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How to get your first 100k active users

blog.winnie.com

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Re: How to get your first 100k active users

#61

Post by yeukhon »

beachy wrote: post #52
yeukhon wrote: post #48

Great tips for an aspiring startup founder. I agree completely. In particular the “mobile-only” resonates with me well. I have seen a number of products only provides a homepage to send me to their appstore/google play. In some cases I was trying to see what job openings were available. I was suprised to see no “career” page. Hmm Did they hide that in the webconsole / developer console? Nope! So please do not do that…

Indeed, any startup founders that are not aspirating will fail almost instantly!

Nice catch! Thanks noticing the misspelling.

Re: How to get your first 100k active users

#63

Post by jeremyjh »

samschooler wrote: post #37
annekate wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Games are the exception to this rule. Apple and Google have no problem featuring games built in Unity as long as they are performant and polished.

Isn't this true for all apps? If an app is performant and polished, while also following UI/UX guidelines, it has just as good of a chance to be featured if is React vs Native? Is there anything that goes against this? Or is the idea its much harder to follow UI/UX guides while using a hybrid system?

I suspect that the reviewers see LOTS of low-quality apps written on portable frameworks every day. These are accessible and cheap options for doing quick development, and unfortunately that means that lots of junk gets churned out on them, and some of it even looks pretty decent since there are so many free UI frameworks. There are some platforms that are almost as easy and cheap to use as wordpress.

A company that does a respectable job of developing a nice-looking and performant native-application is going to stand very far apart from this crowd. The same company may have done just as well in terms of performance and UI conformity with React Native but will they stand out as well to tired and jaded reviewers? I think that is what the OP is getting at. No one can predict who will be featured, but true native is probably one thing that helps.

Re: How to get your first 100k active users

#64

Post by Ologn »

> Do the work to get featured by Apple & Google

Sigh...this is one of the last things to worry about. It's like hoping your roulette number hits. Doing a lot of work is like getting a second roulette wheel number towards getting featured, but a lot of work might improve your chances of success any how. Every year that goes by, this hope becomes less and less likely as the competition grows.

Also, the advice on how to get featured on Google Play is not great advice. If I wanted a higher chance of being featured in Play, I would read this web page - https://developer.android.com/about/versions/oreo/android-8.... . New features of the latest Android. Then I would make an app showcasing one of the new features that Android wants to highlight. If you look at featured apps, these are what get featured a lot. Think of it from Google's POV. Actually, Oreo has been out for a bit, so someone trying for Oreo is already behind the ball. There are videos of the Google people telling you what they look for when featuring, watch those.

Re: How to get your first 100k active users

#66

Post by AWebOfBrown »

Ologn wrote: post #64

> Do the work to get featured by Apple & Google Sigh...this is one of the last things to worry about. It's like hoping your roulette number hits. Doing a lot of work is like getting a second roulette wheel number towards getting featured, but a lot of work might improve your chances of success any how. Every year that goes by, this hope becomes less and less likely as the competition grows. Also, the advice on how to…

I also think it's a bit ridiculous to start advising people to "go native" because of the possibility of being featured in the app store.

The cost of doing two native apps is not small at all, and I imagine (not being a mobile dev) that being featured in the App store is a LOT easier for a family friendly app like OP's than the average. I'd also assume the vast majority of native apps don't get featured.

It's well-intentioned advice, but the cost-benefit analysis is nowhere near that simple.

Re: How to get your first 100k active users

#67

Post by nemuri »

danielskogly wrote: post #44
jonas21 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case anyone is wondering (like I was), I think this is the site: https://wishy.gift

That's the one! Any feedback and suggestions are appreciated!

On the landing page below "share it", "check of" should be "check off".

Re: How to get your first 100k active users

#68

Post by tootie »

onion2k wrote: post #26
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #5

Not that you need my vote, but I agree with all of this. In particular: - Go true native, not hybrid - Use ads for testing ideas - Don't forget about email! I'm also intrigued by your approach of not going market-by-market like a lot of local-focused marketplaces do. Your approach seems to make sense, and obviously worked for you. I particularly like that you had a different onboarding flow for users in new markets,…

Go true native, not hybrid Users don't care. Most of them can't tell.

I'd say there's no point just framing your site in a native container, but it's still viable to use webviews where it makes sense. Particularly if you're just delivering loads of static content.

Re: How to get your first 100k active users

#69

Post by tootie »

ythn wrote: post #17
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #5

Not that you need my vote, but I agree with all of this. In particular: - Go true native, not hybrid - Use ads for testing ideas - Don't forget about email! I'm also intrigued by your approach of not going market-by-market like a lot of local-focused marketplaces do. Your approach seems to make sense, and obviously worked for you. I particularly like that you had a different onboarding flow for users in new markets,…

> - Go true native, not hybrid What about for games? Unity is extremely tempting, especially when the alternative is to write the game twice in two different languages...

I'd say Unity is native. Arguably so are JavaScript runtimes like react-native or nativescript. She's probably just referring to the poor experience of hybrid web apps.

I'd honestly just lean in on PWAs if you're a content/SEO focussed business.

Re: How to get your first 100k active users

#70

Post by jjeaff »

firloop wrote: post #30
onion2k wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go true native, not hybrid Users don't care. Most of them can't tell.

The OP wasn't talking about users, but rather best practices on how to get the App Store makers to feature you. I've heard the App Store editorial team specifically give the "go native" advice. It's definitely not required, it just helps. Our app got featured in one of the App Store's daily stories despite it being written in React Native.

I kind of doubt that whoever does the feature pics looks at the binaries to figure out if it is native or not. As long as the end result is not easily distinguishable from native, I'm sure you are just as likely to be featured.
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