Change the World, without Changing Your World
Here’s our story about what we learned through customer development at AppSocially
We believe that our product can change the world, without changing your world — This is what I consider to be important. You can read this article in Japanese here.
What is AppSocially?
AppSocially is a platform that encourages users to introduce mobile apps to their friends.[1] It offers a referral functionality that enables its users to “let friends know” and “invite friends” when they like an app. This function, and its ability to create virality, is extremely important for all developers and users of mobile apps today.
For app developers, the number of referrals (the number of introductions or invitations being made) is one of the benchmarks used to measure the degree of satisfaction a given app has achieved among its users. It also provides crucial metrics for assessing product/market fit (whether or not the product being offered matches the needs of the market).[2] These metrics can be used to evaluate the enterprises offering apps. The AppSocially platform allows users who love an app to introduce it to their friends, comparing that to the number of app downloads. These data are real and more actionable.
For mobile app users, the advantage they have when seeking excellent apps is their network. Users of mobile apps, in many cases, find new apps based on influence from their close friends and families. That is what Paul Adams, the creator of Google Plus refers to as “small connected groups of friends”.[3] In that sense, it is logical to have a function for users to share information about an app in the instant that they would like to tell a friend (at the exact ‘aha-moments’).
Problems faced by our Customers
All right, then, is there a way for us to materialize the flow to attract new users in a strategic and organized manner?
When strategies that effectively utilize referrals and word-of-mouth advertising—in order maximize the number of users acquired and drive significant growth—are traced, we find the existence of a strategic product development team called the “growth team”. Great companies such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have worked their way to finding the ideal state for such teams. Or, recently, we are hearing more and more about the term “growth hackers,” who serve in the team[4].
However, there are very few enterprises today that, despite the existence of such successful cases, consider the creation of the best user experiences as the most critical strategic issue, with user acquisition and enterprise’s growth as THE mission for the product development team.
User acquisition in most companies is seen as the role of the PR or marketing team, or something that is assigned to a third-party advertisement agency. The conventional wisdom is that “making products” and “going out there to sell” the finished products are completely separate processes.
Then, how can an enterprise launch this “growth team”? How can the number of referrals for mobile apps be maximized?
There are two keys to this: First, strategically putting the product development team in charge of user acquisition; and secondly, a thorough focus on the core values of the products (i.e., the aha-moments mentioned earlier and other insights into the psychology of the users of the products).
But suppose many of the enterprises already have the organizational structures where product development and marketing are totally separated as mentioned earlier. Then it is hard for them to flexibly and strategically adopt growth teams into their organizations.
How AppSocially works
That’s where AppSocially comes in.
AppSocially helps put the mission of “growth teams” into practice without having to make significant changes to the existing organizational structures and business processes, and enhance product development strategy by enabling the utilization of psychology that relates to the moment that user satisfaction is achieved.
We have added some twists upon designing AppSocially, to allow people using AppSocially to exercise the following without having to change their conventional business and the organizational structures: (1) implementation of a referral function; (2) tracking of the metrics required for validation; and (3) analysis based on the validation and adjustment processes.
(1) The referral function based on our thorough research, have been put into practice quickly by our customers with only one line of code (it will only take 30 minutes at maximum where customization is required) directly installed on our customers’ apps.
(2) Actionable metrics that are related to referral can be automatically tracked, given that our referral function is installed. Specifically, (a) the number of active users, of which, (b) the number of referrals were sent to friends, (c) the number of which the invitation/introduction messages were opened, (d) the number of traffic after the download button was clicked and reached the Store from that point on, and then (e) the number of users who have actually started to use the apps after they were downloaded are all revealed (this is called funnel analysis, as the number of the active users gradually decrease just as if they are put in a “funnel”).[5]
And, (3) the analysis reveals the possibility that the value of the apps themselves may not be thoroughly understood by existing and/or potential users. If, for example, (a) is not seen, or if the reduction rate for (a -> b) is great, enterprises can investigate whether or not the apps are “alleviating the users’ pain”, or “satisfying the users’ needs”. If, on the other hand, the reduction ratio for (b -> c -> d) is high, enterprises can evaluate whether the apps themselves are providing enough satisfaction (motivating successful referrals). Finally, if the reduction rate for (d -> e) is great, it is an indication that the value of the app is not thoroughly understood by the recipients of the referrals and it is critical to improve the content and messaging of the landing pages that referrals point to.
Change the World, without Changing Your World
(1) and (2) from the processes mentioned above can be easily completed with AppSocially. (3), as you may already have noticed, is the process similar for devising upcoming advertisements or PR campaigns, based on user questionnaires and interviews. In other words, AppSocially is designed to enable the enterprises developing and offering apps at the “mobile first” era to put all of the processes from installation of referral functions—tracking, analysis, and improvement—into practice, as the leading-edge companies in Silicon Valley have been doing, without having to change the existing organizational structures and business processes.
This is the fruit of our thorough “Customer Development” [6] activities that we have spent many years working on, and the product is designed based on results from the investigation of our customers—from the day-to-day business processes of our target customers to their decision making system. “Customer Development” is a method for validation of products and markets advocated by Steve Blank, and it is underlying the “Lean Startup[7]” method, which enables the creation of products and enterprises that are unlikely to fail. These are the processes primarily employed by blue-chip Silicon Valley firms with their thorough efforts, and it has become our common language.
While I was validating our initial idea, I was reading Steve’s “The 4 Steps for the Epiphany[6]” every night again and again, and went out of the building the next day with our updated 1 page PDF file on my iPad, that we designed and revised everyday, practicing Lean UX that I learned from Janice and Jason Fraser at LUXr[8] (here’s one of our latest MVP, with with we validated and prioritized our idea before even writing a single line of code). My story of validating our ideas and customers were featured by BBC Worldwide.
Perhaps that is worth mentioning here again, but Steve’s book provides a detailed manual on the practical methods for the cultivation of customers, and it also describes in detail how to find and validate target customers, as well as how to get acquainted with prospective members of advisory boards for the future. AppSocially was actually able to find the idea for our current products, customers, advisory board members, and investors through continuously and faithfully working on customer development activities in San Francisco, in accordance with the methods described in the book. I was blessed with opportunities for various encounters, which later changed my life significantly through the process of validating customer demand, and I even was given the opportunity to be invited to Silicon Valley. However, I would like to talk more about this at another opportunity.
Summary
Let me summarize the long story into a short one:
- AppSocially provides support for strategic growth for the developers of mobile apps and the enterprises that offer them, without having to change existing organizational structures and business processes.
- AppSocially enables mobile users to find excellent apps by utilizing existing user behavior and making it more instant and efficient.
Most important of all, the achievements as mentioned above are the fruits of our continuous efforts from our thorough “customer development” activities. “Customer development” is an excellent tool that can be practiced and similar results can be achieved by any entrepreneur—even those in charge of new businesses with their respective products, markets, and customers.
And with that, we believe that we can change the world without changing your world.
In San Francisco, CA
Yusuke Takahashi PhD, Founder and CEO of AppSocially
References
[1] AppSocially, http://appsocial.ly
[2] Sean Ellis: “The Startup Pyramid (article),” Startup Marketing, October 5, 2012, http://www.startup-marketing.com/the-startup-pyramid/
[3] Paul Adams: “Grouped: How small groups of friends are the key to influence on the social web (Voices That Matter)(Paperback),”New Riders, December 1, 2011, http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321804112.
[4] Yusuke Takahashi: “Hack User Acquisition (article),” TechCrunch Japan, August 27, 2012, http://jp.techcrunch.com/2012/08/27/jp20120827growth-hack/
[5] Suhail Doshi: “Introduction to Analytics: Funnel Analysis (article),” Mixpanel Blog, June 10th, 2009, http://blog.mixpanel.com/2009/06/10/introduction-to-analytics-funnel-analysis/.
[6] Steve Blank: “The Four Steps to the Epiphany (Hardcover),” K&S Ranch Press, 2005, http://www.amazon.com/dp/0989200507/ .
[7] Eric Ries: “The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses (Hardcover),” Crown Business, September 13, 2011, http://www.amazon.com/dp/0307887898/ .
[8] LUXr, http://luxr.co
