This was posted by Tamzin Taylor (Head of Google Play Partnerships in Western Europe).
Today I’m excited to announce that we are launching the second episode of Google Play Coffee breaks. Ravi Teja Akondi (co-founder, CEO and founder of iMumz) joined me for a virtual cup of coffee. iMumz helps expecting mothers and their new babies to be mindful and practice well-being during early parenthood. Ravi, along with his team, recently graduated Appscale Academy. The initiative is aimed at helping promising Indian start-ups grow to global enterprises. It’s great to see their continued growth and to hear them share tips and learnings they picked up along the way.
Check out the complete Coffee Breaks Episode and my thoughts below.
The iMumz team created the app to assist expecting parents in living a healthy lifestyle. They encourage them to be mindful every day. It supports parents in ensuring their wellbeing during pregnancy. The app covers 270 days and 2 years. This app is helping over 600,000.
Ravi recalled that the iMumz team used to send out useful insights via a messaging app back in the early days. To help people learn more about pregnancy and parenthood, they created small daily routines. They were able track the retention and completion rates of the completed tasks and realized that their business was truly valuable. This gave them the confidence to expand the service from being a text messaging platform to becoming a fully mobile-friendly application.
A sustainable business is possible
The first task for the iMumz group was to build a network of early adopters. The team discovered that early adopters were most likely to be in Tier 1 cities, which are the major cities of India. They learned how crucial it was to adjust their pricing for different audiences as they reached more parents. To understand the different price points of their audiences, experimentation was essential. You should remember that you will not only get valuable data from your experiments but you also have the opportunity to receive invaluable feedback via written and direct feedback. Closed testing groups can be set up easily in the Play Console. This feedback won’t affect your star rating.
Your app community should be nurtured
iMumz discovered that future parents wanted to be connected with other like-minded people through experimentation and user feedback. The team soon realized the importance of a community for those who use their app. People were keen to find others who are going through similar experiences. The team created community spaces that allowed them to start discussions about specific topics, such as breastfeeding and baby-led nursing. The community is a place that allows important conversations to develop naturally and gives iMumz members another layer of peer support. Their community today is lively with over 5,000 conversations happening every day.
When it comes to building out a community it’s important that your messaging to users feels genuine and authentic. This is especially true for iMumz as the app addresses a delicate and significant set of parents’ life events. As with all messages, it is crucial to keep the message relevant and current. For example, consider the time of day when determining the best time to post new content, updates, or sending push notifications, and remember different time zones when you’re dealing with a global audience. It can also help you to create a person or character that is relatable to the audience.
Ravi shared with us two important insights that he believes made the most difference in the development of his app.
1) Experiment. There are so many ideas you might find counterintuitive – don’t automatically discount any or jump to conclusions until you test them. Be data driven. You’ll be able to provide greater value and faster.
2) Narrow down what you’re working on, so you Focus on just one challenge or task at a given time. Although you might feel tempted to do too much at once, it will be more effective to focus on a few things.
Where does the future take us?
It was such a pleasure to speak to Ravi about his experiences and I can’t wait to see iMumz’s continued growth and next steps. It is inspiring to talk with developers of apps such as iMumz and it inspires me and my team members to keep investing in new initiatives, like Appscale Academy.
We look forward to learning from other businesses and seeing what your all come up with next. Keep watching for Coffee Breaks’ next episode.
- Tamzin Taylor Head of Play Partnerships Western Europe
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