Notes from an event held at TechHub Bucharest
19:00 – It’s been half an hour, still hasn’t started, but on the bright side there will be pizza.
Andrei Costescu is moderating, Bobby Voicu is in the house, Sergiu Biriș just connected through Skype. The panel is filled with experinced apptrepreneurs. About 25% of the audience is developing mobile apps, has already developed one or has more than 10.000 users.
The panel:
Andrei Marinescu (Appscend): Românii au talent, Știri360
Andrei Blaj (Makan Studios): Real colors, Conscience, Haute
Sorin Manică: auto.ro
Sergiu Biriș: Zonga
Topic: What makes an app to be downloaded, what makes it appealing?
Andrei Marinescu: Apps sell an experience, they must be appealing, the icon, the descriptions.
Andrei Blaj: The name, the icon, the screenshots, the reviews.
Sorin Manică: The product, its utility; design matters.
Sergiu Biriș: Agood product sells itself, reviews, screenshots, branding, but first of all a good product.
Topic: Customer acquisition
Nobody in the audience has a budget for customer aquisition, except Bobby Voicu.
A.M.: Promoting your app in other apps.
A.B.: App store optimization, user engagement.
S.M.: First steps after build: guerilla marketing, PR events, focus on product and functionality.
S.B.: Not a lot of app store optimization, instead focus on the product itself.
Topic: Customer lifetime value
A.M.: 1% of customers use in-app purchase, the stats are going down. There is a high demand for free apps. Flurry study: 6% more free apps than last year. Certain blogs write about apps, find a niche.
A.B.: Freemium.
S.B.: Calculate customer lifetime value from predictions and estimates. Make it easy for the user to pay. Get featured on TV; any channel can help, be everywhere.
Topic: Broadcasting channels
A.M.: Best channel: television — insert in a news, the “I like IT” show. Channel doesn’t matter, Facebook works, banner ads.
A.B.: Getting featured by the app store, Facebook ads. Don’t buy reviews, it doesn’t work. Promoting the app on forums or communities didn’t work, but it might for your app.
S.M.: Paid media and earned media, use both.
S.B.: Trilulilu, Facebook, Google Adwords, at events: flyers with QR codes. Be on many channels. Hardest thing: to make the user to use your app again and again. Measure usage, conversions, everything. User retention is key.
Topic: User retention mistakes
A.M.: Release without bugs, hope for good ratings, Appstore, Google Play guidelines are the bible. Do not overuse push notifications. Monetization works better on iOS.
A.B.: Cross-promoting apps. Use different strategies.
S.M.: Simplify the app.
S.B.: If you start on the wrong foot, ask the user to try the app again, after fixing the bugs. Google Play helps, you can reply to user comments. Difference befween users from Google Play and Appstore: iOS users use the app more, but Android has twice the download numbers. Also Android has a cheaper user acquisition.
hub:raum is an incubator and accelerator from Berlin and are waiting for you to apply here. They are responsible for the pizza and beers.
This event took place at Bucharest TechHub.