Launching my App product

App research and buying experience overview
I have spent a significant amount of time reviewing apps that offered services under the business section of the app store. Many of the apps competing in this space are designed by solo designers or small companies. Some apps can be purchased on their company website in addition to the app store. Most sites provide little detail on the company or what their apps actually do. This can be a challenge when making a buying decision. One of the few ways to asses the potential performance of the product is through user ratings. Because there are many apps available for purchase there tends to only be a few that are reviewed and for those that are reviewed there is typically 3 or less user ratings. This made it challenging for me to determine which apps were worth purchasing and test driving for my product research.

Competitor Research 
One app that I though was interesting was an app titled "Benchmarking". This was $2.99 app that helps the user understand the technique of benchmarking and guided them through the process of benchmarking a product or service. This app is similar to the concept that I am working on. Essentially, take important business concepts and break them down so that someone with a limited background in a the particular topic can quickly gain an understanding of the concept and learn how to implement into their business. This company has about 40 apps that can be purchased to address common business issues. Check out their website at http://www.kalees.in to view this example. While the website is fairly simple it is one of the better examples from app development companies that I have seen.

Pricing
Based on my research I have decided to price my applications between .99 and $9.99 per app. Apps can range from free or free to over $100 for more established brands. By offering lower price points initially for the consumer I can build up brand equity with the user and introduce higher price point products in the future if it makes sense for my product line.

Building Brand Awareness
Operating under a start up budget my intention is to spend most of my marketing dollars on creating and maintaing my website and on SEO keywords and paid search. I will also create awareness by positing to forums where my applications can be useful to users in tackling business problems and directing them to my website or the app store.
Creating a website that is interactive for the user and helps them to create a connection between them and the app is a major component of my marketing strategy. A simple way to differentiate myself from competing applications (aside from creating a superior product) is by giving them the ability to test drive a piece of the product prior to downloading or showcasing a new app in development. I will use the skills that I have developed in my blog class to blog and talk about the development of new products and give users the ability to have input on the process and make suggestions. I will also create a separate forum where users have a community space to share what how the app has helped them to be successful and as the product line grows how using a combination of apps has helped their business to be successful.

Design
The apple app store provides very specific guidelines for creating an app and having it approved for sale via the app channel. Top issues for rejection include a lack of information provided, bugs, or a user interface that does not meet apples standards. My major challenge has been in downloading and using some of the resources out there to build an app product. I am working on scheduling a time to speak with an app developer this week to understand what the market pricing is for contracting the development out, or, if they can suggest a more user friendly product that I can use to begin to build my initial product. During my research I have read feedback from some app developers who have used paper and a pencil to sketch their ideas and then contracted an app programer to build. An important decision I will need to make in the near future will be deterring which direction I will take in developing my app. I am still looking for courses online to assist me with this.

Free is not for me

During our class with our Angel in Residence Barbara Clarke we discussed different types of revenue generation models. For my application I was initially inclined to make the product/service available for free to the consumer and rely on advertising as a way to generate income from the product. Barbara discussed how this model no longer was viewed as a lucrative option by firms and that ad revenue has continued to decrease for many firms who have used this as a revenue generation model. Another popular revenue model, but one that I believe has many flaws and is beginning to lose value is the membership model. Revenue is not as easily predictable because in order to encourage users to sign up you now need to make it fairly simple to allow people to cancel their subscription. The third option for evaluating is the pay per use model. 

Ben Milne of Dwalla spoke about his start up on Kahn Academy which is focused on reducing the costs of transferring funds between people using a pay per use model.  The scope of the money transfers market exceeds 30 Trillion per year. By charging customers per use instead of a percentage fee of the transaction Ben is betting that Dwala can win significant business. At .25 per transfer and free for dollar amounts less than $10.00 Dwolla is sure to put a dent in banks and merchant processors revenue forecasts.   Check out their website at https://www.dwolla.com. 

Using the pay per use revenue model combined with a now-ist philosophy constant innovation by way of existing product improvements, add ons, and complements will be central in developing my applications and products. Zach Kaplan of Inventables (https://www.inventables.com) spoke about how he first learned as an entrepreneur that it was important to understand how to sell things to people and the concept of being able to sell anything if you understand who your target market is and how to sell to them. Zach also discusses how the AI age has removed the barriers to entry in getting a product/service to market. His approach is to try it, test it, and if it does not work do something new. "Learning about something unexpected helps you to think of new concepts that may be possible." Intuit takes a similar approach in asking themselves "how are we the best in the world at problems to solve". This requires Intuit to constantly identify the major problems to solve and continue to innovate. This methodology will be part of my revenue model as I look at constantly evolving applications to meet market changes or new consumer needs. Profitability will be contingent on creating applications that will have a broad enough demand in the marketplace that will also increase demand for compliments to the application. 

Becoming a "Now-ist"

The first step in my field work was to investigate the world of innovation and educate myself on the practice used by the top innovators today. Below is a sampling of the lectures and modules I have viewed through resources such as Ted.com and Kahn academy. Viewing these speakers online has given me the unique opportunity or replaying and researching topics as they are discussed. This practice has been helpful for me in developing the initial stages of my process and I encourage you to view the selected talks I have outlined below.

Joi Ito's Ted talk "Want to innovate: become a now-ist" compares innovation pre internet of BI (before internet) and AI (after internet). In the BI stage, innovation was about thinking into the future and developing your innovation around a business model that was then "deployed by VC firms armed with an MBA education". The internet drove down the cost of trying a new idea or concept and made the world more complex and unpredictable. In order to survive in a AI world, Ito argues that innovation has become a "bottom up process; we need to learn how to be open and alert to what is going on around us", to be present. We have moved from a software or service model to a design & innovate model. Successful entrepreneurs will "learn to build quickly, improve constantly and with out waiting to for proof or permission that you have the right idea". Ito also pushes the concept that we need to move away from relying on large corporations for innovation as their bureaucracy and process's are geared towards looking into the future instead of responding to market conditions today. Scott Cook founder of Intuit touched upon this in his Kahn Academy module. Cook has created teams within Intuit who are tasked with innovating products and services and to innovate and publish for consumer feedback in as little as 3 days from start to finish. This enables Intuit to respond to market changes as if they were a small firm by eliminating the typical corporate road blocks that cause big firms to miss out on innovation.

When you search the word "entrepreneur" on Ted.com Maya Pen's talk returns as the top result. Maya is a 13 year old entrepreneur who was featured in Fortune Magazine for starting an online business at the age of 10. Maya's ideas for business's were based on materials she found at home that she was able to craft into items and sold online. Maya's mantra is that we are all able to create change and that creating change can help us to solve a problem or discover a new market. Successful entrepreneurs need to train themselves to not only embrace change but to train themselves on the concept of constant innovation as a discipline. Maya has learned to follow her interests and innovate in each of her new spaces. This has enabled Maya to create a cartoon focused on educating people on the important role bee's play in our ecosystem. Check Maya out at "http://mayasideas.com/pages/about-us" to learn for yourself how inspiring a "now-ist" like Maya can be. 

The third result when searching with the keyword "entrepreneur" on Ted.com returned " Eric Giler: A demo of wireless electricity". I have worked with Eric as a client and have heard him give this talk before so I thought it was a good opportunity to incorporate his talk into this blog piece. The idea of wireless electricity was after the 3rd night of Dr. Marin Soljacic listening to his wife's cell phone beep that it was losing power. Dr. Soljacic found it ironic that his wife's phone was losing power only a few feet from a wall where electricity was running though. In this case his job to be done was to enable electricity to travel to the device without wires in order to charge his wife's cell phone battery. Check out Eric's engaging presentation at
http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_giler_demos_wireless_electricity. WiTricity is another example of innovating in the now. Taking a bottoms up approach to innovation, Dr. Soljacic had to be open and alert to his surroundings in order to identify the JTBD. He then applied the concept of "demo or die" by testing his hypothesis by trying to light a light bulb with a team of colleagues at MIT. The success of his innovation confirmed that he should focus on moving his idea forward.

My research on innovation and e-ship has confirmed my theory that in order to build and innovate my product set I need to test and publish applications for small business's to use to effectively enable them to operate their business. In my prior experience of running a successful business the products and services that I offered grew from what my customers demanded coupled with me being willing to meet that need for an agreed upon dollar value. Some services flourished and others missed their mark, I learned to continue to move forward in the process. My biggest set back in not being able to continue to move the business forward and into an even more profitable direction was my lack of confidence in myself, an emerging fear of failure and not having the community of practice that the e-ship program at SOM can provide me. The next step in my innovation process will be to build an application over a 3 day period that I can submit to be published through an application store. From that point I will receive feedback that will enable to move the process forward in one of two ways; innovate based on feedback to publish or have application published and innovate on user feedback and trends. Although I lack the expertise in programing an application Zoho (www.zoho.com) will enable me to launch and innovate my customer application.

Leave it on the Barre

The last class I sampled in my research was a Pure Barre class in Newton Ctr. Pure Barre is a form of exercise based on concepts from ballet training and Pilates. Pure Barre boasts creating the fastest most effective method for changing your body. The workout focuses on toning your "seat" (grownup word for Bum) hips, thighs, abs an arms. The Pure Barre franchise has 200 locations in the US and is the fastest growing ballet inspired workout franchise. Locations in the Boston area include affluent suburbs such as Newton, Wellesley, Hingham and Lynnfield. Locations are owned via a franchise agreement with some franchisee's owning multiple locations. Like Soul cycle there is a portion of the studio that is dedicated to retail; primarily apparel. Pure Barre, like Zumba, also has a robust online retail presence that sells apparel, DVD's and equipment. Pure Barre sets itself apart in the retail section by offering podcasts enabling seasoned puree bar students to practice this method anywhere in the world only needing the assistance of their pure barre workout towel. 

Classes can be scheduled online through the official pure barre website or via phone at your local studio. I called to schedule my first appointment and felt welcomed in starting my new experience. The introduction to the class was swift and painless. An instructor demonstrated to me that it would be important that I learn the "tuck" movement for class and showed me to an open carpeted area with mirrors and a barre lining the wall, much like a ballet studio of my childhood. Equipment needed for the class was minimal and included a small rubber ball, three point weights and a rubber band for stretching. Once class began the instructor was featured at the center of the room calling out positions and demonstrating movements. Each routine was broken drown by area worked and included a stretch after each section. Upbeat songs played throughout the session in the background. Inspirational messages were displayed throughout the retail areas of the studio however the instructors did not provide the affirmations that are peppered throughout the soul cycle routine. The workouts are hard! Not in an intense cardio way but in an intense isometric exercise kind of way. I really enjoyed the class and the instructor was very helpful in confirming that I was positioning myself correctly. This is definitely a class where you can not let your mind wander; I had to focus on remaining present and listening to the instructor in order to ensure my form was correct and that I was following along on the positions. 

At the end of the class I learned I was eligible to purchase one month of unlimited classes for $100 and that my class fee of $23 would be credited to the amount. The only additional item I needed to purchase were special grip socks that cost about $12. I enjoyed the class and bought into their body changing concept  ("30 classes to a transformed Body"). My goal is to attend 30 classes in the 30 day timeframe and document the transformation. Many exercise programs today guarantee that you will experience a significant level of change within a short time frame and I want to understand how this process works. A constant theme throughout all three of the programs I have evaluated (spinning, Zumba and Pure Barre) is that they are all selling change. All promise a change in you physically and some talk about the mental aspects of change; Soul Cycle seems to do the best job with talking about and executing on a change in mentality. I will update this particular blog after my 30 day challenge; stay tuned for further findings! 

Joining the Crew.....

For my next adventure in research on crafting my innovative idea I decided to take a lesson at Community Rowing in Brighton. Rowing was a sport I aspired to learn as a child. Living in an area surrounded by Head of the Charles, a neighborhood teeming with former Ivy league rowers, and a view of the training team for a local university gave me the opportunity to appreciate the sport at a very young age. It seemed only natural that part of my collegiate experience would involve being part of a "crew".

I first became introduced to a rowing machine in high school after I was sidelined from running due to an achilles tendon injury. I really enjoyed the solidarity of rowing on the machine in the gym and getting lost in my thoughts.

Community Rowing requires that it is located in Brighton on the Charles River, requires a decent amount of real-estate to house sweep and sculling shells, oars, and additional equipment. Community Rowing is a not for profit offering rowing outreach programs to at risk youth and disabled veterans.  the barriers to entry for rowing and made it accessible to all income levels in the Greater Boston area. I registered for a 90 minute introductory course that reviewed the basics of rowing where we had the opportunity to get out on the water. The first 45 minutes of the course covered the basic form of rowing and was taught on land with the assistance of a rowing machine. The instructor broke down the act of rowing into three steps for us to follow when out on the water; body, legs, arms. Rowing on the water as part of a crew proved to be far more challenging than I had anticipated. When crew members rowed out of sync it placed you in danger of having your oar roll over you which would give you the appearance of looking like a crab flipped on its back. Rowing with 9 other strangers proved challenging when trying to hold one another accountable for rowing out of sync. 

Like Zumba, Community Rowing seemed to be more inclusive than some of the boutique exercise classes I attended. This can be partly attributed to their not for profit status and attributed to their clearly defined mission of "Rowing for All". Inclusion is also a major factor in a team sport and for this lesson I did experience rowing as part of a crew. Community Rowing also offers classes rowing in singles, a conditioning gym, and indoor training during inclement weather. The instructor's level of training and experience was greater than the typical training. My instructor had rowed crew at Southern Methodist of four years and had moved to Boston to work on a new master of coaching in rowing at CRI. The typical level of training for a boutique exercise class such as Zumba, Soul cycle or Pure Barre is typically a personal training certification and individual training in the particular concentration. An interesting fact based on our teachers length of time and experience is that Rowing is a sport where in order to be good at it it does not require that a minimum amount of time for you to achieve mastery. If you learn the techniques and are physically strong you can row as well or better than a counterpart who has been rowing longer. This broadens the scope of individuals who can learn rowing, you don't need to be 20 to join the crew. 

I enjoyed my time at CRI and was really impressed with the quality of the facility as well as the instructors. I look forward to exploring additional classes. 

Exercise of Inclusion

As part of my continued exploration I took a Zumba class for the first time. As someone who enjoys exercise, enjoys music, dancing and was a former cardio kickboxing junkie  people were surprised to hear that I had never attended a class before. Zumba, founded in 2001, has become one of the largest exercise classes in the world. Zumba's boasts over 15 million users in 180 countries. As part of my continued research project in the evolution of the concept I am creating, I thought it would be important to learn what all buzz was about.

I was able to locate a class using the official Zumba websites class locator. Studio offerings ranged from health clubs such as the Equinox and Sports Club LA to dance companies located in VFW halls. I selected a class 3 miles from my office located at an American Legion in Newton.  While it was simple to find the building it was challenging to find the class location as a Bingo game was playing in the large hall and it was difficult to determine who was a Zumba attendee and who was there for Bingo. Really, I chased down some 20 something girls in sweatpants hoping to follow them to Zumba class only to find out that they were attending Bingo.  I was able to finally find the room once the music started for class. I was able to enter the class late and only required to pay my $5 cash fee, no pesky waivers or health forms to contend with. Out on the dance floor I tried my best to follow along with the instructor to the beat of the songs. My group ranged in ages from 8 years old (the teachers daughter) to about 60. Size and athleticism range was also on as large a scale. The one common denominator was that everyone was there to have fun. The class lasted an hour for a total of about 12 different songs and routines. I was wearing a fitbit during the class and tracked walking 3 miles over the duration of the class. At the end there was a cool down period where slowed down salsa and meringue moves were used to stretch us out. I found the class to be a great experience and I plan to incorporate into my routine.

Zumba exploded on the scene in 2001 and was created by a Columbian celebrity fitness instructor who had forgot his aerobics soundtracks and used a music from his car and incorporated dance moves from  hip-hop, soca, samba, salsa, merengue, mambo and martial arts to teach an aerobics class.  (wikipedia) Zumba sells DVD's, video game programs, clothing and accessories. It also offer certified training to become an instructor. Zumba does not charge a licensing fee to gyms and individual looking to teach Zumba classes. Zumba derives its revenues from the products for sale through its website. http://www.zumba.com/en-US  This is pretty important for a few reasons. First off, Zumba makes it very easy and accessible for consumers to consumer their core product of exercise. By doing this they have broadened the scope of consumers introduced to the Zumba JTBD which is "ditch the workout and join the party". Zumba has also done an excellent job of building a loyal fan base where each participant feels like they belong. Lastly, Zumba makes it very simple to consume their product on a number of different levels. Attending a Zumba class and studying their revenue streams was very helpful for me in working on my concept.

You've Been Served

Monthly box subscriptions seem to be the next big thing when it comes to combining e-commerce and and a membership fee model. While this has been around for a few years with products and samples a new and interesting format has been the evolution signing up to receive curated food and recipes. I decided to try "Plated", simply because I seem to see their advertisements more often than their competitors Blue Apron or Hello Fresh.

I ordered my plated meal on a Monday with the scheduled delivery date of that Friday. On Thursday I received a friendly email from Plated confirming that my meal was en route and confirming the ingredients I would need to have on hand to prepare my meal. For the recipe I chose which was Meatballs with Zucchini, Blackened Tomatoes, and Mint.  this include having an egg, olive oil and salt and pepper on hand.

Experience
My package arrived Friday afternoon in a cool refrigerated container via Fed Ex. Portions were packed in groups of two and according to food group. All ingredients were pre measured and clearly labeled.  A bright and colorful card detailed instructions with pictures demonstrating each of the eight steps. When I order this meal it did not occur to me that I would be spending a significant amount of time slicing and dicing. The instructions estimated the recipe would take between 30-45 minutes to repair; I estimate I spent about 25 minutes of my time peeling the zucchini to make pasta ribbons. I had always wanted to learn how to slice veggies for pasta alternatives so this was a fortunate side effect. Instructions for mixing the meatballs were quite simples and the roasting of the tomatoes took no time. The tools that Plated provided me made me feel confident during the preparation that I could produce a quality product.

Feedback
I served this meal to my husband, sister and mother. I received very positive feedback on the presentation, food combination and process. My husband, a busy Finance/IT professional and father to our two small children felt it was a do again and is hoping to select and cook our next Plated order. I look forward to this too as Fred has not had a lot of training when it comes to cooking and I believe that Plated can help him to fine-tune his cooking techniques.
My sister (who weighs 105 lbs) was concerned that she would not feel full since the pasta was not pasta but zucchini. My husband explained her feeling of fullness would come from the meatballs; Courtney remarked the whole experience felt rather "yuppy".
My mother, a recent retiree, volunteered next time to go food shopping for me at Wilson Farms in Lexington, she thought I was crazy for paying $15 per serving for the meal. After I walked her through their  target consumer (someone who makes too much money to be wondering around a supermarket) the wheels began to turn on her offering her own version of a Plated service. We anxiously await hr shopping her proposal to local VC firms.

Complements
I think that Plated is missing out on an opportunity to sell cooking accessories to their customers. Plated assumes you own sharp knives or a pan. It would be helpful if they could list the tools needed at the time of the order and link you to a page where you can purchase the needed equipment. If Plated decides that is too far outside its business model it should consider partnering with a Williams Sonoma or Sur La Table and receiving a % of revenue for each product sold. They could expand this to include table settings as well. I would also recommend that Plated add technique video's to their website; for a moment I was unsure of how to slice the zucchini, referencing their website for a tutorial on how to prepare this meal would seem like a natural fit and another way to connect with your customer.


Strategy
After this activity was done I thought a lot about what Plated's strategy was. If I was an investor I would be incorporating my suggestions above so that I would catch the attention of Amazon and use Plated as a launching pad for the first online grocery store. The disruption factor would be that it would change the way people purchased food; have them buy according to recipes and not in mass quantities.