We couldn’t have been happier concluding the 2015 North America App Strategy Workshop series with 115 attendees in New York City. It’s been an incredible year to meet with developers and entrepreneurs across the world, learning about the challenges they face and connecting them with experts in the industry. NYC was no different—this city draws the best and the brightest, and we were thrilled to have a great lineup of industry gurus to share their knowledge with the audience.
From L to R: Jen Leong (At&T), Ryan Lessard (Pollen), Sam Purtill (Branch Metrics), Don Steele (tumblr)
1.) Reaching Your First 10,000 Downloads
Jen Leong (AT&T), Ryan Lessard (Pollen), Sam Purtill (Branch Metrics), and Don Steele (tumblr) gathered to share insights on building an initial user base. It was clear they had a great time interacting with attendees as they discussed growth hacking strategies, their arsenal of marketing tricks, and navigating the plethora of social media options in promoting an app.
2.) Startup Demo: Audiomack
One of our favorite additions to our workshops this year was the opportunity to highlight local startups. David Ponte, co-founder of Audiomack—an app where artists can share their music with fellow artists, record labels, and fans—thoroughly engaged the audience in a succinct presentation on what success means to them, and how they reached the 6 million users they have today.
3.) UX Strategies: Keeping Users Happy and Engaged in Your App
From L to R: Jackie McCarthy (CTIA), Mayank Yadav (Handy), Ofir Leitner (MobileMonday Tel Aviv), Malcolm Friedberg (CleverTap)
There’s a reason why this is one of our most popular panels, and it’s because of the sheer number of valuable, bite-sized pieces of wisdom these speakers share. Jackie McCarthy (CTIA) moderated the lineup: Mayank Yadav (Handy), Malcolm Friedberg (CleverTap), and Ofir Leitner (MobileMonday Tel Aviv). Two key takeaways were, “Adapt your user acquisition efforts to your user experience efforts so you aren’t throwing marketing dollars away,” from Leitner, and, “Conception, development, launch: have beta users test throughout this process so you can make decisions off actual data,” from Friedberg.
4.) Attention to the Fine Print—Implementing App ToS and Privacy Policies
Scott Smedresman of McCarter and English talked the audience through the ins and outs of app terms of service and privacy policies: what users expect, the best policy for your app, how to avoid being sued, and more. One key takeaway he shared in choosing how to convey your privacy policy to your users was, “Developers need to walk that line between being invasive vs. being enforceable.” Terms of service presentations in apps need to be apparent but not annoying.
5.) Maximizing App Revenue
Greg Blackman (OpenX), Patrick McCormack (Millennial Media), Kejia Tang (AppFriends.me), Emily Kaufman (AdColony)
Our final panel of the day spoke on app revenue, featuring moderator Greg Blackman (OpenX), Patrick McCormack (Millennial Media), Kejia Tang (AppFriends.me), and Emily Kaufman (AdColony). Two key takeaways were, “What’s the best way to integrate an advertiser’s message? Ultimately, it’s a balancing act between marketing vs. publisher goals,” and, in response to the question of which data parameters are most important, “Impressions, quality and accuracy of the data, and device ID,” both from McCormack.
6.) Startup Demo: Clearlogin
Our second startup demo of the evening was presented by Chad Hensler of Clearlogin. Hensler shared stats on password security and the efficiency of an instant end-user dashboard. This is important because companies use on average 168 cloud services, the average employee uses 28 cloud services, but 75% use no more than 5 different passwords—a major security issue that Clearlogin addresses.
7.) What the Top 50 Games Do with In-App Purchasing That the Rest of Us Don’t
The final speaker of the night was keynote David Isbitski, from the Amazon Appstore. Pens and typing fingers began flying as soon as he started speaking. Isbitski’s presentation was overflowing with current stats and information relevant to developers. One key takeaway was, “Apps with tutorials have a 2.5 times higher conversion rate. And, post-purchase tutorials create 65% more repeat orders.”
And that’s a wrap on the NYC App Strategy workshop! Be sure to check out photos below and we’ll see you in 2016.
Thank you to our sponsors CTIA, Millennial Media, OpenX, Pollen, AdColony, Branch Metrics, Amazon Appstore, Tune, McCarter & English, and AT&T Application Resource Optimizer for helping make these workshops possible.
