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- [00:01]
Podcast Host / Narrator
Welcome to the Sub Club Podcast, a show dedicated to the best practices for building and growing app businesses. We sit down with the entrepreneurs, investors and builders behind the most successful apps in the world to learn from their successes and failures. Sub Club is brought to you by RevenueCat. Thousands of the world's best apps trust RevenueCat to power in app purchases, manage customers, and grow revenue across iOS and Android and the web. You can learn more@revenuecat.com let's get into the show.
- [00:41]
David Barnard
Hello, I'm your host, David Barnard. Today's conversation is shorter than usual and will be featured in revenuecat's State of Subscription Apps Report. Each episode in this series will explore one crucial metric and share actionable insights from top subscription app operators. With me today, Matt Matt Wiefe, co founder and CEO of PhotoRoom. On the podcast, I talk with Matt about why some apps see 30 times higher revenue on iOS versus Android, the challenges of running a business on multiple platforms, and why you should consider offering a free Android device to employees.
- [01:17]
Interviewer / Co-host
Hey Matt, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [01:19]
Matt Wiefe
Thanks David. It's been a while.
- [01:21]
Interviewer / Co-host
Yeah, it has. So I want to have you on. Y' all have been on both iOS and Android since very early on and has seen some really interesting things on the Android side. But I did want to kick off on a higher level of just what are the things that you think about as a CEO running a super fast growing app that's on Both Android and iOS, you know, how do you think about the differences between the two major mobile platforms?
- [01:51]
Matt Wiefe
Yeah, it's a question top of mind for a lot of topics to give some context. Yeah, Fortrum started with iOS and later on went on 200. I think it's one year old later like iOS 2019, Android, even 2021. So even like one year and a half between the two high level. I think the big differences are When I think iOS, I think like super penetration in the American market. When I think about Android, I'm thinking about all the other countries there. It's like it's a mix. And some countries that are big for mobile subscription, like Brazil, Southeast Asia, even Europe, where there's a good mix. And so I'm actually thinking like some people might be only focused in the US and in this case iOS makes sense. If you're like you care about localization, you want to launch in tons of countries, then Android, you need to do like can't do iOS only.
- [02:43]
Interviewer / Co-host
Was there a lot of demand. Did you hear from users like build us an Android app, I mean Photon.
- [02:47]
Matt Wiefe
Was still like a kind of mvp. The tech was good, but not as good as it is now. So it wasn't like I absolutely need it yet. I think when we started to get traction on, I think it was, yeah, ebay early days as marketplaces, when then people, we had influencers talking about us and like people in the comments. The comments were I needed, I'm on Android. I'm on Android. I'm on Android. So I think when you start to do marketing like you, you feel like you're paying for. Actually you pay for some influencers. And then all the comments are when is Android coming? And all that stuff. So I remember that now. So you feel people are asking when you start to eat product market fit. I think before that you can tell yourself like, oh, it would be better because then they've like variety loop, like the famous K factor, all that stuff would be better. But I'm not sure. It's like you don't feel the pressure.
- [03:35]
Interviewer / Co-host
If you had to do it over again, would you have launched simultaneously Android and iOS or do you feel like it was, it was better to go ahead and kind of prove out the product market fit on iOS first?
- [03:45]
Matt Wiefe
Yeah, never, never. Like I would do exactly the same iOS and then one hour, two day, two years later, Android. And I do think early adopters of apps, as general rule of thinking, would be more on iOS than Android. And as a like, as a general rule, but even more so for the photo space, photo video category.
- [04:04]
Interviewer / Co-host
When you started to build up to the launch on Android, did you build up a whole separate Android team and is that how you run Android to this day is like you spun up a whole separate team that works in conjunction with the iOS team?
- [04:17]
Matt Wiefe
Yeah, we have two different teams photoroom. So with time, what we developed is shared engine that is running like the pixel rendering part. So everything that is pixel rendering and AI is common. We do have some native like device algorithm that run on Apple that is very. I mean we didn't even try on Android. Like it's too fragmented the hardware to run. Yeah. On device machine learning, inference. But the engine is all the same on iOS Android now.
- [04:45]
Interviewer / Co-host
So how does that work out today as far as are you still doing earlier explorations on one platform and like you would maybe test something first on iOS and then move it to Android or now do you kind of more simultaneously release on both platforms or are you even like experimenting with certain things that you think might work better on Android on Android and then bring them to iOS? How do you manage that? Development process.
- [05:11]
Matt Wiefe
We don't have like a tightly loose specs where we want to release everything at the same time for all platforms now. I mean, we have iOS, Android and even web now. The way we think about it is we need to run like you have two legs. Like if you really tie them together, you don't make big steps. We try to have some flexibility to make sure we move fast because that's the key to success for startup and we kind of use like resources when it's easier. I do think there are a few things where we try where it makes more sense based on the platform to try on different versions. So I don't know, there are more experiments or it's easier to track. I mean, I'll give you an example. You can create a team in Photoroom and you can invite someone for Apple. It's. You can't really track because of privacy reason through the App Store if you're inviting someone. So it's much easier to have a good benchmark of what would work, what would be the dream path ON Android than iOS. So I mean, we're not like it depends on resources. How big is the team? IOS team is bigger than Android. So it's usually it's iOS first, but there are some stuff where it makes more sense to try Android that would go Android first.
- [06:14]
Interviewer / Co-host
And then how do you think about monetization between the two platforms? I know this is something where Photoroom is maybe a little bit unique from other apps, but how do you think broadly about monetization amongst the two platforms?
- [06:27]
Matt Wiefe
It's not exactly the same the two platforms platform. What I remember quite clearly is, so I was at GoPro before and it was very challenging to have a good monetization on the Android side. And what I learned is that there are. Well, at first it's difficult to build a good video app on Android. It's the APIs from Apple are really good on the video side and the hardware is less fragmented. Like, it's not like there are still some device where you think there are some GPUs and they're not here or it's not plugged in the right way. Apple owns hardware and software, obviously is a bit easier. And then there's like, I think Apple has a very like an amazing brand on the photo side. So if you're a photo hobbyist, like the reality is you're probably going to buy an iPhone. Like you're really passionate about photography. And so what I noticed at GoPro is basically you were doing like people were doing 3x more revenue on average on apps and they were like 2x more people or maybe 4x more revenue and 2x more people. So basically it was 1 to 10. The ratio of like a user. The RPUB I kind of average when I was looking at some benchmarks, iOS to Android and then I dig into the photo space. Basically the ratio for photo apps was 30x. So value of a user on iOS was 30x bigger than Android. So that was a big learning. There's a lot of marketing from Apple about like photography. You actually, if you look at the keynote, like it's almost as if like, well, we should call that a camera more than a phone now because like that's the marketing sell. That's why a lot of the reasons why people upgrade is because the camera got better. So you, if you're like taking photos of your family, it matters. You want to spend time on photography, then you're probably buying an iPhone, especially in the biggest market of all the us and that's. That makes a huge bias towards people spending money on the photo apps on the App Store compared to the Play Store. What happened with Photoroom is like we got very international. And the most important part is that people buy Photoroom because Photoroom helps them make money. Like we help your store grow, we help you as an E commerce owner, as an entrepreneur, as a restaurant owner, to have good quality imagery, to present yourself on marketplaces, on social network, in your emails. And so I mean as a business owner, it doesn't matter. There's no filter on your iOS or Android person. There's actually no bias. And so that's why at the end of the day, like everyone is working. A lot of people have small business owners. There are a lot of them in the world who are on Android and so they spend more, they don't care, they just spend the money that the subscription that makes them more successful. So there is no bias in that. And so we're much more successful relatively on the photo space on Android than the other apps that are hugely biased towards iOS and because of the API. Also you see so many apps that never went onto Android. So it's like it never made sense economically for them, where it's very different for us.
- [09:17]
Interviewer / Co-host
You've mentioned several times the fragmentation of devices on Android and the challenges there. Do you have any advice for folks who are building on Android as far as like QA or like minimum required specs for the app? How do you think about making sure that people do have a good experience on Android?
- [09:35]
Matt Wiefe
Devices the best way to make sure you have a good experience is it's a very practical advice. But I remember the thing I did is like for a year or so I just switched as like a founder as we were building the app to Android and so I was like only using that to make sure it's important and there is like a. You pay attention to details. So that was like a first, very practical. Just like remove your SIM card from your iPhone, buy a good Android device and make sure you test like dogfooding is the key. And then keep in mind also that iOS people update and upgrade their device to latest OS a bit more than on Android. And Apple is really good at that. They always give this last feature that is fun, that makes people move and I think it's, I don't know behind the scene but I think they really care about that and they advertise that a lot. So yeah, keep in mind you can't like maybe on iOS you can keep two versions of the major OS and Android you need to keep a bit more.
- [10:33]
Interviewer / Co-host
Do you have a separate QA team or what? What does quality assurance look like on Android? And, and I mean do you even have like a. Does the Android team have 20 or 30 devices that they test on or how do you think about that, that quality assurance side of things for Android?
- [10:50]
Matt Wiefe
We don't have QA at Photorum so that's the one thing like everyone is in charge of their own bugs and everyone is using the app. We do have a strong beta testf Android internal so these are managed in different ways but where people like test the app for a week and they have the latest feature but sometimes it's uggy and we look in the analytics what's happening if there is anything weird, we have some signals, you know, I mean Photom is lucky enough to have like a product that is you can use in your everyday life. So we have people using regularly and the team internally using the app. I do say like I want to be fair with the Android team. Like one of the difficult thing is the distribution of iOS versus Android in most tech companies is heavily biased towards iOS so it's much more difficult to get people testing an Android. What we do give is like anyone that wants an Android as a false room employee with an iOS and wants Android and is going to use it or test it or try it or is a pm which is you can have two devices if you're going to help the Android team.
- [11:49]
Interviewer / Co-host
Any other learnings that you've had now operating on Android for almost five years that you think folks could take away.
- [11:56]
Matt Wiefe
I mean, one of the challenges that we haven't really solved is how do you solve for design and product? Because most people and most PMs they would go on iOS at our scale. I'm sure if you're 10x bigger, you can have someone that is specific, you can have a design that is specific to Android, but reality is two different languages. You can take Portuguese and Spanish and grammar is similar, but some ideometric expressions are different. And then you can make kind of a faux pas or stuff like this. So give some freedom, make sure that the Android team understand and that you say no, you understand the differences. I mean, the obvious example is the share icon. I had so much debate with the design team and product about the designs and you see this little arrow compared to the three circle like the branching on Android that is the share icon. People on Android, they don't understand the iOS icon and it doesn't look native. It's like you're using your word in another language in their platform. So if you're making the bet and that's for bet that native is better, then yeah, you need to adapt and adapt the language. And we don't have two versions of the designs, that's one for iOS, one for Android. So it makes things a bit difficult. But yeah, you have to allow for this freedom based on like the native language.
- [13:12]
Interviewer / Co-host
Any last tips that you think people should be thinking about and the differences between iOS and Android?
- [13:18]
Matt Wiefe
There's one big thing that people tend to forget is Apple is 30% commission on new subscription they have. Like some people, if you renew you stay on 15%. Android's all 15%. So it does make a difference for your margin, especially for a company on margin like Photon where you have GPU costs for machine learning and Genai. So it does make a difference.
- [13:40]
Interviewer / Co-host
Yeah, I think a lot of people forget that. I forget that often is 30% versus 15%. And for those who maybe aren't familiar with this, on Android, Google made the decision three or four years ago that just all subscriptions, it doesn't apply to games and consumables and single in app purchases. But on all subscriptions it's 15% across the board. And as Matt was alluding to, on iOS, once a user has retained for more than a year, you do get bumped down to 15% but on initial conversion that spread instantly gives you more margin. So definitely something from a business perspective to be thinking about it. Even if your average revenue per user is lower on Android, your margin is actually higher on the those pairs. So yeah, great tip for folks to be keeping in mind.
- [14:26]
Matt Wiefe
Yeah, but build on Android is great too.
- [14:28]
Interviewer / Co-host
All right, anything else you wanted to share as we're wrapping up? Any especially great roles you're hiring for these days?
- [14:33]
Matt Wiefe
Yeah, yeah. I mean we keep growing and so we hiring both in engineering, both platform, iOS and Android and also like we're hiring for top of funnel of the app Store. Like if you are an app store hacker, you know all the details of that and you want to look like very top of funnel of apps and actually play with there are many things like act new things, use forum API to make screenshots. You know all these things. Like it's a very interesting role.
- [14:58]
Interviewer / Co-host
Awesome. All right, Matt, thanks so much for joining me. This is really fascinating. Thanks for sharing your insights.
- [15:02]
Matt Wiefe
Thanks, David. It was a good time.
- [15:06]
Interviewer / Co-host
Thanks so much for listening.
- [15:08]
Podcast Host / Narrator
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