Optimizing Your App | Trevor Cornwell

About Trevor Cornwell

Trevor Cornwell, Founder and CEO, appbackr inc., a Palo Alto-based Market Exchange for Apps. Appbackr helps publishers and platforms identify the rights apps to optimize revenue. Appbackr is a winner of the PayPal X Developer Challenge, an OnMobile 100 Company and an AlwaysOn 250 Company. Cornwell’s career has been spent developing and growing new enterprises in media and technology-based businesses deploying Internet technologies to provide content and streamline customer offerings. Most recently Cornwell developed video personalization software which produces customized video streams based on viewer behavior.

Earlier, he founded the business jet reservation network Skyjet, after determining that technology solutions for aggregating charter aircraft inventory would create market efficiencies. Skyjet was acquired by Bombardier, Inc.

Prior to forming Skyjet, Cornwell started several media companies in emerging markets, including CET Online, an early pioneer in Internet-distributed news.

Earlier in his career, Cornwell founded a not-for-profit organization, the National Service League, Inc., to aid in the transition to emerging democracies in Eastern Europe.

 

Interview Transcript:

Alan
Welcome back. I’m here today with Trevor Cornwell, Trevor is a CEO and the founder of appbackr. Welcome to today’s show.

Trevor
Thank you, Alan. It’s great to be here.

Alan
So Trevor, give me your background.

Trevor
So I am a serial entrepreneur. And I, I realized my plight and fate. When I look back on my life, because I’ve, I’ve really started, businesses started ideas and tried to make them into businesses, to make them self sustaining my whole life. I started a company called Sky jet, which is probably my most successful venture, it’s a business not dissimilar from net jets. And what I basically did is went around and contacted owners of jets, and ask them to give me the information about when their plane wasn’t flying there 1400 Or so jets around the country. And there wasn’t a comprehensive database of of where they all were at any one time. And we set up a program where people could buy blocks of hours of times on those jets. And what we found is in the major markets, there were usually redundant versions of the same jet. So with something like NetJets, you have to actually go and buy an interest in the plane. But with our program, you could just buy the time, and there was usually an aircraft available of the kind that you were used to flying, and grew that company up and sold it to the RTA and stayed there for many years, doing strategy and business development and growing up the company to profitability. But I’ve started other companies have started the business in Eastern Europe that created radio programming, and did media sales. And then now out here in the Bay Area starting app packer, which which works with apps, I’ve sort of spanned a number of different things along the way.

Alan
So Appbackr, the name kind of says it all it has something to do with the mobile apps, and that what exactly is the model for appbackr.

Trevor
So like a lot of businesses that get started out here, I think as you go along you, you come to learn what is your core asset. And and really, our core value is a an algorithm that we’ve developed called App score, which looks at every app in the Android, iOS, now html5 markets, and scores them one to 10. And what we’re looking for are apps that have the potential to be great, because in the app ecosystem, it’s a very narrow field of of apps that actually get attention. There are 50 publishers, so they may have more than one app, but many have just one that account for 50% of the revenue on Android and on Apple. So we have a very, very tight consolidation of revenue. And what our app score looks to do is to identify the great up and coming apps. And then those apps get backed. And they get backed in a couple of ways. The principal way is companies like Intel and Samsung, and others that are creating new platforms, get those apps featured on their on their new platforms. Then we also do something called distribution with great scoring apps. And we get those apps featured on carriers like T Mobile and sprint. And that helps to get the apps more distribution. And so we we really fall into what’s called App Discovery. We’re creating the tools that allow great apps to get the the attention that they need, helps consumers out because it helps them find the things that they’re looking for helps developers out because it gives them more distribution and creates revenue streams for new platforms that are looking to to get apps out onto their devices or onto their new platforms.

Alan
Yeah, how difficult is it getting to be right now to enter the mobile market?

Trevor
And it’s it’s it’s the right question. It’s becoming easier to get into it. It’s becoming more difficult to be successful with it. Because you’re finding lots of different ways to create apps very efficiently. But getting your app discovered is a real challenge. And smart developers. Smart publishers look at a variety of different ways to get traction around their app and it goes to some very basic things like best practice. says when you put your app up onto the App Store, making sure you describe it well that there are good pictures that you’re using search engine optimization techniques so that somebody can find your app. There’s a whole series of different steps that you can take, getting the app localized into different languages, looking at different platforms, all of those things are really important for discovery.

Alan
I’m visiting here today with Trevor Cornwell, he is a CEO and the founder of appbackr, a new startup firm that’s focusing on helping people get their apps discovered in today’s ever growing mobile market, Trevor, we need to take a quick break. And when we come back, I want to get into the what the developers should look for in the platform of what’s right for now. We’ll be back right back after these messages.

Alan
Welcome back and busy here today with Trevor Cornwell, Trevor is the CEO and the founder of appbackr, Silicon Valley, startup company that’s focused on helping mobile companies get their apps more visible chart. How does the developer know which platform is right for their app?

Trevor
Great question. So typical path for developers, they’ll start with Apple iOS, then they’ll look at Android and then they’ll look at html5. And there’s a lot of merit to it. Apple has a huge user base, it’s all on the same device. So when you develop for it, there’s one approach that you can take, you start getting down the field, you get to Android, it’s a little bit more fragmented, different devices work in different ways, different versions of the operating system, behave differently. And then there’s HTML five, which you have to consider a whole variety of form factors, because that app can be used on a computer or it can be used on a phone. So first thing is really thinking about what you’re trying to achieve. And, you know, are you trying to get discovered by as many people as possible? Or are you trying to focus on a particular segment? And then also to think about what your wherewithal is, how much time are you going to put into this? Is this something which is fundamental to your business? Then you probably want to go natively, starting with the biggest and moving on out? Or are you? Are you looking to do this as your your core business, and something that you want to, to really grow into a whole platform of different apps, all of those things drive a lot of different decisions. I think one of the things that’s really appealing for people right now is to look at HTML five as a platform, because that gives an opportunity to be able to create your app once and then port it to different platforms, essentially, by wrapping it in the operating system, whether it be Android or iOS. And it can be a great way for a company that wants to build an app, but doesn’t want to spend all day doing it to be able to get a lot of distribution for their app.

Alan
What’s the most common problem that developers face with their app?

Trevor
I think it’s probably an expectation issue. I think we hear so much, particularly in Silicon Valley about the idea of having something that’s going to go viral, and the expectation that you’re going to build it and then they will come. And it really doesn’t work that way. You have to be much more tactical about it. I think the the first level of an issue for most developers is not merchandising, what they have, well, you put a lot of effort into thinking about the content that you want into your app, the functionality, you need to make sure to tell that story on that page that somebody is going to look at probably for less than 10 seconds before they make the decision whether to buy the app. So telling the story well, good photographs, good screenshots really make a difference in having your app successfully discovered.

Alan
I have to say that with today’s mobile market, it’s it’s ever increasing the amount of mobile users but likewise, mobile apps. Yeah. It and I can see you’re you’re in the right space right now. Because the challenge is, how do you get visibility within there? And so, Trevor, We need to take a quick break. And then when we come back, I’d like to talk about things that developers should think about when importing their apps and, and how do they know if their app is gonna be successful. So we’ll take a quick break. I’ll be right back after these messages.

Alan
Welcome back. I’m here today with Trevor Cornwell, we’ve been talking about his new startup company, appbackr, the company that’s focused on helping mobile companies launch their apps, and you know, how to get visible in today’s ever increasing market. So, Trevor, when should a person a developer consider porting their app? By the way, what does for the listeners porting your app mean?

Trevor
Yeah, so there are different operating systems for mobile, just like their different operating systems for computers. So computers, we have basically the Microsoft PC and, and then, and then Apple Mac, operating system. For mobile, you’ve got Apple, you’ve got Android. Um, you’ve got a variety of flavors of HTML five, you have windows and each function differently. So the code for having an app, which is a little software program, to work on, it is different from platform to platform. So there are two ways to do reporting. One is to go native where you build your application, platform by platform, then the other way to do it is to use a service like Sencha, or marmalade or Appcelerator. And these are cross platform development tools. They allow a developer to build an application, and then essentially, to apply that code to different operating systems and both have merits. I think the way to look at all of this is holistically and say, you know if your objective is to get your app downloaded as much as possible, what are the best tactics against that? One is creating a really great app. And that’s the case for native really focus on a particular operating system and be great at it, because that’s going to help drive reviews. And that’s going to help drive downloads, and that’s going to help make your app more successful. The other approach and can be done in a complimentary fashion, is to look at multiple operating systems, and even translating your app into multiple languages. So you know, Chinese, Japanese, French, Russian, others, because that also helps you to move up the list and get discovered. There are two things that ultimately drive on whatever platform you’re on App Discovery. One is getting merchandised by the by the platform. So if Apple features your app, that makes a huge difference. The other thing is getting onto a top 10 list. And if you’re in a particular category, like if you’re making a productivity app, or a health and fitness app, doesn’t take that many downloads to get into that top 10. So really thinking about how you’re going to mark it to get even that first 5000 downloads. That’s what can help create an app that that gets noticed and gets gets downloaded frequently.

Alan
So how do you know if your app is going to be successful?

Trevor
Yeah, I think it’s it’s like a lot of things. And maybe you need to look at sort of some analogies in the physical world. I mean, if you created a great product, you’d want to make sure that it gets packaged. Well, I think a lot of developers fall short of that, because they they’ve put so much effort into engineering something they don’t think about how it’s going to look at at that decision point. So merchandising it well makes a real difference. But also having a real marketing strategy at the beginning. Those 123 4,001st downloads that you get, that’s what helps create something that has the potential to go viral. And that marketing doesn’t have to just be done on the App Store. Although it can be you have to think about who your customers are. You can think about buying search terms on on Google, their variety of different platforms. App Packer has something called Exchange, which helps get apps featured across different carrier platforms. So sprint and T Mobile and others, feature apps and we have a tool that allows you to be able to set a budget and get your app featured across those new platforms. All of those things make a difference. The the downloads in the first 90 days are really important because Google and everybody else has their own algorithm and they’re looking to see is your app getting traction. And if it does, it’s going to move into those top 10 lists. And it’s also going to get a great chance to get to be one of the featured apps on their platform.

Alan
So that is an indication if your app goes viral, it is an indication that you have a good app?

Trevor
It is and that you’ve done a good job at the beginning. But yeah, quality really matters because people will look at your star rating. So if people are saying about your app, that it’s really good. That becomes an invitation to the next person to download it.

Alan
How does your app score algorithm work?

Trevor
Yes, so in some respects, we approached it, like PageRank did at Google and say that we we really look to see what other people are saying about the app. So we use a lot of publicly available data. And then we analyze the reviews themselves. Because as you can imagine, when somebody takes the time to review something, they either really like it, or they really don’t like it. And both of those are important to us. So we look at the sentiment that somebody expresses in the app, or they saying this app really did what I needed it to do, or this app worked really well on my Samsung phone. We factor all of those things in and we put it into a score from one to 10. We think any app that scores 8.5 or above, and that’s about 80,000 apps out of the six 700,000 apps that are on Android has the potential to do well. And it’s really a predictive model, because what we’re looking at especially are those reviews, are those quality metrics that are hidden in the reviews, we think those are the apps that will most satisfy customers. And because the distribution is right now, so concentrated among 50 developers, exposing those 80,000 developers to additional distribution opportunity really opens up the market.

Alan
Is there a certain type of app more people are looking for, for example, games used to be popular, but you know, where do they rank now compared to productivity?

Trevor
Yeah, so games are significant. And they’re significant, in part because there’s a lot of turnover. I mean, we hear about some games that stick around for a long time Angry Birds, Candy Crush, but the truth is that there they last for a relatively short period of time. I think there’s huge potential in the smaller segments. I mean, things like health and fitness, things like productivity can be really helpful. And there’s also a strategy to building around existing ecosystem. So major apps like Evernote.

Alan
Trevor, we’re running we’re running up against the break. I want to hold you over for another segment want to talk about strategy on this if I could. Sounds great. We’ll be right back after these messages.

Alan
Welcome back, I’m here today with Trevor Cornwell, Trevor is the founder and CEO of appbackr, a startup company that focuses on helping mobile apps get visible in the ever growing community of mobile devices. Trevor, were talking about strategy before the break. And what should the strategy be now for mobile app? Is there a particular area for persons said well, I want to do a start up company, but I’m not sure if I want to do a gaming or productivity or, you know, how did they go about this process of jumping into the mobile app market and finding good traction.

Trevor
So you have games which are very crowded, and you can be very successful with the game. I mean, those tend to be the things that go viral. You can focus on what you now so what your business does, and that’s going to fall into a segment swimming, that it’s not gaming. Those verticals have a lot of opportunity, because those are the things like health and fitness and and productivity apps that don’t have as many downloads but have a lot of passionate interest. I think what’s also in Translate is to look at existing ecosystems and to play off of that. And what I mean by ecosystem is an app is a software program. And there are some software programs that have become really significant in size, like Dropbox or box.net, or Evernote. And what these companies have done is create API’s that allow developers to build a tool off of it. So use Evernote as an example. That’s a tool to be able to store your notes and store your thinking. If you can come up with an idea around that, maybe it’s taking notes and organizing that into a calendar, let’s say, or setting up a series of reminders that can be very valuable to the millions of existing Evernote users, Evernote will expose a lot of tools to you. And they each have developer conferences, if you’re in the Bay Area that one after the other during the year, have a lot of resources that you can tap into including knowledge can be a great way for a developer to get some early traction around his app.

Alan
So should developers use a native or HTML?

Trevor
Yeah, it’s it’s a question that people debate. And I would say the the first answer would be, whatever you decide to do, it really is worth thinking about it. And looking at apps that are developed in each and just by way of explanation. A native app is something that’s built for an existing platform and there, it’s going to be able to take advantage of a lot of the different features and benefits of that, of that platform. And that can make a big difference in the user experience. HTML five, allows you to more efficiently create one thing, and then wrap it into the operating system that allows you to deploy more efficiently. But you should try apps that work on in each method, before you make a decision, because it’s something that you’re going to live with for a long time. And each has pros and cons to it. I like native a lot, I think there’s a lot of benefit to it. But now there are some tools out there like Sencha, and marmalade accelerators, some of the other ones that allow you to create one app and then put it to different platforms. And I think they’re putting a huge amount of investment, they have a significant developer community in the millions. So you’re starting to get some real high quality there. And I think those have some real advantages.

Alan
You know, as people are getting ready to launch your apps, you know, what type of client or customer you’re looking for, and how do they contact you.

Trevor
So what we’re really looking for are quality apps that have the potential to do well. And then we want to provide them distribution across a variety of different markets. And we’re increasingly getting engagement for AP score. Companies are starting to show that AP score to to customers. So that makes it easier for consumers to be able to find great apps starts.

Alan
How do they reach it?

Trevor
Yeah, so first thing is to go to appbackr and to put their app in and they’ll get a score.

Alan
That’s appbackr.

Trevor
Come to appbackr and put your app in put the name of your app and if you’ve created one, and you’ll see a score for it. And then you can log into Appbackr and you’ll start seeing offers for distribution.

Alan
I’ve been visiting here today with Trevor Cornwell Trevor is the CEO and founder of appbackr. Trevor, we’re out of time.

Trevor
It’s been a great Thank you, Alan, I

Alan
appreciate you being here today. Thanks for joining us here on America dreams. Join us again next week on AM 12 20k D O W

 

 

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This transcript was generated by software and may not accurately reflect exactly what was said.

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