| Source | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apt30lzUw0U |
|---|---|
| Readwise URL | https://read.readwise.io/read/01ktgv7b69scpqz1tgh52fxs5z |
| Readwise ID | 01ktgv7b69scpqz1tgh52fxs5z |
| Date | 2026-03-17 |
| Author | notJust․dev |
| Category | video |
| Cover image | https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Apt30lzUw0U/sddefault.jpg?v=69b7ece2 |
What’s up, Not Just Developers? Welcome to another episode of Not Just Podcast. Today, I invited one of my friends, Mark, to the podcast to talk more about mobile app development, on boardings, and how to grow a business with your mobile applications. Mark has been working for over 25 years in sales in huge corporations doing billion dollars per year and more recently he transitioned into building his own applications and also working with
founders helping them grow their mobile app business. Hello Mark and welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today? >> What’s up man? Pretty good man. I’m over here on the other side of the world compared to other people. So >> perfect. Was the intro good. Is there anything that I missed? >> No, it’s pretty good. I mean, I’ve been behind the tech world since 2006, actually. Uh, didn’t really think about businesses until like digital businesses until like 2011,
had a nice pop in 2012, 2017, and then co. And it was always like a hobbyist side behind my day job of corporate lifestyle, you know, making other people rich and whatnot. But uh then I shifted after co kind of just shifted the mindset like let’s just go digital full-time and um been doing my own app since and uh and then shifted into um like you said consulting for founders, shifting them into uh growing their app into businesses and seeing helping them
see patterns that they may not see. So yeah, >> perfect. That sounds amazing. I personally learn a couple of good things from you. So, I’m pretty sure that people will learn a lot by watching this podcast by the end. Can you give us a quick intro of what a person watching this podcast is going to learn by the end? Like, why should they stick with us? >> Yeah, it’s a great question. I’m hoping to kind of like, you know, some people might have like, oh, I already know that or what not, but I’m hoping to more expand more down into the funnel of how these
things work, how the strategies work, you know, by the simple steps, you know, thinking, you know, five steps before even things happen. um you know taking multiple different data patterns and seeing like uh bigger data patterns is the best way of saying that or like bottlenecks or something and you know we’ll go into strategies and insights into these as well too more of just takeaways into learning deeper and stuff. So,
but what what exactly we’re going to learn? Are we going to learn about gardening >> onboarding on boarding flow? Like it’s the and it sounds broad now. Yes. But just listen to some of the insights that I have and I’ll hopefully just expand this side on like more than what you have never heard before is kind of the idea. So, >> perfect. Yeah, I know that. Um, a good on boarding is so crucial for application. That’s where you either lose the customer or you gain him.
That’s where the most of the money is made. So, thank you very much for uh for deciding to join and share with us more learnings about on boardings. I’m personally on my way of learning this. So, I’m here all years. I’m going to ask questions and learn from you and I hope that everyone watching this or listening to this are also going to take a lot of things that they can apply to on boarding things in their applications. Can I ask a question like what are some of the most important things that people get wrong when implementing on boarding
screens? >> It’s a good question. I mean there’s there’s a plethora of things. One would be accounts. Do we really need accounts or do we not need accounts? So it’s like there’s there’s apps there’s I don’t I say this word 50/50 right on the time like im immediacy apps apps that are needed right now. cameras, apps that are needed like in a in a moment’s time with someone. And then there’s apps that people won’t open till they’re sitting down. There’s more the the casual apps.
And so, you know, in terms of these immediiacy apps, probably saying that right, but I don’t know. >> I understand the point. >> Yeah, everybody knows what I’m saying. You have to say it that way though or not the way I’m per se, but anyways. So, there’s like in the moment for example, like you have a camera app or something like that. So, if you’re like on vacation, you know, or something like that, and you you need like the specific thing or whatever, I don’t know, and you see this app, it’s like you got to go through 23 onboarding screens and sign
up for an account like just to take account. It’s like, I don’t need that. Oh, you could skip it and whatnot. And there’s benefits to skipping and not skipping, but to finish on this. And then there’s like the health apps and then the reference apps and then fitness apps. Those can have the 20 onboarding screens and the accounts because you need to log. You don’t necessarily need to log. You can have no account and start locally you know core default user core data you know so forth user defaults just for the
who are anonymous users or anonymous users. That’s what I started implementing a lot in my apps. >> Yeah. And and think of it this way people have heard this before steal ideas from games. So, if you think about it, a lot of these games are coming out with a lot of these newer games are coming out with like they’re all login. No matter what, they’re all login, but they all have guest login now. Like, so this just is basically skip, but it still registers your, you know, the device and whatnot. So, these are these
I’ll give you some numbers here. Accounts have one of the biggest friction points of all on boarding. It’s generally dep it’s usually done in the wrong area in the beginning is the worst. Generally some people argue like oh I needed to say it to the account. You can you can you can persistently save it in your onboarding flow and then move it over to uh or when they officially move over and then you can you’re still getting data from all these my hands are all over the place here. um you’re uh you you’re still getting data
points from you know mix panel, firebase analytics and so forth regardless if they’re going to sign up or not. So that way you can understand those data points on where the drop off points are and those friction points of the account creation like when it’s needed when it’s not and so forth like that. I can share actually some data here because I think this is a really important topic like the drop off on the signin screen. Maybe you can comment out but this is from one
of my applications. The sign in is not first screen like sign in like I have a onboarding of around 10 application uh 10 screens and as you can see like all of them have around 10% drop off in total. I think like per screen like it’s even less. the payw wall. Yeah, it has a drop off of what? 51 out of 430. >> 21 here. Like on the sign in, we can see that >> even >> look at that drop off right on the end
there. >> Yeah, >> even higher than the payw wall. So less people go away on the payw wall compared to when I do sign in. And actually I’m providing like the guest sign in here. This is this is crazy. And >> I I was gonna ask like a super detailed question, but it’s not important. So, but you see the drop off between sign in and completed, right? >> Yep. >> Um I’m gonna throw a tangent here. So, the I’m going to say this and post people are probably going to be hate me to like I don’t like welcome screens. I
think they’re almost I don’t I think welcome screens need to be more interactive, more like like not just info. It’s like it’s almost regurgitated info from the app store to the the welcome screen. Um, and I was actually going to show your data there. It’s if you um the your drop off just from the welcome screen to the next screen was like was I think like your second or or third biggest outside of your um pay,
you know, your onboarding to payw wall segment. Yeah. So 550 So 655 or so people didn’t go past your I’m assuming right? Um this is the first time I’m seeing this. So that’s my assumption. >> Yeah, this is actually they see a welcome screen which is not here and then they press a button and they come here and this is on boarding started. So >> okay so I was incorrect on the inception of just seeing that initial data. Yeah, but still like from the first on boarding screen like a lot of people
drop off then like less people >> usually your segments will hold people and then it’s the transitions that is where most people will fall off. >> Yeah, >> that we’ll go so that goes into flow integration. So, you know, a lot of things that I’m seeing on X is like copy this, this, this, and that. And now we have 15, 20, 30 onboarding screens. I’m like, oh, that’s great because it’s fatigue. They’re going to buy. It’s a higher. That’s that’s not how it works. I’m sorry. That’s just like not how that
really works. You just don’t like this segment isn’t necessarily because it worked on X, it works on here. But don’t get me wrong, they’re all amazing ideas, but they’re not meant to just be we’re sold on do this and you’re going to make money. That’s what we’re sold on. And I look at things I break it down into how to to use that. Does this benefit my app in terms of how that benefits does how does something I I break reverse engineer the idea? You know, how many do
I need all five of these screens of that segment? No. Okay. So, I need maybe two or three of them. Okay. Do I need back button? No. And then there’s a lot of people fall off because there’s there’s too many clicks. And what I mean by this in a in a quick way is a lot of these onboardings are going to have questionnaires, questions and answers and whatnot, but then they’re going to also you select your answer and then there’s another continue button. >> Yeah. >> So, it’s like you’re just clicking
twice. Sometimes you need it and we’re not going to detail this. And then sometime like here’s the thing like we’re moving into the singularity is not an event it’s an actual purpose like you you don’t it’s you know it’s seamless actions it’s like how I think about how do I remove all the friction possible you know in order to to target the result that I want all my all my onboard all my onboardings have
several different variations into the data that I’m trying to receive. For example, I’m receiving data before like right on the app open. A lot of people miss this opportunity on the app open. You can stash a lot of information from there. And then like for people who delete the app, you could stash and not and then like here’s the beauty of the app open. I I guarantee 99 out of 100 apps besides the big ones are missing this. It’s like the app open could tell
every single thing and segment to what you want to do. You could have three to five different onboardings and then based on the app open based on time, you can have device time times, device dates like, oh, they opened it up on the weekends or something like that, you know, if you’re a an event app or or I’m just shooting my out of my head here, but like um and and so many things like that. So uh I could keep going but please next question.
What what exactly do you mean? Can can you go a bit more in depth into like like the app open? I didn’t quite understand the topic. >> So the I have to think of an example. The let’s say a returning user someone who’s downloaded your app and then deleted it redownloaded your app. >> You can store information that stays on their device for when they re return with their app. Mhm. >> So when you return when I’m sorry um I think the hand is going to be >> provide a different onboarding
experience for different use cases. >> Correct. And also for you can store multiple time if this person has done the has downloaded leaded multiple times then you can um trigger different events like feedback forms. Hey you welcome back. What what brought you back this time? You know what? What? I’m just shooting. You get the idea. Yeah, >> I think I think Yazio like an app for calorie [snorts] tracking is doing this. I saw that they are doing this every
time like I stop using it and when I come back to it like after a month or two they are basically not putting me in the application. They’re bringing me back into an onboarding experience. It’s different from new users. Like it’s asking like why are you back? Like why this time is different than previous time? Why like and I think yeah that’s what you’re saying right like to to have on boarding experience not only for new users but returning as well or >> I have I try to build new and returning
different segments for app opens basically yeah and but it depends the idea though yeah every every client has you know it’s like you know 80% of my brain is mostly on client apps you know and then 20% of my stuff of course but like it’s the you know but Yeah. So, >> perfect. Yeah, that’s that’s something new. I’ll think like how I can integrate in my applications if needed because probably like you need this at one point like when you have this returning users
because if you’re just getting started like probably the the goal is to focus more on the new users because you’re going to have a little bit more of those hopefully. Going on to to the next topic like I know payw walls is a huge part of the of onboarding experiences. Why why is that? And can you give us some some advice on payw walls and payw wall design invoings? >> So pay walls. Yeah. So because that’s the hot topic, right? How do I how do I convert more of my payw wall? Um first
and foremost, your payw wall your onboarding to payw wall is going to be your most conversion. Most most people assume that and know that already, but there’s >> double down because I’m pretty sure there are people that don’t know that. >> Yeah, of course. I say things very redundantly too sometimes. This goes into the I’ve been in psychology my whole life. Not a degree. I don’t study it but work areas and so forth. We’re not going to go into that. But um I had to design flows into sales things in
terms of like back into retail like how do we get a customer if we create this if we make this happen here. But anyway, so the flow from onboarding to payw wall is the most critical part where it needs to be based from data. So for example like the the sales 101 the the the rule is you get a 100 people 50 are I get a 100 downloading 50 open the app 25 get
through onboarding uh know 15 half half half half half you know five 10 people whatever at the end give or take there’s there’s multiple different payw wall styles there’s the three pay sorry three screen pay wall uh free trial you know when are going to, you know, when you’re going to get emailed, whatever. And then boom, you know, continue. And then there’s the biggest thing is the copy, the persuasion, the investments the user
takes up until that pay wall. So you can have these segments and then you can break these segments into how your users are moving through. And the best way of doing this is what I call handholding. your your users users they lack the context that we have for our apps, right? >> We assume 80% of the time we assume a you we are going to know what a user is going to do and and 80% of the time
we’re wrong. >> So that’s where that’s where frustrations come into because we’re blaming strategies in terms of like it’s it’s all about handholding. So for example like you have to look at your onboarding as a whole and then you break it down into segments. So you have your your information, you have your and everybody’s apps are different. You have information, you have um info collection, you have before and afters, you have when you use our app, when you
don’t or you know and stuff like that. Um, and most people know that data uh that when you invest users through all these questionnaires, there’s a higher chance of people converting because they’ve given you information and so forth. But, um, most people don’t understand that most users are only going to be on these screens for like 2 seconds. So, there’s literally almost nine out of 10 times it’s almost you’re doing too much work in design. Start simple and then you can kind of grow from there based on what you need in
terms of like most apps are and what I mean by the time element I’m huge on time because this is where you understand what customers are doing on that screen more than you’re going to understand that whole screen itself because most people are just going to change out the whole screen verse little elements. So, for example, like the the the the dismiss button. Once they hit a pay wall, we’re already going to subjectively already know we’re on a pay wall and we’re and when we see that X,
literally, if you’re able to know the time of your payw wall, you’re going to if you see if you have an X, chances are they’re there for 2 seconds, under 3 seconds. I’ve timed this literally probably over a million impressions have tested this and it’s increased. Uh, I actually have a tweet out there for this for the more details, but by moving that X by scrolling down in the payw wall, just moving it to the bottom increased, it increased the time on payw wall from like 2 and 1/2 seconds to 6 and 1 half 7
seconds. And then the inc the conversions increase basically jumped like five to 7% from where it was to to to the high and then you scale from there. It’s not just like that idea is going to make you 7%. That’s not how this works. you scale and you have to tweak little things. So, it’s when I go into this, it’s literally the it’s taking what you already have and tweaking it going into the color psychology of things. And this goes all into the onboarding. What I’ve noticed
is uh into the flow into the psychology element back into your question of the onboarding to the payw wall is the colors the and what I mean is like the pay walls literally nine out of 10 time I we’ll say eight out of 10 times the payw walls do not match the theme of the onboarding. It’s a completely just >> how important are the colors because I have a feeling that colors are overrated and there are so many more
things that we can adjust and are more important than the colors. Yes, at some point colors are going to matter, but >> it’s a great question. >> That um would you wear a hot pink shirt or would you change your hairstyle to red? >> I don’t know. I think that if I would have a hot pink shirt and I would have still provide good value on YouTube for example, people people would still watch me. So in my mind I think like I would work on how can I provide more value
other than like >> it’s a great question like color psychology that’s an actual like degree almost. Um, people can look this up. Just look into color psychology, mobile designs, color psychology. It’s really a big deal. However, it’s not a big deal outside of just your normal couple of dark tones and light tones. I’ll give you some basics here. Like the reds and yellows and oranges, like reds are
mainly for alerts. Yellows and oranges are move into that. Your blues and greens are going to convert better. You might have a nice blues and purples. These are all just statistical data. I’m just shooting what the internet’s going to tell you. Anyways, so this, you know, um I’m not held accountable for this, you know, this is like, but going back to your question, like I have someone with years of experience can quickly think of color a little faster. I’m not a designer. I’m not the design experience. Mine is like through color
variations through re like um through promotional colors and ads and people telling me that that won’t work. My colors won’t I’ve learned from hard experience from telling no I want black. That’s not going to work. >> So learning you know through the hard ways but it is a big deal but not really. Just a fun side note here. I remember on a feedback back from from the time when I was still doing freelancing from a client. His feedback
was, can you make the green more appetite making? I sat there like, how the would I do that? So yeah, here’s the other thing. Color and design are 100% subjective. And here’s the other thing. what we think is badass today, you know, in two months, six months or whatever, we’re going to want to change it, right? Like it’s this >> I think it’s subjective, but like when you put data behind it, like it becomes objective. Like if the goal is to
convert like the subjective opinion like I like this or not does not really matter like the question should be is this converting or not? >> In this case, yes. Yeah. Um, you know, >> unless you want to to win awards like for design or something like that. I don’t know if that’s your goal. >> So, there’s there goes back to I said like I wanted to bring up copy, right? So, copy is your biggest thing. >> Yeah. >> It’s everybody’s biggest thing. It I spend hours thinking of how, you know,
that’s my persuasion is my sales forte. Like that’s Yeah. >> Yeah. So, and we’ll move like color is a again it’s it’s a big deal but it’s like don’t have like green with with you know in terms of those types of styling keep in mind of those things your blends your gradients those kind of styles. >> Yeah. >> But going into the copy element short is better direct you know problem solving guilt you a lot of apps are too salesy
in their language. I most of the time I’m always bringing down the the the tone because there’s app life cycles of how language is spoken in apps including the app store. So there’s going to be a two for one here. So the language needs to be in the early apps life cycle. If you don’t have a th a million followers if you can’t get thousand downloads a day instantly then your language changes. You know, it’s like early on
the language needs to be more problem solving direct like you know like uh like my you know my app you know quit zen you know quit quit dip or quit zen tracker right but then it’s like later it’s going to move in and those are it’s search intent other you know and then also it’s all about the psychology element of triggering people to stop on the app store to see certain colors and various things you know and things you know stuff like that but um back to the copy in both sides is you cuz when your
company is growing, you become more responsible, more mature, and your language matures a little bit as well, too. You could stay the the hard way. Of course, it’s it’s not like there’s anything wrong with direct language or guilt trip language or things like that. The app has different life cycles at different segments depending on what your app is doing. And you know, you start with a core and then it’s something else, you know, something
else. So, >> yeah, perfect. What’s um what’s the next step? >> People are going to hate this, but it’s going to be great. Money, you know, don’t think about money and you will make more money if you think about how to maximize converting each screen and the action for what each user should and what you want them to do by handholding them for those actions. Then the byproduct of that is going to make you money times whatever you’re doing. If if
when you look back at the onboarding flow, you could look back at like how screen forcreen is doing. So it’s like where are you losing users, which you already know you’re losing 10%. But you know, it could just be a simple copy change. For example, like the buttons, right? Buttons are a big deal. like continue is your general is my kind of go-to if I don’t want to like if just a basic screen that doesn’t need a button like I know there’s going to be a 90% conversion on this screen continues
the word I use the payw wall is different we can talk all day about copy on payw wall that’s very dependent for me it’s dependent on I like to reintroduce what they’ve learned from the onboarding into the payw walls as well so for like it’s like let’s recap I like to think of kind of like pay walls as like a recap and then it’s kind of like a closing this and stuff. So it’s like all right well you you’re set up on this. So it’s like I understand we use remote pay walls and we can’t
necessarily transfer the data to these pay walls which would be amazing if we could because it’s like >> nowadays you can with custom variables like it’s it’s possible. >> Correct. I’m only saying I guess like really quickly. So yes, please correct me where I’m definitely wrong and that and it’s going to be where it’s seamless anyways. So I’m speaking a little I’m speaking a little pessimate. I know it’s going to be I’ll speak as it’s seamless regardless. So like we’ll be able to have that data on our payw wall which reaffirms the user what they’re doing
instead of a check mark unlock this you know it’s it’s like instead of you know that it’s like okay Maria or or you know or okay Mark or whatever it’s like let’s recap what we reviewed boom boom boom and then it’s like if you had the three payw wall thing it’s like you know here’s the free trial and so forth and then it’s like and then you we go deeper into the segmentation that we could do with targeting. All of them do the targeting where you can bring like you
know countries like Germany they love one price deals whatnot. So um you know and then you could test free trial or no free trial. Did you have a question on this because I want to jump into the price psychology as well on that too. No, it’s um the whole mindset of not focusing too much on the revenue but focusing on just improving and getting better improving your application every day. I think it’s something important
and something that I’m thinking about very often like recently because at one point when thinking about like northstar metric for the mobile application like I end up thinking that the northstar metric for a business should be like revenue or even like profitability like at the end of the day like a business purpose is to generate profit and that should be linked to to your northstar metric as well but at the same time I understand like this idea Yeah, like you’re not just hyperfocusing on like
revenue, like you’re focusing on how can I improve my stuff that later leads to revenue. And I’m doing this reflection with myself like often during my jiu-jitsu trainings. I started like less than one year ago. Like I’m still like super new like I’m a white belt and somewhere in my mind I’m thinking like when I’m going to get like the next uh stripe or the next belt, but then I’m stopping myself like no like you don’t need to think about that. You need to think about how can I improve myself and
the byproduct is going to be whatever outside think are like a belt or so on and I’m taking to compare this with my app business as well like how can I improve it how can I learn more about on boarding screens about how what experiment I can run how can I improve their retention or things like that but at the same time I still have to think about revenue because that’s the northstar metric so it’s always like that somewhere in between No, that’s Thanks for sharing, man. That’s awesome. That’s that’s awesome
because I’m actually I’m doing Mu Thai, so it’s like, you know, let’s let’s battle one. No, this [laughter] >> I’d be a white belt, too. But um but uh to add on to what you’re saying, like going into your uh jiu-jitsu jiu-jitsu, right? Correct me. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. So, it it’s thinking about the steps, right? Not the strategy. So, for example, if your coach is saying, “Oh, you’re not punching, you know, raise your elbow.” Right? So, okay, that’s the strategy, but how, right? So, you would
take like I don’t want to flex on my I’ll just show on my shirt, but like, okay, so it’s like, all right, well, I have a muscle here. I have a muscle here. And then this is how I think. This is how I’m thinking. And then it’s like, okay, so if the muscle Whoa. Okay, there we go. And then it’s like, all right, and then there. So that’s so the strategy is this but your step by step is like okay it’s like a golf swing you know it’s like the if you tilt your your
butt to you know all that whatever you know it’s like there’s endless golf tips and endless app tips they’re endless so it’s like but anyway you get what I’m saying now right the steps within that so >> yeah dividing things into steps and seeing like what you can improve the easiest and correct doing that day in and day out like every single day. >> Correct. And they’re byproduct >> and all of that. >> A lot of these things like they feel like it’s nothing. They feel small. They
feel insignificant. They feel that they’re not moving the needle. But when you stack them up over a year of daily improvements, small improvements, it adds up. And yeah, like in the end, like you look back, oh, their revenue actually grew by x10 in the last couple of months. Like that’s the other thing. We’re stuck in short-term thinking, right? You know, the world is in the Dunning Krueger effect right now. And it’s this like if we give ourselves more time and I’m a hypocrite here, by the way. I’m a we’re all like I’m a big
hypocrite cuz like some of this stuff I forget and I don’t do and then people call me out on it. It’s fine. But it’s like if we stop thinking in short span, oh, this idea is not going to work. This step won’t work. give it time just so you have official data because it’s like people do things too we all do things too prematurely for example like we might be testing a strategy and then it might be working and then it just tanks right but then we’re not thinking about the deeper side of things we’re not
looking we’re looking at the strategy well maybe that strategy ran during a holiday maybe that strategy ran during uh an event of something and so that data became skewed because of that it wasn’t the normal data we’re thinking and this goes into the this goes into my favorite demystifying effect like everybody loves the spikes right I love them too don’t get me wrong but I’m like I’m not excited about the spikes at all I’m just
like because it’s like because it’s going to it’s going to plateau and then it’s going to come down but then I look for where is it coming down and so forth. So, for example, like if it, you know, went up, let’s say I was making 100 MR, it goes up to 500 MR and then it tanks to 200 M 200 MR. So, I basically before that event, that’s 100%
uh jump, right? >> But we don’t think >> it feels so bad to see it go from 500. >> Oh, it feels so gut- wrenching, right? But in the long run, going back to what you said, in the long run, try dude. You have no idea how like it’s like it’s it’s all about thinking longer than a week. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So true. >> Yeah. Like uh you you basically described some of the things that I’m going through right now. I started recently and uh
um I’m also like looking like one day like there is a spike like it goes to 700 MR and I’m very happy then it goes back to 500. I’m sad and what I do is just I I put not like last 20 days I put last 90 days and then like oh all of a sudden it’s three times more like and I feel better and I move on. But I’m still working on trying to detach my feelings from the numbers. It’s hard. It’s always >> dude. I’m with you. I’m with you, man.
We can have a group together and we can rant together if you want. So [laughter] >> yeah, I’m pretty sure we’re not al alone checking revenue cut dashboard like [laughter] >> it’s cool. What what’s what do we have next? What do you say if I just share with you the on boarding of one of applications I recently launched? So we can talk you can talk a little bit about what’s give me some advice how to improve it because again >> yeah this will be uh I’ve never seen it before. Not just saying that he didn’t
pay me to say that. I swear to God I’ve never seen this before. So this will be a a hold me it hold me accountable for how this would be like a like a roast but obviously a roast isn’t insulting. It’s like you know the early >> educational feel free please roast it. So, um, here is the app. I think it’s the last app that I launched. Um, it’s I researched it on the on a keyword on the headshot AI and it basically
takes a selfie and turns it into a professional headshot that you can later put it in your CV or social media. So, here are some of the app screenshots and we can jump into the onboarding screen. That’s the welcome screen. And um here as soon as I press get started I’m creating like an anonymous user later on like when they connect their account I will also have a button here like uh do you already have an account sign in so the get started will
start the onboarding experience. >> Do you want me to jump in or would you like me to come in? >> Jump in. >> Okay. So first would you like me to do your app store really quick the the the first part or just the onboarding? >> Sure. Let’s uh start from the web app store >> just on these this top parts. We don’t have to go in anymore. So the icon So the icon is very just basic and simp. I mean it doesn’t really tell me what it’s doing. It’s just a woman but the icon’s pretty it’s realistic which is really cool. Like a lot of apps don’t do like
kind of these realistic things. Um, you know, uh, back in several years ago, Clubhouse, the audio thing, they were doing this like monthly black and white of a like actual photo of someone in the back like a city. So, it’s really really cool. Um, anyways, but into yours. So, like for example, like the first thing that could stand out that can actually make this like um thing would be like uh I know it’s not necessarily perfect like a camera camera app, but you could do
like the brackets, the four brackets on the corners >> and then that will just trigger. It’s all about the icon is all about uh triggering when people are scrolling. So, your first because you you you know your first five are obvious the app store is changing now. So we’re kind of, you know, we have like ad more ads. So things are changing now, but basically I’ll I’ll bring it up to like the first 10, >> but you know, and it’s like that. So brackets on that as a first thing and
and whatnot. And then maybe like I that’s the first quick the uh uh screenshots. >> Yeah, thank you. Definitely the the where icon like can have a lot of improvement. Here’s I’ll finish up on the icon. Most people don’t AB test icons. It’s super easy to test icons. You just add in Xcode. Just add multiple different app icons and then just add a file with the others and then you can But here’s
the beauty of this though. Just because you have app icons doesn’t mean users need to see those app app icons. You could just have them in your binary and then you could go AB test these icons on your um pop pages. Did you >> uh on the custom product pages? >> The product optimization pages. >> The most people that’s so when you create your treatments there’s the the the
phone and the small screen big screen and then there’s app icons. It’s literally a lot of peel. It’s very doesn’t blend in very well, so it’s very hard to see. Um, that’s when you It only shows if you have multiple icons in your files. >> Okay, that’s something new. >> Yeah. So, uh, and what I’m suggesting here is you could test a different color background for that icon, like a yellow or red or >> some purples and whatnot. And then you’ll see your data. You could just run
AB testing on your icons and so forth. >> You just run an AB test like on different icons, right? Yeah. Um I I’m a little outdated here. I believe the user of the I think it’s now they see they get the icon that they that they got. It used to go it used to flip back to the original and I believe now it’s always now their um >> okay >> alternate. Yeah, >> I I will look into that because that’s really really powerful. I was thinking
like how would they be test icons and I I always thought like I just need to change it wait for some time and then just compare data. Uh but if it can be done better at the same time like with a proper AB testing like I I I have a lot of experiments to to run. Thank you very much. >> Like it’s great with like for you you could test multiple different women right like or men or men or a group or something. It’s a head shot myself. >> You’re not nonrealistic like as a proper icon to see like the
Yeah. Or the mascot, right? Everybody wants a mascot nowadays. >> Yeah. Perfect. >> I don’t think that’s in every app, but Okay. And then your uh screenshots. Uh headshot AI doesn’t really stand out to me. Um selfie to professional headshot stands out a lot better than headshot AI. So you could do um you know, depending how you would structure it. For example, like this this goes into the copy psychology effect of like uh selfie to professional or you keep it
self like how many words on one word or sorry one line and then and so forth. You you have size does the top size look better than the small and then these little things are little triggers of what get people to stop and look at your your screenshots and so forth. >> Okay. Um >> and the screenshot AB testing would be done with uh the custom pages. >> No, the propag again the product optimization pages. So c so the two are do you know you know to the the custom
is is external sent in and then product Apple shows it to percentages based on what you selected in your treatments. >> Okay. Okay. Perfect. >> Uh this one I like. Uh you’re just copying. So keep in mind now, right, Apple does a uh they read screenshots now. So you want uh you would like to have more >> search intent type of framing um actual like um pain points with solving points.
And these could all be said in two, three, four, four words or so. I was trying to fill in here some keywords that I have like in um that I researched and professional headshot is one of the keywords. So that’s why it’s here. Uh ah no. Oh wow. You got all of them. I mean it do it like you’re you’re there’s a difference to for example this goes into the app life cycle. So, let’s say this app was getting a thousand downloads a day
and you change out I mean you never change out always go okay rule of thumb with screenshots never just do them in your updates go through pop always go through pop you usually get them approved within an hour or two and they don’t hurt you against rejections of your updates with if it’s just a screenshot issue because then you got to change everything. Yeah. >> Um this one like the five stars doesn’t tell me much. you could tone this up a little bit more with like social proof or something like that.
It’s hard to to have social to put social proof when it’s a new app, but yeah, I’m always trying to be very safe here. Like trying >> That was the first thing that came to mind because I’m not very I I don’t break rules, you know. I touch boundaries of course, but I don’t I’m not the guy I don’t put number one on all my new ads. I don’t do any of that. But um but uh go to the next one. And this is kind of the the idea for the rest of them.
Maybe not this one. >> Oh, that was [laughter] >> Hey, in my new app, I have a video and it’s a me in there and it’s and it’s AI and it’s it it works, but it’s hilarious. >> Yeah. [gasps] Anyway, uh let’s uh let’s go into the on boardings. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> This is the first screen. Shows a little bit before and after. >> Yeah. I mean, it works like for a quick. Now, remember people, we’re thinking time here. So, you could do something like maybe a a quick 5-second video or
something because if you’re trying to or if you don’t care about the screen as much, then it’s perfectly fine. Get them through. In this case, you would want doesn’t the before. Is the before an AI photo? I mean, yes, probably as a developer, but like But but but what I’m getting at though is like maybe instead of like that it could be like um
uh oh I had it on my I lost my train of thought there. I apologize. >> Mean to to show like a bigger difference because the before now looks also good. >> It’s like how do I know that that’s like it’s it’s >> or more >> or a camera roll? Maybe a camera roll or like uh like uh man this is a I had the perfect I just lost my train of thought though because it’s like oh I know what you could do here. this first screen you need to invest users, right? So, it’s like see the mic. Okay, you’re just information. You could be like um learn
how it works. The the the copy is not right, but you could be like um go from this and then you and then maybe like uh maybe one screen or two screens. You could break it up into two screens if you want. And it’s like the you got to show more of the reality of the before. Mhm. >> It’s like it think of the user in terms of like uh not just in this part just all on boarding. It’s like think of the user in terms of like if I didn’t know
about this app and I’m using it for the first time what would I complain about or what would I need to know >> now like that I’m brainstorming here with you like um I think the user is not coming here to change a photo. the user is coming here because it’s a professional headshot AI and so on is to improve their LinkedIn presence or something like that and I could go back into showing like a LinkedIn header maybe without like the the logos logos
and so on with some icon like zero connection zero if people are trying to get a job job invitations and then like the after would be a professional headshot with like 99 job invitation or something like that. So that’s the transformation. It’s not like the photo. It’s like actually what you want. >> You gave me a perfect idea. It’s something like have a photo of someone taking their photo on a couch or on the beach and then the next photo is the app or something and then or this and then it show and then it’s like an arrow and
then it shows uh that photo and then that photo shows an arrow into documents or CV or something and other things like that and that gives that tells the story of you know beginning to you know end so Yeah, that’s true. Thank you very much. You gave me some ideas. The next one, this one, uh, some social proof probably have it here because it’s, uh, what? >> No, your generations are kind of social
proof too, other than reviews and so forth, too. >> Yeah, >> here probably this screen like doesn’t do much like it’s a bit informational. So this is where we go into the flow flow thing. For example, like uh and remind me on notifications too here. This would be great. Um this screen we want to uh the camera’s a requirement. So it’s going to so it’s like this this analogy
of like if something’s required don’t sell it, force it. So what I mean by that is like it’s like for example like you have good terminology copy. Let’s create your first head shot. Boom. The camera prompt from Apple pops up. So instead of all this information so instead of the you can have some of this information uh summarized and on top. So then you have you remove the icon. You remove the icon and then you would put
the copy on the top and then you would put two bullet points or whatever and then you would uh and then it’s all black from there. What or white from there. No let’s go button and then you would have a uh >> chevron. No a chevron. Oh yeah, the popup, the apple pop up, but then the chevron that does the that’s what’s weird, the allow, the animation of a chevron that that that points to the allow because you need to psych you need
to trigger them into doing what you need them to do, which is the handholding element of doing that. And then what I like to do is combine notifications with this. This goes along with uh other things, not just camera. This can go along with different types of things that you could combine notific because notifications is the most wrongful way of ask it’s getting better overall generally but like in terms of like it just triggers in a lot of apps it just happens and I think that’s the the worst
way of getting your conversions because no notifications is going to be your initial initial retention everything it everything so what I would do here in this case maybe would be like if you have it doesn’t matter if you Now I’ll just tell but like then the next screen would be like notifications. So for example like um I’ll tell two different examples here in this one. It’s like you uh cuz you uh
uh if yeah if you get uh if you have the same screen the copy the stuff and then the the prompt happens they hit allow all that changes is just the some of the copy and then the notification prompt comes up the same chevron animation and these are it’s the copy has to be they’re not cheating or there’s nothing manipulation or anything. We want to conver
uh notification uh conversions of course. >> Yeah. >> When we and when we partner it with like items, it’s just generally easier to convert that way >> because like for the next screen, so for that copy, it would be like for this first, you know, let’s create a first head shot. Boom, the camera. And then the next one would be like um uh uh processing. It could be things like um get get alerts for pro for when processing’s finished or for whatever.
You don’t want to oversell it if you’re because you can oversell every single fe every single screen and that’s where you can that’s where a lot of drop off happens. Drop off is going to happen no matter what. There’s no perfect thing like people are going to realize halfway through that this isn’t the app for them. So um and then uh the second one I’ll finish here is what I did in some apps was um the I had a camera and then the next screen would be different but
here’s how I would um do this. So I would have uh the copy would be very persuasive like um when do you start you know let’s when do you start your day and then I would have a toggle two toggles and then two times am pm the it’s classic. So if any of these toggles are on and they hit continue that triggers the the pro if triggers the notification prompt. If any
of the two toggles are off or sorry, if both toggles are off, the prompt doesn’t trigger, they go to the next screen because then you save the Apple call from >> Yeah. >> requesting the notification. >> Yeah. For later. >> I I got to stress this point because you only get so many a year just like the ratings and reviews. >> Yeah. >> Um because if you if they hit don’t allow you have to they have to go to settings. So you it’s almost a
requirement that you need to add that into your app in terms of like the back end. So if they trigger notification if they hit don’t allow and on on board it and then they trigger it later >> uh uh >> you have to >> you can program it you could code it to where they go to settings >> and to do that there. I I saw some amazing uh like an experience an app did
that was like mind-blowing to me like not only did they redirect like the easiest way is just to educate like just text go to settings enable this do that the next step would be to redirect automatically to the settings. What they did is they created a picturein picture view with instructions and they redirected to to the settings and I could still see the application as a popup over the settings telling me what I have to do and it was like whoa that’s really cool taking it to the next
Yeah. like it’s like picture books right when we were younger it’s like >> we get excited on how kind [laughter] but that’s just settings but >> Okay. Yeah. So here the next screen uh for me is a bit of a quiz. Um a lot of this is AI generated. This is basically gender but um with different wording >> here you just make them big. Just make
four big two big cards and then you put neutral on the middle and the center. >> Yeah. And without continue. That’s a good point. Yeah. >> Yeah. Without the Now I have to press. Yeah. There you go. That’s good. Uh here like what’s your primary goal? And yeah, like if I select LinkedIn, I would probably I don’t need that. Continue >> that. The screen has Yeah, this screen works. I like it. >> Um this is a little bit explanation of how it works or advice on to do it better.
This one I would do more like things that I mean you have the works and don’t works but you could do things like adding like definitely a lot more maybe like four or five on the top of like do this don’t do that >> stuff like just more more examples basically saying that >> okay and the next one is select photos I don’t >> you have professional photo head shot showing as dues have like some like real
life stuff too like like if you know if if I took a photo like this and it works like you can have that. So >> what do you mean here? >> Yeah, like those top ones are professional head shot too which gives Oh, so I have to have these head shot. I can’t have one just from a white wall back like you know have a wall passport photo. [laughter] >> Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. Like the this this was like vibe coded the screens to be honest. So, I didn’t grab
the images, but that’s that’s a good point. Like, >> we’re all in the we’re all in the closet for Visor. >> Yeah. So, yeah, for example, I would select one of my photos, a selfie. I I could select like more of them, but at least >> that’s perfect, man. I like that. >> Generate. This is like a loading screen. >> I’m going guess there’s a payw wall after this. No. >> Uh, one more screen and then a pay wall. Yeah. >> Yeah. probably like >> probably here like uh as you were giving me suggestions of notifications probably
here I would put it something like hey we we are working on it >> uh meanwhile like enable notification like and we’ll let you know but in that case like if we if you say it this way we might leave right away so I would like them to >> in terms of like investing the user I was talking about earlier right like you’re investing the user Like you don’t necessarily have to have like 10 of them. You can have your cost down and do like five and then you can add like a
glowing layer. >> I’m only generating one. >> Okay, cool. Cool. >> You got you beat me on that one. >> Is this illegal? >> It’s It’s No, it’s like we’re on a a black hat show. Anyway, uh but I do like this and going back to what I was saying in terms of like you can you’re investing the user from like you’re giving them the feeling of what they’re going to use your app for and a photo of them is obviously the most
gut-wrenching pain like positive thing. So in terms of the you said the pay wall is next so don’t go next yet but like uh and your button here actually could change as well too. Um, but like what I was getting at is like you can turn this onboarding into that investment segmenty stuff like you can have this like you can be like in the beginning you can do this in by turn by screen three or something like that. Um because you could do like the you could have the
screen one and two is quick info and then you have the camera which you kind of do but then it’s like >> um you could basically the what led up to this was like four screens. I think you could cut all that down to like two screens >> into that element. Two is what I’m getting at. And then you creating I got to think way deeper here which I not going to happen but like this uh you could go yeah you just create that investment to where you’re hooking them
early because there the the statistics are a photo is going to generate a lot more conversions when things happen um if things are in place of course. Uh, but to finish on this, like the button like unlock all 12 photos you could do like is it 12? Is it all? Is it just 12 or is there more or what? >> Have 12. >> What I’m getting at like you instead of 12, you could be like, yeah, you could do 12 plus. I always say like I always
like or you could do 11 plus. I I always take the number um that I always had because then it and I put plus next to it because then I don’t have to keep changing it all the time. >> Um until later until there’s like a lot more, you know, like till it’s like 20. Uh in terms of like you could just make you could also instead of the lock symbol like these are very like psych psychological not red flags of course, but like they
like oh I got to pay. It’s like they’re they they’re leading up into the drop offs. So it’s like you’re you’re you you got them with so for example in term I’m rambling here and I’ll finish here is like maybe instead of of this screen showing all 12 you could just show the one just show that one and then the button could be like see all 12 or something like that. >> Mhm. or something and then you’re instead of like because you’re you’re
already locking them in visually here and unlocking with the word right the copies all psych psychology here so if they just saw one that first one which you saw and then it’s like the button could be like you could have some info on here uh some feature stuff like edit or I don’t know but like editing or or unlimited changes or something like that or whatever and then the buttons like see see all you know see all headsh shot styles or something like that and then
it moves on. It could it doesn’t have to move into the it’s going to move into the payw wall now but like and that’s fine to start and then you can kind of scale and see and so forth and I think that will increase your conversions just to the payw wall alone. >> Okay. Okay. That’s uh that’s good. I’m still like I would have to maybe test this but in my opinion like psychology wise like seeing things that are locked or like maybe the log symbol like can go away but seeing the blurred things will
trigger things in the person’s brain like I need to see all of them something like that >> so you can do no it’s a great great uh >> counter is good like I want to see what >> No it’s a great that’s a great counter cuz It’s like you could do something like you can do the like a a bigger card and then you can uh have So you do the card and then you have the blurred cards behind it but like poking out a little
bit. >> Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Something like that. >> Okay. >> So, I’m just shooting stuff out of my head like right away like Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you you you’re triggering little things because you the main focus uh is is that or you can have or you can have two examples and you know, one the this one is the main one and then another real one behind it and then a blurry and then another blurry like maybe four or five blurry ones after that. So, two or something like that. >> Okay. Yeah, I see. I see. So the goal is
to put more emphasis on a generated photo because it’s them and they like themsel hopefully. >> And >> and you don’t need the lock either. You could just have blurry photo like you could have this uh this controversial. It’s it’s not controversial. Sorry, wrong word. It’s it’s like intriguing curiosity. Curiosity will lead you to all sales or conversions to screen by screen because if you just This is all sales 101 here. If you just shoot all your ammo on screens one, two, and
three, you’re all you’re done. You have to save certain elements and copy and persuasion at key points within your onboarding and payw wall and so forth because if you do too much or too little, >> then you’re going to, you know, that’s where you lose them or whatever. So, >> okay, perfect. So, moving on to the payw wall. Let’s see. It’s trash. I mean it’s your it’s a basic one
super basic. Yeah. >> So in terms of like this element uh you could bring in the user’s photo again and then their uh their before and their after. >> Okay. >> That will that already alone is right there. Um and then you’re you remove the sales terminology like unlock. Uh it’s like like yearly and weekly. Uh for me I um
I do yearly and weekly depending on the app but most of the time it’s weird and I usually recommend all my clients as well yearly week but it also depends on the app. I don’t say that stuff though. I say like explore 10 plus or you know I explore the app and then the app’s premium name and then I do like uh like yearly it would be like um yearly it depends really though like I’ll um sometimes it would be it really
depends like it’ be like I’ll either put like um [sighs] I can’t think of something in the second like no payment due or something like that or and then cuz the price has to be the biggest point, right? Or else it gets rejected. You know, it’s Apple and then and then that’s on the other side. And then the I like what you’re doing here in terms of the um with the green thing, but the white you probably change that to dark. I think the dark with the the
90% off. Yeah, >> it’s hard to read. >> But I’m also looking at like a computer screen versus my phone, so it’s a little different there. Um but yeah, you’re missing you could use a lot of generic just your simple [sighs] like uh man like the before and after and then you would offer like the investments of like what they if you have a bigger onboarding you could throw in the terminology they use. You want to rehash, you want to remember what I said
in the beginning, like you want to reiterate the sa closing the sale is reiterating what they’re already doing. It’s not reselling new stuff. It’s not uh >> they’re they’re it’s and remember they’re only on the payw wall for they’ve already made their decision in two seconds when they see the payw wall. >> Yeah. >> So when you remove the X, you either remove the X. So I’ve done other different variations of a dismiss. I’m
not a hard payw wall guy depending on what I’m doing. Just depends really really I’m very app dependent more than than strategy dependent. So >> or flow dependent founder dependent. Anyways um the X dismiss could move to the bottom row. So, the restore purchases terms and privacy or whatever. You could do like uh uh the app name and then basic or something like that. Like I put 10 basic or something like that
for my actually like I would even try a part pay wall here because it has like costs to it and as you can see I’m not even offering like the three days free trial on the weekly which I usually do but here I decided like let’s not do that. So yeah, there is not a lot of premium stuff to be honest like >> you’re absolutely >> if you close this one >> in that case like oh this is going to this is going to trigger people you can have ads for free users you know so like if you so for
example like if when they generate before it generates watch ad to generate and so forth and you know that’s your free version and then but you but you’re right though you can’t just have AI go endless right because your bill that’s crazy So like you can have the hard payw wall and but the language has to be persuasive. You have there’s a lot of things but if if you have no choice then go hard payw wall. >> All right. Yeah. There is a lot of things to test here and I’ve got a lot
of um of ideas here. Yeah. >> And then I would have a I advocate to having a screen for when they convert either a free trial. So the biggest drop so free trials like 70% drop off you know almost uh >> right like I think the revenue cats up state of subscription ups we’re saying that around like 50% or even more of uh free trials they are canceled on day
zero like instantly >> it dep of course it depends on the app too so we’ll go 50 to 70 which is substantially a lot and until The biggest thing that will help this will be Apple’s retention thing when all apps can start using that. But right now, the biggest great thing that I’ve been using is like a screen that’s like you a thank you screen basically for after they’re converting. This is going to reiterate the benefits that they’re getting the
features. It’s going to be like I use words that trigger people that do things subconsciously. Like, don’t get me wrong, I’m gonna cancel a trial 5 seconds after subscribing to some apps just to use it for a minute. I get that. That’s going to happen all the time. In terms of this thank you screen, I use terminology like before you cancel >> or things like not before you can. It depends. That’s a little too direct. It’s because it’s like we’re assuming they’re cancelling. So, we don’t necessarily use that. But um but in
terms of like instead of cancelling here or you could say you want to use the word cancel, but you got to use in a subtle way that’s not directly calling them out for anything. And then like I said, the benefit screen for all the the you know, thank you for becoming a plus user, whatever. Here’s what you’re going to get. Look forward to these and that and so forth. And yeah, probably if you time it also with some emails like that’s it’s a topic that I haven’t explored yet, but I think it should be
huge >> and not triggers like >> notifications for emails. notifications. The the beauty of notifications how and going back to it. That’s right. Because going back to the getting notifications approved early is the biggest way retention. Like I have apps that are just sitting dead or whatever, you know, zero to five downloads a day or whatever just organ just sitting there. Um, but there’s but they have like four to 10
average app users a day because of retention from notifications. And I’ve learned this way back years ago on why that that’s how I stand why are people still using it but the app doesn’t get any downloads and then I figured out it was notifications because they’re they’re getting reminded about that like it’s a journal app and then I had like another app that something that was doing that so and and whatnot but um yeah >> perfect yeah uh right after this call
I’m going to go ahead and implement some of these things in the app and I will let you know how how it performs. That was a lot. That was super valuable. >> It was actually a lot >> for me. And >> I’m sorry. >> That was a lot. Just commenting on that. Yeah. >> Yeah. But it was super valuable. So, thank you. Thank you very much, Mark. >> I have one quick tip for everybody to finish off if that’s all right. So, it’s app updates. So, app updates. There’s you need to segment your app updates into three different categories because
it’s going to drive first. Apple loves updates. not necessarily every day or anything, but I aim for one update a week and then I segment into three. One is going to be an app store connect update, which of course you have to have a new build for that and that’s fine. Don’t worry about pushing an app. The whole point of an ASC update is just for ASC. Push a build with it. It’s not about the app. And then the next segment is your small updates. This is going to be your app. And this is going to be bugs and performance and things like
that and just little maybe small easy features or whatnot. And then you’re going to have your big update, which is your large updates. And these are going to include nominations. These are going to include events. These are going to include everything. You want to run an event. I’ve got two tips now. You want to run an event every single month. And you want to have an event pre month ahead in advance. and then throw the nomination on top of that behind it after you submit the event because then Apple needs that three plus week layover because then you if you’re doing this
every single month there’s a much higher statistical advantage than zero that you will be I mean it’s like 1% chance that you’ll ever be featured but it’s better than 0% let’s put it that way so and I’ve had apps do this before so and that get featured even if it’s just like a a one day thing. >> Perfect. Thank you very much. Actually, like all of these things that you share just now is something new to me. I haven’t tried like events and stuff like that. So, that might even be a topic for
for another podcast. So, if you’d like to learn more about that, let me know in the comments. Perfect. Mark, thank you very much for this. Is there anything else on your mind you want to share? I know that you prepare so much more. We we had like so much more to to talk about, but maybe we can do >> really like it’s think think harder on the strategies that you’re copying. Really think reverse engineer them and pick apart just pick apart strategies.
Don’t take the strategy for granted. Pick apart strategies on what you like about that part and try that in your own apps and AB tests of course. And then I post some strategies on my ex and Twitter. You can find me on Mark Live on X. >> That’s what I wanted to ask you. If people want to learn more from you where they can find it and you just share that, right? >> Yeah. >> Mark’s Twitter. Here it is.
No, they got my fat photo, man. What is going [laughter] >> Yeah. So, I’m very behind the scenes. I’m not a front and center type person. And I’m a I I work uh all my su all my clients success or their success. I don’t take credit for a lot of things. So it’s kind of I’m like a ninja behind the scenes on a lot of apps. And so if anybody wants to talk or work with me, I’m open to chat, free chat, free talk,
but obviously not to work with me, but let me know. So we’ll see uh interested and go from there. You can find me. Yeah. Mark live on X. >> Thank you very much, Mark. That was amazing. Hopefully we’ll see you again in future and thank you everyone for watching this. Let me know some takeaways from this video that you got and that you apply to your applications and let me know also who else you would like us to invite to have a chat about app development. Thank you for listening. Subscribe to wherever it’s
possible and I’ll catch with you later. They’re