3 Areas to Focus on When Starting a Mobile App
Your Intuition as an App Consumer is Wrong & You Must Readjust or Suffer the Consequences...
What’s up folks. There are many “hidden keys” to success when it comes to apps and today we will cover the top three.
We all use mobile apps everyday. In a way, we are all experts in all things app related.
BUT main thing you have to keep in mind is that you have to be able to switch between your Creator Mindset and your Consumer Mindset.
You are probably a blackbelt super pro in the App Consumer Mindset Realm.
Unless you have been in this space for half a decade at least, you’re still working on your blackbelt in App Creator Mindset.
Having the Consumer mindset is good if you’re *testing* your work after the fact. However, in order to be a good App Creator, you need to take it a step further and strategize in a different way.
There are some people on our team/clients that are new to mobile apps so several points are fresh on my mind! Let’s get started.
The Three Phases of App Userhood
Firstly let’s define some terminology and concepts. There are three phases to app “userhood”:
Acquisition - This is the phase where you are trying to wrangle a new user with marketing, word of mouth, cold calls. Whatever it takes to get them to pick up the phone and install the app. Sign up flow (email, pass etc) could likewise be considered part of Acquisition.
Adoption - Once you’ve got the user saddled up in the app, adoption is where you actually get them to use core features for the first time, actually explore the app and actually start to self educate on how to use your technology to serve their ends.
Retention - This is where the user continues using the app out of habit for say more than 30 days. They’ve already been through a “use cycle” (transaction, lesson, podcast, playlist, etc). They know how to use the app. It’s just a question of whether it continues providing enough value & novelty for them to keep coming back.
Now that we’ve got these key concepts covered, let’s dive into 3 Areas You Should Focus on in Mobile Apps
#1 Acquisition Focus: Do NOT Underestimate Sales & Marketing
This one focuses on Acquisition - I see founders mistakenly assume their app will be an overnight success. It simply will not happen. First let’s examine why founders mistakenly assume this:
In your head everyone will love your app because YOU love your app. That’s why you’re building it!
The reality is that ever since the novelty of apps wore off in around 2009-2010. When it was new, yeah there were tons of overnight successes. That era is long gone. As apps became ubiquitous in our lives, people became a lot more selective.
You have to EARN the consumer’s time and attention.
Memorize the 90/90/90 Rule
90% of people delete 90% of apps after 90 days. Memorize that.
That is what you’re up against.
What You Should Do
Invest significant resources into user acquisition.
Do not just hide behind a screen for everything. You are starting at the bottom and you need to turn over every stone to make the app a success.
Channel your inner Daniel Plainview.
Replace Being Soaked in Oil with Being Soaked in Sweet Sweet MRR & WiFi Money
Once you build up inertia, the effort will pay off. I promise.
You can eventually scale your strategies when you get bigger.
But you are starting out. There is tons of value in getting a small but rabid fanbase & beta testers.
Make sure you have a plan to get your app in front of people through *multiple* channels:
Search Engine Optimization - scope out keywords that are high intent & low competition. Run google ads on those.
Social Media - preferably with a 1 minute video that is succinct and dense with WHY the user should give THEIR TIME to use YOUR app. I will post a “recipe” that I and my colleagues use that costs $0 and can probably be made in about 3 hours of focused effort. Post on YouTube & run ads or post on Facebook.
Networking/events - do not underestimate the power of socializing your app with your target market. One influential person adopting your app can take you from 0 to 1000+ users. The strategy may not be ideal at scale but I simply don’t believe it’s possible to just hide behind a screen these days.
Cold Calling- Pick up the phone and call people. If you’re really playing 4D chess you’re building an app in an industry you know well, so you should have some great contacts. You need to consider whether your cost structure makes sense. If your app costs $4.20/month then this won’t work well at scale. If you have a higher ticket app, especially in the early innings it makes sense to start building your user base. Whatever it takes to succeed.
#2 - Adoption Focus: Onboarding Onboarding Onboarding
If you haven’t read it yet, this is the part where I shill Atomic Habits. The app gets marketed as “Self Development”.
But look at it another way: it’s a blueprint to achieve YOUR goals with YOUR app.
From the moment the user downloads your app you are in a race against time before they lose interest. You need to quickly and efficiently help the user get what they want with minimum frustration AND make that process into a habit that keeps them coming back.
Humans are creatures of habit. The Habit Loop is one of the most effective ways you can go about making YOUR app THEIR habit:
Make It Obvious:
Use a logical onboarding
Use existing paradigms people understand instead of reinventing the wheel (ex: hamburger menus, pop up styles, etc.)
Multiple touch points (push notifications, emails, text messages if possible)
Make It Attractive - communicate your value proposition early and often. Sell the user on the problem you are solving for them and tee them up for when you solve it.
Make It Easy
Education education education. Create intuitive tutorials or even video lessons depending on what’s appropriate.
Minimize the steps it takes to get something done (i.e. 1 step sign up vs 3)
Keep an eye on ergonomics - make it efficient and easy for people to find & interact with the most important parts of the UI
Make It Satisfying
Track user’s progress AND display it (great example is TurboTax showing how close you are to your refund)
Keep user stats and show it to them. Bonus if you can compare them to other users in a way that’s meaningful
In some rare cases, offer rewards or lottery systems
#3 Retention Focus - Embrace Modularity
When you get started on an app usually you have a grand vision of allll the features you want to build. That is a good thing but it has to be grounded by cost benefit analysis:
Cost: each feature you ship has a cost to time and essentially developer wages. Every day you wait on a release is time you miss out on acquiring a marginal customer or getting marginally more information on how to make your business even better.
Benefit: said shiny feature will make your app more likely to increase revenue.
So you are trading a known cost that will 100% have to be paid with something that’s more unknown.
Instead: you are better off embracing a modular, agile approach where you ship more often.
Instead of making ten features, make five features.
Instead of having a library of 5 mini games for your app make 3 really good ones.
Remember one of our favorite sayings here:
Build half a product. Not a half assed product.
How Does This Help With Retention?
If you’re releasing updates continously that keep the app fresh, that’s an easy way to keep the app fresh and users engaged.
If you wait to do everything in one big release you not only decrease your possible revenue from faster releases, you make it more likely the user gets bored from lack of new content.
Improve retention and do continuous releases more frequently.
Conclusion
In this post we covered the concepts of Acquisition, Adoption and Retention in the userhood life cycle and three areas you need to focus on to maximize those for app success.
In the end, launching an app is challenging but there are tools to maximize your chances.
This can be done. I can help. DM me if you want a free consultation.
Recommended Reading
Check out the full post here.
TLDR:
#1 - Rework by Jason Fried & DHH- Two Tech Startup GOATs & They’ll Teach You Their Minimalist, Practical Methods
#2 - Atomic Habits by James Clear - Learning the Ins and Outs of Human Behavior Formation Is an Incredibly Lucrative Talent
#3 - High Output Management by Andy Grove - Former Intel CEO Shows You How to Use Engineering Principles to Build a Strong Business
#4 - Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink - Former Navy Seal Officer Teaches You How to Build a Team of Doers with Initiative
#5 - Deep Work by Cal Newport - Georgetown Professor Shows You How Connectivity is Massively Overrated, Focus is Underrated and How You’re Currently Fucking Up Your Productivity
#6 - Actionable Gamification by Yu-Kai Chou - Game Development Expert Teaches You How You Can Play 4D Chess with Incentives & Accelerate Growth on a Massive Scale
#7 - Don’t Just Roll the Dice- Use sound economics & psychology plus the wondrous flexibility of software to come up with a pricing model that actually works