The Billion Dollar App

An accessible, step-by-step guide to building an app-based business—essential reading for anyone who has an idea for an app, but is unsure of where to start Apps have changed the way we communicate, shop, play, interact, and travel, and their phenomenal popularity has presented possibly the biggest business opportunity in history. InHow to Build a Billion Dollar App, serial tech entrepreneur George Berkowski—one of the minds behind the internationally successful taxi hailing app Hailo—gives you exclusive access to the secrets behind the success of the select group of apps that have achieved billion-dollar success. Berkowski draws exclusively on the inside stories of the billion-dollar app club members, including Instagram, Whatsapp, Snapchat, Candy Crush, Square, Viber, Clash of Clans, Angry Birds, Uber, and Flipboard to provide all the information you need to create your own spectacularly successful mobile business. He guides you through each step, from an idea scribbled on the back of an envelope, through to finding a cofounder, building a team, attracting (and keeping) millions of users, all the way through to juggling the pressures of being CEO of a billion-dollar company (and still staying ahead of the competition). If you've ever dreamed of quitting your nine to five job to launch your own company or you're a gifted developer, seasoned entrepreneur, or just intrigued by mobile technology, How to Build a Billion Dollar App will show you what itreally takes to create your own billion-dollar, mobile business.

Did you know that 2019 marked the first time in history that people spent more time on their phones than watching TV? The Billion Dollar App tells the story of the apps that have led to this seismic cultural transition. It covers the past decade of the app industry, examining its greatest triumphs and most dramatic failures to explore what makes an app a billion-dollar success. The key to success consists of nine principles, which answer fundamental questions such as: Why did a video-sharing app like Vine fail, while the extremely similar TikTok is thriving? How did "Let's take an Uber" and "Just Venmo me" seamlessly enter our collective lexicon? How did Spotify revolutionize an industry while you've probably never heard of the app Rdio? How do free apps make money while paid apps don't, and why doesn't monetization have one-size-fits-all solutions? But really, we're answering a broader question: How do you make an app that effectively stands out in a crowded field? This book includes no technical jargon, no holier-than-thou lingo - just straightforward discussions. Whether you're a seasoned tech enthusiast or simply curious about the nature of this thriving industry, this book is for you.

George Berkowski, serial entrepreneur and one of the minds behind the internationally successful taxi hailing app Hailo, is the expert on mobile apps. In this free digital ebook companion to How To Build a Billion Dollar App, he includes an outline of the entire book and the chapters from step 1 of the journey, 'Building and Founding a Team', 'Validating Your Product' and 'Raising Seed Funding'. Through his experience, research and insights, readers will receive the beginning they need to start creating their very own Billion Dollar app!

Whether you're just starting out or already a Fortune 500 giant, App Secrets is for you. App Secrets will show you how to: - Turn Your App Idea into a Million-Dollar Reality - Build Your App Business from the Ground Up and Love What You Do - Escape Your 9-to-5 Job and Live the Life of Your Dreams - Impact the Lives of Millions Across the World - And Lots More... All of the most successful apps, including Candy Crush, Instagram, Airbnb, Uber, and Snapchat incorporate the same fundamental traits. These elements are made easy to understand in what Sean Casto calls "App Secrets," to drive breakout success and achieve explosive growth. App Secrets uncovers how you can use these same strategies that today's fastest growing apps use to create your own Million Dollar or even a Billion Dollar app. You'll discover why some die and others succeed so you can avoid big mistakes and develop big winners. You will learn, step-by-step, highly successful methodologies, including: "Skyrocket Downloads Method" - Discover how apps DOUBLE, TRIPLE, or even 10X downloads through strategic organic marketing initiatives. This same method mastered by Flyp and TagFi can turn an app into a global phenomenon. "Viral App Blueprint"- Learn the specific blueprint of how today's smartest apps like Pokemon Go and Uber go viral and become instantly adopted by Millions. "Addiction Framework" - Discover the framework championed by Candy Crush and Snapchat to get people addicted to using your app every day, and making it indispensable.

”This book is your chance to learn from others’ mistakes.”-- Entrepreneur In the 1960s, IBM CEO Tom Watson called an executive into his office after his venture lost $10 million. The man assumed he was being fired. Watson told him, “Fired? Hell, I spent $10 million educating you. I just want to be sure you learned the right lessons.” There are thousands of books about successful companies but virtually none about the lessons to be learned from those that crash and burn. Now Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui draw on research into more than 750 flameouts to reveal the seven biggest reasons for business failure.

Super Founders uses a data-driven approach to understand what really differentiates billion-dollar startups from the rest—revealing that nearly everything we thought was true about them is false! Ali Tamaseb has spent thousands of hours manually amassing what may be the largest dataset ever collected on startups, comparing billion-dollar startups with those that failed to become one—30,000 data points on nearly every factor: number of competitors, market size, the founder’s age, his or her university’s ranking, quality of investors, fundraising time, and many, many more. And what he found looked far different than expected. Just to mention a few: Most unicorn founders had no industry experience; There's no disadvantage to being a solo founder or to being a non-technical CEO; Less than 15% went through any kind of accelerator program; Over half had strong competitors when starting--being first to market with an idea does not actually matter. You will also hear the stories of the early days of billion-dollar startups first-hand. The book includes exclusive interviews with the founders/investors of Zoom, Instacart, PayPal, Nest, Github, Flatiron Health, Kite Pharma, Facebook, Stripe, Airbnb, YouTube, LinkedIn, Lyft, DoorDash, Coinbase, and Square, venture capital investors like Elad Gil, Peter Thiel, Alfred Lin from Sequoia Capital and Keith Rabois of Founders Fund, as well as previously untold stories about the early days of ByteDance (TikTok), WhatsApp, Dropbox, Discord, DiDi, Flipkart, Instagram, Careem, Peloton, and SpaceX. Packed with counterintuitive insights and inside stories from people who have built massively successful companies, Super Founders is a paradigm-shifting and actionable guide for entrepreneurs, investors, and anyone interested in what makes a startup successful.

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO BUILDING AN APP-BASED BUSINESS 'A must read for anyone who wants to start a mobile app business' Riccardo Zacconi, founder and CEO King Digital (maker of Candy Crush Saga) 'A fascinating deep dive into the world of billion-dollar apps. Essential reading for anyone trying to build the next must-have app' Michael Acton Smith, Founder and CEO, Mind Candy Apps have changed the way we communicate, shop, play, interact and travel and their phenomenal popularity has presented possibly the biggest business opportunity in history. In How to Build a Billion Dollar App, serial tech entrepreneur George Berkowski gives you exclusive access to the secrets behind the success of the select group of apps that have achieved billion-dollar success. Berkowski draws exclusively on the inside stories of the billion-dollar app club members, including Instagram, Whatsapp, Snapchat, Candy Crush and Uber to provide all the information you need to create your own spectacularly successful mobile business. He guides you through each step, from an idea scribbled on the back of an envelope, through to finding a cofounder, building a team, attracting (and keeping) millions of users, all the way through to juggling the pressures of being CEO of a billion-dollar company (and still staying ahead of the competition). If you've ever dreamed of quitting your nine to five job to launch your own company, you're a gifted developer, seasoned entrepreneur or just intrigued by mobile technology, How to Build a Billion Dollar App will show you what it really takes to create your own billion-dollar, mobile business.

"In the grand tradition of Ben Mezrich's The Accidental Billionaires (2009)... an engaging look into a fascinating subculture of millions." —Booklist "Breezy...How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars ably if uncritically chronicles the short history of a young company catering to young users, with a young chief executive, and reveals, intentionally or not, the limitations that come with that combination." —Wall Street Journal The improbable and exhilarating story of the rise of Snapchat from a frat boy fantasy to a multi-billion dollar internet unicorn that has dramatically changed the way we communicate. In 2013 Evan Spiegel, the brash CEO of the social network Snapchat, and his co-founder Bobby Murphy stunned the press when they walked away from a three-billion-dollar offer from Facebook: how could an app teenagers use to text dirty photos dream of a higher valuation? Was this hubris, or genius? In How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars, tech journalist Billy Gallagher takes us inside the rise of one of Silicon Valley's hottest start-ups. Snapchat developed from a simple wish for disappearing pictures as Stanford junior Reggie Brown nursed regrets about photos he had sent. After an epic feud between best friends, Brown lost his stake in the company, while Spiegel has gone on to make a name for himself as a visionary—if ruthless—CEO worth billions, linked to celebrities like Taylor Swift and his wife, Miranda Kerr. A fellow Stanford undergrad and fraternity brother of the company’s founding trio, Gallagher has covered Snapchat from the start. He brings unique access to a company Bloomberg Business called “a cipher in the Silicon Valley technology community.” Gallagher offers insight into challenges Snapchat faces as it transitions from a playful app to one of the tech industry’s preeminent public companies. In the tradition of great business narratives, How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars offers the definitive account of a company whose goal is no less than to remake the future of entertainment.