Well, the time has come to talk about the stupidest app in the world. Yo.
An app that raised millions of dollars and all it did, was let you send Yo. No text, no images, just
Yo.
I remember when I was starting my first company, these guys announced their round, and my immediate
thought was- if they can raise money, anyone can.
No. But that doesn’t mean the app wasn’t stupid. I’m not the first one to poke at
it. So, let’s talk about it, here’s the story of Yo.
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How the stupidest app in the world was born
Moshe Hogeg wanted to know if people were available, like his assistant, wife, and coworkers.
But, he thought emails were complicated and took too long. I got to give it to him: he
was right.
Hogeg was the CEO of Mobli, a social network platform that would go bankrupt in 2016. But,
at the time of the idea, in 2014, Mobli was still popular. So, he was a busy man.
He wanted a simple solution. So, what was his idea? Well, in Hogeg's own words, it was
a dumb app.
He wanted to send a one-word notification to someone else, easily and quickly. That's
it: just one word.
But, the idea was so dumb that he had to convince one of his engineers to do it. And, it didn't
take just one try. No, he pressured his engineer Or Arbel for weeks.
There are reports that Arbel's attitude towards Yo was anything close to motivating. On the
contrary, he dragged his feet with every meeting with Hogeg because he knew that Yo would be
a topic.
Arbel thought it was stupid, and he didn't want to do it. But, hey, the boss is the boss.
So, after weeks and weeks of begging him, Hogeg got Arbel to develop the dumb app.
And, guess what? Arbel designed it in eight hours! For inspiration, he thought of how
he communicated with his friends. To know if someone was up for a chat, he'd send them
a "!" Or a "?" And they'd reply.
So, he created an app that did exactly that but with a different word: Yo.
That's it. It was so dumb, so simple, and yet beautiful.
And here's the irony. Hogeg loved it. But, the idea embarrassed him, so he didn't tell
anyone. He even warned Arbel never to publish it under Mobli's name because the company
was serious and the idea was stupid.
But, and this is a big but, he did publish it. So, maybe it wasn't that dumb.
The dumbest app in the world enters the market.
When the two quietly launched Yo on April fool's day, Apple rejected it.
It couldn't be in the App Store; it was too simple.
Here's when things get interesting. Hogeg and Arbel fought back. So, perhaps, they weren't
as embarrassed about it as they led the world to believe.
Eventually, Hogeg told people. At first, he only shared it with close friends and family,
like his wife. Then, he told his employees.
Yo was a dumb idea. But, that didn't stop people from using it. In the first month of
this "secret" beta testing, 20,000 people were using it, mainly in Tel Aviv. They were
Yoing like crazy. So, yeah, that's the verb we're going to use.
Hogeg and Arbel were on to something.
Business Insider reports that Robert Scoble, a tech blogger, visited Hogeg, and Hogeg showed
him the idea. Scoble referred to Yo as "the is the stupidest, most addictive app" he had
seen in his life.
Scoble then posted a link to it on Facebook, and another friend read about it and started
using it, and that's how it rose to the top. In no time, Hogeg and Arbel got emails from
Silicon Valley nonstop.
Now, you might think that's a dream come true. But, no. It was a problem.
You see, Yo was a goofy side project with no actual planning. There was no team behind
it and no vision for the future. And big names were knocking on their doors, so Hogeg and
Arbel had to do something, anything. That's when the two went into the stats.
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Yo! We're on to something here.
Yo launched in April 2014. By mid-July, the app had 2 million downloads. On average, users
sent 2 million Yos per day.
The engagement was beyond anything any investor had seen. So, from outside eyes, Yo made perfect
sense. Arbel and Hogeg had managed to create a popular app that was simple to design and
took almost no investment.
The company was also growing.
Well, when I say growing, I mean, there was one more employee: Isaiah Turner. How he got
there is an interesting story.
In short, he hacked them.
That's right. Three university students, including Turner, hacked the app and obtained private
data. Then spammed thousands of numbers with endless Yos.
Arbel was so impressed that, after apologizing to the users, he decided to hire Turner. That's
when the dumb idea turned into a promise. Now, keep in mind that the founders had humble
ambitions. If they managed to get a couple hundred thousand, then it would've been a
success. But that didn't happen.
Instead, they saw more than a million dollars come their way. By July 2014, Yo had raised
$1.5 million through a seed round and had a valuation of more than $5 million.
And get this, Hogeg has said that he rejected $2.5 million as there was too much uncertainty
around Yo. Still, it had big names like Pete Cashmore from Mashable and Betaworks, even
if Yo was the butt of all jokes. Everyone, from tech blogs to comedians, loved mocking
Yo.
And, it's easy to see why, but there's a twist. Investors believed that this simple idea that
was born out of a joke could have potential. Quick notifications are a mainstay now, and
this app had the base for this and other notification systems.
In fact, the Israeli Government used it to push warnings of possible missile strikes,
sending massive Yo's in case of a threat. So, there was potential. Hogeg and Arbel just
needed to work on it.
Yo evolves, but is it enough?
With money on the bank, big-name investors, and a successful idea, Arbel and Hogeg got
to work evolving Yo. They wanted to improve it to a point in which it no longer seemed
stupid.
Plus, there was already pressure. The idea was too dumb and too smart, so competition
arose. Many clones appeared that did precisely the same. Fortunately for Yo, there's only
room for one excellent, stupid idea.
Hogeg and Arbel first included Yo Link. It's exactly what you think it is. You send a Yo
with a link. That's it. The idea was to share effortlessly, and it had great potential with
short articles and breaking news. Then there was the idea of InstaYo.
Say a friend posts an excellent photo; you could InstaYo it to your friends. So, then,
there was the next logical step: hashtags and personalized profiles.
The two even derived a version for the Windows Phone. But we all know how the Windows Phone
went.
Still, thanks to a combination of luck, upgrades, and simplicity, Yo was very popular. In its
heyday, the app reached #4 in the App Store, and that's no easy feat.
By October 2014, Yo launched other improvements, including Yoing locations to your friends.
So, businesses like restaurants and gyms were warming up to the idea of linking up with
Yo for more promotion.
But the numbers also showed that early adaptors were losing interest. It makes perfect sense.
After all, even after all the efforts, the simplicity made you wonder if there was more
to it.
The end is near
Yes, there were upgrades and improvements, but gimmicks die. We outgrow them, and Yo
was no exception.
Remember InstaYo? This ran dry as Instagram blocked Yo from their API.
Even if the company made considerable efforts to remain cool. In 2015, Yo had included new
features such as Yoing pictures and creating private messaging groups.
But, the writing was on the wall before that. By late 2014, experts were already counting
Yo out. The app added nothing to our lives.
Remember that #4 spot? Well, months later, it was already #1277 in the App Store. So
yes, Arbel and Hogeg believed in the idea, but how can you rescue something that started
as a joke? That had no future vision or a solid team behind it.
So, their efforts were fleeting. In February 2015, Yo started providing links to content
that you could Yo to other friends.
Yo called it a content "store," but the idea didn't catch on. After all, the content was
free. So, none of these weird, random efforts weren't striking gold. So, Yo lost popularity.
As fast as Yo came, Yo disappeared. By 2016, Yo as a company shut down. Hogeg's own Mobli
had lost power, and he ventured into working with blockchain startups. Arbel started working
in another startup. It was time for Yo to end.
Not quite. Arbel couldn't let it go. So, in 2018, he launched a Patreon campaign, asking
for 5000 Patreons to stay alive.
The last registry shows around 200.
But we shouldn't feel sad. After all, it was born as a joke, and it worked. It made us
laugh. Too bad it ended with a sour note.