So one of the first things I'm going to address is a pervasive attitude that a lot of people have towards 1
not just building apps, but building any sort of startup with any sort of digital business currently 2
is this idea of building it and they will come. 3
It is a complete fallacy. 4
There's too many people who have this idea that you can just you know make a great product, 5
you know I spent a lot of time on refining it making it perfect making it what you think to be ideal 6
and then launch it to huge success. 7
But unfortunately it just doesn't work like that. 8
More and more so we're seeing that ideas that haven't been validated ideas that are just based on a 9
founder's perception of the market, doesn't work. And you'll find yourself wasting a lot of time in the 10
development stages of your product. 11
And once you launch it you actually see a complete empty audience. 12
Nobody's interested in it. 13
So a really great book that I recommend on this topic is Lean Startup by Eric Ries and the whole lean 14
startup methodology is really really great for building digital products 15
in this current day and time. And one of the most important concepts within the lean startup methodology 16
is this idea of starting with a minimal viable product, an MVP, and allowing the end user to help 17
iterate on it and eventually arrive at a product which people will buy. No matter how great you think 18
your product is 19
if there is zero interest in it it will be non-sustainable. 20
So forget about this whole idea of building it and they will come 21
and every step of the way you need to validate your idea and you need to think about the end user. 22
So one of the first thing that we're going to talk about with relation to apps is a concept called app 23
zombies and this is basically a term that we use to refer to apps which are below the 25th listing on 24
the App Store. 25
So if you go into the app store you search for something like Ninja games right? 26
And first you see Clumsy Ninja 27
and if you keep scrolling you'll come across 28
first second third app etc. in this whole list. 29
And the point where you scroll past the 25th app, any apps below that is known as a app zombie because they're 30
virtually undead, they virtually undiscoverable because nobody has the patience to keep scrolling that 31
far. 32
It's just the same as the fact that nobody looks past Google page 2. If your app is listed so far 33
down for a particular keyword, then you're not going to see the downloads. 34
So this company could Adjust which publishes data on the zombie rates across the app stores in the world. 35
And this is the data from 2015. 36
I think the 2016 data is coming out soon. 37
But essentially it's a very alarming trend. 38
You see that at the beginning of 2013 zombie rates were around 50 57 58 percent and now they're close 39
to 90-91 percent. 40
So it's a sign that the app stores are massively saturated and in order for you to get noticed to be 41
the 10 percent that's not a zombie you have to know about app marketing. 42
The thing that you don't see from this graph is the fact that there's been a huge influx of independent 43
developers pushing their apps onto the app stores and 95 percent of those independent developers do zero app 44
marketing. Absolutely nothing. 45
And this whole idea of build it and they will come. 46
They launch it onto the App Store cross their fingers and hope for the best but they won't see the downloads. 47
They won't see the revenue coming in because it's no longer the same world as we were in in 2013. The 48
app industry has changed and you have to change with it. 49
So in the coming modules, we're going to be talking about various ways in which you can ensure that you 50
are within this top 10 percent rather than the 90 percent of people who essentially are what we call 51
below the AppStore poverty line. 52
The people who don't make enough revenue on the App Store in order to sustain themselves or their business. 53
So the other thing about zombie rates is that it varies between genres. 54
So if you're looking at something like the weather category because it's such a specific niche or niche 55
has you guys in the US say it, they can't really be all that much competition in there. 56
But when you look at something highly competitive like entertainment and games especially the arcade 57
game category, the zombie rate shoot straight up and it's currently close to 90 percent. 58
So depending on which category you're targeting or your app targets, you have to think even harder about 59
how you can be noticed and how you can get people to download it. 60
So all of this is just to stress how important it is to do just a little bit of marketing. 61
Even if you do a little bit it's better than nothing. And you will find that the App Store has changed 62
from this place where you can just you know put your goods and people will come along and buy it to 63
a place where you actually have to actively hawk your goods. 64
You have to shout about it, you have to tell everybody about how amazing your app is so that they can 65
discover it so they can download it. 66
So in the coming modules that's exactly what we're going to teach you. 67
So without further ado let's start the first module.