Early on in 2012-2013, a handful of our apps were around celebrity themes – musicians, entertainers, influencers. I would take their names and images and I’ll make them cartoon formats and put them into fun games. And it did well. I made a good amount of money doing this. But it wasn’t a very long-lasting strategy. I definitely got letters from their legal team that said, “Hey, you can’t do this.” But people saw that success and they go to the app store and see political apps going to the...

A great way to get started on any new app business or project is to use templates. Instead of building apps from scratch, you start with a framework. It’s a prebuilt template that doesn’t have any of the designs. It’s just the guts. If you start with a template, it’s a lot easier than if you build an app from scratch. Here are 3 ways that you can get app templates: 1. Go to marketplaces Go to Google and type iPhone app template or iPhone app source code. You will find different...

Before he sat down for his first class in college, Dan Novaes had already built a $2M business online. By the time he was 25, he was making millions more in the app business. His latest project deployed  a marketing strategy that was so effective the company needed to separate the app in order to calculate all the revenue correctly. At 28 years old, Dan in well on his way to impact one billion people and change the world as only he can. It's rare to find entrepreneur like Dan in...

One of the questions that I often get asked is this: Do I need an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) for my new app? Some people who have an app idea or have built something, don’t want to share this information and want to protect themselves. So that when they talk to or hire developers, they are legally bound to keep the information private. Short answer: You only need an NDA if you can enforce it. There are two things you need to think about: 1. How are you going to enforce your...

As you start any new project, you subconsciously ask yourself one of two questions 1. What should I do next? OR 2. Is what I'm doing the right thing to do? These may seem the same but they are actually very different. In this video, I explain why: Here's what you need to know: * We all approach new projects with mindset on how it's going to work out. Most of the time we're worried it's not going to work, less often we start working and figure it out later. * When you're at a “low”...

Today, I’d like to share with you a 3-part system that will help you make effective video ads to get cheaper and better installs for your apps. 1. Have some sort of pattern interrupt to get people’s attention The first 3-5 seconds of the video is crucial. Make the first few seconds pop to get the viewer’s attention. It could be something simple as someone doing a selfie video in a crazy place, some text flashing, or maybe a sort of an explosion! Make it something that would get the video...

If you are looking for a profitable app niche, this is where you should start. So many people miss this critical element and end up  wasting a LOT of time and money chasing losing numbers. Are you getting some traction on your paid app but can't seem to get any in-app purchases? Or are you not getting any traction at all? Chances are you're trying to capitalize the wrong type of market with the app you're using. Here's a video that may help you clarify some topics around market...

Many of you have awesome app ideas. Others…well, they could use some work 🙂 Over the last few years I've seen a lot of similarities in what works and what doesn't work in the app store. Like all good things in marketing, they're fundamentals that we so often forget about. Our ideas are different, right?! Here's a quick 3 step process you can use to validate your app idea and make sure you're on track for some big wins. What you need to know: * Market validation. You need to make...

If you created a few apps…and they didn't make ANY money…would you keep going? Most people wouldn't. They certainly wouldn't keep going for a few more years. A lot of people will tell you that this perseverance and hard work is what will get you to #1 in the app store. But Paxton Hare quickly realized it wasn't a matter of working harder, it was about putting energy into the right places. As a trained developer, Paxton has worked on countless engineering projects in his career. He's...

Evan Delaney had been running a successful mobile agency for over 6 years…and never built his own app. In fact, he was pretty down on the idea of building a consumer app for the App Store. Every time he saw one of his clients get positive results with an app, it was because they had some sort of edge – a broad user base, a special technology, etc. Being in the App Store was really just a place to download the app. In April of 2016 Evan decided to take a trip to our Bluecloud Hawaii Event...

How do you make a billion-dollar app company? This is for anybody who’s thought, “Hey, this could be a huge app.”   Here are 3 key things that are the foundation of a billion-dollar app business. Even if you’re just getting started and you have big dreams, this is a good set of guidelines. * Market leadership   You need to be the market leader in some particular market: a niche market or a big market. Or you need to solve a very specific problem for somebody who is already a...

Today I want to talk about what I would do if I was starting over again and I had $1000 to spend. 1. Become obsessed with learning and information. Be immersed in the app world and learn everything. I would dive into blogs, books, Facebook communities and be active as I possibly could. I was constantly providing feedback and helping other people. I was commenting on posts, replying to tweets, emailing people who were sending newsletters. 2. Get an app in the store for as little money as...

Today I’m going to talk about the number one reason why most app developers are not getting many downloads. I’ve been getting lots of emails from app developers, the people who’ve built a few apps and are having a hard time getting downloads. It’s clear that there’s one principle that isn’t being widely used yet in the app business, but is the foundation for every other type of business. It’s Market Research. Specifically, it’s all about understanding who your users are. Developers are...

A few years ago, all of us relied heavily on the app store for downloads. Paid traffic simply wasn't an option, harnessing the web was impossible to measure. Now we have Facebook Ads and can purchase installs for (literally) pennies on the dollar. Awesome right? Sort of. This solves our customer acquisition costs but failed to address the other half of an ROI – the return. What good is paid traffic if your app has a lifetime value of $0.05? In this video I want to show you how you can...

After the first day of our SF Summit, I was walking to the local pub with one of the youngest members of our community. He asked me if I had any advice for someone in his position – young, eager and fresh off a few recent failures. When you're between the age of 18 and 22, it's hard to know what to do. In the world we live in, it seems like everyone else is getting a dream life but you're not. It can feel isolating and disheartening. I know that's how I felt for most of my twenties, at...

Here in Silicon Valley, we are biased around venture capital. The explosive potential of startups is the equivalent of intellectual cocaine, something that virtually all business people are attracted to. Slower growth, on the other hand, is all but shunned in this ecosystem of IPOs and 5,000% returns. The idea of compounding interest is a nice coffee table book, but no one REALLY cares about that. The app business is no different. Over the past 5 years we also bought into the venture...

This past week I attended an event all about launching and scaling your business. It was cool. Definitely had a San Francisco flair to it as most of the talks were from founders who didn't get into the details the way many of we do in the app business. My favorite talk was by Alex Tew (@tewy) who has founded a few products such as the Million Dollar Homepage and the app Calm. Alex talked about how he would have his dev team create a viral “mini” product leading up to the launch that could...

It's no secret that the holidays hold larger than usual search + download volume. Many of us developers spend a lot of time trying to leverage the spike so that we can ride the wave of Q4 revenue like everyone else! Historically, a lot of people would use Christmas and Hanukkah themed apps to nail it. Not only with designs but with keywords that could grab a few hundred new users each day. But – times have changed. There are new rules and new ways to get results this holiday season. In...

Whenever I say the words “analytics” I usually see a lot of eyes glazing over. Most people in the app business associate analytics with thousands of data points, the kind of information that only scientists can decipher. What many people DON'T realize, however, is that analytics are much easier to implement and measure than they think. It's all about breaking down your app into buckets that you then measure. Once you do this, you can easily see reports that show you how strong your product...

Did you know that over 500 million people are using Instagram? And over 100M people are using the Instagram Stories function every day? It's crazy. What's also crazy is the amount of traffic some of these accounts can move. Large accounts (100,000+ followers) can easily drive thousands of clicks to different websites every single day. They can also drive traffic to…apps. In this video, I explain how you can approach these large Instagram accounts, get your post “promoted” and potentially...

One of Warren Buffet's most popular pieces of advice to young people: get better habits. Habits lead to results. If you have good habits, you have good results. Great habits = Great results. Simple enough, yes? Not really. Anyone who has tried to create a new habit knows how hard it can be. Once you've set neural pathways, they are difficult to modify. It's becoming more and more popular to promote building new habits. We follow endless blogs and model the 0.01% of performers hoping to...

Any time you see displacement in a marketplace, opportunity is abound. There is an inherent movement from one sector to another. This happens all the time in the financial world and is often when riches are made. The same is true for the marketing world. Last week Twitter shut down the popular video sharing service Vine leaving thousands of incredibly talented content creators with nowhere to go. It also came to light that these content creators knew early on that they were bringing...

In the first of this video series, I'm going to explore the #1 requested topic from our private FB group: If you can't read that, it says “App marketing technique (without investment)” That roughly translates to “How do I get the biggest output from the the least amount of effort and/or money?” Here's a video that addresses this. There are three major ways to get huge results without spending time/money/effort on marketing in the app business: * Be the first to do something. This...

If you want extraordinary results, you need extraordinary desire. Anthony Hammond is not a developer, he’s not a programmer…he is an investor with an entrepreneurial spirit.  He’s gone from investing in cashflow properties, to investing in digital assets he can sell to small businesses. Apps immediately sparked Anthony’s interest.  He liked the feeling of launching an app and waking up in the morning with money in his pocket.  In 6-7 months, he has been able to double his income and is on...

Are you interested in getting involved in the startup movement and creating your own company? Ed started in the advertising world and built an online social network for music.  He is the co-founder of Merchbar, a commerce marketplace dedicated to connecting die hard music fans with merchandise.  Ed has also worked with juggernaut companies like RedBull, been featured on Gigaom, TechCrunch along with countless others. Ed is one of the hardest working hustlers in the tech scene and knows...