00:03interesting and always fun to see is
00:06sometimes there's these big acquisition
00:08moments that aren't at all orchestrated
00:10by the company but orchestrated by the
00:12user base and they're almost their own
00:14kind of special form of Word of Mouth
00:16but at like massive scale one of the top
00:19apps this year was called Talking Ben
00:21the Dog which is a kids educational
00:24science game where you're taking care of
00:27this fluffy dog and you can ask him
00:29questions about science and do
00:31experiments with him but it went viral
00:34after this YouTuber with 15 million
00:36subscribers an adult YouTuber started
00:39making videos of himself trying to
00:41debate really serious topics with Ben
00:44and then of course it turned into a meme
00:47and everyone else made their own videos
00:48about it and then this the app was
00:51Suddenly at number one again after being
00:53released you know years and years ago by
00:55by an app Studio who made it for a
00:57completely different use case than than
00:59where it actually took off I know the
01:01users have a mind of Their Own the other
01:03story I like was shared by your sister
01:05which was this boating app right there
01:08was a a girl whose father had created
01:10this boating app and then there's this
01:13clip of him at a conference where he's
01:15trying to get people to download the app
01:17and quite frankly it was really sad or
01:19it sparked that emotion and it just said
01:24please help my dad's boating app or
01:26something like that a really really
01:27short video as you said on Tick Tock
01:29which seems to be a place where people
01:31are getting these viral hits and I think
01:34it hit number seven or something in the
01:36app store which maybe people are like oh
01:38number seven is not that high but again
01:40you said to hit number one all of these
01:43are social apps General Mass marketed
01:46apps and they require a hundred thousand
01:48downloads so that's still a lot of
01:50downloads in a day a lot of downloads
01:52and it illustrates just the pure
01:54difficulty of getting to number one
01:56because her Tick Tock had more than 20
01:59million views and then she made several
02:02follow-up videos that also had hundreds
02:04of thousands if not millions of views so
02:07if that can't even hit you know number
02:09one for the day then it kind of just
02:10puts into context uh how much of a
02:13challenge it can be there have been some
02:15other apps which as you said did not hit
02:16number one but still really hit some
02:19traction and I want to talk about the
02:20different categories outside of social
02:22that saw some movement in 2022 so what
02:27were some of those categories that we
02:28saw outside of social there were two or
02:30three kind of themes that to me
02:32dominated the apps at the top this year
02:34and two of them were actually what I see
02:37is Tech shifts or Tech progress that
02:39enable new consumer Behavior so one big
02:42example of that is widgets we saw a
02:45couple of widget apps at at the top at
02:47some point mostly in summer 2022 and
02:51these kind of exploded after Apple made
02:53a change to iOS 16 that allowed users to
02:56put widgets on their home screen of
02:58their phone and also on their lock
03:00screen of their phone so you didn't even
03:01have to unlock the phone and you could
03:02see what popped up on a widget so then
03:05there was a group of new companies noted
03:07for example as one where you could send
03:09little notes to your significant other
03:11or little drawings locket widget was
03:13probably the first one to explode in in
03:15January and then was followed by live-in
03:18widgetable a bunch of other apps that
03:20really capitalized on this kind of not a
03:23full platform shift but kind of a maybe
03:26an operating shift system shift by Apple
03:28that allowed for this
03:30another big Tech shift that became a
03:34trend in top apps was AI of course of
03:37course and that came as mostly in the
03:39fall when models like stable diffusion
03:43became available to fully build into
03:46mobile apps and create experiences where
03:48you didn't have to have your own AI
03:50model as a developer but you could still
03:52allow people to kind of spin up
03:54beautiful art or avatars we saw those
03:56apps basically dominate The Late Q3
03:59early Q4 top charts and the last theme
04:02is actually not at all unique to 2022 in
04:06my opinion but is kind of Evergreen
04:08which is anonymous social apps we see
04:11these pop up pretty consistently every
04:14year when I was a teenager it was like
04:16honesty box on Facebook and then ask FM
04:21gas app was of course probably the best
04:24example of this for 2022. Nikita the
04:26founder just sold the Discord and he
04:29actually developed a very similar app
04:31back in 2016 2017 that he sold to
04:34Facebook that also hit number one for a
04:36while so I think the big lesson there is
04:38like the fomo poll especially for
04:41teenagers of what are my friends saying
04:43about me is very very hard to resist
04:45it's so true and I can think of so many
04:47apps from when I was growing up that
04:50were really successful for a period of
04:51time and then you've seen iterations of
04:53them since and to your point like Nikita
04:55literally just copied what worked before
04:58what he sold to Facebook before and then
05:01repurposed it created gas and has not
05:03had another acquisition so I mean maybe
05:07this is a silly question but is that
05:08worth doing as in if you're if there's a
05:11Founder out there or potential founder
05:12should they just be combing through
05:14previous successful apps like a Yik Yak
05:17for example and just creating the Yik
05:19Yak of 2023 because we've seen mean how
05:23effective they can be and how also kind
05:26of Evergreen they are because there's
05:28these like innate human emotions like
05:30gas up to be complemented or be real to
05:34like to be understood right there's like
05:36these fundamental human emotions that
05:38don't change across Generations I feel
05:41like a consistent debate in the tech
05:42world of like who's gonna build the
05:45first Anonymous social app that has like
05:47true staying power and becomes a billion
05:50dollar company on its own there's
05:52already in 2023 a new app that just
05:55raised a seed round that hit number one
05:57in Germany it's called slay very similar
06:00to gas app and TBH so another example of
06:03kind of best friend playing out I think
06:06there's I mean and Nikita himself has
06:08said this there's always going to be a
06:10question of um these apps that are based
06:12around kind of anonymous uh networks can
06:16you really build like a lasting social
06:18network because people aren't really
06:20storing relationships on the the app
06:22they're not really communicating or
06:24direct messaging through the app so they
06:26get very popular very very fast if
06:29there's no maybe Act 2 of the app like
06:31if there's no what's next then they can
06:34also kind of decline very very fast as
06:36that core dense group of people that
06:39joined unravels a little bit more and
06:41moves on to the next thing I also wonder
06:43we've talked already about this
06:45phenomena where it seems like people are
06:47cycling through apps more quickly and if
06:49that really is an underlying
06:51foundational trend is there maybe an
06:54argument to say like you don't need to
06:56last very long and really the goal is to
06:58create some sort of viral sensation but
07:01also build monetization in from the
07:03get-go I mean gas I feel like is is a
07:05good example of this I think Nikita has
07:07publicly said that they made millions of
07:10dollars in the several months where they
07:13were trending prior to the acquisition
07:15and so ignore the acquisition if someone
07:17a Founder built a successful social app
07:20that trended even for a few months and
07:21made several million dollars like I
07:23would say that's a success it's not a
07:25Fang level success where you go on to be
07:27multi-billion dollar company but I think
07:30maybe would you say there's an argument
07:32to people focusing more on that given
07:34the state of the App Store
07:36oh absolutely I think it all comes down
07:39to what you as a Founder are wanting to
07:40build and I think the opportunity maybe
07:43has never been greater to build and
07:45monetize a mobile app quickly make a few
07:48million dollars and retire if that's
07:50what you want to do uh clearly Nikita is
07:53still building so he's not at the
07:55retirement Point yet um but I think his
07:57one of his last tweets about the app
07:59before the acquisition said they had had
08:01like 10 million downloads and 6 million
08:04in Revenue which is just amazing there
08:06used to be this kind of Paradigm and
08:08consumer where the goal was to build an
08:11app get it to the mainstream get it to
08:13Facebook level Instagram level Millions
08:15if not hundreds of millions of users and
08:18then you would monetize people through
08:20ads like the user kind of becomes the
08:22product and now I'm I've been trying to
08:25pinpoint exactly what it is I think it's
08:27a mix of like Apple pay and Google pay
08:29adoption and saturation people getting
08:32more comfortable making purchases online
08:35maybe it's the younger Generation
08:38Um who is you know happy and feels safe
08:41buying something on their phone versus
08:42my parents generation is still like
08:45suspicious of venmo and thinks their
08:47money is going to get stolen every time
08:50um but we are seeing many more apps get
08:52big and make money at the same time and
08:55at an early stage in their life lenza is
08:58another really good example of this
08:59which was a number another number one
09:02from late 2022 they are an AI Avatar
09:05company and some of the external app
09:07data estimates say that they made you
09:10know upwards of 20 million dollars in a
09:13couple weeks getting people to buy a
09:15pack of avatars for eight dollars I
09:18certainly participated in that I did too
09:20it's hard to resist if you see everyone
09:22else posting them on Twitter and it
09:24seems like a fairly minor payment at the
09:26time I think lensa is an interesting one
09:30um because you then want to say like
09:31what's the next Act of the company is
09:34the goal to get people to give you money
09:35once and then they get all all the value
09:37out of the product and leave lenza has
09:40been Smart in that they're constantly
09:41releasing new Styles new packs new
09:44avatars they did dog avatars for the
09:47first time a few weeks ago which I
09:49bought so I think once you're on
09:50someone's phone and can send them
09:52notifications there is a potential to
09:54kind of continue to capitalize on that
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