Latest Posts

Gamification – Achievement as Reward
Many apps look to “gamify” their product so as to give the impression that anyone who uses it regularly is “levelling up” by unlocking achievements. This theory is baked into every video game that ever existed, and gives the player a feeling of visual/virtual accomplishment because they receive actual proof of their achievement, whether that →
Tuning Acquisition of App Users
In this podcast series we ask experienced Appreneurs for one success story and one fail. In this episode of the Mobile Engagement Podcast: Arsen Pereymer, Founder & CEO of Mobiquire.com talks on ASO, Games, Bursting downloads, planning for launch and why the App is just 30-40% of the full picture in App success. Engagement Score →
GrowthHack downloads with Appstore Optimization
In this episode of the Mobile Engagement Podcast, a completely different approach. Often at 500 Startups we have entrepreneurs give presentations. So I recorded this presentation from Aykut, the CEO of Mobile Action as I knew he’d have a lot of wisdom in Appstore Optimization (ASO). It’s a long presentation on ASO tips and techniques →
3 surprising learnings from 500 Startups
OK – I didn’t study 500 different startups! 500 Startups is a Venture Investment fund and Accelerator. So just to clear that up! Some people asked me why we joined the 500 Startups accelerator given I’ve founded several successful startup – “surely I didn’t need their help or advice?”. It’s true, as a serial entrepreneur →
Mobile Growth Hacks Community
By the time some awesome mobile growth tip appears in a blog post somewhere – its already been well used (and abused). Growth hacks are ephemeral by their nature and so it makes sense that a chat mode is handy to share tips. So we’ve created a slack channel at http://slack.mobilegrowthhacks.com. The idea is that →
Why App Deeplinks give Retail, Real Estate, Brands Superpowers
Generally we don’t see paradigm shifts until it’s too late. Right now, content rich Apps such as Retail and Real Estate Apps can access Viral Superpowers previously unavailable to give users the ultimate experience and drive organic acquisition. So what does a Super Powered App look like? You access engagement and location intelligence to give →
Deeplinks, deferred deeplinks & app schemas
App Deeplinks You know it’s Groundhog day when Apple unveils something magical and new. So it was when we rediscovered “Web 2.0” for Apps as Apple announced deeplink support at WWDC. The fanboys responded with ‘wow, thats incredible’, others thought it was old news and some of us said ‘aha’ at the same time. Suddenly it →
Fraud Protection in Mobile Transactions
In this episode of the Mobile Engagement Podcast, we’ve got a slight format change – I was in San Jose for a ThreatMetrix board meeting and took the opportunity to talk with Dean Weinert of ThreatMetrix who runs their Mobile SDK product for Fraud Protection. Dean fills us in on common fraud protection use-case including →
Barriers to Viral Growth
In this month’s customer Newsletter I covered the a basic survival principle: Only Apps with a Viral Hockeystick will survive App Survival & Dominance The principle here can be explained by a sequence of charts: In any App sector now there is always competitors – and in fact its normal that you actually have copy-cat →
App product market fit needs brutal focus
In this podcast series we ask experienced Appreneurs for one success story and one fail. In this episode of the Mobile Engagement Podcast: Tim Bull is CTO of MixBit, the latest startup of Youtube founder Chad Hurley. Mixbit are on the new wave of Apps that are doing collaborative video – a capability is only →