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Launching Digital ProductsPitfalls & Opportunities

@niallrochen.roche@ucl.ac.ukGet in touch

Niall Roche

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• Distribution Channels

• Targeting Users

• Avoiding Potential Launch Issues

• Charging

• Tech Advice for scaling

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Opportuni1es• Developing  Consumer  Applica1ons

• Enterprise  Mobility  

• Building  Mobile  Apps  for  exis1ng  companies  or  brands  

• promo1onal,  social  or  func1onal  apps

• Extending  exis1ng  Services  to  mobile  

• Gaming  and  Entertainment

• Payments  or  commerce  

• Internet  of  Things  +  connected  home

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The  Mobile  Ecosystem• Network  Providers  /  Mobile  Operators

• Device  Manufacturers

• Opera1ng  System  Providers

• App  Store  providers

• Cloud  providers

• Designers  &  Developers

• Innovators

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Revenue Channels• Mobilise existing paid service

• Free apps to promote service or brand

• Charge per download (how much will user’s pay)

• Lite/pro - In-app purchases (freemium/paidmium)

• Play around with pricing (Appgratis, Appsfire, Free App A Day, FreeMyApps)

• Subscription Charging

• Determine the value of your app or content

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Targeting Users• Think of what apps your target market use.

• Target devices in your target market

• ROI may not be there to support uncommon or old devices

• users keep a device for 24-18 months

• pre/post paid user, do they have a data plan?

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Payment Predictions• through 2018, less than 0.1 percent of consumer

mobile apps will be considered a financial success by their developers

• by 2017 94.5 % of downloads for free apps

• 90 % are downloaded less than 500 times per day and make less than $1,250 a day.

• Source Gartner

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"Freemium" Model• Provide free app to upsell premium app

• Provide taster/teaser version

• Playable Demo of Game

• Reduced feature set

• Usually use advertising to make small revenue

• Trial versions on certain platforms e.g. Microsoft

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In-App Advertising• Low revenue for app developers

• 60/40% split for Apple and Microsoft

• Must be relevant to the user & the context

• Affiliate programs may be a better bet

• Users do not want interruption!

• Think of the UI design impacts of the advert

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Charging• Online Payment Providers

• Stripe PayPal/Braintree Square Amazon

• App Stores

• http://www.slideshare.net/mobyaffiliates/guide-to-mobile-app-stores

• Operator Billing and aggregators e.g. Bango

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Marketing• Don't expect to upload an app and sit back and make money

• Visibility of an app on app store is key

• Need to draw customer to your app/site

• External sources such as Social Media

• Consider advertising and affiliates!

• Try to get to be Featured App (give 3 weeks notice)

• Use Promo Codes for media or influencers e.g. Bloggers

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Marketing• Angry Birds Strategy (see wired article on this)

• Start in small Markets and build user group and get good ratings and build from there

• Build a group of happy users who will help to promote the app virally

• start on Android to build a community fast then move to iOS

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Affiliate programs

• Refer users of your app to download other apps

• Make money if your referral leads to a purchase on iTunes within 72 hours (5% revenue)

• mobyaffiliates.com Amazon phg

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Prelaunch Strategies• Soft launch in smaller App Stores (App Lab)

• TestFlight and Google Play Beta

• launchsky.com preapps.com

• Promote on discovery sites like Appolicious

• Coordinate marketing activities with launch

• Reviews - who blogs/writes about your type of apps - send them a promo code

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Prepare for Launch• Get All paperwork and legals in place

• Create the necessary Certificates Profiles etc.

• Upload App Meta data and promotional content

• ASO and App Naming

• Promotional/Support Website + Social

• Logo and Screenshot

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CARTOON CREDIT: "The Joy of Tech™" by Nitrozac & Snaggy,

joyoftech.com. Copyright © 2008 Geek Culture. Archived at

GeekCulture.com.

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Problems with Approval• not following Human Interface Guidelines

• using Private APIs (functions reserved for Apple)

• apps not working offline

• competition with built-in app or Apple service

• e.g. alternatives to in-app purchases

• using existing Apple icons for different purpose

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Problems with Approval• don’t just wrap a mobile website into an App

• Check the size of the App

• Validate the app before launch

• Be careful with background activity and data use

• testing using tools and on real devices on different OS and hardware variants

• Leave time for Approval/Rejection/Reapply/Rejection

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App approval times• current average is 4-5 days (weekends too)

• http://appreviewtimes.com for latest times

• @appreviewtimes will post once a day with the latest averages

• double that to be safe (ideally 2 weeks)

• can be more near a new iOS version release

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Important Features!

• Feedback mechanism online and in-app

• Manage permissions appropriately

• Let users suggest & inform

• Ratings API (use carefully don't annoy users)

• Analytics and Metrics

• Push Notifications

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Partnering• Be a featured app provider from a software

supplier, speak at their conferences, get featured on their stores

• Partner with a mobile operator - get exposure to their customers and an ability to charge them

• Partner with a OEM - possibilities to get pre-loaded on a device

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Keeping Users Engaged• Keep user using your app or the will stop using it

• Competition with other apps on device is high

• Use Push Notifications - but not too much

• Find reasons for them to engage

• Update regularly to keep users engaged

• Competitions/Promotions/Social etc

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Be adaptive to change• MVPs are usually a rush and technically bad

implementations - should be good enough

• Need core functions to achieve learning

• Being agile and using CI from an early stage in product development can improve ability to adapt to new features and allow faster release cycles

• MVP will probably need rewriting to avoid technical debt can keep layering bad code on bad architecture

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Validating Assumptions• What you think vs what users actually do

• A/B testing for each feature

• abtestmaster.com for list of libraries

• Measurement is key to validate

• Analytics tools

• segment.io flurry google UXCam mixpanel

• Measure, learn and improve

• Let the data help to drive your decisions

choose an assumption to validate

add feature(s)

and analytics

carry out split testing

can it be measured?

evaluate metrics

Yes

No??

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Scalability Concerns• Tricky balance between building MVP and building a

scalable product

• Focus on using backend servers that auto-scale e.g. cloud services or PAAS

• Build systems that are big enough for expected user base but don’t over engineer for non-existent users

• Don’t ignore scalability over adding new features e.g. Friendster

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Estimating Costs• Consider cost of implementation per platform

targeted, OS versions and per device class

• Cost to build + cost to support and improve

• App Store and other distribution costs over time

• Price and lifespan of hardware

• Apps will need constant updating to keep up with OS and device changes

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Useful Links• appannie.com

• https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.appannie.com/blog/pdf/Going_Live_on_Google_Play_Checklist.pdf

• http://cdn.apptamin.com/ASO_Cheat_Sheet.pdf

• http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-future-of-the-mobile-industry-2014-11?r=US#-21

• http://www.phunware.com/marketing/freemium-paidmium-mium-latest-pricing-strategies-mobile-apps/

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Launching Digital ProductsPitfalls & Opportunities

@niallrochen.roche@ucl.ac.ukGet in touch

Niall Roche