Peace Tech Lab, developer of “Alice.style”, a platform for optimizing matching of loans and borrowings, raises 350 million yen from Ricoh Lease and ASKUL as seeds
In this era, it is quite natural to add not only startups but also smartphone apps as business channels. As the market expands, the know-how to grow it will naturally accumulate, and a certain pattern of winning can be seen.
I heard that story, so I went to interview. The destination is "Repro", which is based in Yoyogi.
Repro is an application growth support tool released in April 2015, and as of May 2018, it has been introduced in more than 5,000 cases in 59 countries around the world. Through quantitative analysis such as user retention and funnel, and qualitative analysis of user behavior using videos, it will teach you points to improve the interface and experience (UI / UX) of the application.
In-app marketing such as push notifications is also provided, and according to the company's explanation, it has accumulated achievements such as improving the billing rate by 20% on average and improving the retention rate after one month by 35%. That's what I'm talking about. In particular, it is important to have users continue to use the app, so efforts are being put into improving this retention rate.
This Repro was introduced into Kodansha's manga app "Comic DAYS" and started supporting the growth of the app. heard. He was also joined by Hisashi Tsuchiya, CEO of Goodpatch, who was in charge of UI/UX.
Before listening to the two, let's unravel the details of the specific measures. Comic Days, which was originally planned by Kodansha, was looking for an outside development partner. Good patch is the end of the white arrow. We divided roles such as application charge and web charge respectively.
Tsuchiya: Originally, we gave advice on how to establish a business model for the 'skeleton' of the project idea and the issues that Kodansha had. We started around July last year, and it took us about half a year.Even if we say manga apps, there are charges and there are advertisements, and we won't know which one is the right answer until we actually put it on the market."
And Repro was responsible for the quantitative analysis and improvement of this application part. We are engaged in both app store optimization (ASO) support and app marketing support, and the specific efforts for each are as follows.
By implementing these 7 items all at once, it will be possible to continuously improve from acquisition of app users to monetization. Goodpatch implements UI/UX improvements based on indicators.
Tsuchiya: It is necessary to collect user feedback after the release and decide on rules such as how to prioritize issues and what decision criteria to use. I think it will improve someday, but it will take time (if I do it alone).”
Hirata ``App UX won't grow unless you improve both the UI itself and communication such as push. I can give advice, but on the other hand, I wanted to help the client, who said that he could do the design itself and even the UI design.”
In the case of Comic Days, the two companies decided to share their areas of expertise.
In this way, if the PDCA cycle based on quantitative analysis data is turned around, it will be possible to expect measures and growth to some extent. However, if you don't have PMF (market optimization) in the first place, or if you don't know whether to do it, how should you think about it?
Hirata "For example, it is completely meaningless to release something that is not related to the business of an operating company. I will refrain from specific names, but it is full of functions that are difficult to use, and it is not necessary to go through the trouble of releasing it as an app when the web is sufficient. The experience will eventually damage the brand, so you should reconsider.”
Specifically, Mr. Hirata said, "1: Things that lead to the promotion of the main business, 2: Things that concretely reproduce the business such as EC, 3: Things that realize customer management (CRM), synergies other than these three It is difficult to foresee Mr. Tsuchiya also points out:
Tsuchiya: I think about whether I can produce good performance (app improvement). The market is especially important. There is no such thing as not doing it because it is an area like this.”
Mr. Hirata also told us an interesting story about KPI design.
Hirata: Whether it's going to be based on sales or the number of users, each has a winning pattern, so it's like designing according to that. No. It's better to do this, whether the sales to be set as KGI are hundreds of millions or billions, and whether it is a realistic number.Through this kind of hearing, you can create a sales target and use that number as a base. We create a schedule for development and improvement at the same time.”
For example, a major business model for publishers is to find hit authors. Then, rather than charging for existing works, it would be better to make it free in order to target the discovery of newcomers and collect them widely.
After listening to the story, I got the impression that there are still a lot of manpower-intensive areas in the field of app growth. In particular, unraveling business models and designing KPIs cannot be decided without the help of consulting.
Hirata ``How do you actually create a service and realize that world? Is it sales, subscriptions, or discovering writers?This kind of client work will not disappear.On the other hand, sales 75% of our earnings come from Repro's SaaS, so our business is steadily building up."
This time, the application growth support service that both companies are working on will be a good hybrid of people and systems. Also, I hope to be able to tell you at the stage when the achievements are accumulated.
BRIDGE operates a membership system "BRIDGE Members". BRIDGE Tokyo, a community for members, provides a place to connect startups and readers through tech news, trend information, Discord, and events. Registration is free.