Business of Apps Podcast

#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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#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
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024

#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

#103: Driving app installs with TikTok Ads with Ryan Thorpe, CMO at Reflectly

Alright, so you’re looking at the number of daily and monthly active users for your app and wonder “is there a new app marketing channel I am missing?” You’ve heard about TikTok, you know that there is an advertising platform from TikTok - TikTok Ads. But you’re not quite sure that how to use it and if it’s actually capable to help you to grow your app’s user base.
In this episode we want to help you out. We’ve got Ryan to walk you through driving app installs with TikTok Ads.
Today’s Topics Include:
What is Reflectly
Creating TikTok Ads campaign
How to create an effective video content for TikTok Ads
How similar or different TikTok Ads from Facebook Ads
KPIs to focus on
Hype about TikTok
What Ryan believes can be improved with the TikTok Ads platform
Android or iOS? iOS
What was Andy’s first mobile phone? Nokia
What features would Andy miss most leaving his smartphone at home? Slack for work, messaging apps for communication with friends and family
What’s missing from mobile app technology? Adding Time Tree app features to the iOS native calendar app
Links and Resources:
Ryan Thorpe  LinkedIn profile
Reflectly’s website.
Quotes from Ryan Thorpe:
"The hype around TikTok at the moment is that it is easy to go viral. I don’t think it is easy to go viral. However there is a math to go viral.
People think that after 5 or 10 videos that should hit of winning creative style but what you need to do is to create 30, 40,50 videos at TikTok to really understand  why there is hype about things going viral.
The question you are trying to ask yourself is this creative going viral”
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#102: The Mobile Growth Stack 2022 with Andy Carvell, Partner at Phiture

No matter what it’s about, if you are serious about building something, like building a house / car / space ship or your mobile app product, you need a plan or what we call in IT - a stack.
I’m sure you see where I’m going with it, I have Andy Carvell on the episode and I’ve just mentioned a stack… Right - on this episode we’re to talk about The Mobile Growth Stack to be precise, 2022 edition. I bet for many of you this situation may look familiar - either you are at the beginning of your app project or its well underway, you wonder what are my ALL options to build and launch a successful app business?
As it happens quite often with many concepts or ideas that go viral, the Mobile Growth Stack was conceived by Andy out of necessity when he needed to put together all his ideas for an app project, working at SoundCloud.
Now, to be clear, do not think of this stack as your ultimate To Do list. It service a different function of being a depiction, if you will, of the entire landscape of possible activities you may be involved with, working on your app project, including such stages as app user acquisition & retention, app engagement, monetization, tech solutions to use and more.
Today’s Topics Include:
Andy’s background - from a software engineer at Nokia, Marketing Lead at SoundCloud to Partner & Co-Founder at Phiture - Berlin-based 100+ strong mobile growth consultancy
Mobile Growth Stack: definition and its genesis
The Acquisition section of the stack
The Engagement & Retention section of the stack
The Monetization section of the stack
The Tech section of the stack
The Strategic Management section of the stack
The Analytics & Insights section of the stack
The Management Insights section of the stack
Android or iOS? Actually both :-), to be up-to-date with what’s happening on both platforms
What was Andy’s first mobile phone? Nokia 7110
What features would Andy miss most leaving his smartphone at home? Google Maps :-)
What’s missing from mobile app technology? Even better Night Mode on an iPhone.
Links and Resources:
Andy Carvell  LinkedIn profile
Mobile Growth Stack 2022
Phiture website.
Quotes from Andy Carvell:
"Than I ended up joining SoundCloud, who were a growing platform at that point, I think I joined at 29, I was employee number 89, I think.
That’s one of the major misconception, actually, about the Mobile Growth Stack. There is lots of stuff in it, if  you’ve seen it you can see at mobilegrowhstack.com, it’s a quite a busy page, there is a lot of information on there. And I think one of the things that people often think is that they have to do all of these things in order to succeed and it’s absolutely not the case.
I really do believe that app analytics and insights should be the foundation on which you’re building your whole growth efforts on.”
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#101: The year of Cross Promo with Cameron Thom, Directory of Sales at Adikteev & Matej Lancaric, Marketing Consultant

Ok, what are your options today when it comes to marketing your app?
I can tell you from a point of view of a guy who was in app marketing back in 2010-2015 time frame, the portfolio of app marketing tools has grown significantly. Today when you’re tasked to grow an app’s user base, you have App Store Optimization, paid UA, ads in podcasts, on TV, on radio, PR, social media marketing, influencer marketing, content marketing.
And there is one more app marketing tool, which isn’t always applicable but once you’ve got a number of apps in your portfolio, you can turn your attention to cross-promotion and this is what we’re gonna talk about today with Cameron and Matej.
Today’s Topics Include:
Cameron and Matej’s background in mobile
What is cross promo for apps
What it takes to promote mobile apps via cross promotion
What mobile games are compatible to be paired for a cross-promotion campaign
Parting words for app marketers to make cross-promotion work for their apps
Android or iOS?
What was Cameron and Matej’s first mobile phone?
What features would Cameron and Matej miss most leaving his smartphone at home?
What’s missing from mobile app technology?
Links and Resources:
Cameron Thom LinkedIn profile
Matej Lančarič LinkedIn profile
Adikteev website.
Quotes from Cameron and Matej:
"It’s always a tough job to run a cross-promotion, other from a valuation standpoint or just from a point of talking to the game team.
You can cross-promote players across different games and can be successful. It’s about trying to identify user segments and trying to find sweet spots where they might churn.
I was always a big fan of cross-promotion, it’s been thought to evolve it properly."
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
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#100: 60 shades of App Growth with Gessica Bicego, CMO at Paired

This week is a special one - the Business Of Apps podcast has reached episode #100.
For this special occasion we’ve invited Gessica Bicego, one of the most well-known mobile app marketers, with years and years of experience in app growth, and talk about what we call “The 60 shades of App Growth”. During the conversation, we cover what it takes to increase a mobile app user base and, of course, the revenue it generates. Every app marketer and every brand that launches a mobile app is focused or should be, on its growth. A brand new app brings a bunch of challenges to an app marketing team, a well-established app has its own challenges that somewhat overlap with the former but for the most part, are unique.
Today’s Topics Include:
Gessica’s background
What is Paired app
Growing well-established app versus a brand new one
What app marketing channels Gessica considers the most effective
TikTok Ads
The impact of Apple’s ATT and Google’s Privacy Sandbox on app marketing
Gessica’s parting word for app marketing newbies
What features would Gessica miss most leaving his smartphone at home? Google Maps, Instagram
Links and Resources:
Gessica Bicego LinkedIn profile
Gessica’s podcast - Mobile Growth Nightmares.
Paired’s website.
Quotes from Gessica Bicego:
"I would say that there is no such thing that is like the best app marketing channel. I think it really depends on the product you are advertising.
I have this passion of working for mobile products that are building something new. And so the issue is that people are not really looking for what you do.
TikTok for me is like this question mark platform, I open it once a month - I get lost in it. I watch like a thousand videos about dogs and I close it again and I forget about it."
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#99: Are we living through the App-ocalypse? with Brett Orlanski, SVP Product and Sales at Bango

In every industry there are periods of slow gradual changes and very rapid ones, when companies have to adopt quickly and deal with the consequences of those changes to keep their business afloat.
Last April, Apple finally released its ATT framework, ATT stands for App Tracking Transparency that implies for app marketers to be able to track app users' actions across multiple apps they need to ask for permission first.
This February, Google introduced its Privacy Sandbox for Android with a similar function. All in all, today we’ve got two major mobile platforms that have drastically changed the app tracking and this is the topic for my conversation today with Brett.
Today’s Topics Include:
Brett’s background
How privacy changes hurting app marketers today
How we got into this trouble
What app marketers need to do to move forward in the post-IDFA world
What side of the Android & iOS duopoly Brett is? iOS
What features would Brett miss most leaving his smartphone at home? Google Maps
What’s missing from mobile app technology? Overall smartphone performance speed
Links and Resources:
Brett Orlanski LinkedIn profile.
Bango’s website.
Quotes from Brett Orlanski: 
"Very few places that offer product that actually allows to define payers.
It’s a double-edge sword, I think we can say it’s for end user in a sense it gives more privacy and control of your own data. It’s bad for mobile marketers that use these signals to send you really good ads you maybe interested in.
The best way of thinking about is people always worry about is my phone listening to me or Facebook is listening to me. Sometimes I get an ad so early on point…"
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#98: The State of Mobile 2022 with Lexi Sydow, Head of Insights at Data.ai

Earlier on this year, data.ai, perhaps you still better know them as App Annie, published the State of Mobile 2022 report which is the ultimate bird-view on the app industry. Take any field, any market - being able to have a holistic view is what allows you to see a complete picture and compete with other players on the market. The app industry is one of the brightest examples for this approach.
In this episode, to talk about what app categories are the most popular today, how much money people spend on mobile apps, what are app trends in different countries and more we have Lexi, she’s been on the show couple times before and is always welcome back.
Today’s Topics Include:
The story behind App Annie’s rebrand to data.ai
The snapshot of the report - major data points
Waking hours benchmark
Consumer spend on apps
App categories people spend on the most
Number of new apps released in 2021
App blockbusters
App categories by generations - Gen Z, Millennials, Baby Boomers
Links and Resources:
Lexi Sydow LinkedIn profile.
The State of Mobile 2022 report.
Data.ai website.
Quotes from Lexi Sydow: 
"We are spending around a third of our waking day on mobile."
"We are spending around seven of every 10 minutes in a combination of either social, communication or photo and video apps, so very heavily media-oriented".
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London - 25 Apr 2024
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#97: TikTok: the impact on ad business and influencers with Sheyda D, Co-Founder and CTO at ViralMoment

On one hand, ask your teenage daughter how her girlfriends spend time, quite often including school time, and she will tell you “well, they are fooling around with TikTok”.
On the other hand, ask any brand marketer about TikTok and she or he will tell you whether they already use its advertising platform, try to go with it natively, or consider using it. So for the latter case wouldn’t be great if there was an analytical tool to tell you what’s trending on TikTok?
Well, lo and behold there is one and it’s ViralMoment and we have Sheyda to tell us all about it.
Today’s Topics Include:
Being a software engineer by training and liking to tackle hard problems, in early 2021 Sheyda was introduced to the idea to develop an analytical tool to measure video virality on TikTok subjectively, outside of the silos that the platform creates for individual users
What is ViralMoment
Does TikTok replace other ad platforms or compliment them for brands?
How does TikTok influence consumer behavior?
What is TikTok's impact on Influencers?
How ViralMoment can help to mitigate TikTok's externalities?
Sheyda's overall assessment of TikTok's impact on society
What side of the Android & iOS duopoly Jason is? iOS
First mobile phone owned by Sheyda - Nokia mobile phone with everyone's favorite Snake game on it :-)
What features would Jason miss most leaving his smartphone at home? Not being able to get in touch with people, it's not about a specific app but the function
What new app technologies is Jason most excited about? More tech that would regulate smartphone usage (Think Siri telling you you should spend more time off your smartphone)
Links and Resources:
Sheyda D LinkedIn profile.
ViralMoment website.
Quotes from Sheyda D: 
"Back in January 2021, my co-founder Chelsey came to me with the idea for ViralMoment. She's been working in the Social Listening industry for a while and noticed that there was really no solution for visual-based social media."
"We also work with non-profit organizations and we are also currently working with a research group out of Carnegie Mellon centered on identifying hate speech on TikTok."
"If you are trying to buy a pair of shoes and I see a billboard for Nike - that is an advertising and once my friend tells me I have this pair of shoes, these are great! Which ones am I'm gonna left with? I'm gonna buy the ones my friend told me to. It's the same on TikTok - you're looking at these people as a part of your community that is telling you about what they are using."
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024