Andrew:	This course is about how to master to your app launch. It's led by Andreas Kambanis, the creator of Bike Doctor. Here is that website and the app. BikeDoctor is an app that shows you how to repair your bike wherever you are. Andreas also writes about how to promote apps on i-Phoneapprockstar.com. So I invited him here to teach how he did it and to learn from his experiences. Andreas, welcome.

Andreas:	Thank you Andrew.

Andrew:	I know what my audience is thinking. They're thinking, how much did this guy make with his launch? Now what were numbers? What did you do in your first month?

Andreas:	Yeah, it's a good question. In our first month, in our first 30 days, we made over $8,000 in sales of our app. And that was the first app we ever launched.

Andrew:	First app ever launched. You're not a professional app creator. You are a guy who runs, what was the website that you ran?

Andreas:	Yeah, I run Londoncyclists.co.uk.

Andrew:	Londoncyclists.co.uk. And you said, hey, it's time for me to create an i-Phone app. And you wanted it to not just languish in the store, you wanted it to do well. And first month out you got $8,000 in revenue. And I invited you here to find out how you did this launch so well. Now things weren't always great. As I said you were an amateur creator. You were struggling for a little bit. In fact there was one time recently where you took a 12 mile walk. Why did you take that 12 mile walk? By the way audience, I promise we've got this big list of tactics that we're going to teach you so that you can get the same kind of results that Andreas got. But I want to just get to know where you were before so that we see how far you've come using the tactics you're about to teach us. So what was this 12 mile walk?

Andreas:	Right, that's right. So if you skip back a couple of years ago things were not going quite so well. You know, I was kind of living off my savings and my parents were pestering me saying, get a real job. But yeah, so I remember quite clearly this one night we had to walk 10 or 12 miles or whatever it was to get back home because neither me or my friend had any money for the taxi. So it's quite funny to think that then after the app launch and we got featured by Apple on our, you know, within sort of, within the first week of launching. You know, within 24 hours we were the first in our category. So that changed things quite a bit. And then a few months down the line I suddenly found myself flying over to Vegas from England. And we were standing in the queue and the chap that works there came up to us and said, look guys I'm really sorry you're not getting in tonight. It was just too full, unless you want to get the table service, the bar service. So we just look at each other and thought, yeah right, let's just do it, let's just go for it, you know. So I went in there, you know, had the (?) service. I just thought, what a strange little contrast. A couple of months ago I couldn't afford the cab ride home. And here I am in Vegas having a great time.

Andrew:	What a great turnaround. This is the app that did it. Bike Doctor, I'm looking at it on Bikedoctorapp.com. So let's look at the big board here and this is what we're promising our audience that we're going to do for them. We're going to show them how to master their mobile app launch. And the first step to doing it is do a promotional sprint before the launch. What do you mean by that?

Andreas:	Right, okay. So the reason why I would attribute us getting, within 24 to 48 hours, getting to number one in the sports category and then getting mentioned by Apple, getting featured by Apple, is that we had an audience that we'd already created. So we had a list of about 2,000 people that as soon as the app launched we sent them an e-mail saying, like, look, we're live in the app store, go and try us out. So that gave us that big initial boost of users that then translated into rising so fast up the app store rankings. Which is kind of, this is the dream thing that all current developers look to do. So if we look at a really perfect example of an app that's doing that right now. And there's a springwise article that I came across recently. And it was about an app called Leap (?) and the app. So I clicked through to the website.

Andrew:	Let's bring that up. This is the website that you looked at.

Andreas:	That's right, yeah. And on the website they had this great little, you know the landing page already looks fantastic, so, interest is already peaked. So what i did was I clicked on the link that says, you know, be one of the first people to get invited by Facebook. So what they've essentially done now is they've suddenly got my contact details ready for when they launch. They can send me a really targeted e-mail on the day of launch and say, "Look we're live in the App Store. Go and download our app." And so that's exactly it. And people can really replicate this tactic really easily because there's a couple of really good services like launchrock and launcheffectapp. And what these basically do is when someone lands on their page they simply enter their e-mail addresses, they're interested, and then they're also encouraged, and this is a crucial part, they're encouraged to share it with their friends. So this is basically what all apps need to be doing. I see a lot of apps that don't have any prelaunch strategy. They'll launch the app and then they'll just immediately they'll just think, oh, I forgot to put up a website. You really need to get that landing page in place because otherwise you won't have that big volume of users that's going to make every single ounce of difference on the launch day.

Andrew:	So the actual launch and the sales happen before you launch and before you have anything to sell. And what you want to do is have a basic website up and you want to collect e-mail addresses. You guys got up to 2,000 e-mail addresses. And if someone who's watching us wants to duplicate it is, they don't have to create a site. They just have to learn from what this company did, what Leap did. Which is they created a page like this, they marketed it by getting articles on sites like this one, which is . . . well let's bring that up over here. This is a springwise article. And we'll talk in a bit about how to actually get, how to get articles like this written about you. But the tools that you want to recommend for creating that quick website. And this is critical, you're saying is use Launchrock. Because it collects e-mail addresses, there it is right at the center. You can see that Launchrock makes it easy to collect e-mail addresses. And the second thing that they do is they also, after you give the e-mail address, they encourage the user to tell his friends about the app. And if you don't like Launchrock you're suggesting to use this site.

Andreas:	Launcheffect.

Andrew:	Which is, let's zoom out. This is Launcheffect. So either Launcheffect or Launchrock to collect e-mail addresses before the launch even starts. Do I have that right?

Andreas:	Absolutely. It's so so crucial and I see so many people just forgetting to do this that it's ridiculous. But you know, the services like Launchrock and Launcheffects app are incredible websites. I still can't believe to this day that they're completely free to use. And I know that the Leap, I spoke to the Leap founder recently and he said he's got a list of 800 to 900 people now. So on this day of launch you send out that e-mail and, you know, 800 people will come flooding to the app store (?) quite incredible stuff.

Andrew:	800 people are going to flood to the app store. How significant is having. Maybe not 800 people. Some of those people are going to flood and some of those people are going to sit back and some of those people are actually never going to see the e-mail because it goes into spam. But it's small that 800 people. How significant is having hundreds of people going into the app store. In your case fewer than 2000. What's the point of getting that much? Because it doesn't seem like that many people.

Andreas:	Right, right. I don't want people to get too caught up by my figure of 2,000. Because a lot of people will say, ah 2000, how on earth am I going to do that, you know, just give up now. But that wasn't actually a list of people interested in the iPhone apps. If that was 2000 people interested directly in the iPhone app then it would have been even a greater effect. So don't get too caught up on the figure of 2000 people. You know, 800 whatever, as much as you can basically.

Andrew:	I see.

Andreas:	But what that would do is, you're talking around 300 people for example would get you to the top of the sports category, which isn't a very competitive category.

Andrew:	300 buyers gets you to the top of the sports category you found.

Andreas:	Right, yeah. And then you're looking, I mean. If you're looking at things like the top 25, I don't think I've written down the figures. I meant to. Something like, you know, you're talking like 25,000 people to get to the top 25 and things like that. So that's a much bigger scale, but.

Andrew:	Wait, then so how does.  Oh you mean top 25 overall of all categories. Got it.

Andreas:	Exactly yeah, exactly, that's the big one. So, what you want to do is. But once you get to the top of a category then the chances are much more likely that you'll start getting picked up by Apple and some of the bloggers and so forth, because you've got such a prominent position in the app store.. So you really don't need an enormous list to achieve this basically. So you just try and build up a list of, you know, the Leap guys have got about 800 people on there and that's a really good figure. And that, i think you'll find that would make a big, big difference in getting your app featured by Apple.

Andrew:	And we're going to talk in about how to get publicity. That's this point right here which we're going to get to. We're also going to talk about, and this is one that I'm really excited about. Using the power of beer to get reviews. We'll get into that and the importance of it. You also have a specific day, there it is, a specific day that you want people to launch on. You're picking this specific day of the week and you're also telling people why and how to get there. And we're going to talk about how getting freebies increases sales. But are we ready to move onto the next big point about contests?

Andreas:	Absolutely.

Andrew:	All right. So let's talk about how to use contests to fire up those downloads. What do we do?

Andreas:	right, so I remember a little while back I saw an article about an app called triplingo. So I clicked up onto their website and sure enough you know they had a landing page in place, exactly what you should be doing, and they were giving away an around the world a ticket. So the trip lingo app translates into, it teaches you to speak Spanish and so forth. So you land on their page and they say, right, we've got this round the world ticket to give away. Just sign up to our list essentially and spread the word about our app. So that's a fantastic idea because it gives people that extra sort of, someone that's standing on the fence and thinking, shall I sign up to this e-mail? You know, I really don't want to give my e-mail address away, things like that. That gives them that extra push to say, oh right, you know, there's an around the world ticket up for grabs, why not? And the perfect example of this is an app really recently launched called the serenity app.

Andrew:	Let's bring that up here. This is the serenity app. Wow, they have a really, really long page. Let's see how much of it we can get in here. I can't even get the whole page in there.

Andreas:	The important thing is well at the bottom of the page. 

Andrew:	The bottom of the page. Let's . . . this thing right here?

Andreas:	Yeah. 

Andrew:	Okay.

Andreas:	So round about your launch you want to be generating as much press as possible. And a competition makes it much easier to do that. So they've got, they've basically got a page that says, right, tweet a link at our app and you'll be entered in a competition. And they've got a competition running for ten days and every day you can win something by mentioning their app at social media and so forth. So that creates really good buzz and really gets the message out about your app to a lot more users. And you'll see people like Tim Ferris doing this around his book launch. But not so many people have used it yet for applications, and it can be just as effective.

Andrew:	I see. So they're saying, if you promote me I'll enter you to win a contest. In this case to win something in a contest, in this case, what are they giving away? It looks like a stereo? It's hard to tell.

Andreas:	Yeah, a stereo system and some other bits.

Andrew:	I'm amazed by how powerful contests are.

Andreas:	Yeah, yeah, it's quite incredible. I think it's just one of those things that kind of just pushes people to take that last step and to actually tweet it out to their followers and so forth. So what's, a lot of people would be perhaps a little bit worried about saying, oh you know, but I don't have enough money to buy someone around the world ticket or I'd be flying around the world myself. (inaudible). If you're launching an app. Say for example I was launching Bike Doctor today. I would contact a company that sells a repair kit for your bike which could cost, you know, these can run up to $400, $500 dollars or more. And I'd say look we've got this app launching soon. We're going to be creating a lot of interest around this page. Would you like to give me a free, you know, bike tool box, and you're going to get a ton of free promotion and I get to attract users. So it's kind of a win win situation. So people shouldn't be too caught up with thinking oh my god I've got to spend $500 now, god, I'm so low on cash and things like that. So you can't hustle your way to get freebies to give away.

Andrew:	I see. and what you're saying to is that it should be something that connects to the product that you're launching. You know, an around the world trip wouldn't necessarily work for, or it wouldn't be as good an idea for Bike Doctor as it would be for someone who's teaching languages. If you find something that fits more directly, and it doesn't have to be expensive, if it's a bike repair kit, you could buy it yourself even if you can't afford a 12 mile taxi ride. And of course if you still can't afford it or you need something bigger than what you can afford, you can partner up with a company that will get some publicity for offering it for free.

Andreas:	Absolutely. Or you could also give away, you know, if you even can't do that then you could also give away some sort of private videos, some hidden videos, some extra content, some sort of free e-book. So there's a lot of options there and it's something that you should definitely consider adding to your launch page.

Andrew:	All right.

Andreas:	The second key part to this strategy is you should use a service such as punchtab or as we mentioned before, launchrock. And the key part of this is is that people get more entries into your competition the more that share the message about your app. So that encourages people to get on their Facebook, get on their Twitter, and.

Andrew:	What's punchtab? I don't know this one.

Andreas:	Alright, okay. Yeah, punchtab is basically, it's a way of tracking who has (inaudible) works. So you basically say, you basically say it, up on punchtab. And I think they've got a sort of free version and a paid version as well and you say right someone gets three points if they tweet a message on my app or someone gets seven points if they upload it to Facebook or wherever. So there's different ways of rewarding those customers that put the most effort into promoting your app basically.

Andrew:	I see that makes a lot of sense and instead of giving them an entry just for adding their email address, you're giving them more entries based on what else they do on the site.

Andreas:	So you're recruiting your users to recruit more users because the chances are someone that's interested [??]Perhaps or bike repairs, then there going to have friends that are interested. It's so crucial to try and tap into them and it's not to evasive, some people choose not to, some people just give their email address but it's a great way of generating extra buzz before your launch and during your launch.

Andrew:	I love this site; I can't believe I haven't seen Punch Tab before. I make a lot of sense and I can see to how it would be helpful. I always thought I would have to code this system. Sorry?

Andreas:	You get them on here, absolutely. 

Andrew:	Well, that's awesome. That's the second big idea, which is use contests to fire up your downloads. Next is about publicity which is what I talked about earlier. Let's talk about that, how do you do it?

Andreas:	You know how someone's always saying to you "Go out go get some press coverage. Make sure you doing this" but it's such a time consuming thing, it's tough to get through to journalists because there getting tons of email every single day so with this frustration in mine and after spending a lot of time contacting journalists and not really getting anywhere, I had this breakthrough moment. I thought there's no point in blinding contacting people, let's use the 80/20 rule here and let's focus on the people are really interested in iPhone apps, they cyclists. So I literally searched Google for iPhone apps for cyclists and this is where I wanted my app to be appearing because people - not only and am I targeting journalists that are hugely interested in iPhone apps, cyclists, but I'm also targeting those people that are searching Google down the line and looking for that kids of app. So, I found a few sites that had the content, one of them was mine at the time, so I made a note to myself to make my page and I set the groundwork had already essentially been done for me so I sent them off an email and said "You've covered these great apps before where looking at launching a cycling app soon. I was wondering if you would like to take a look at my app." And this a far more effective use of your time because they chances are they are already going too interested so they are going to be mentioning your app. 

Andrew:	I see, so instead of going after every journalist out there, which obviously makes no sense, or doing what others might do which is emailing every journalist who covers any iPhone app, you're saying "Hey, these guys already talked about cycling apps, then there probably a good fit for me." And I've been hearing this more and more as I talk to entrepreneurs who got publicity and it goes counter to my intuition on this. I used to think if there already wrote about a cycling app there not likely to write about mine, they already cover it, they moved on or they picked their favorite and what I'm hearing over and over and your experiences are reaffirming this is, if they already covered it there much more likely to cover it again. This almost their beat, this is what they get excited about. 

Andreas:	Exactly, yeah, it's not just a problem just to send an email saying "I know you've covered this app that is really similar to mine but we actually added X, Y and features and I think people are really going to like" so it's really easy to just turn it around and you've just saved so much time its ridiculous and it's much more effective way because as anyone whose launched an app knows, you're just so busy around the app launch that anything that can save you time, so this tactic is a great one for gaining that press coverage.

Andrew:	So this is what you did. You basically went to Google you did this, you ran this, searched right here, where you can see if we zoom in a little be we can see what you're searching for which is cycling apps for the iPhone. You've got all these different apps and once you found that you want to know who reported on these apps and then you went out you contacted those people. You actually have the email that you sent out here in my list to show people. Should we show the email you send out first or the article that you got as a result of it?

Andreas:	If we take one quick step back, one last thing to mention here would be that a lot of people spend a lot of their time trying to contact all these blogs that talk specifically about apps but it's difficult to get in those blogs so you've have to think a little bit beyond that. Think about the niche that your app is operating in. That's some other really crucial thing. So make sure you're not just focusing all your attention on your tech (?), things like that. Think more about smaller blogs within your niche, that you can target.

So, how this moves on is, I sent a message to one of the UK's biggest cycling magazines, a magazine called Cycling Plus. I think I've got a picture of the article that we managed to get on there.

Andrew:	Yes. I think this is it. This is really impressive. Tell me if I'm pulling up the right one. This is it?

Andreas:	Yes. Exactly right.

Andrew:	This is really impressive.

Andreas:	Yes. They've got a subscriber base of over 100,000 people. So, I thought, right, we hit the jackpot here. All I did to get in there was to send them an e-mail saying, 'You guys really haven't talked about iPhone apps for cyclists yet, and everybody's using these apps these days. You should really get an article in there.' The apps that you see in there, are the ones that I recommended.

Andrew:	You said, 'In this magazine, you guys should have an article about all the apps for cyclists and here the apps that I think you should write about. Make sure to include mine,' and if we zoom in, there is yours right there. Nice placement, and all the other ones, you picked also. That's really impressive.

Andreas:	Exactly, yes. So I thought (?) got a two-page spread in one of the biggest magazines in the UK. Fantastic. Let's see how much this is boosting our downloads. Did it boost our downloads? Not in the slightest.

Andrew:	It didn't. OK.

Andreas:	No. Absolutely not. I guess, long-term, we must've gotten a few downloads here and there but, overall, it's incredible how little an effect it had. So, what actually did happen, in effect, is . . . And I've I got the e-mail there, for you. I sent a message off to this website called Roads.cc, and they're really big cycling blog. So, I sent them a message. You can see the message there. I can include the message at the end, if you'd like. But they, basically, wrote us a story about it and, immediately, I saw the downloads doubled for the day that the story went out. They were also double the normal rate the next day, as well.

So, this is something that I think a lot of people are realizing, now. People like to (?), and so forth. They're starting to realize that blogs can have a much greater impact on your sales, as opposed to getting mentioned in the traditional media. So, I don't want people to get too caught up in just trying to get in those big newspapers, and so forth, because it can be really time consuming. You might see a much better effect touting the smaller blogs that have got this really dedicated audience, essentially.

Andrew:	I'm hearing that over, and over again, too, that it's really impressive, and you saw the way that I was impressed, when we were looking at the magazine article. It's impressive to be in a magazine but it feels like to get better results by being on blogs. That's been your experience and, as you said, I think Ramit, specifically, in our first interview said the same thing happened to him.

Andreas:	Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely.

Andrew:	What I noticed that Ramit does, on his website, is he has a logo of the New York Times, because he was in the New York Times. He has a logo of the Wall Street Journal. He may not be sending them a lot of traffic, but it's good for patting himself on the back, or for credibility.

Andreas:	Absolutely, for visibility, it's incredible, and we've got it listed on our app description. We say, 'As Featured In Biking Plus.' So, it's got its benefits but, in terms of download (?), in terms of money in your pocket, at the end of the day, then you're better off touting those smaller blogs.

Andrew:	All right. The next big idea is to use the 'hottie test', hot girl, hot guy test, to stand out. Before we get into explaining how to do that, what do you mean by this?

Andreas:	So, this is the beautiful woman, good looking guy test. Essentially, this is about getting the basics right. You think about the sort of partner you'd want to introduce to your family, and so forth, you obviously want them to be good looking, you want them to stand out and you want somebody that you can introduce your friends, basically. So, it should be the exact same thing with an app. You need a good-looking app, and I'm talking here about the icon and the design. It needs to stand out and it also needs to be the sort of app that someone will say to their friends, 'Oh. Check this out. I just downloaded this. It's really cool.' So, this is about getting your basics right.

The other really important things to remember is, obviously, the app. So, I guess this is a little bit about what you should do to make sure that Apple features your app. So one of the key things, is make sure your app doesn't crash. Obviously, that's a big no-no. That's quite obvious. But, another thing that Apple is looking for is apps that can be accessed immediately. So, an app that you loaded up and says, 'Connect through your Facebook,' or, 'Enter your name and your e-mail, to go through,' and so forth, it's going to be frowned upon a little by. So it's quite a good idea to have a button that says, you know, skip this and sign up later or something like that. 

Andrew:	And this is for getting featured by Apple. If you want Apple to feature you, you have to reduce all the friction from, so that users can start using your app right away.

Andreas:	Exactly. Because they're looking for the users to have a nice of an experience as possible. So, it's really important that you can get into your app immediately and start using it.

Andrew:	Were you featured by the way by Apple?

Andreas:	Yeah, that's right, yeah, our app got featured. All three of the app that I've launched have been featured by Apple. So it's kind of a, so that's why this formula works.

Andrew:	Wow, that's really impressive. Alright I'm glad you're saying that too. Because that again goes against the way that, it goes against our intuition. We want to lock users in immediately when they try the app, because we know that they may not come back otherwise. So our intuition says grab their e-mail address or make it easy for them to register by grabbing their Facebook profile. And that way if they don't check back in with the app you have another way of contacting them by e-mail, by Facebook, etc. And that's the way we think. You're saying, that's smart, but it's not going to get you featured as easily. And so you want to reconsider that. Okay.

Andreas:	Yeah, so, absolutely. Apple will feature apps that do have that feature in, but, it's much more likely if you at least create a button where you can skip through that stage and come to it later. So the other really important thing is the app should be less then 20 megabytes now. I think all developers should know this, but I'll mention it anyway. Because if it's less then 20 megabytes you can download it over 3G, you don't need to connect to Wifi. So that's another really, really big thing.

Andrew:	I forget about that, that's right. I hate when I want to use a new app and I have, and I get that big alert that says, go find a Wi-Fi spot in order to use this. No, I want to use it now.

Andreas:	That's right, that's right. Yeah, it's such a bad idea. And there's different ways that you can get your app beneath 20 megabytes, so. It's pretty crucial.

Andrew:	Like what, what can we do? And I want to move on to, I want to stay focused on the hottietest. But what can we do to slim it up?

Andreas:	Right, sure. Well, one of the things for example would be to download the images into the app afterwards. So say if you're app was really image heavy you say, you know, once they're downloaded into the app you then say, right do we sync the images now or it syncs the images on the go, or something like that. So don't download all of the heavy content into the app straightaway. The other sort of point that I wanted to talk about a little bit under this tactic was standing out in the app store. And I've seen a really good example of an app doing this. And I remember because they had this really aggressive logo that looked like a Soviet Union flag. They've got the hammer and the sickle on there and they've got, you know, the quite aggressive letters and it really stands out. And they talked a lot about how they got there. The app, they attribute a lot of their successes, the app just really stood out. And there's not a lot of things for people to go on when they're looking to, whether to download an app or not. So a logo that really stands out can be a really good idea. And we did the same a little bit, if not by accident, with our original Bike Doctor logo, which I think you've got there as well. 

Andrew:	Before we do that here, let's take a look. This is Colin. I interviewed him on Mixergy a while back, and he and I became good friends. He is really doing well with this app. It is constantly the number one app in the book category. He actually changed this logo. He got a lot of attention with this and it shot up his downloads. I think this is a chart of what happened because he had such a standout icon. But now he's gone much more professional with his design and he's just building on the success that he had before. He told me in private all the things that he did. Once you get users it's much easier it feels like to get more users. And so he's just been rocking with that app. And even has a second app. In addition to free books he also has a free audio book app and our conversations went from being about how do we grow this business to now he and I just talk about politics via e-mail. How do we have an impact on the economy? That's where his head is right now.

Andreas:	Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Andrew:	And he's done really well.

Andreas:	I might have discovered it through your website then, I think that's probably where I discovered t from. So it all comes back.

Andrew:	He's a big traveler. He happened to be in Argentina the same time I was living there. So we'd get together at these events and get together for private drinks a lot. It was great. Good guy. I could just never pronounce his last name. Helm-hulm, I still can't. Good guy. All right. You're saying though, back to the program here. You're saying you did something similar. Can I show your logo on the top of the charts?

Andreas:	Yeah, sure.

Andrew:	Alright, let's bring that up here.

Andreas:	So our original logo.

Andrew:	This is you. And by the way congratulations you're right here. Let's, this is you at the top of the chart for sports. 

Andreas:	Right, yeah, great moment, great moment.

Andrew:	Yeah, I bet.

Andreas:	Try to teach people to have these great moments. So, our logo, if you look through the app store really quickly through the sports category, our logo was the only gray horrible one. You know, there was no other gray horrible logo on the app store so it really, really stood out. You know, since then we've kind of, we've caved in and we've gone with something a little more professional looking. But, I think around your launch it's not such a bad idea to just flick through the category that you're going to be competing in, see what color's everyone's using and just go for the complete opposite, you know. And it really makes your app stand out, so that's a tactic that I probably originally stole from Mixergy through.

Andrew:	So then the hottie test is, if everyone in the room is a hottie you want to be the ugly ducking. And if everyone else is an ugly ducking, you want to be a hottie. Is that what we're saying?

Andreas:	When it comes to the logo.

Andrew:	When it comes to the logo. So that's what you're suggesting that, do I have it right?

Andreas:	Yeah I mean. It's kind of, it's difficult really to put down why the logo has such a big impact. I mean, you could get a really nicely designed logo as well and it's going to do well in the app store because people are like, oh that looks cool, you know. But also you can also go right completely opposite end of the scale and just really, really stand out and be, have a really aggressive logo, you know. It's a clever little tactic. Something worth finding out.

Andrew:	Let me show you this one app that's become my favorite scanning app, has got the ugliest, ugliest logo in the whole frickin' store. Here, I have it right there on my home screen because I use it so much. Let's see if I can show it easily. There it is, it's. I use of course the camera, and run keeper, it's on that second from the bottom row. 

Andreas:	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrew:	I don't know if you can see how ugly it is. It is ugly, and for some, it just stands out. I keep saying, I keep in my head saying, these guys should change the design because it's so ugly. Meanwhile I notice it every time and it's at the top of the business charts. And once you download it it's a pretty good app. I just think it stands out for being so ugly. It just looks like they took a stock photo of a scanner, and they just took a picture of it and made that their logo. There's no border around it, there's no nothing, and it works. Now I guess they (?) too many angles. Wow, how did I show it a moment ago and now I can't show it at all.

Andreas:	It's all, screen gone now.

Andrew:	It's all gone. All you can see is my screen. Alright, so, oh I know why. Here we go, there it is. It's called turboscanner.

Andreas:	An ugly logo, it's not such a bad idea. It's just in case you're looking for a little bit of extra exposure. But yeah, but essentially, you know to sum up this tactic, it's about getting the basics right. Make sure you've got an app that looks good. Make sure the logo stands out and it's the sort of app that people want to introduce to their friends. It doesn't crash. It can be accessed immediately and less then 20 megabytes. So those are the basics, make sure you get those right, basically.

Andrew:	I also have tap bots here on my, here in my notes. Should we bring that up? Is there something you want to say about that?

Andreas:	Yeah, sure. The tap box is a perfect example of an app that just looks fantastic. This is the sort of app that, it's just a pleasure to use this app basically. So you can learn a lot about the way they've designed their app. If you're building an app yourself then it's one of the ones that you should definitely check out to see what I mean when I say have a good looking app. What a lot of people do wrong here actually is that they'll find a developer on the internet to create their app, and then they won't bother to find a designer as well. And developers don't tend to have the skills in both areas. They don't tend to be a developer and a designer. So if you've got the money in the beginning then invest in a developer and invest in a designer. They're two separate people, and that's something I really recommend for creating a good looking app.

Andrew:	Alright, makes a lot of sense. And now the power of beer to get reviews. Tell me about that.

Andreas:	Right, so around about the launch of my app I basically just abused my friends which is what they're there for. And I had this one friend, Pat, he's an absolute Apple fanatic. You know, he's the sort of guy that stands outside the Apple store, you know, 8 hours before they open to get the new i-Phone. You know, he's one of these real fan boys. So I said, look, I'm going to buy you, you know a pint of your favorite beer and a couple of shots in our favorite pub, you know, the Loch Tavern. Just when my app launches go in the app store and leave me a five star review straight away. So a few people might laugh at that tactic because you know, it might seem a little bit silly. But you've got to think about those users that are going to come across your app in the app store. And they don't have a lot to go on whether it's going to be a good app or not, whether it's worth them spending any time or money on it. So having those few initial reviews in place that are, you know, five star glam reviews. And I think I've got a picture of Pat's review.

Andrew:	Yeah there it is, there's Pat.

Andreas:	Yeah, so his is the one at the top. And he's sort of really, really complimentary of the (?) and it's really fantastic to . . .

Andrew:	Awesome, awesome app. All caps, exclamation point, lots of stars. Downloaded this app yesterday and already used it several times to carry out repairs on my bike. 

Andreas:	Yeah, so, he earned his beer there really well and truly. So, I think I had about three or four friends that did the exact same thing on their launch page. So, it's a little bit cheeky but, you know, it works. 

Andrew:	Absolutely. Colin actually told me that because he was traveling around the world while he was building his app and building his company, he had friends all over the world. And so he hit them all up that way he could have reviews from everywhere.

Andreas:	Yeah, definitely, definitely is. Absolutely. I mean it might sound silly but you'd be surprised how well it works.

Andrew:	Yup. So you're saying, well, was it five friends that you reached out to?

Andreas:	That's right, yeah, yeah, that's right.

Andrew:	You just want to have something in the store, some kind of reviews when the app launches.

Andreas:	Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. Just because people are, you've got to think about those people on the fence about buying your app. So what's the sort of final thing that's going to push them to go, yeah, okay I'll give it a try. And having a few five star reviews there is often enough. And I'll apologize already for the one star reviews you can see beneath his. That was when we first launched our app and people wanted to see more content. I've probably since added a lot of content.

Andrew:	And it looks like Pat's review helped to counteract that. Poor value, far too basic. I like how they misspelled to in their basic. It's like far too basic, too many mistakes, and then they've got a mistake in the way that they did it in their review.

Andreas:	So it's inevitable and I think a lot of people will tell you the same thing. In the app store it's inevitable that you're going to get quite a few negative reviews. People....

Andrew:	I like by the way that you did that, that you could have easily cropped that out so that we wouldn't even talk about it. But I like that you kept it in there. Keep this program open by talking about Patrick's, the way that you got Patrick's feedback, and honest by including those two negative reviews in the image.

Andreas:	Exactly, exactly, yeah. So I've heard scenarios where people have listened to their reviewers and gone away and added those features. And then they've got a lot of one star reviews. So in some ways we listen to users and we thought, right, we've got to get some more content in there. People want to see more content. So we listen to our users in that case. But it's not always the case that you should listen to exactly what your users tell you. And I guess Apple is the prime example of a company that doesn't always listen to its users. But yeah, so it's incredible how many negative reviews you get, you know. Look at the Facebook app on the app store and they've got a ton of two star reviews. And you're thinking, you do realize this is a free app that lets you communicate with your friends anywhere in the world.

Andrew:	I guess when I would start out I would buy more than 5 pints of beer. I would see how many of my old friends I can restart relationships with. Hey, remember me, went to kindergarten together? I've created this app and here's what I'll buy for you. Alright, so, use the power. Here, let's go back to the big board. User the power of beer to get reviews, that was the section that we just ended. Now we're moving on to, set your launch date, your launch on the magic day. Is there really a magic day?

Andreas:	Right, well yes. Apparently there is a magical day where it is much better to launch your app on that day. And that magical day is Sunday. So this isn't just me, you know, plucking a day out of the week and saying it's good. This was actually research done on 91,000 i-Phone applications were tested I believe. And the worst day was found to be Friday where only 10% of the apps made it into the top 240. And so we've got the article there. It was on a.....

Andrew:	Yeah, let's bring it up and take a look at that.

Andreas:	It's on a great website that I...

Andrew:	It's on mobileorchard.

Andreas:	That's right. Yeah, absolutely great website for developers that should definitely be following the (?).

Andrew:	On just this session. And of course if everyone was watching or listening to this or maybe even reading a transcript and wants all these images to take a look at more thoroughly and more clearly, maybe then we have up on the screen, I'm going to include them. So you guys are going to have this with your session here. So there it is. We've got Saturday is the first one on the left.

Andreas:	Yeah. I think so. It's tough, it's quite blurry here I've got here. But yeah, so Friday's the worst day, Sunday's the best day. And that's based on research by a company called Mobywalla, I think, that's their name. I don't know if I pronounced that correctly. But, so just remember that Sunday's a good day to launch.

Andrew:	So what is this graph here? What are they showing us? They're showing us how many . . .

Andreas:	Right, so they kept track of 91,000 iPad app applications. They saw which ones succeeded, and which ones flopped. The ones that were far more likely, to be in the top 240, if they were launched on a Sunday, as opposed to launching on a Friday, for example.

Andrew:	I see.

Andreas:	So, it's quite, sort of extensive research. It's based quite heavily on these figures.

Andrew:	Let me bring up that page, actually, on this browser. Since I have all kinds of tools at my disposal right now. Here's a Google search for best time to launch your app; is Sunday; to bring up that.

Andreas:	That's top on that. I think it was . . .

Andrew:	 Now, I see why it's so hard to read, even in our screen shot, because it's hard to read on their site. 

Andreas:	Yes, it's a tiny little graph.

Andrew:	That was Monday. Over here, on the left is Monday and Monday gets, let's see, fraction of apps in the top 240. Monday is just over .35, and Sunday is over .4. Clearly Sunday, which is on the far right, is the top day for Apple. The blue line is Apple. The red one is . . .

Andreas:	You can also see Android's there, yeah. It's quite interesting, because on the Android, it's much harder to get your app; to get really noticed. For those people who are thinking of developing on the Android platform, I've not had a lot of success on there. I've launched the exact same app, they looked even better on the Androids, and they absolutely flopped. It's quite interesting, how the tactics that worked so well on the Apple store, didn't have the same success on the Androids. That's a topic for another . . .

Andrew:	I see here from your page, that you're on both, you're in Android and iPhone. Are the tactics that you are teaching us today; except for that last; in fact, maybe even including that last one. Do they work for both iPhone apps and Android apps?

Andreas:	Well, yes and no. Because, a lot of the tactics here are essentially, about getting into those top lists, on the app store. One very major difference, that you'll see on the Androids, versus the Apple, there's less room to show off those apps that do really well, because it's quite fragmented. The app store is fragmented across various websites, and so forth. So, it's much harder to push your app up that list, and then get picked up by Apple, and then see a steamroller effect, basically. You'll also find that Android users are far less likely to part with money to buy an app. That's why Angry Birds, when they launched on the Android, they launched for free. Because they knew users simply; it's not like the Apple app store; where everyone's hooked up to their credit card and they immediately pay for an app. I guess we're going on a bit of a tangent here. But, these tactics are primarily focused on . . . 

Andrew:	I want to be fair with your time. How much time do you have? Do you have another 20 minutes?

Andreas:	Yeah, absolutely.

Andrew:	The session's not going to last as long as 20 minutes. I just want to make sure that we have enough time. Looking here at the board, we've got the promotional sprint before the launch, that would apply to Android, there's that top one. Contest to fire up downloads, there it is, that would apply also. Targeting to get publicity, that would apply frankly, to anything, even beyond mobile apps. The hot guy hottie test, I'm not sure how well that would work actually, in the Android market place. Buying beer for your friends to get reviews. Frankly, that would work even in the Amazon store, if you've got a book coming out, or you're selling something there. The Magic Day we saw from the chart. 

Andreas:	It might be different for Androids.

Andrew:	It might be a little bit different, but it looks like this; we've got to ask Andreas to include this link, for everyone in the session, so that they can read this article themselves. But, it looks like Android, on Wednesday and Sunday, still those are the two strongest days for Android. It looks like a tie with a slight advantage to Sunday. It's not exactly, a one for one, tactic for tactic, in the Android and iPhone's app market places.

Andreas:	There's an incredible amount here that people can take away. You're not going to go wrong, if you launch an app on the Android with a huge list of users, basically. It's only going to help you out. But, I'm just telling people that there are some key differences between the app store on Apple and Androids.

Andrew:	Since we talked about how Angry Birds launched for free, before they started charging, let's talk about free versus paid, and how getting a free version in the market place, in the app store, will help us get paying customers.

Andreas:	Right, so I remember quite clearly. Once again I was on springwise, you know, I love that website. I read them on their RSS phase and so forth. And I noticed this incredible launch video of an app called the word lens app. So essentially it just showed someone that was holding up the app against a menu and it would instantly translate on the screen through the viewfinder what the menu said. So I thought, oh my god, this is incredible. You know, I was going out with this French girlfriend at the time and I was always finding myself in France and completely lost and didn't know what on earth was going on.

So this app was truly a godsend. So immediately I went on the App Atore and I saw right, great, they've got this free version. And the free version only translated text backwards. So, I mean completely useless, but it proves that the app works. And then you had an in app upgrade that whereby you could add languages such as Spanish and French and so forth. So it was a really good way of, you know, hooking users in to the app and then selling them this sort of additional in app purchases and so forth. So you'll find that light versions of apps are a really good way to draw people in. And a lot of people are using this tactic. And as long as the apps got enough features to stand alone as an app, and you don't pester users too much to upgrade to the paid version which Apple kind of frowned upon. So you've got to get that mixture right. But it's a really good way, because free apps or downloads is tens or hundreds of times more then the paid option. So it's a great way when you're new to the app store and you're launching your first app, to reach a much bigger audience then you could with a paid app.

And a really good example of this is the everytrail app. And so yeah, they've got a little screen that says, look, for $3.99 you can upgrade and get all these extra great additional features. So it would take someone that's, you know, quite stingy not to upgrade because you know those features really make a really big difference. So that's a good way of doing it.

Andrew:	Yeah, let's see what they have. If you, you get the free version, obviously for free. But for $3.99 they're saying within the app you're also going to be able to save the maps to your phone for use offline, which is good if you're going on trails where you can't necessarily count on an internet connection. You get to record and share video on your trips. Sync all your own trips and favorites between the app and everytrail.com. No ads, more pro features to come. So just click a button and you get it. And that's the way that they're upgrading people from free to their paid version.

Andreas:	Right, yeah, yeah. So people, a lot of people want to test out an app, the free version, before they go for the full paid one, you know. People like having that trail edition. So it's a really good idea. If you've got a paid app in the app store, you know, create a light version. As long as it's got a few features in there that are enough to kind of pass Apple's test. Then you can get through, and there's a chance to really get a lot more exposure for your paid version of your app.

Andrew:	Let's take a look at Wordlens. 

Andreas:	So yeah, Wordlens was the app that I mentioned.

Andrew:	This is the app that you mentioned earlier, and, this is right down on the bottom is what they do. They take, I can't tell what language that is. I guess that's Spanish?

Andreas:	It's French, French.

Andrew:	So they take that Spanish sign that says danger and converts it into English so you understand that there's strong tides, right. And I did download that free version, and the free version will take that warning sign and just flip the letters around to show you that they have control over the letters and that they can read them and translate them.

Andreas:	Exactly, yeah. So immediately you think, oh my god that's so cool, I'm getting the paid version. 

Andrew:	Especially if you've got a French girlfriend and you find yourself in France frequently with her.

Andreas:	Exactly, not knowing what to eat on the menu.

Andrew:	Right, it does help with the menu. You want to take a look at this other app over here that you...

Andreas:	Yeah, I'm going to take this app with me to Cuba. I'm off to Cuba soon, so it's going to come in so useful. And the other really big thing is if you go and look at the top grossing apps, you know, the apps that are making the most money on the app store, you'll find that they're free. So this is kind of counterintuitive. How is on earth is a free app making all this money? And you'll see on the left where it says, top in app purchases. So a lot of games are doing this at the moment whereby you can play the game absolutely fine for free or you can also purchase some additional, you know, coin paks things like that, that cause you to either have a greater experience with the game or to move through the game at a faster speed. So that's sort of the ultimate example of a freemium model whereby you give away a great free app and then you draw them in and then you offer them in app purchases. And for me this isn't really my favorite area of i-Phone app marketing. But it makes so much money that it's definitely worth mentioning here. So it's definitely worth considering. Is there any kind of way in my app where I could add some sort of premium feature in and try and get people to upgrade to that and that's something that I'm going to be doing with my applications going forward. So it's a really good tactic and there's one final thing that I didn't put this on the list and it's kind of a, it's a bit of a sort of hidden tactic. I didn't really know whether to share this one.

Andrew:	Oh good, good. Share it.

Andreas:	So this is, you know, just between me and you Andrew. Don't tell anyone else. 

Andrew:	And by the way, I'm not editing this out. So don't email me. I get a lot of emails from people afterwards saying Andrew, I had second thoughts. Please edit it out. No, let's keep it in. What is it? I'm even going to shine the spotlight right on you.

Andreas:	Right, so this is really good stuff. Say that you're going to launch an app around a certain topic. So I'm going to pick my topic, so bikes or cycling. I might want to release the first app as a free app and then in there, what I would do is include a, they call it the app notification service that you can build into an app. So let's say I've created that first app. It's been downloaded by thousands and thousands of people. It's reached a far audience as I could possibly reach, so maybe it's got 20, 30, 40,000 downloads. Then it's time for me to launch my paid app. So this is where I'm finally going to get my pay day. So I would then, the day the paid version launches, I would send a notification to the users of the free app and say to them look, we've just launched this paid version. Go and check it out.

So you have suddenly, you've essentially created this huge list of people who will then rush over to download your other app. So this is a really good tactic and I've not seen a lot of people use this very well yet but I expect this is kind of, I guess I'm not helping keeping this tactic hidden, but it's a really clever way of reaching a much wider audience and this is something that I'm really going to be doing moving forward with my apps as well.

Andrew:	So this is, you're giving away the app for free, collecting email addresses on that and then coming up with a second version of the app that's paid and now that you've got all those email addresses of people who are hot leads. They're clearly are interested in this product because they downloaded it and they're using it.

Andreas:	Exactly.

Andrew:	Then you email them and that's how you get all those downloads.

Andreas:	Exactly. So it's the equivalent of getting a text message on your iPhone.

Andrew:	Oh, right. You're not even emailing them. You are popping up an alert on their [??]. I see.

Andreas:	Exactly. So it's really, really far more effective even then an email because the users, you know, they're always on their iPhone and unless they've gone out of their way to disable notifications, then you're going to get through to an enormous group of users. So this is even more effective than the email list. I'd put the email list in place to get your launch a success but once you've got a few little apps, you can find you can really cross promote them with each other and that's when you're really going to start to go from a developer making good money in the app store to a developer making some serious money in the app store.

Andrew:	Well, this has been really useful. One more question, actually. I have a note here to come back and ask you about getting featured in the store. You told us the things that you would need to do to get featured, small app, looks good, not a lot of barriers to using it, like not asking people for their email address, date of birth, etc. before they can get to the action. Did you, in addition to doing all the things you've talked to us so far, did you make a phone call to someone at Apple? I know that, I think it was the founder of Zarly [SP], Beau [SP], told me that he contacted Apple and he talked to them. You're smiling. Did you do that?

Andreas:	No, unfortunately, [??] in the interview. I don't have a contact at Apple.

Andrew:	So this is great though. What it says to me is that even if you don't have an in at Apple, even if one of your investors isn't Ashton Kutcher, the way it was for Zarly, you can still do these things and end up getting featured in the store.

Andreas:	Absolutely. That's the beauty of these tactics. They don't cost you anything but your time so it's really good for someone that's just launching their first app or someone indeed that wants to launch a new set of apps that are going to really do well and get featured by Apple, which is the Holy Grail of app store marketing, essentially.

Andrew:	All right. So thank you for doing this. Here is everything that we talked about how to master. Triple click gets you all the words selected. How to master your mobile app launch. We're going to give everyone who's watching this all the tactics here, both as lists that I've got here on the board and we'll also give them the transcript and we'll give them the images that we showed so that they can take a look at them.

And your website, let's go over to the webpage here. This is your app. If anyone wants to actually download it and see what we've been talking about. They can go to BikeDoctorApp.com and if they want to learn more, they go to iPhoneAppRockStar.com. This is where you talk about how you did it and you teach people how they can do it too. I see you've got a blog here where you're teaching different tactics as you're learning them. Then of course you're collecting email addresses because you've seen the power of them.

Andreas:	Absolutely, yeah. I'll include a link where people can get a couple of extra details. I'll send that to you afterwards.

Andrew:	Oh good. I'm looking forward to it and of course we'll include the links within the course page. Thank you all for watching. Looking forward to hearing your results with this and also your feedback. I'm Andrew Warner, founder of Mixergy, where proven founders like Andreas teach. Thank you everyone.