Josari Launches Android App

Almost two years ago now, I first joined Josari as their consultant/virtual CTO. It has been a fruitful relationship so far, and this year, we have reached a new milestone. The Josari App is now available on the Play Store! Josari is a marketplace for instant advice. It allows you to connect with a range of professionals via video chat.

We started the work on the Android app using QUT Capstone Student Interns. The students did their best but their skill level was not quite up to what we needed. I stepped into code a bit myself but once the students finished up, we hired a freelance Android developer to take the code, add the missing features and finish-up the Android app.

So during my time with Josari, we have managed to get the Josari iOS app out of development hell and out the door. We have also launched the Android app. We also have a student team, courtesy of QUT capstone again, building the Josari Web app.

The web development student team has a higher skill level. They are doing a great job and we hope to launch the Josari Web app soon. With the product completely, it’s now all over to sales and Marketing!

Tea Tracker First Ad Campaign: Results and Lessons Learnt

I was waiting for waiting to implement a few more features before launch the first advertising campaign for the Tea Tracker. However, fellow attendees of the App Marketing Meetup pointed out to me that with 352 million mobiles running Android. I shouldn't worry too much about making a bad first impression. So I went ahead and created a Facebook Ad campaign for the Tea Tracker. Also, a Facebook page to complement the Ad campaign.

For the Ad, I had it run for about three weeks last month. I set a lifetime budget of $200. I narrowed down the demographics to people who were interested in tea. I also filtered for people in countries known for heavy tea consumption. According to Facebook, the ad reached 474,423 people. Not bad for $200 but what about the return on investment?

The return wasn't great, but that is understandable given that the Tea Tracker is a very specialised app. I did increase my lifetime downloads by 120 people. But did not retain most of them. But that's understandable because, again, this is a specialised app for the niche market of boutique tea drinkers. But I am glad I tried running a Facebook Ad campaign. It'll be useful experience for when I do have an app with a wider potential audience.

The biggest outcome from the Ad campaign was the creation of the Tea Tracker App Facebook page because I did get likes to the page. It's only 25 people but there is potential for the page to grow, but only if I provide worthwhile content. To that end, I am writing reviews of the teas I drink. Publishing them on Medium and cross-posting them on Facebook. I have two reviews up already and hope to review a new tea each week. Who knows, the reviews might lead to more downloads and engagement for the Tea Tracker!

Tea Tracker Slide

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These are the slides I presented to Brisbane iOS/Android App Marketing this month. The focus was on how I am currently monetizing the app, ads, and how I am marketing, I am not. I am in the process improving the UI, adding a social media sharing feature, embedding some affiliated links etc. Once I have completed the necessary upgrades, I plan to undertake a Facebook ad campaign. Facebook ads are cheaper than full Google Adwords campaigns. Plus I can theoretically better target Facebook ads to tea lovers. At any rate, stay tuned for more tea tracker news!

Introducing the Tea Tracker! from Sharmin (Tinni) Choudhury

Apps as investment

Earlier this month I had another productive and enlightening meetup of the App Marketing group. The topics covered included tips on outsourcing and developing a community around a product as a means of marketing. The outsourcing talk was interesting because I never thought about funding app development as a source of passive income. Similar to having a share portfolio or perhaps a more apt analogy would be investing in a business without being involved in the day to operation of said business.

Obviously, I am developing apps through my company Virgo 19. But the difference here is between being a business that is actively in the app development space. Who is making app development or a specific app the core of their business, e.g. Uber and Lyft. As opposed to being someone with an idea who funds it and then steps back, letting the app go through its lifecycle with minimal intervention. But they retain ownership of the app or at least a significant stake in the app.

I think it would work well with tool type apps, games that do not require active support to keep players engaged. Certainly interactive story apps would be perfect for these kinds of passive investment in the app market space.

The other aspect of this is that in this situation, the person funding the app development doesn't necessarily have the technical know how. They are not a coder to put it simply. They have an idea that they believe there is a market for and so they fund it and put it out in the Google and Apple marketplaces. Depending on the level of investment, they might also undertake some marketing and let it go. Active support is impossible just because they don't have a technical team actively working on the app.

However, the goal for apps as investments does not seem to be to focus on one app and make it the next Uber. But to have a diverse range of small apps that offer a return on investment for people who are looking for complementary income, as opposed to the apps being a primary source of income. Although, I guess the dream would be that your portfolio of apps is so successful, that you can just go fishing all the time! Personally, I hate fish and fishing, but I understand that is the dream of many, many people.

Meetup: App Marketing

This year, my New Year's resolution was simply to be more social because I have been very neglectful of my friends, family and industry peers. To that end, I have signed up for a number of groups on Meetup and actually attending meetups for groups I had already signed up for. One of the new meetup I joined is a monthly meetup is Brisbane iOS/Android App Marketing Meetup that aims to teach members about how to market apps. The meetup itself is new and had its first ever meeting last Wednesday.

We had two guest speakers for the first meeting and we also got a presentation from a member. It was all very instructive. For example, it never occurred to me that Facebook Ads might be the most cost effective due to how well you could customise it. Also, hearing things from the point of the view of the marketers explained a number of things I had been observing regarding online ads. I got some good tips that slotted in well with what I was already learning from studying up on SEO marketing. But I'll talk about SEO marketing on a separate post.

I would say that my apps are still a bit off before it is worth me running a paid campaign for them. But hopefully, by the time I do. I will be able to run a good targeted campaign that offers a good return on investment.