← Sub Club by RevenueCat
Loading summary
Transcript75 lines
- [00:01]
David Barnard
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. Hello, I'm your host, David Barnard. My guest today is Julia Lennox. Working across some of the biggest apps on the planet, including Better Me, Replika and Solid Starts, Julia has spent a decade doing one thing growing apps. On the podcast, I talk with Yulia about why founders belong in the marketing trenches more often, what makes ugly ads perform so well, and why stable ad performance is actually a red flag. Quick programming note before we start the podcast, Yulia will be joining me on YouTube live on July 30th, 9am Pacific 1800 Central European Time. I've heard from so many of you over the years that you love the podcast, but you end up in your car or on a walk, just shouting into the void. Or what about this? Or what about that? So now's your chance. Take some notes as you listen to the podcast. Listen carefully and join us on July 30th to ask Yulia some questions. Hey Julia, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today.
- [01:42]
Julia Lennox
Thank you for having me. Nice to see you again.
- [01:44]
David Barnard
Really looking forward to this conversation. We met in person just a few weeks ago at the WWDC Mansion party and you actually spoke on a little panel I hosted during the Mansion party. It was so fun to get your insights. I thought it'd be great to have you on the podcast so we could do a much deeper dive. You didn't get to talk a lot on that panel. I talked to other people and that people were asking them questions a lot. But anyhow, you've had quite a career in mobile and so I wanted to go through some of your top lessons across all these different companies. So you were at Coca Cola in Ukraine doing like standard marketing and you got thrown into the deep end. Your first ever experience with a mobile app was Better Me and you joined as essentially the cmo. Maybe we should start with just a little bit of what that was like and then we'll get into the practical lessons and takeaways from all these different amazing companies you've been at.
- [02:35]
Julia Lennox
Thank you. Yes, I do think that the experience in Bettermeal was a shaping one, but in the same time, it is very similar. What a lot of app founders are probably going through right now. Like, at that time, we didn't know anything and we were kind of like dipping our toes in the water. And this is basically what, what I see when a person launches their app, they are trying. They're looking at different angles, they're trying to learn as much as they can. And this is why I'm here.
- [03:05]
Interviewer/Host (David Barnard or Moderator)
Now.
- [03:05]
Julia Lennox
I want to talk about, like, 10 years of experience so that people don't make the same mistakes and also take some lessons that I had to live through. Some of them were painful, but this would be like, as you know better. Me is an amazing company that grew so much, and I would like to talk about something that made them special. And this is not looking for the stability in their performance marketing. Their performance marketing heavy, obviously. So when you're going into the business, what I would recommend to you, if, for example, you launch your traffic, you spending some money, you are like spending 100, $500 per day. And then you see same CPMs, same CTAs, you see that like, oh, one user cost me $30. I'm getting $50. Yes, I have my margin. I will scale, I will go further. This is bad for you, actually, because you stop trying and you think, oh, my ltv, roi, whatever, it looks great, I will. I'm doing everything fine. You are not doing fine. You are doing very, very badly. Because your first tries, your first creatives, your first results shouldn't be good in any way. They will be. They will not be very good. What you need to see in your performance marking. Has there ever been a moment when you thought, wow, this is so much better than everything that I've done before, where your CPAs went down, doubled down when your amount of purchases tripled in one day. This is the moment when you know that this is actually happening for you. If it's just happening, it's not okay. But when it's happening all of a sudden with one creative, and it will happen with one creative, one concept, one something, that's when you think, oh, I kind of made it. I kind of understand what's. What it's about now. So never settle for mediocrity and always, always be looking for those creatives that will move the needle to the points where you never expected, you never expected. But when it happens, you're like, ah, that's what Yuda talked about.
- [05:17]
David Barnard
I love the framing. You started off with that all along the way from 10 years ago till today. There's always been change. App tracking transparency was a huge change. People got really good at UGC in the last couple of years. It was new. You had to write the playbook and really it seems like that's where the outsized returns are. It's not in the safe, like this is what everybody's doing. It's actually writing your own playbook and figuring out the new thing where there is opportunity versus just doing what's been done before. And then I really like that the framing of like you shouldn't seek out too much stability because that means you're not swinging for the fences. And it's a swinging for the fences that really like give you those outside returns as well.
- [06:03]
Julia Lennox
Fun fact, actually. You're talking about UGCs and the first people that were with UGCs in the fitness sphere. It did happen around 2017 and it was Bandit Spoons that just got into the ipo. So like they're switching it a little bit and getting all their traffic and then building their company. Obviously it's not just about that, but like for them, finding those UGC angles first really helped them a lot. So yeah, you're right.
- [06:33]
David Barnard
So other than just setting the expectations of the marketing team that you should expect some big failures and you should expect some uncertainty and some, you know, big movements, how do you organize around this idea and how do you find and try weird things that are going to give you that? And then also maybe there's some amount of safeguards you should put in place to not go too crazy with it.
- [06:56]
Julia Lennox
No, nothing is too crazy. And also nothing is too like, if I can say it, nothing is too ugly. There is this famous saying, like make ugly ads. I think reinvented that and I believe in that 100%. Because people don't want the TV shots at any point. They want something that catches them on the first glance, if you like. And it is hard to do that. And now that I'm returning to like creative marketing a little bit, I have to stop myself knowing this and telling this on all the podcasts all the time that please, please don't make the prettiest. Don't listen to, to Claude when they like tell you which creatives to create and then they give you a 15 second creative. No, don't do that. Always be like first, second. You need to understand what you are selling and what you're doing. This is, this is very, very important. Yes. So guardrails should be around really knowing that you are not a marketer. That is A Coca Cola marketer that sells a brand that is 200 years old, that is like known by everybody already, you are selling something that nobody knows about, basically. And when you come to traditional marketing, actually what they first like when you're launching a bread, you should a brand, you should start with something that is super about the product. So for example, you're launching juices on the market and there has been like never been a juice company on the market. First you need to talk about how good they are for your health. You need to talk about how they are nutrition, Nutri nutritionist, how you get nutrients from them and then you go to happiness and their feelings and more. So when you start and with performance marketing, we are kind of always on this starting point. You should be about the product that you're selling and obviously about the pain that you are solving for the users. And if I can actually like talk about it a little bit more, I want to tell like a lot of people come to me sometimes not a lot of people. Some people come to me. One or two people have come to me and asked me a question about launching their products. And a lot of times it's. They come up with the idea and they're like, I've already hired a developer or I am a developer. I'm vibe coding it. I know that you are a big vibe coater, so obviously you know what I'm talking about. And it pains me so much to always tell them, start with marketing first. No, you cannot like vibe, code the whole product and then hope for it to be needed. Just start with marketing. Sell a PDF, sell an idea, sell something and then refund because you don't have a product. It's okay. Just see if, if there are enough people even interested in this product because you can do something that is very interesting for me and for yourself. And I feel it all the time. I'm like, oh, not even I. My husband really likes aquariums and he thinks, wow, we will do this apps for all these aquarium people and it will be so popular. And if we did marketing, because I'm obviously stepping him from chasing his dreams and bad wife. So if we did that, we would see that the audience is very small, that it's very expensive to bring new people to the app, and that we would never like make the monetization happen. So don't think that your idea is bad, but always prove it with marketing before you actually put some money into launching something. This is my super heartfelt advice that also I fall into these traps all the time. So everybody does.
- [10:40]
David Barnard
Well, let me push back on that because I'm curious your thinking and maybe I'm just naive on this front, not having done it myself. But for an aquarium app, would there not potentially be a way to make that kind of app work with ugc? Because I imagine there's people who are into aquariums, are very much into aquarium related content on, you know, Instagram. And, and then aquariums are expensive. I mean, you know, the, the, the fish are expensive, the maintenance is expensive, the big plants are expensive. Like everything about that. I, I've never had an aquarium, but I've looked at them and like it's so expensive and, and so that's maybe a category where you can charge a lot and then there's enough of a kind of dedicated niche where you could create content that speaks directly to that. From your perspective, was it just too small of an idea or do you think it's still just too hard to reach those people and you just couldn't charge enough to make it worth it?
- [11:39]
Julia Lennox
No. I do have to say thank you for telling me that because obviously we believed in this idea. We wanted to do it, but we wanted to do it before Claude and I even came to lovable. Made my first sketches and stuff. But I'm not a light coder at any point, so I gave up before trying it. Obviously it is, it is a good idea. We agree on that. Please don't steal it. Anyone who listens to it, please don't steal it. But yeah, it is probably very doable. Anything is doable, let's be honest. But we also need to understand what is the reason for doing it. So if, for example, you want to be making like, I don't know, 20k per month so that you just don't have to go to work. A 9 to 5 job, yes, that's like an amazing idea. But if I came with that to a vc, I I would probably not have the LTV to CAC that would be needed to like sell the app. Or could you do partnerships with, with brands and sell specific products? Yes, probably a good idea. Yes, I will do that idea. So thank you, David, very much. But what I was talking about is that, see, like, but just because it was a good idea, you agreed with me. But if it was a not very good idea, you would be like, yeah, you should try. You should try. Of course you'. Because we all want to support people around us and we would be like, yes, this is such a great idea. Like, this is how like Eastern Europeans and American is Super Americans are super different because you seem to always be supporting ideas and supporting people around you. And in our countries it would be like, who would need that? Nobody would need that, obviously. So yeah, that's, that's different mindsets. But yeah, so don't fall into trap by, by having the support of your family. That's also like a, a big one probably.
- [13:30]
David Barnard
Yeah, yeah, totally. And, and I guess like what that, what that even boils down to in your framing is even to get to that 20k a month in profit that you would be able to quit your 9 to 5 job. Unless you're just like an amazing UGC or like, you know, find creators that you could pay dirt cheap or find affiliates or like, you know, there are a lot of creative ways to do it, but if it were just kind of traditional performance marketing, you'd probably be having to spend 100, 200k to eke out that 20k a month.
- [14:00]
Julia Lennox
No, and, and it would have to be a full time job. Let's be honest.
- [14:04]
David Barnard
Like, yeah, it's hard to, it's hard to bootstrap. I mean, maybe this is really good for people to hear who are just starting out. Like, it is really hard to bootstrap to that level, especially on paid because you could just spend every dollar that comes in into paid marketing and then you're, you're working full time and not actually making any money. The beauty of subscriptions though is like if it's at all retentive, then by the next year you should start cash flowing a little better. And so then, but then you got to think about it as like this year long investment where you're working full time, making almost nothing to hopefully get enough retention in year two to make it work. So back to kind of your original point. It's like it is probably a pretty hard app to bootstrap into and would take a lot of work.
- [14:49]
Julia Lennox
Well, talking about bootstrapping, actually the second app that I moved to was fully bootstrapped and when I joined it, it was doing like 35k per month in traffic with a lot of spending. So it was quite a challenge and it actually taught me something that is also very important for all the app founders. And it is don't look for a silver bullet, don't look for a cmo, don't look for a person that will save you from your own troubles. And it will happen if you meet someone great, if you're super, super lucky. But most of the times if you are the founder type, you will figure it out in Marketing yourself. And you need to put a lot of effort into understanding marketing. You are probably a smart person that have understood much harder things in your life. And please don't think that it is. It's not hard. It's not hard at all to understand marketing, but to feel it with your own hands. This is something that every founder needs to know. Why I'm talking about it here because, like, it was an app called Eva Learn English. And at some point it was number two after Duolingo and it has an amazing team. And the founder, he actually was super into marketing. He was on every marketing meeting, he was doing it all himself. He was thinking of creatives himself. And like, when I left, he actually was like, well, I want to do it. I want to do it because it's also my passion. It's my product. I want to make sure that I talk about my product in a way that is like, that people will understand it. And I appreciate that greatly because in people, when they understand that they love their product enough to actually promote it and to talk about it very, very much. And so basically, you should do it all yourself. On like we talked about at some point about like the first one person, one person startup, unicorn startup, something like that, like where you don't need anyone anymore and this is the first sphere. Like, I do still think that you need developers because that's too hard to understand for any normal person. Sorry. But I do think that marketing is something that, like, everybody is a marketer and you can understand it. As a founder, you need to understand it. Definitely. I don't know, like, do you agree with.
- [17:13]
David Barnard
I was thinking of an example while you're talking. The latter CEO Gret has been on the podcast a couple times and that's one of the things he talked about was that they were really struggling with marketing. And he, as the CEO, was just like, okay, I am going to figure this out and then I'll pass it off to somebody else. And I think that probably something more CEOs even of bigger company today, like not just bootstrapping, but even if you're already at a fairly large company and you're, you know, running the company, or if you're a marketer at the company, you should be encouraging your CEO or whatever that like, when there's a big hurdle, the CEO should probably be pretty hands on trying to solve that specific thing. It is something I respect a ton about revenuecat CEO Jacob. It's one of the things he's done really well over the years is when there is A big blocker or a new thing that, like, we really need to push on. He gets really involved in a way that I think, you know, shows the company this is a priority. It also, like, engages all his experience and knowledge and effort and like, passion to like, make it work. Like a founder is just going to have the passion to make it work in a way that an employee just never will. No matter how good of an employee. There's just a difference. And so, yeah, I totally agree. And I would say not just for bootstrapping, but, you know, any CEO, when you're facing a roadblock, should, should really jump on that and get into the nitty gritty and help be part of the solution. You know, it's funny, when you were talking earlier about ugly ads, it reminded me that the most kind of shocking ugly ad that I saw in probably, it was probably the time you were there at Better Me was this like, really gross, like, belly fat ad.
- [19:04]
Julia Lennox
It's the best one. It's the best one. I love it so much.
- [19:07]
Interviewer/Host (David Barnard or Moderator)
Yeah.
- [19:07]
David Barnard
And that, that ad, I mean, I saw it for years after that, so it must have been an incredibly performant ad. And it was one of those things where it really grabbed your attention because it was almost shocking to see this like, illustration with this like, fat just hanging off the front. And, and it's like, to your exact point. Like, I vividly remember that one specific ad from like a decade ago because it was so, like, shocking. And that's kind of the point. Right? The point is that it got people's attention. Do you remember that ad specifically? And then any other thoughts online?
- [19:41]
Julia Lennox
That is the best ad ever. I loved it completely. Yes. It was invented during the time I was there. But it also means that you have a very good eye for ads because, you know, you don't remember these things. Skinny girls that were working out, obviously. But you do remember something that shocks you and that like, this is, this is the thing. Yes, it's completely about taking the person out of the grid of like, of scrolling your feed. And like, sometimes your feed is so pretty that you need something ugly to take your attention from it. So, yes, this is, this is why it works for sure.
- [20:19]
David Barnard
How do you think about those kind of ad as you do become a brand though? So like, for example, I was just talking about Ladder. Like Ladder is at a point in scale and kind of what they're trying to do. You know, they partnered with a massive influencer, actually, like movie star, music star. And so like, at their level, they wouldn't want to run that kind of ad. When do you think you shouldn't be doing those kind of ugly ads? When does it actually tarnish the brand? Or are we just too precious about brand? Everybody should be trying those going to add.
- [20:51]
Julia Lennox
I, I shouldn't say it because what if my future employer, I hope not to have future employers but like what if they see it. But brand is something like unless you are something like I don't know, Coca Cola brand is something that doesn't exist and nobody cares about your brand. But you and I do agree that it is very important for some brands to have the, the integrity and to like not do certain things. But you don't have to like let's talk about this particular example. You can have Hillary Duff doing her thing. Amazing, amazing ads like love it, love the, the messaging stuff. And at that panel I actually asked them like do you think it will bring you the ROI that you're hoping for? And they're like well it's a brand marketing. Like obviously you cannot like do the ROI yet. And that's the thing. Like nothing Brandy will ever work as good as something performative. So you don't, you don't have to choose. Actually if you think about it with Meta, with everything that we are doing, you want to run awareness ads, please be my guest. Like do that. Spend your money. It will not bring you anything short term. If you need short term results, you go performance. You, you don't say your brand, you say fitness app, you say whatever like horoscope app, whatever you are doing and this way you can still do performance marketing and then, and have your results and then you can afford brand marketing. But other than that, yes, I don't believe in brand marketing and I wish all the best to lighter obviously but I don't think like you know you said like oh they're so big that they are at that point point already. Are they though? Like at which point do you become so self obsessed that you think that you are now like you know the Nike or, or whatever. But the Nike is playing different game. Like we are playing the monetization app subscription game and like they don't have any other choice as well. Like their products wouldn't sell if you were making them ugly. They are selling the prettiness. We are selling a function and that is something that is different there.
- [23:15]
David Barnard
Yeah, I agree generally as far as I think folks are way too precious on brand. I think it matters and like you know you're, you're just making 10k a month on your little side project. And you're like, oh yeah, like, I would never do an ugly ad. And like you said, yeah. And then like, my branding is too important and I want to make sure the colors in the ad align with the colors of the app. And like, and I love how you pointed out, don't take Claude's advice because Claude is just going to tell you brand matters and everything needs to be pretty and the colors need to align and all this kind of stuff. But I do think there is a transition point. And with Ladder, even though he did say it's tough to determine the exact payoff, but they took a huge bet signing Hillary Duff as a influencer for the app and it has already paid off. And he shared in the panel that like, you know, almost immediately they saw a pretty big influx. And so at some point, like, maybe, maybe it's okay to, to let yourself, you know, if, if it's performing and if it's working to, to let yourself kind of make that transition. But, but generally I do think we are all too precious about that. So, like, it's of kind good to have that kind of pushback. And then, then you just have to justify it too. Then you have to like, why does brand matter and why, like, how is this going to pay off? And are we sure it's going to pay off? And. And you have to ask yourself those kind of questions where if, as if you just default to like, oh, no, you know, we need to be careful with the brand, then you're having to justify the performance marketing and it should really be the opposite.
- [24:50]
Julia Lennox
I can give you a couple of examples here. But like, one of the big mistakes that I did, like, regarding the brand branding in solid starts, for example, I came there and nobody cares. Like, nobody think is. But for some people, when the brand is big enough until it starts as a very big brand, they care a lot about what it represents. And this is where it is. Like when you're talking about babies, when you're talking about like real doctors. And I was like, AI baby. Not AI babies as in real babies, but babies made out of fruit. We are about feeding babies. We are like, fruit babies are super popular on Instagram. I should definitely do an ad like that. And then we saw some feedback of like, should we trust a company that invented this, like, to do. To feed our babies? And then like, okay, yes, we will do brand now. Because that's just, you know, I understand that it's like, it's no big deal for, you know, in the grand scheme of things, the Universe wouldn't collapse if you do one ad that isn't like, in your brand voice, of course, but in the same time. Yeah, if you are something that is selling trucks, maybe it's not good to sell it with, I don't know, AI Strawberries. I don't know, whatever. So basically, like, see what you're selling and if. If making ugliets applies to it. But also don't assume that it doesn't apply just because you love your brand so much.
- [26:16]
David Barnard
Yeah.
- [26:16]
Julia Lennox
The brand that only exists in the heads of you, your family, and some of your employers, employees. Not even all of them.
- [26:24]
David Barnard
Well, that was a really fun digression. I think people will enjoy that pushback on both sides. So what was the next philosophy you learned at eba?
- [26:33]
Julia Lennox
This one is actually very applicable now when you see that a lot of people, they don't use their strengths. A couple of people came to me at some point and they were from different countries. They were from Lithuania, they were from, from India. They were from, like, different markets, and they're like, oh, help us grow. And what they want to do first is to go America, of course. Let's. Let's start with the US Market because it, it has, like, a lot of cash value. It is. Right. But in the same time, you should look first at what you, you know best. So Babel, a great example. What's their name? Blinkist. Also, like, they started with Germany, and they're super big in Germany, and they're getting the same results as Germany in Germany as some people are getting in the US which is like, what, 10 times bigger. So if you have a benefit of knowing some local market better, definitely use it. Because this is what Eva did. Like, it was very good in speaking their native language. And they started this like, super funny, super whimsical app that everybody in their local country like, liked. Then they grew to all their other languages. But the actual lesson here is not that. The actual lesson here is the world is really, really big. And with current AI, when you can translate any service, like in three hours into any languages, why don't you try different languages? Why don't you try localization? Because this is something that can, like, double your income just by trying, let's be honest. And there are markets that, like, if you go to conferences, you know that everybody's talking about, like, oh, go to Japan. They're so, so rich and they will bring you a lot of money. It's kind of hard. It's kind of hard to go to Japan because they have very like local things. But at the same time there are a lot of countries that are, that are just as Americanized, Europeanized. Can you even say that? But it's okay. Yeah. So that where you can find a lot of benefits and for yourself. So localization is something I would definitely bet on if I had to join any company. And I see it like also happening in a lot of companies when, when one door closes, you know, the other ones open. What we found, for example in my last company, it was that like testing your ads. Testing your ads is super important. You need to test like 500 ads per week. And if you do that on US CPMs, you will definitely go broke. But if you do that with countries that have this similar, similar conversion rates, like I don't know, Indonesia, and you will see the same results for the same test for $10 a day instead of a thousand dollars per day. This is where you can actually help yourself scale in the US as well by testing different locales. That's for sure.
- [29:38]
David Barnard
Any, any top fails or lessons from localization. I know and you kind of hinted at it with Japan. We've talked about this on the podcast a few times now that certain markets you really do have to kind of understand the local customs. Like they need to feel like you understand them. You almost in Japan almost have to have a local like partner or even a partner agency to, to not just localize the text in the app, but localize the kind of images you use, the kind of paywall you do. So any other top lessons on localization?
- [30:14]
Julia Lennox
I, I, I can say that in replica we did make a big bet on Japan. We even have like person that knew Japanese in the, in the team and we like did the actual localization. Like the culturalization of the app didn't work in any way because it is harder than we think. But in the same time there are like so many good examples. Like you wouldn't think like Turkey is the biggest market right now. Who would have thought, like who thinks about Turkey when they are not going on a vacation. But still it is converting a lot of risk. So don't go hard, don't go, go countries you cannot understand, obviously, but don't go hard on countries you cannot understand. If it's not like something like I would never probably be able to understand Taiwanese people for example. But in the same time I sell stuff there. But I do understand that it's a fraction of what it could be if I actually understand the culture and it's okay. And you know, I don't know if you have something to say here. But I want to also, like, add from my personal experience and like, why I came to the States in the first place was to learn different cultures of the people. And here you can actually see how different people are, but at the same time, how sane people are. For example, you wouldn't think, but like, my friend is Korean and she has the same, like, childhood traumas as me because, like, the parents are, you know, the same level of harshness. And like, it is easier, for example, for us to talk to people from, from Central America, for example, because they also have, you know, they didn't have this happy childhood that everybody thinks about. So especially when you're working, like, to solve people's problems, like, all the problems come from childhood. So, like, understanding those small things, like this is. This is kind of important. Yes. That's why that's my main lesson on localization. Don't even try it, but also try it very, very much.
- [32:17]
David Barnard
I love the way you frame things. And that's a great lesson too, as far as, like, don't just look for the differences, look for the similarity. That's a really great framing, is to go in and understand how those countries are similar, not just how they're different. So after eba, you ended up at Polta, the parent company of Flow, which I think everybody listening to the podcast should know, it's one of the biggest apps in the world right now. What are some of the lessons you. You learned there at Polta?
- [32:46]
Julia Lennox
What I learned there was more about the culture and like, how you build big companies. And the thing I want to say here is actually why I'm on this podcast as well is the, that they have a very good culture of sharing things. So you would have a lot of companies coming together and just sharing. Like, today we did this test, this test performed this way. You can, like, steal this test and localize it and like, put it in your app and see how it works. And sharing doesn't mean that you are losing something. It always means that you are gaining something. So I would actually tell to more marketers, like, share your wins. It doesn't mean that everybody will get the same results, because no matter what we are sharing, no matter how we are doing it, it's so much different from industry to industry. It just keeps your creative juices flowing. And this is what we actually need because I think that at some point someone somewhere added a blink on the continue button. The yeah.
- [34:00]
Interviewer/Host (David Barnard or Moderator)
And.
- [34:00]
Julia Lennox
And turned out it increases your conversion. And these ideas that don't come to just one hat. And this is why my, my dream goal for like, this is why I, this is what I talk about with every revenue catch representative out there, that we should have like a camp for marketers where we work on one problem and like actually try to solve it because this will be beneficial for, for every company actually in the world. This is, this is why we are like not failing, but we are as a industry. We are not growing fast enough because everybody is so silent. If we were doing it all together, if every company in America as well, if we were trying to erase it, to grow it all together, it will be much bigger as us. But of course, of course there are so many people that come to presentations and don't show their best creatives because no, don't show like, like don't show your best presentations, like your best experiments. That is like you shouldn't do that. You should share. And the faster we reiterate, the faster we grow that, that is. But also just have a peer group, just have a peer group where you can like set up this weekly calls and say, oh, I tested this. How did it go? Because we met at the mansion party and one of the things about it was that there were no, nobody selling anything and you could actually talk about like with app founders and it is such a great conversation where when you actually get deep into, into like what works, what doesn't work. Like you see like people on the, on the bleachers just, you know, just roasting each other's apps and it is, it is amazing experience as well because how often do you see someone who, who like knows what they're talking about actually take a look at what you're doing. Because no company has enough budget to, to hire two CMOs. Let's call it that. Yeah, so that, that's my like main thing. Just, just share. It's okay.
- [36:04]
David Barnard
I, I love that idea of, of doing some kind of like summits or camp or even the camp framing is fun. Like rent a, rent a huge Airbnb and bring 15, 20 people from different apps in and solve some major problems over a weekend and then share some of the results with the rest of the industry. That's fantastic. I'll run that up the chain and see if revenuecat can be the one to do something Apple Sub Club sponsored marketer camp and do exactly that. But it was kind of the point of the mansion party and a lot of the events that we do try and do is to get people together and have those conversations. But to your point, finding those Kind of communities across the industry. And it is tough when you obviously wouldn't want to share your best stuff with your competitor, but they probably see it anyway because they can just look at the meta ad, but find three or four apps that are adjacent to yours where you can share and that can be a really powerful thing. And what was cool with Polta is because it was portfolio company that had a lot of different apps. You were all kind of aligned to make money for Palta and so you could share those things more easily amongst each other. And so that's a really cool thing. What was something else you learned with your time at Alta?
- [37:25]
Julia Lennox
So there are like. And as a big company, obviously they. They have the budgets to hire like really good consultants. And you know, we did have people come to the company talking about like marketing at a different level and like, people that are thinking ahead. And this is what I notice also about some other companies that I worked in, like Hicksfield, like Replica, like, like Palt as well. They have ideas that will be working in five years from now. So it was 2021 when I was there, and at that point there, there was no, no chatgpt or like some chatgpt. It was chatgpt 2.0 only in America as well. And then there was like very, very basic AI. And at that point they started Zing, which is like a AI training app. When, like, and when you think about it, there was nothing there. It was obviously like a scam. Not scam, like, but they were like, okay, in five years, AI will be there. We will be ready. We will be already positioned on the market as an AI company and it will be okay. The same thing with like, Hicksville. When I talk to the founder of it, like, and he told me, like, in, like next year, AI agents will be a thing. I'm like, I don't know what AI agents are, but if you say so, okay, and what do you know? Like, next year, AI agents are a thing. And so this. I don't know how to become a visionary. I'm not a visionary. But at the same time, think about what doesn't exist now and what might exist in the future and go that way. This is something that somehow you need to do. Maybe like do tarot cards or something. Like, see the future and then go that way. That's my main idea here.
- [39:19]
David Barnard
Yeah, no, I really like that. It's like looking through the future and right now is a really great moment where it does feel like for some tasks, AI is too expensive, but it does tasks that in two years, as AI continues to get smarter and then the current models get cheaper, maybe it is. And so right now is a great time to take that exact advice and figure out what's going to work in two years. It doesn't work today, and build toward that. And for some companies, it's also accepting lower margins and accepting the higher cost burn if you've got venture capital to burn today, because in two years it will work. So that's really good advice. And speaking of all this AI stuff, you did spend some time at Higsfield. What was your top lesson at Higsfield?
- [40:12]
Julia Lennox
Yeah, Higgsfield. It was an amazing experience. This was like looking in the future. And that's also the thing that you just talked about. Like, when we started, it was too early for the market. It was a video model. And at that point it looked like, you know, like, what's his name? Who was eating pasta.
- [40:36]
Interviewer/Host (David Barnard or Moderator)
Yeah.
- [40:36]
Julia Lennox
Eating spaghetti.
- [40:37]
David Barnard
Yeah. On.
- [40:38]
Julia Lennox
On the earlier versions. And then, like, we did understand that in a year, like in a couple of years, and it did turn out in a year, like, it will be much, much better. But we came to all these VCs, or we came to all these presentations talking about, like, how it will be the future. And they looked at there now and they were like, oh, no, I don't think so. And now I think they're biting their lips so hard for not investing earlier in Higfeld. So that was an interesting one. But overall, what I can say about that, like, they are a very special team. So they were founded by people that obviously won Physics Olympiads and like, very, very, very smart people. But besides being smart, what made them super different from everybody else is that they. They could sleep in the office. They worked 17 hours per day. They made all the people, like, work 17 hours per day. But the people that were there, the core team, they were keen to do it. This is their opportunity. And they took this opportunity. They are now like super rich people as well. So it was the first time where I saw someone grind that hard, like, at all the other companies. Like, you would see a founder grind, or you would see, like someone being or. Or not even a founder. Sometimes founders are like, oh, I will go surf with Bali or something. And when you see someone who is engaged in a way that, like, everybody in the team is working 12 hours a day or whatever time a day. And also they officially have, like six days per week. Work days, whatever you call it. Yeah. So that's too much for everyone. Like, would I want to work that at my age, probably not. But in the same time with the product being so interesting, so good, so, so ahead of everyone else, maybe you need to. And you know, after that company, I actually started to work more like in, in my next companies because I'm like, while you are sleeping, the other ones are shipping releases and I'm starting to push everyone and obviously I see a lot of pushback because like, oh, you know, we are Gen Z, we want our comfort. We are not used to suffering. And you know, as a millennial, I'm used to suffering. And as like, as we all know what it takes to like build a career and we all know what it takes to like become successful and to remember that even when you decided to not remember that, that's kind of important. So when you work really hard, when you are resilient, you will get where you want to be. That's the main lesson, I think, because they are now above everybody else. I love them so much also, great service. I, I cannot promote them enough. Sorry. Like, if you, if you need a ugc, like, you know, it's not even about like loving them as a company, it's about trying the product and being like, oh, I can do that now. Because before, like I was using Clink for example, and I would give them the picture and it would put it into thing. I had to think about everything. And here, just, just as an example, I, I gave them the app logo and I created an avatar for a UGC person. I didn't put any prompting, I didn't put like even the text in and it just gave me a perfect ugc and that doesn't even look like ugc. And I'm like, is this the future? Are we in the future now? Because that's, you know, I still react to it as a person who should be used to it, but I'm not used to it. And yeah, that's why if you work 16 hours a day, people will talk about like that, about your product. This is why I don't believe in like, you know, working, working two jobs or like working part time on your
- [44:42]
David Barnard
own project, it's tough. I mean, as a, as a father of four and you know, I'm almost 50 years old, I, I can't anymore and that's almost like depressing. But if I think back, you know, when I was in my 20s, I actually worked at a recording studio and that's what I studied in college and that's what my passion was, recording. And that's exactly what I did, was like, I Went to work at noon because musicians stay up late and sleep in by necessity, oftentimes because they're playing at clubs till 2am or whatever. And so that's just their like natural cycle. And so we work from noon to like 2, 3, 4am, go home, go to bed, wake up and come back at noon and do it all over again for weeks on end to make an album. I had so much fun doing that. When, when it's something you're passionate about, when you really care about what's going on, when you're doing something meaningful, it's very different than just, you know, being an employee where the boss is cracking the whip and it's just always so stressful. Like I don't think enough people in those kind of conversations about like founder mode and grinding and all that kind of stuff have maybe just not had that kind of experience of, of being so passionate about something and young enough to like make it happen and not having kids. And you know, there are different life situations. But, but it's a really good point. And if you're, if you're in that position where you can grind and you're super passionate and excited, like you do often see outsized results from those kind of people in those kind of situations versus the like employees where you're cracking the Whip to work 10 hours a day and that just doesn't work. And I think you can have great outcomes with both, but it's just a different mentality, It's a different situation. So if you can, it's pretty amazing. So after Paul Da you ended up at Replica, what were some of your lessons from your time there?
- [46:45]
Julia Lennox
I want to talk about both Replica experience and Solid Start's experience in the same way because they are completely different apps, obviously, but they are in a way same because they both had huge organic. And this is what everybody dreams about, obviously. Like, I want to be growing organic. I want it to bring me money without spending any dollar on paid ads. And this is the goal. And now I can see that, like that goal is pretty achievable, let's be honest, not pretty achievable if you put a lot of effort on it. Obviously there is no magic pill to go viral, obviously. But if you find something that doesn't exist yet, this is where your potential for organic is huge. And this is why I will talk about it later. But this is why finding something unique is like 50% of your success. And with both these apps, it was very fun experience to have just money flowing in without. And you didn't have to rely only on being profitable day to day to actually grow the company. But the things that like, but it is a double edge sword. And if you think that it will make you super happy to have huge organics, at some point it will play super against you because you will see that, for example, you start with, with the U.S. because you know English and you, you, you start, you are an American person and there is no niche that would cover all the people that live. So you need to find your niche. And at some point your niche will be all your Instagram following, TikTok following like everybody who could have joined. Like in five years, they will all join and you will see that your organic stagnates. And for example, you will be like, oh, I want to sell my company. I want to show them great results. But your organic is already like very stable and you cannot sell. You can show like growth. So you're like, oh, I will go into paid marketing. I will like, because, because my product is so good, everybody likes it. And like I, I can get even more money by promoting it 50% of the time it will be cannibalizing, cannibalization and you will not know what to do with it. And if at any point you will, you will have like investors and people pushing you to grow. It will be very, very hard to grow without, without just bringing in the same money but spending more. And I have noticed it a couple of times now. This is like a set, sad story, sad lesson. But it is a very nice feeling at first. But then you have to think about the future. Always think like, what will be happening five years ahead? So with Replica, it was fun because it was also like super ahead of its time. And in five years, we didn't know that it would become super commodity wise because super commodity because ChatGPT will be there and everybody will be doing these wrappers and stuff. So you cannot predict that all this organic will, for example, drop. And you can, like when you're building performance marketing performance is more or less stable. You see every day what you're getting. You are adjusting. You are obviously like stressed out every day. But at the same time, you kind of can influence it. With organic, you cannot influence it per se. So what you need to do, you're like, okay, Julia, you just told a situation. What's the solution for it? Yes. So what you need to do is when you start a brand, start with performance performance marketing as well, because it will definitely help you grow your organic as well. So every ad that you're showing on TikTok or on Facebook, it is bringing you new subscribers. And for example, with Eva, where we have like a 10 million Instagram probably, probably less, probably like 7 million Instagram. It was just a small idea and we started it and we started getting a lot of people from the ads that were just coming for free. And then when you became like a big Instagram account, you became like also organically. So it grew up your organic. So is like a lot of people are thinking like is PR important is putting out like things on TechCrunch and I don't know how, I don't know BR. So I don't know, is going on TV important? It is not for your performance, but in the end, like it will bring you a lot of organic. But it is all only possible if you have something unique to offer to people and that's it. So if you are doing a time tracker, please don't worry about organic at any point or about cannibalization or like a clear for your app. No, this will not be happening the same as like branding won't be happening. But if you are something unique like an aquarium map that doesn't exist anymore yet. Doesn't exist yet, then obviously you can think about organic and it is quite easy to do like and also who you need to. Who I met on the mention party is the founder of Minutes app, a great guy who is very good in bringing organic traffic. Maybe you should have him on your podcast. He gave me a masterclass on that and I'm like, oh, so doing organic is pretty easy actually. So that's something you should definitely look into for. Yeah, look forward for David's new podcast.
- [52:29]
David Barnard
Yeah, that's such great framing around organic that you really do need to have something. The reason people share, the reason word of mouth happens, the reason you press, the reason UGC can go viral and Calai is a great example of this is that it was so visual that you could take a picture, it was new, it was unique. And you know, I imagine now, you know, three or four years on those ads didn't perform as well because now every calorie app has that same standard functionality. And so even with the uniqueness and it's kind of to your point, like organic at some point does start to slow down. You saturate your market. You know, competitors come in, the uniqueness is no longer unique. And so all those factors in play, you need to be looking around the corner at what's next and not just relying on the same playbook for years. And App Store search is the one area that if you're a utility and you've locked in that number one spot, those kind of things really hard to accomplish. And the algorithm seemed to favor older apps, so it's almost more hard than it ever been to capture aso. But that's one of the examples of organic that just seems to keep trucking along that people, I mean, maybe you know, over time, trends shift and, and people like right now there are a bunch of GLP1 apps and people are searching GLP1s. Well, at some point, you know, it'll just be more commonplace and the trend will slow down and people won't be searching that as much or whatever. But yeah, that's the one area where, man, it's the one organic channel that just seems to just deliver, deliver, deliver for years on end for some apps.
- [54:09]
Julia Lennox
I have a funny story, actually, about when ChatGPT came out and they didn't have their own app because they were doing it with you. Actually not because they were doing it with you, but like, before they started doing it with you, they like, TGPT was already word of mouth, but they. There were a lot of wrappers that were released that most of them were Turkish for some reason as well. And now they are still like, number one. Not number one, but like super, super high on that. And we talked to them at some point and a lot of people wanted to, to play on that and like, okay, we'll do my own chatgpt wrapper. I will be like your, your personal assistant. Whatever, whatever. Because they saw that it was number one in the store for, for, for these apps. But the fun, fun moment was that they actually got that initial install influx and they solidified their first place on the store and all of their traffic was organic. And when you tried to like, actually replicate their monetization strategy, they are like paywalls and stuff. It didn't matter at all because they weren't getting money from there. Like, they didn't know what to do with that as well. They couldn't even sell it because they. That's all just dumb luck. But we as people who don't know that, we are like, oh, they must be making a lot of money. So if we replicate it, maybe we will get the same. No, no. But yeah, ASO is something you want to get into for sure. But also, I look at Steve Young all the time and he has his ASO agency and I'm like, the work is so mysterious. Mysterious and not. I cannot understand what they're Doing that, it is working for them. But if you know someone who is ready to spend all their days looking for keywords and stuff, yeah, definitely be friends with that person because it's a very interesting topic to do. I'm shitting that topic.
- [56:12]
David Barnard
All right, any other top lessons from your time at Replica and Solid Start?
- [56:16]
Julia Lennox
I was hired in a lot of companies, you know, like a recruiter reached out and they're looking for like a CMO and mark, okay, I'm available, not available, blah, blah. And, and now also like in my company, I'm also looking for some people. And I'm also just like, I'm just looking for someone. And just looking for someone is not as cool as having to work with people. People that are actually super, I would say almost religious about what they do. Like in Replica, when you have people that were like ML and ML wasn't like a super popular thing, like we will think of LLMs, we will test that, we will know what to do. And you're like, okay, you have a super great app on the market because of that. Because at that point we literally got millions of messages saying that you have a person in, in Ohio that is responding to me. This is not real. But no, it was an LLM that was that good. And with Solid starts, that's like 10 times higher. Because everybody on that team is keen on baby led weaning and feeding babies. And I know they're all stories and it's crazy to think that each one of them messaged the founder being like, I'm so passionate about that, that I want to be on your team no matter what. And this is where you see the results being so amazing. Because like, if I'm just doing my job, I'm just doing my job by clock in, clock out. If you have a person that is passionate about it, that is already a super beneficial thing for your team. But if you have 20 people that are just about that, this is, this can change. This is why Solid Starts is actually changing the whole the baby led weaning like category. Not even category like the, the. The baby led winning in the usa, in the world. Like they're changing the way that like people start allergens and therefore there are less allergic people in the world. That is super, super important. And when, when I grow up, I really want to have a team of people that will be super interested in what they're doing. I think what the market is actually lacking because I'm a little bit in a mental health space right now. The market is lacking an app, for example, that we made will be made by actual doctors. The team of doctors. The team of doctors that understand what. What this whole thing is about. Because every app that is in the market is just created by someone who went to therapy once or twice and it is already like, helping. But what would happen if people would actually start thinking about how to make it more affordable? Not more affordable, more accessible to people. And this is my personal pain, obviously, that there are so many people that start their apps, so many companies that now are like, oh, we will start another app because we know that somebody is getting money from it. And I see that, for example, or solid stars. There were people that would just like, put DBT wrapper again in the app and be like, yes, like, baby led winning with ChatGPT. And you're reading what it offers and you are understand. You understand that it's bad. It's bad for your baby. It's bad for. For what you are doing. You're like, why would you not consider the effect of your action? And this is why I would like for more people to not launch shitty apps and just think about what they're doing for the. I understand. We all want an extra 5k. Yes. Okay, like that, that would be nice. You would go to a Tahoe trip. But like, if you will harm people by doing that, is it worth it? Probably, yes, of course. 5K. I mean, yeah, sure, sure, it was. But yeah, I mean, I hope that with time and this is what we're seeing now with Vitecode, in making it all very accessible and everybody can launch any app now, there will be a lot of apps that will flood the market. You know, the numbers of how many apps are being released every day, and I am pretty sure that none of them are to the standards of what we want them to be. So I do hope that still the investors will not only invest in like, you know, AI stuff, but they will also invest into something that will be of good quality and like, will have medical teams, professional teams, whatever behind it, and it will change the future of the humanity. You know, we are here to. To make a greater world as well.
- [61:08]
David Barnard
Speaking of. Of making the world a better place, you recently did an interview that I stumbled upon preparing to the podcast where you called the end of Black hat growth. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on what black hat growth is and like, why it should end or is ending.
- [61:27]
Julia Lennox
You obviously know about what's happening in the industry and how like even the government is now against everything that is happening with subscription Based quizzes, let's call them that. And the problem is that it got too far. So when it started, it became a great way to not worry about adt. And this was only that, like, you try that, you get the results, you don't pay the commission to Apple. Amazing. Great. But then like a little bit of greed came in and we are all greedy. It's okay to be greedy. Obviously. What is not okay is to make it on purpose. That's the whole thing. Because what started was like, oh, what if we actually do this? It started with, how can it ended up with, how can we actually lie to the user so they don't understand that they were lied to and that it hurt the whole industry. I think I don't like the results of it because with some companies, they, they did it or like they did it to some sorts and it was okay. And now they're being hurt as well as companies that were just doing super, like, it almost became as bad as sweepstakes, even though, like, it's completely different. Like, you know, it's a completely different thing. Like, you, you don't understand what you're signing, you don't understand what you're saying subscribing to. And that's not okay. And I know that for, for a lot of time, like a lot of big companies that were like, that started this then like understood what they've done. They've been trying to grow back. They've been trying to like, okay, now we send like emails saying this is the. So that like some people just want to not know the, what they're subscribing to. Let's be honest, there were so many people that were like, Start Free Trial. They like, you know, on the apps like Start Free Trials and they confirm that it will take money from them and then they say, well, I didn't know it will take my money. Obviously some people just want to not notice things. But like, this is when like the, with those quizzes, they started sending emails. They started like showing full prices as well. But in the same time, everybody else who got it on the market, who could try to like make it work for them, they're like, oh, what if we don't say the full price? What if it. We only say like price per day or something like that and it hurt the whole market. It's not okay. But at the same time, some people are being punished while some people are still doing that and they're not getting anything. And they also don't. Don't read the room. I Think, because obviously they're now benefiting from it. And there is almost no reason for, for, for government to come for them because they're too small. They're. They don't care too much, but they should just be ashamed of themselves. As a marketer, I, I do understand this thrill of, like, how else can I sell? And like, if you think about, if you think about bad things that anyone can do and if you brainstorm about it, there are so many things that you can do, obviously, but it's important not to play these games. But in the same time, I was in a lot of apps and a lot of the times Apple just deleted the app from the store for some black hat tactics, for example. And then they obviously came back. It wasn't like a black hat tactic per se. And then I go to all these conferences where people are knowledge sharing and I'm like, we got deleted from the store from this like last month. What is happening? And I'm talking about, they're like, no, no, everything is okay. There's. So the standards don't exist. They try to like, even talking about like the paywall standards for App Store. They have the whole article about that. Can you understand from article, from the article what can be done and what cannot be done? No, you cannot. And like, playing these games is another form of sport. Like, that's why I don't go to the gym. Because you have to play this game.
- [65:42]
David Barnard
It is really hard to know when you've crossed that line. And then there's probably a little bit of the kind of boiling the frog where, you know, I mean, have you even thought about this? Some of the things we've talked about on the podcast before, even from like Duolingo. Duolingo is the one who kind of popularized the. Or at least they're the first ones I've heard it from. Try for zero dollars and zero cents. Like big dollar sign, 0.00. Like, is that black hat? Like, you're the biggest. Like, CTA says zero dollars and zero cents, but it is actually going to charge you a subscription. Like, was it clear enough on the rest of the page that they were going to be charged a subscription? And there's something like Duolingo, a $5 billion like publicly traded company was doing. There are things like that that can be so subtle, but then there are other things that aren't. And this is kind of what your point was and a perfect example. I think I've shared it on the podcast before, but my wife did one of those funnel that you were talking about on the web, where, you know, Apple's not scrutinizing it at all. And there is kind of the wild, wild west. And the technique they used, which I think, you know, everybody's clamped down on from like, Apple Pay to Stripe and others, is that she went through this whole flow, and I think it was like a dieting app or something like that. And so she, you know, you get 60 questions in, you've got your sunk cost fallacy. And then it's like, hey, you can get your plan for a dollar. And she's like, okay, cool. And then she authorized Apple pay for a dollar. And then it takes her through a whole nother flow where it was like, do you want to add on this PDF? Do you want to add on. Well, she wasn't reading. She was just trying to, like, get to, like, where's my plan? I paid a dollar for this plan. Let me get to the plan. And so she was just continue critique. And again, the boiling the frog, it's like, it was super effective. I'm sure, you know, the companies doing things like that were. Were printing money hand over fist because. And the reason we. I ended up figuring out about it is I looked at my credit card and it was like 350 or $400 that it ended up charging. And I was like, hey, you know, sweetie, just checking in. Like, you know, was this, like, authorized? Like, if it's something like, you know, if this is like a really great plan and, like, you know, you're getting personal, they should send you that much money. I had super high expectations. It's just like, what? Like, what do you mean? Like, I only authorized a dollar. And then that's when I went back through and I did the whole quiz funnel myself. And I found that pattern. And, you know, I can see the little logical steps of, like, oh, well, like, that the $1 thing works really well. And then like, oh, but we say on there that, like, you know, but it's in fine print and people don't read. And so, like, you can justify it, like, well, it's their fault because they didn't read the fine print. But then really, is it their fault for not doing fine reading the fine print so bad?
- [68:40]
Julia Lennox
Yeah, but, you know, at some point in apps, I was like, if you can scan me into pain, like, you are good enough. You deserve that money. But with that one, no. Because, like, you need to be good enough for Apple, but. But here, you don't need to be good enough. You can just take 350 that's crazy money.
- [68:59]
David Barnard
Yeah, it was one of those situations where she contacted support and said, you know, I want a refund. And they said, well, our terms and conditions are you have to give it 30 days before you get a refund. And she was like, no, wait, like, you scammed me. And I think we ended up getting, like, half of it back. And then I meant to do a chargeback, which, like, that is the best way to handle those, is just do a chargeback because it punishes them then, especially if the support is not responsive in those ways. Yeah, it was a pretty frustrating experience. That's why I wanted to bring up that post. I do think it's hard as a marketer to know when you're crossing that line, and sometimes you just slowly move more and more in a direction and really take a step back. You're like, wait a minute, what am I doing here?
- [69:48]
Interviewer/Host (David Barnard or Moderator)
Here? You're making a lot of money, apparently.
- [69:50]
David Barnard
Yeah, making a lot of money, but maybe not sleeping as well at night when you realize it. And I hope that's the way people end up feeling about it. But I think it's great to talk about these things more. And so since you brought that up in an interview, I thought it'd be great to chat. And so I think it'd be a really interesting thing for folks to think about and kind of take your perspective and some examples we gave and stuff of what does feel like it pretty far across the line. But as we wrap up, this has gone so long, but I did want to still do our lightning round. So what's the most impactful experiment or change or something that you implemented this year, your biggest win?
- [70:34]
Interviewer/Host (David Barnard or Moderator)
I would say localization. I would bet on it, like, over everything else. That's the way to open markets that you have never took money from.
- [70:43]
David Barnard
What is the worst experiment, the biggest fail of the past year that you learned from?
- [70:50]
Interviewer/Host (David Barnard or Moderator)
I would say that starting too many products, starting too many pots, boiling water, pots, whatever. Like, doing too many projects is too hard. So I recently joined a team where, like, they had three apps in the same time, and they were trying to do it all in the same time. And that's something that no matter how many people you have, no matter how many ideas you have, good ideas, bad ideas, how similar even the projects are, you cannot put enough attention to them. And I've seen a lot of teams that are like, oh, we had another great idea. We had another great idea. We will start it right now because it costs nothing to develop it because we already have the Developer on salary. No, no, don't do that. In order to not make mistakes, you need to prioritize one thing, and you need to literally treat it like a war room where every day you come in, you're like, what are we doing today? If you want to scale, if you want to not fail, that is, like, the biggest lesson that I learned. That don't let anything go like, oh, it's the same. You scaled one app. You can do another app. No, no, it's not like that.
- [72:01]
David Barnard
I feel seen by Karina. Two different apps. Right now. I'm not doing any marketing for the app I already released. I've got too many. It's an exciting time by coding where I can spin out apps without having to rely on a developer, but I'm falling exactly into that trap. And a year from now, I will probably say my biggest fail of the year was taking out too many projects.
- [72:24]
Interviewer/Host (David Barnard or Moderator)
But also, if vibe coding is what drives you, why do you need to do marketing? You know that that's the whole thing. It's about doing what you like. And my main task for the summer is to try to do more things that make me feel alive. And if that's vibe coding for. You don't even care about marketing. You will hire a good agency, you will hire a good cmo, and it will all happen. Yeah.
- [72:48]
David Barnard
All right, last question. Growth would be easier if.
- [72:51]
Interviewer/Host (David Barnard or Moderator)
It would be much easier if growth that I have to do would happen in blue markets instead of red markets. Because if you're entering a red market, it's crazy. You cannot do it. I haven't entered the rent market in a long time. So now that I'm back into it, I'm like, how are people even surviving? I do understand why the same people are in the industry, because it's so hard to make it right now if you don't have a unique product that you're working on. So don't go chasing waterfalls. No, go chasing waterfalls. Don't stick to the lakes.
- [73:28]
David Barnard
And what you mean by red market is. Or red ocean is a crowded. I was looking it up, to say it more succinctly, is it represents a crowded, highly competitive existing market. So if you're building the 2000th food scanning app that Kelly proved the market for, if you're building yet another AI note taker, that is very much a red ocean market where you just face so much competition and it's so hard right now.
- [73:59]
Interviewer/Host (David Barnard or Moderator)
Yeah, Yeah. I like. As I said, I'm trying mental health, and it's mental out there.
- [74:04]
Julia Lennox
Yeah, you can.
- [74:05]
Interviewer/Host (David Barnard or Moderator)
You just cannot do that.
- [74:06]
Julia Lennox
Yeah.
- [74:08]
David Barnard
Oh, wow. But, I mean, this is where I think there. There are still some opportunities. And Calais proved this. It's like you would have thought five years ago that calorie counting was a red ocean market. It was so competitive, so hard. I thought the same with Ladder. When I first met the Ladder team, I was like, oh, no, you're building a fitness app. Like, it's such a brutal market. It's so hard. But if you have that unique spin and you have that unique value prop and it's defensible, that's the hardest thing today. It's like, if people are just going to rip it off. Like, and for Calais, really, it wasn't the product itself that was defensible, it was the hustle and the marketing that was defensible, is that they were just able to, like, out, execute and do it so quickly, that they were able to grow so quick and be that de facto player even as the competition rushed in. So, yeah, it's tough. It is tough out there, definitely.
- [75:00]
Interviewer/Host (David Barnard or Moderator)
But in the same time, you enter those markets because you know that there is money there. Because, like, in 2017, we thought there was no, no place on, like, for another fitness app on the market. And like, by. By this time, there are companies bigger than Better Me that originated from the same source, and still there is enough space for everyone. So I think with mental health or with any other niche, like, like, it's the same. When it's big enough, you can play there for as long as you want. Yeah.
- [75:28]
David Barnard
Yeah, for sure. Well, this has been such a fun conversation as we wrap up, though I do want to share with people. On July 30, we are going to do a live stream on YouTube with Julia. So I haven't talked about this on the podcast very much, but we are now doing live streams every Thursday. And the reason I've been doing them is because I've had so many people over the years say they love the podcast, but they're sitting in their car just shouting to the void, like, what about this? Or what about that? And so this is the perfect opportunity. If you've been listening to this podcast, you're like, oh, that was a really great point, but what about this? Or, like, I want to challenge you in that way or whatever. This is your opportunity. And if you're listening to this, after July 30th, it's your opportunity to go get even more insights from Julia and see what kind of questions people asked on the live stream. But, yeah, at 9am Pacific Time, 1800 Central European Time. We will be live on YouTube July 30th. So really excited that you agreed to do that and this is going to be our first time to actually have a podcast guest so quickly after the podcast is released on the live stream. So should be a ton of fun.
- [76:36]
Interviewer/Host (David Barnard or Moderator)
Please bring all your questions. I love answering questions, especially tough ones.
- [76:40]
David Barnard
Awesome. Thank you so much for joining me. Was there anything you wanted to share as we're wrapping up? Any jobs you're hiring for you want to shout out or anything our audience can do for you?
- [76:48]
Interviewer/Host (David Barnard or Moderator)
I think I'm okay. Thank you so much for having me and this was a very fun conversation. You are amazing as an interviewer.
- [76:56]
David Barnard
Thanks. It was so fun having you. I thought there's a lot of great insights in there, so thank you. Thanks so much for listening. If you have a minute, please leave a review in your favorite podcast player. You can also stop by chat.subclub.com to join our private community.