Hey, this is the daily overpass, my name is Eric and i make apps!
Now today, let's talk about why app developers need to be focused on the consumer!
Ok so I've been a software developer for nearly 20 years now!
God, I can't believe that!
I can't believe I'm saying that - nearly 20 years!
And over the course of my software career, most of the work that I've done has been in
a B2B situation.
Either as an employee working for another company, a consultant working for someone,
or as a contractor or even with Overpass we do client work businesses and everything like
that.
A lot of what we do is B2B, but when I became an app developer, that was the first time
I really became a B2C person where I had to start thinking about things that business
owners who operate in that kind of situation have to think about.
And it's something I think about a lot, and every so often i try to convey my thoughts
on it, and I have very simplistic views of how these kind of things work.
So I put together a diagram over here - I've never done a whiteboard here, I've been fiddling
about with trying toget it here on the camera, let's hope you guys can see this ok.
So the difference between B2B and B2C, a lot of the work we do with Overpass is B2B, so
we have business clients and we do work for them, and then we also do the B2C stuff which
is our apps, trying to get our apps in front of people and try to make sure that we make
some passive income through that.
And I can tell you, the B2C is far more rewarding but the B2B is a lot easier.
So a lot of the companies I've worked with over the past have been B2B companies and
I've never actually seen the customer at the end.
I'll just show you this diagram which again is very simplistic, I don't have an MBA or
anything like that, I'm just an app developer.
Right so, here we have the customer, and I hope you guys can see this ok, we've got the
customer and we've got the business and most of the interactions we have is through that.
As an app developer, we're totally pure capitalists, especially if you're an indie app developer
and you don't have any costs or anything associated with it.
you build your app and you try to sell it to your consumers, so you have to think about
things that the B2B people might not have to think about, such as with all those millions
of products out there, millions of services, millions of apps, how are they gonna find
mine and how am I gonna monetise that.
And if you're thinking about doing an app at all, and I've talked to so many people
who want to do an app but they haven't thought about this one thing, this is the most important
thing to the whole process is what can you give to your customers what they will pay
for and also, how are you gonna make them find it?
With all that competition out there, how are they gonna find it?
And then you've got the businesses themselves, like Overpass is a business, they have their
suppliers, so they have employees if they're big, or consultants, and there's other things
in this chain as well, right.
So in my career I've been an employee working for companies, I've been working for Overpass
as a supplier, I've been a consultant.
And even further down each one of these entities could have it's own businesses, so the supplier
has it's own employees and it's own suppliers.
So I've actually been a supplier of a supplier of a supplier where I was so far removed from
the customer that when you quote for things, you're not the person thinking about what's
the flow of revenue coming up here.
But as an app developer that's all you think about because you're closer to the process
and you're thinking about it.
In fact, as an app developer, you're so concerned about the B2C part, how do you get people
to find it, over this bit, that you are in the same situation as the large organisations
are that are trying to push their products out globally, all the movie studios, how do
we get people to find this, whats gonna be the hook?
All this kind of stuff.
You're in that same situation.
Or the same as the mom and pop grocery store, how are we gonna get people to find it?
But you don't have the benefit of being local and people walking by and seeing your sign,
you have to do that.
So a lot of the times we think about...we get pitched a lot as app developers by other
companies saying "hey, I can make your life easier.
We can be your app developers" or "we can do your marketing" or "we can do your ASO"
everything like that, which is something that might be able to help but for me, I'm always
thinking about everything below this line here, everything below here is a cost.
So every time you hire a new employee, you gotta think is that employee gonna help raise
the revenue?
Is that gonna improve this flow here in some way, either improve the efficiency or improve
the number of products, everything like that.
If I go to a supplier like facebook ads is a supplier, so I go to facebook, that's an
excellent way to get people in to see your app.
The problem is, it's too expensive if this isn't big enough.
If you don't have enough monetisation here, then facebook ads is not gonna help you.
So for me - I've talked about this before - if I go with an ad network and they give
me a cost per install of £1 and I'm making 10 cents per user, then that's not gonna really
make sense unless my motivation is something else like app store rankings or anything like
that.
The thing that's always scared me about this, and it's not just before I became an app developer,
is that the whole process seems so incestuous!
When we talk about any organisation, every time I've worked with a B2B company it could
be a B2B company working for another B2B company working for another B2B company and at some
point there's the consumer at the end and if the consumer stops paying for whatever
reason, it could be automation, it could be technological improvements, it could be that
there's too much competition, it could be anything, the whole thing breaks down, and
it's usually this guy here, which is you as an app developer won't have to worry about
it.
So my advice always to app developers is, you're gonna get called by people who say
"hey, we can sell you this new service" or "you need this new app annie service" or "you
need this new thing" and it's going to revolutionise your business, it's gonna start the flow.
Tjhey're selling you the dreams, they're selling you the promises, and maybe they can deliver
on it, but most of the time - i know from my situation - every time I hear those kind
of pitches, I'm sceptical.
Which is one of the reasons why I don't pitch it.
If I'm talking to a client, my first thing going in there is not saying "oh you know
what, your passive income, your dreams will come true", like all this other stuff on the
internet, my thing is like "hey, do you know how this is gonna work because if you don't
know how this is gonna work, I think you should think about that before we start the app".
Anyway, it's very simplistic.
Like I said, I'm an app developer, I'm a small business owner, that's the way I think about
things and I don't know if that would be helpful or not for those of you guys just starting
out, always thinking about this bit.
As an indie developer, you don't have these costs below and you just thinking about this
thing, that's the purest capitalist thing that I can think of.
You're building a product an you're selling it to the market.
A product or a service or whatever.
If you're doing a service especially, as you have to scale you have to branch out and do
all this other kinda stuff and it can get messy, and eventually, if the cost of this
outweighs the cash flow then you're screwed.
And sometimes it's a roller coaster for me, it's up and down and up and down.
but anyway, I hope that's been useful today, let me know what you guys think.
Let me know if you think I'm completely wrong!
And that's it for today, I'll talk to you guys tomorrow!