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George Berkowski PDF
George Berkowski PDF
BillionDollarApp
@georgeberkowski
Introductions
Billion Dollar App Club
Mobile is the art of
re-invention
LESS
MORE
Lost his mother
Lost three sons
Lost a sister
Lost a girlfriend
Failed in business
Lost 8 elections
He was 52.
No-one did it first time …
No-one did it first time …
Instagram (Burbn.com)
WhatsApp (Status sharing)
Snapchat (Picaboo)
Clash of Clans (multi-platform)
Angry Birds (52 attempts…)
Candy Crush (11 years)
Here’s what you’re up against
Better Design
MORE POWERFUL
Cheaper
Generally Awesome
the bar keeps on rising
So where does that leave us?
THE IDEA
+
THE PRODUCT
Great Idea
Validate Idea via Customer Development
Convert it into an App
Keep Testing + Iterating
Get to Product / Market Fit
Acquire Users
Convert to Customers
Customers invite Customers
If you want to generate a billion dollars
you need to touch a billion people
• Match Inc. ~ $800 million
(Income $225 million FY2013)
Adultery is great …
• Zoosk ~ $178 million (Income $2.6 million)
• Filed for IPO
• #1 grossing dating app (Top 25 overall)
• 41% users paid via mobile (up from 22%)
Fall 2012 ~ launch
Summer 2013 ~ Android
Spring 2014 ~ Tinder Olympics
Spring 2014 ~ 1 billion matches
Summer 2014 ~ 40 person team
Summer 2014 ~ 2 billion matches
Acquire Users
Convert to Customers
Customers invite Customers
THE IDEA
+
THE PRODUCT
BUSINESS MODEL
EASE OF CUSTOMER
ACQUISITION
It’s like Facebook + Square for Cabbies
Great Idea
Validate Idea via Customer Development
Convert it into an App
Keep Testing + Iterating
Get to Product / Market Fit
Acquire Users
Convert to Customers
Customers invite Customers
220 cities
45 countries
Revenue doubling 6 months
~
Profitable in months (new city)
UberX (undercut taxis 15%)
150 times a day
0 10 20
Any big idea is going to take a while to get there. By
definition, if it’s big, and no one has done it before, it’s
not going to be 1-2-3, ‘We got it!’ There is going to be a
dark period in there, because you don’t know what the
key to getting there is. You have to be willing to be in
some murky territory, and be prepared to invest, if you
really want to do something different.
– Evan Williams, founder of Blogger, Twitter and Medium
How do you do it?
10x better
UBER / HAILO
Candy Crush
Supercell / Clash of Clans
WhatsApp
Waze
Tango (geography)
Viber (geography)
KakaoTalk (geography)
Completely New
Snapchat (ephemeral)
Instagram (visual twitter)
Square (+hardware)
Flipboard (iPad)
67 Human Universals