Chris Dixon Analytics Four types of mobile applications with investment value

The writer, Chris Dixon, is the dual role of entrepreneur (co-founder of Hunch, co-founder of founder Collective) and investor (early individual investors in several technology companies, including Skype, Foursquare, Kickstarter, etc.) , there is a wealth of practical experience in the start-up enterprise investment. In this article he tells everyone that the application is valuable and worth investing by classifying the application.

If you plan to become a new application developer or are considering whether an application has enough investment value, it is very reasonable and effective to divide the application into the following 4 categories according to the way people use it.

1. Kill Time Application

This application is often used in some fragments of time, such as when you are in line. And the most representative of the time spent on the application of the game. Some apps are both a waste of time and a utility, and so is Facebook, where you often refresh your updates to kill time and use it to send useful messages.

Killing time is usually only a long time, and such users are easily attracted to the new game and tired of them. If you want to build a big company for people who spend time, you need to build a market mix and monetization application, as Zynga does.

2. Core applications

Core applications are usually displayed on the main screen, such as cameras, telephones, communications, text messages, calendars, and so on. The core application is very sticky, and if you get a core application that is commonly used, it will be a long lasting and valuable application.

The development strategy of a start-up company can be to replace the original core application, just as Instagram replaces the camera app built into the phone. It is still unclear whether the video version of Instagram companies will replace the original video applications as a new core application. But it's very hard to create a new core application that doesn't cover existing core apps, and it's been very good at this point, and it creates a new Foursquare core function.

3. Accidental application

Occasional applications are not usually shown on the main screen, but in some cases they can be useful applications. For example, when you buy a ticket you will find that Hipmunk is very practical, when you hit the Uber is also very useful, ordering OpenTable is also very convenient. These successful occasional applications are targeted at a specific situation and are carefully done in every detail. It's not a good thing to be too broad or have multiple use situations. In addition, most of these applications involve buying, so it is easier to get revenue from such applications.

4. Notification Application

This is an emerging category, and Android already has a good notification system, but the iphone is only useful in iOS5 systems. People often use email, SMS and other communication applications to set the notification function. At present, other notification class applications have not been widely used because they can easily cause excessive notification and ultimately annoy the user. and running a non-communication application in the background can exacerbate the loss of electricity. This category will be used more and more as notifications become more intelligent and battery capacity improves.