A lecture on consideration when launching digital products for technology entrepreneurship students

1. DECIDE
Launching Digital
Products
Pitfalls & Opportunities
@niallrochen.roche@ucl.ac.ukGet in touch
Niall Roche

2. DECIDE
• Distribution Channels
• Targeting Users
• Avoiding Potential Launch Issues
• Charging
• Tech Advice for scaling

3. DECIDE
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

4. DECIDE

5. DECIDE

6. DECIDE
The
Mobile
Ecosystem
• Network
Providers
/
Mobile
Operators
• Device
Manufacturers
• Opera1ng
System
Providers
• App
Store
providers
• Cloud
providers
• Designers
&
Developers
• Innovators

7. DECIDE
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

8. DECIDE
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?

9. DECIDE
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

10. DECIDE
"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

11. DECIDE

12. DECIDE
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

13. DECIDE
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

14. DECIDE
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

16. DECIDE
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

17. DECIDE
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

18. DECIDE
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

19. DECIDE
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

20. DECIDE
CARTOON CREDIT: "The Joy of
Tech™" by Nitrozac & Snaggy,
joyoftech.com. Copyright © 2008
Geek Culture. Archived at
GeekCulture.com.

21. DECIDE
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

22. DECIDE
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

23. DECIDE
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

24. DECIDE
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

25. DECIDE
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

26. DECIDE
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

27. DECIDE
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

28. DECIDE
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

29. choose an
assumption
to validate
add
feature(s)
and
analytics
carry out
split testing
can it be
measured?
evaluate
metrics
Yes
No??

30. DECIDE
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

31. DECIDE
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

32. DECIDE
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/

33. DECIDE
Launching Digital
Products
Pitfalls & Opportunities
@niallrochen.roche@ucl.ac.ukGet in touch
Niall Roche