If you've spent a BMW worth of money to build your fancy sparkling new iPhone app or Android app expecting for "them to come," I know how you feel.
You're feeling crickets.
Well, you're not alone, 99.63% of all apps in the app market have less than 100 downloads. So how do you become a part of that exclusive 0.37% group? How do you build your userbase? How do you market your iPhone app and Android app?
An early mentor and business professor used to tell me, cars are useless if you don't have roads. I never understood it until I thoroughly washed myself clean of the "if you build it, they will come" mentality.
You can build the worlds best app. Sorry. They won't come.
The only exception to this is when you're the first app in the iTunes or Android app store and Apple and Google push Billions of Dollars into advertising.
Win Over the Popular Kids and You've Got The Whole Market Niche
That not being the case, I've built over 100 apps in my 20's and the only ones that made it big were the ones where I ALREADY had access to the roads. These roads lead to users. And you app needs these roads for you to get yourself out in front of the users.
So if you're building a GPS location based app, you've got to have preexisting access to the people who dominate that industry. Get THEM to use your app and you're revving at 6,000 rpms at 120 miles per hour.
If you're not quite convinced yet, add Veronica Belmont on instagram. Every app she personally uses, she brings hundreds of thousands of users with her. And she's not even in the photo industry!
So ask yourself, do you have a road way to the Veronica Belmonts of your target market? Do you know the top 100 most influential users and bloggers in food, fashion, technology, ecommerce, medicine, biotech, music, travel, entertainment? For access to them, see http://sparkah.com/pr
Here are your Top 50 Yelp Users You Must Know For Building a Location Based GPS App
Yelp Boston Community Manager Damien S tweeting all things wondrous in the Boston area. Follow him for local events, news, giveaways + more! whiterice.yelp.com
I'm Gabi M, Regional Marketing Director for Yelp West. Based in AZ & travel often, I love ethnic food, movies, sports, the outdoors, my husband, newborn & dog.
I'm Jeffrey S, Yelp's Community Manager in SLC. Yelp connects people with great local businesses. Reviews, events, and rad yelpers. I'm also addicted to pie.
Use Yelp to write reviews of your fav local biz's, find word-of-mouth recs for hot city spots & meet like-minded yelpers on-and-offline! (CM @jenniferlovatt)
We're busy bees buzzing 'bout business in beautiful Hawaii by helping visitors and locals discover Honolulu the right way, with Yelp! Real People, Real Reviews.
Christina C: Your Yelp Columbus Community Manager. Real people. Real reviews. There's more to Cbus than the Buckeyes! (Tweet help from intern Andrea M ^AM)
Yelp connects people w/great local businesses. Stay tuned for the 411 in the QC! Are you the next #CLT Community Manager? Apply! http://bit.ly/yelpCMCLT
I'm Alex L, Sacto Yelp Community Manager, city explorer extraordinaire, lover of local businesses & planner of kick-ass Yelp events! alexdirector.yelp.com
We are a non-profit organization that hosts monthly adoption days in the Baton Rouge area to help the sweet pups at EBR Animal Control find loving homes!
Not Yelp associated. Concerned about the Yelp review filter & how it negatively impacts businesses. Share your story, let’s organize and we can force change!
I'm Hazel Q, your local OC Yelp Community Manager, keeping you up to date with all OC Yelp stuff! Well, that and bacon, nerdiness, typography, and great beer.
Corey D here, Community Manager for Yelp Tucson and lover of malbec, indie film, and those yelpgasmic chocolate-chip cookies from Roccos! www.coreyd.yelp.com
Director of Business Outreach & Government Affairs at @Yelp. Proud Arkansan. Politico (& lackey to @GeneralClark) in a former life. Opinions are my own.
I'm Kristin M, Community Manager of Yelp DC! Follow to keep up with awesome local events & businesses, snag free tickets, and feel the DC love! dc@yelp.com
If you've blogged and gotten no traffic, If you've opened an ebay store and made no sales, If you've uploaded videos to youtube and gotten no views, you still don't know what it feels like to build an iphone app and get no users. That's because a blog doesn't cost $20,000 to post. Iphone Apps Can.
Now, with my all new fresh scented video, you'll learn how to market your iphone app! It's more than just iPhone App Marketing Tips and Strategies, it's all that AND a bag of chips!
So much can go totally wrong when you set off to build your own dream app. Everything from the features and functions list to the actual programming, the bugs, the full scale development, and finally, the marketing can be fraught with issues. So... we released this short video for you by our own Android / iPhone App Programmer and Developer
I just spoke with an indi iphone app developer. My position is that after you get a quote from a developer, you should offer equity in exchange for a reduction in cost. This way, everyone is on the same page and facing the same direction. Instead of a service provider : client relationship, you become vested partners.
Another benefit to the client is that you get a sense of how well your app is going to do from the developer's perspective. He won't discount you a penny if he thinks your app will sink.
From the developer's perspective, it makes sense for him to offer a $1,000 discount because
A) it will help him secure the project
B) it will make him work harder and see the project through to profitability
C) when he does "B," he will see long term value where the sky is the limit.
Thoughts? Do you agree? Disagree? Why? Is it better to mitigate your risk and focus on your niche? Why?
The public is long-term stupid; short term sage. Beta was much better than VHS. It never took off. Solar power should be everywhere. We still pay for gas. You came up with the most brilliant iPhone and iPad or Android app and if only 10,000 people used it, you could change their lives. But you've got 8 downloads. Eight.
You are trying to market your app to these people. Remember that.
I remember being at a friends house - Marcus. He had 3 brothers - only boys. Whenever their mom baked a cake, there would be a fight. They would each complain that the other got a bigger piece. So Marcus' dad thought up a brilliant solution. He had the eldest boy, Samuel, cut the pie in half. Then he had each boy by birth order cut the pie in half again.
When this fascinating process was over, Samuel would get to pick the first piece, and Marcus would pick the second piece, etc... on down the line.
Everyone got an Even-Steven piece.
Their father was an idiot.
He was sending an implied message to his kids that there is a way to make events in life fair. He was teaching his kids to make their happiness relative to the acquisition of others. In this case, it's not the Joneses - it's their brothers.
There's no entitlement. There's no stipulating what someone else gets and making your happiness contingent on the wealth or unwealth of another.
This is the problem with app development. Entrepreneurs think differently.
Entrepreneurs think that if everyone chipped in a single dollar to buy their silly rubber bracelet that ends up smelling like wet dog on a hot day, they could stop cancer and we could use the billions saved to instead fund clean energy builds.
Entrepreneurs think that if you built an app where everyone just volunteers their favorite flavor of ice cream, then they could buy just that one flavor in bulk and open a nationwide chain of One Flavors Flav Ice Cream Chain that give everyone two scoops for the price of one based on their new economy of scale. It won't work.
For every single action you want your user to take (from the first click through to scrolling down to registering to filling out more profile data), you must offer an immediate and extraordinary payoff for each step.
The public is an idiot.
They will not chip in one review, one rating, one field of personal information even if it meant they could have full access to everyone's chip-ins IF it means that:
A) They have to wait for their pay off
B) Somebody else will get rich in the process.
OK. So "A," the public is all about instant gratification. They do not till, plant, water, and wait. If you disqualify 401ks, only about 2% of the America Public own stocks of any kind.
The public is an idiot.
And "B," I'm not Christian but Jesus still said it best. "There was a master of a field. The harvest being great, he hired workers at the eleventh hour. After the harvest, he paid them all alike, the worker who had been there for 12 hours and the worker who only worked for the last hour. The worker who worked from the first hour complained angrily to the master of the field. The master said, you evil wicked slave (personally, I think this is a mistranslation. I think he said, "Stupid Idiot") of what business it is to you that I have made another agreement with another worker. You have received what you wanted. Now go your way before even that is lost to you!"
What I'm telling you is that even if your iphone app idea is brilliant and will reduce traffic by 50% making your users' commute to work 40% faster, saving them $200 in gas and $300 in wear and tear every month, if it takes 6 months to see an ROI, they won't use your app. If they can see that you're making millions while they only save $6,000 a year, they won't use your app.
So how do you get someone to use your app? You've got to offer them an immediate dangling carrot. Remember, your market is a stupid idiot. The whole concept of collaboration doesn't work for them. That's why you're the boss and they just want a job. They can't see the big picture so stop trying to open their eyes. I don't know who's the bigger idiot, the voluntarily blind guy or the guy trying to make them see. Instead, appeal to a sensory faculty they already have. They still have 4 other senses.
It's Amazing How Much We Could Accomplish If Nobody Cared Who Got the Credit - Reagan
How to Strategize Your Web or Iphone / IPad / Android App Roll Out Do not expect to have a single user based on the promise of a future dated pay off. It won't work (insert cricket chirping noises).
Google didn't launch until they had already spidered 10 times more websites than Yahoo (more or less). Yahoo tried to get people to submit their urls for inclusion in their directory. Nobody did. Google won.
Facebook started off as a private site that showcased the hottest chicks at Harvard - both of them. Everyone wanted in. Only AFTER everyone got in, their payoff to the stupid idiots changed. Now, Guys from other Ivys could connect and network with Harvard boys.
Only AFTER all the Ivy got in, their payoff to the stupid idiots changed. All the kids who had a mere 4.0 GPA and 1,400 SAT score could network with the IVY boys (oversimplified for clarity). See: Facebook Marketing Strategies
For every single action you want your user to take, you must offer an immediate and extraordinary payoff.
Twitter started off as a site where you could contact all the top writers, editors, PR people, and news media directly without knowing their email address. Only AFTER all the CEOs and Entrepreneurs who could see the value in it joined Twitter, the less stupid and less idiotic masses could see that being able to directly message these powerful people would be valuable. Only after they joined, Oprah realized that Twitter would give her direct access to the public - right down to their text messages.
So as far as your Iphone, Ipad, and Android Phone App goes, what's the first thing you can offer now? What's the most compelling thing you can offer now? Right now? Sex. Yes. Sex. Why do you think Facebook got so big? See: The 9 Irresistible Drivers for Monetizing Your Website Like Facebook
For every single action you want your user to take, you must offer an immediate and extraordinary payoff.
Whether you have an app that lets people carpool, lets people get group travel discounts, lets people trade Gucci dresses, or whatever, if you can subtly imply that they will get laid or paid, they will download and use your app (now, the tricky part is to get them to use your long term and bring their network with them. To discuss how this is done for your specific app, let's talk: call Sparkah at 310 598 1606).
If you want help developing your IPhone App Roll Out Strategy (so that people actually use your app)... Call us at 310 598 1606. Ask for Bob Wan Kim.
Back in the real estate boom days, lots and lots of my Bud Light drinking friends got rich. The went out and got themselves a contractor's license and built homes. He quickly bought corvette ZR-1s (plurl), a yacht, played golf at Torrey Pines, and bought two weird looking cats.
Sam (real name) built houses faster than anyone else in the business. He was my gorgeous green-eyed blond girlfriend's dad. The faster he built a home, the faster the buyer could stop paying rent on their interim housing, the more money he made. His buyers loved him. He loved his money.
Funny thing about it, just beneath the thickness of three coats of paint is where he hijacked his time. He took every shortcut in the book. Then, he wrote the sequel. Wiring wasn't grounded, beams weren't locked in, insulation wasn't installed. None of this really made any practical impact on the active young couples who moved in and used their new San Diego home sparingly.
The people Sam hurt were the elderly who moved into his Las Vegas and LA homes. Their heating and air-conditioning bills skyrocketed. Leaning on a wall made outlets catch fire.
It was also the elderly few who hurt Sam.
Journalists just couldn't turn their back on their stories. Even if a dozen younger couples had complained, it was an elderly woman who commanded attention and started off a landslide of destruction in Sam's life.
Eventually, after lurid tell-all court dates, Sam's divorce from Linda, and his bankruptcy, Every single one of his properties were devalued. So in the end Sam's shortcut mentality even hurt the younger active couples in Del Mar.
IPhone Apps are here to stay I realize that there is a huge rush to stake out your marketshare in the virgin mobile world. And getting that market share fast means money. But just like Sam, if you build your app in a way that saves $1 but creates $100 liability later, you're drinking coffee laced with your own brand of arsenic.
IPhone Apps and Android Apps are here to stay. Get yours out there immediately to capture your early adopter market share. But do it in a way that creates minimal liabilities. Here's what to look out for under the third layer of paint:
1. Programmers Annotations Every experienced and honest programmer places tags in his code that explain what any given lines of code actually do. This way, he can always go back with a "CNTRL-F" keyboard command and rapidly find the sections to modify. This also makes it simple for a new programmer to take over if you part ways. It takes a little bit more time in the first run to create annotations but if you come back with any changes (which we both KNOW you will) the changes will be quick.
Programmer Sam doesn't do this. Sam thinks leaving annotations out or using his own proprietary code will give him job security. This is like your mate asking you to stay married because otherwise that one "video" will hit Facebook. Continued:
About three years ago, before Oprah had even heard of "Twitter," Twitter was making new millionaires. No, not just @Ev and @Biz. Twitter made the most sought after CEOs and VCs in Silicon Valley directly accessible. It was as if there was a new tech security breach in their multiple secretary and executive assistant firewall. All you had to do is send @fredwilson a Tweet and he would meet with you.
Youtube did the same for hundreds of starving film school students. Youtube needed content so they pushed their early adopters using Google's checkbook. Overnight, singers got MTV deals and record label deals. Overnight, producers on iBooks got pilots on major networks.
When ever a new disruptive technology ramps up, early adopters get unique positioning. All they have to do is sit there and the platform's growth becomes their growth. It's just like surfing one of those waimea swells during a storm.
Timing is Everything. But Location, Location, Location is Everywhere It's the virtual equivalent of what happened to an Armenian friend of mine. His father built a gas station on a parcel of rural land in the middle of nowhere. A year later, fortune 500 corporations moved in all around him. You've probably filled up your tank at his station. It's the one in the middle of Cupertino. And he also owns the one across the street. He doesn't even own an iPod.
Imagine how your business and marketing strategy would change if you could forecast what a billion people like Gus were going to do tomorrow.
Now, Foursquare is that new disruptive vehicle. But personally, I think the more interesting story is not how Foursquare will empower your business. I think what's more interesting is how Foursquare will empower Foursquare.
Just today, Foursquare was reported to be in talks about selling their data to Bing, Yahoo or Google. If you don't know why this is a big deal, read on gentle reader, read on.
I used to have an office in Cardiff by the Sea, CA. It was on the strand just between the San Elijo Lagoon and the Pacific Ocean. Blue water was everywhere. And so was old Gus. Gus hobbled up and down the most beautiful stretch of San Diego coast line with a shopping cart filled with soda cans he'd dug out of public trash cans. Nobody ever figured out what he did with the cans since he obviously couldn't drive to a recycling facility. What's more, nobody ever figured out how he got to this stretch of beach from whatever bridge he slept under.
You Don't Even Have to Use Foursquare to Be Profiled At this point, you might be thinking that if Gus used Foursquare, we'd know everything about him. But that's financially useless information. What gives Foursquare and you extraordinary business leverage is the implied data about Gus.
Toward the end of Gus's life, we noticed he was missing from his usual beat every now and again. He was the topic of conversation at the Chart House where staff and guests all grew to take comfort in his cameos.
The staff and guests all used Foursquare. It was Dodge Ball at the time. But that's not even the exciting part.
Even if You Omit a Check In, Your Location Pattern Implies Your Hidden Rendevous If Gus was alive today, his entire demographic profile would be transparent using the data Foursquare wants to sell Google or Bing. It would be obvious that he visited Dr. Malone off of Santa Fe Ave. He's the top cancer specialist in the area. It would be obvious that Gus went to the county court house after seeing a notary public.
Then if you run a DB query to find all users who had the same "check-in" pattern, you'd find that many of the users also met with Steven R. Jennings Esq, the most expensive estate planning attorney in San Diego.
Even if Gus never used Foursquare, his fans driving around town checking-in saying they "spotted" @Gus would be enough for whoever has access to the Foursquare data to realize that Gus was an eccentric multi-millionaire looking for someone to give his money to. Turned out, he gave it the to Jehovah's Witnesses. Multiple Millions changed hands because one of them drove him to the dump on a weekly basis.
Imagine how your business and marketing strategy would change if you could forecast what a billion people like Gus were going to do tomorrow. But here's the good news for you, all you have to do is know how to stroke the data out of Foursquare without buying it.
Follow me @journik. My next post will demonstrate how your "location patterns" reveal your age, sexual orientation, income, and even health prognosis into old age. Then, we will talk about how to pull the data from Foursquare now to precisely identify your potential customers.
Brings up a resonnant concern. Many of you developers wonder if it's worth your time submitting apps to directories. The rule of thumb is that people always flow to the "point of lowest resistance."
What I'm saying is that people will look for what they need in the closest, fastest, easiest place.
"For a tree to flourish, it must plant itself by streams of flowing water." - King Solomon
When Yahoo sucked, the Human Directory Project was that place.
Now that Google rocks, directories don't. I mean seriously, when was the last time you personally went to a directory? I just got a tweet asking me how to raise CTR so, "I can make a lot of money with google adsense." I asked him, "When was the last time you clicked on a Google ad?"
You are a human too. You are not immune to the "point of lowest resistance" rule. If you don't use directories, nobody does. Not CTOs, not IT guys, not your customers. Nobody.
So, go to the point of lowest resistance.
"For a tree to flourish, it must plant itself by streams of flowing water." - Solomon
Next post: how to find your "point of lowest resistance and grow roots." You'll remember this if you RT it. @journik
How to Get Into the News Media and Pull Big Bloggers Like Guy Kawasaki With 
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