 1 million users with Ania Wysocka, Founder At Rootd

Anxiety. If this word doesn’t tell you anything, lucky you. So many people on this planet are familiar with anxiety. Essentially, it is a fear of what is about to come, it’s a dread over something you anticipate.
Sometimes your feel of anxiety is justified, on many occasions it is not and what is worse it triggers a panic attack. But there is a way to calm yourself down to be able to dealt with it.
Today Ania will tell you a story of connecting her panic attack & anxiety relief mobile app Rootd with a million people who needed help to deal with these issues.
Today’s Topics Include:
Polish Canadian, living abroad in multiple countries, graduated in Vancouver, Canada, Ania had a personal reason to create an app like Rootd to help people deal with anxiety and panic attack.
Focusing on a niche - how Ania managed to reach out the first audience for the app, starting with a narrow problem to address with the app and than going more broadly.
Engaging the app’s user base
Story submissions
Press Releases
Translation to go international and reach broad audiences in multiple countries
Onboarding
Being praised and criticized by the app users
Android or iOS? iOS
What was Ania’s first mobile phone? Nokia
What features would Ania miss most leaving his smartphone at home? Rootd :-) and Google Maps.
What’s missing from mobile app technology? iOS features and the iPhone & Apple Watch hardware advances to address more health related issues.
Links and Resources:
Ania Wosocka  LinkedIn profile
Rootd website.
Quotes from Ania Wosocka:
"Fast forward a few years, I learned a lot of different tips and techniques that helped me to understand anxiety, where it comes from and really just learn to manage it in my daily life. And that is the promise of Rootd.
And I think one key point is that as a bootstrapped app, it made a lot of sense for me to get users who are downloading via the keyword and they are getting what they’ve searched for exactly.
Often local papers want to feature local entrepreneurs and so that who it started and that was the first one I did when Rootd was launched and it was picked up by local papers.”
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
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#104: State of Mobile Messaging 2022: Insights from 100B messages with Josh Wetzel, CRO at OneSignal

According to Statista, in 2021, daily, emails alone were sent a whopping 320 billion times. Emails - the first kind of digital messaging that was adopted at mid-90s and by now they exist almost solely for business and occasionally Millennials or older generations may share something via email when really don’t need or don’t want a quick turnaround.
Now add on top of it 100 billion WhatsApp messages, countless number of FB Messenger, Apple’s iMessage, Telegram, Viber, WeChat messages and some more send via dozens less popular Instant Messaging apps. It’s an ocean of messages that circulate every day, every hour, every millisecond.
In this episode we have Josh from OneSignal to share with you an insight from 100 billion messages sent by OneSignal.
Today’s Topics Include:
Josh’s story - born in Palo Alto, for the last 20+ years his career included working for Adobe, CBS Interactive, eBay, PubMatic and since 2018 at OneSignal
Mobile messaging options for app marketers to use
Email as the first mass communication tool
Push Notifications
In-app Messaging
 Josh suggestions to app developers, marketers and brands for how to adjust to Apple’s ATT framework
Android or iOS? iOS
What was Josh’s first mobile phone? Hard to say, Josh got his hands on a lot of early smartphone models, working as CNET reviewer back in the day
What features would Josh miss most leaving his smartphone at home?
What’s missing from mobile app technology? iOS features to balance the use of a smartphone
Links and Resources:
Josh Wetzel  LinkedIn profile
OneSignal website.
Quotes from Josh Wetzel: 
"So it’s really thing about those moments. Thinking about these critical points in that journey and building messaging around that. And then taking a step below, you gotta about what are the options best for what thing.
If you gonna do an asynchronous kind of weekly update or some random promotion. That’s a great promotion for an email.
If you send a note about “Hey, your order is taken” of  “Your order is on the way” it’s about to come or “Hey, come back we’ve got a promotion - in the next 20 minutes for a pizza”, you wanna use push.”
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024