Why are mobile developers hard-pressed?

Editor's note: The original is redpoint VC Mahesh Vellanki article. This paper analyzes the three major problems faced by mobile developers: Application discovery, developer concentration, and mobile retention rate. It's really hard to make a business-sustainable mobile app in the shadow of a giant.

It's really hard to be a mobile app developer. First, desktop companies can make better use of mobile than mobile-focused startups. This is different from what many people expect. Most people think that every major vertical area of the web will be transformed into a new mobile peer, which means a variety of mobile-first companies. Although we will see some success in the mobile sector (there will certainly be a lot of successful VC financing), but it is clear that the move to go a long way, compared with the web, mobile companies to do the challenge is very big. There are three reasons:

Application discovery

The App Store is becoming larger and bigger, which is a challenge for both users and developers. Because the App store is based on search and catalog, the interface is okay if you already know what you're looking for. If not, the interface will be out of reach because there is no way to help find and discover new and relevant applications. There is also a large number of suspicious, anonymous commentary interference judgments, as well as the performance of the brush list influence rankings. In fact, the brush lists create a lot of artificial installation tide, this concept can have a variety of application manipulation behavior. There are many problems with application discovery, and these are documented.

And in the world of the Web, users don't know what they're looking for or forget the name of the site is no big deal. Google has done a pretty good job of information grooming. The digital advertising ecosystem behind it is also extremely strong, so even if you can't find the site you want, it's likely that the site will find you. The Web is also a lot more mobile, and anytime you visit Reddit, YouTube or Facebook, you'll naturally jump to other links. Mobile is not the case, because the application is chimney-style, the switch between apps is not smooth.

Developers too focused

There is also the problem of developer concentration. According to ComScore, about 70% of independent visitors to the top 25 U.S. apps are from the big four developers-facebook, Google, Apple and Yahoo. Although the data have a variety of statistical methods, but no matter how the statistical situation is the same bad. Even if the genre is like a game, you want to be paid attention to at least 100. It is now the case that big companies use their powerful marketing forces to inform rankings that have never been easier. Of course, you'll keep seeing new pop-up apps erupt, especially shortlisted picks, but that's just a little bit (and hot soon). There are hundreds of thousands of of apps that look in the dark. In fact, the architecture of the App Store is not designed for small developers, so large developers have a huge advantage. Also, most mobile users do not download new apps on a monthly basis, and it's easy to see the imbalance between supply and demand.

Low mobile retention Rate

You have made a killer app, finally by Apple as a select, with a good development momentum, then? The next step is the problem of retention and monetization, which is much more severe on the mobile side than the Web.

On the Web, for example, a website such as Zillow, independent visitors may not stroll after a few months, but as long as Google "94107 near the price of housing", users will be like Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, such as the results of real estate sites. Of course users may point Redfin, but over time there will always be users through Google point Zillow. In addition, because the Web-based advertising technology and cookie system is extremely strong, the site will eventually use a variety of digital marketing techniques to find users. Most of these methods do not exist on the mobile side.

In the app economy, the intent is to get a download, but once the user's motivation fades, especially for less frequent apps, the user may be gone. If the app is removed by the user from the main screen, it may be forgotten tomorrow. According to ComScore, 80% of the user's mobile phone time is spent on the top 3 apps.

I've seen a lot of eye-catching mobile startups, and they all have great ideas, good business metrics and great execution. However, there are some battles you can't win, especially those with very poor retention rates. You can get into the capital, be strong for a while, but end up losing to the water tanker effect caused by poor retention:

Bad mobile retention rates are brutal for startups. It directly affects the LTV (Customer life cycle value), the unit economy, and ultimately the viability of the enterprise. What's worse is that the early churn users may never come back. Once the user loses interest, it is a battle to get them back.

One of the many issues that mobile developers need to deal with at the time of these 3 questions. But I believe these are the biggest problems that sensible developers should be able to understand. When the new app on the shelves, but also face a variety of compatibility issues, the app testing challenges to come, according to Testbird statistics, 2014 Testbird 134,812 compatibility issues of statistical analysis, found that game flash, game card dead, UI exceptions are the top 3 categories of issues that have the highest percentage of compatibility issues. Game flashback problem accounted for the highest, up to 37.18%, the game card death problem is equally serious, up to 18.53%. With the rapid development of Android phones, the previous problems in the disaster area installation, startup problems in all problems accounted for is very low, most of the problem is in the game after the run.

This article compiled from: mahesh-vc.com, if reproduced, please specify the source: http://36kr.com/p/5042258.html

Why are mobile developers hard-pressed?