How I missed to get 250.000 downloads and 3 million in funding

Almost two years ago I pitched to my company and some friends an idea I had and even did blog about the idea last year. The idea was kind of simple but maybe good after all. We are many times somewhere shopping for something and don't really know if we should buy it or not. We could read reviews but they are mostly written from people we don't know. Usually we get influenced by friends, we ask them and if they say it is a great pants, tool or toy we will buy. I don't know how many people I converted to iPads. But mostly they bought it not because everybody says it is a cool device, but because their friends (mostly me) told them it is cool.

Therefore I came up with the idea of "Help me Choose". An app which allows you to make a picture and then send to your friends. They can then put thumbs up or down.

Since last year there are a few apps with a similar idea. One app is called Got try it on but right now limited to clothes. The founders just secured 3 Million in funding.
Users upload a photo or use a Webcam to show an outfit and solicit advice from other users. The service, which is one of several trying to make online shopping more social, started last year, and so far 250,000 people have downloaded the app and commented on outfits 10 million times. Most of the users are young women, and 30 percent live abroad.

It is a free app and still limited. The app has yet no revenue stream but the founders are talking about similar approach as I wrote. Like letting brands pay for allowing to give better info about the product. I want to see if they as well will come up with the point system I had in mind to engage users to use the app and to vote.





I think this is the future of social and I am mad with myself that I did not brought my idea to life.

I don't see a FB anymore necessary as a social platform it is more like tons of little social apps working independent of each other but maybe connected to FB, Google+ and twitter. Got try it on is limited to people who are member to to website and have the app. I would recommend to this company to extend it to FB, google+ and twitter. To allow to get from more "real friends" feedback. And the app should open it's niche to electronics and other retail products. Having a good revenue idea can make this app big and eventual replace reviews, which I never trusted.


Here is my blog from September last year http://www.new-kid-on-the-blog.com/2010/09/friends-are-more-important-than.html. Got Try it on started April 2010 a few months before I wrote my blog, however i has the concept already written in 2009. But clearly my fault. I did not execute and must see now how much funding i could have gotten and how many people would use the service.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad. Please follow me @schlotz69

Location:Spinning Wheel Ln,Brooksville,United States

The game is on. Zynga's IPO filing

Zynga filed on Friday IPO and in their filing are some interesting points.

Despite their high revenue in Q1 this year ($235 million) the net revenue is only $12 million. most of the costs went into R&D, cost of revenue (shares to FB) and Sales and Marketing. Zynga has 232 million active users and makes most of its money with virtual goods.






Reading through the filing makes it clear that Zynga's highest risk is the relationship to Facebook. Most players are playing through the Facebook platform and buying there virtual goods for Farmville etc. FB gets a 30% share of these virtual goods revenue.

Facebook is critical for Zynga and Zynga is critical for Facebook. The planned IPO ($1 billion) could help Zynga to build a stronger network outside from FB.

Zynga is less than four years old. Their first game on FB was poker. Since then Zynga did build games like Faemville and Fontierville. Mark Pincus (one of the Zynga founders) had founded three other companies before he started Zynga. The most famous one was tribe.net one of the first social networks. Zynga got from beginning $29 million in VC. Since then Zynga got hundreds of million of more VC and has been many months with their games on FB leading the top 10 apps on FB.

In July 2011 it had 3 games in the top 10.




In December 2010, Zynga did hold 6 of 10 top games see my blog.




In June 2009 only 2 games.





All images from allfacebook.com.

Zynga is still leading developer on FB but the MAUs (MAUs is the number of individuals who played a particular game during a 30-day period, as recorded by our internal analytics systems.) are declining.

And Zynga is not anymore in the top fast growing apps.





Is the filing maybe coming to late, where many people prefer to play angry birds or prefer to play outside of FB?

I don't think so, as long Zynga will work on building a network which can be without
FB and if Zynga is bringing out new games. Which might be not too hard. Zynga did acquire at least 11 companies in the last twelve months (XPD in Beijing, Challenge Games in Austin, Unoh Games in Tokyo, Conduit Labs in Boston, Dextrose AG in Frankfurt, Bonfire Studios in Dallas, Newtoy in McKinney, Texas; Flock team; Area/Code in New York, and Floodgate Entertainment, MarketZero).

Making most of the money with virtual goods is risky, it is just money from the consumer. But I believe VG will be even stronger and a part of our live in the future.

Zynga has now over 2000 employees which I believe is just ok, but they should not hire much more. I don't see really a need for more employees at a gaming platform or game producer. More people will water down the quality. Which means you need much more people to get to the same result as a few, which increases the costs extremely.

I still believe Zynga is a good buy and we all should consider to get some stocks. But if Zynga keeps staying so close connected to FB or is relying on FB and they don't come up with some more different types of games then we should sell within 12 months. Otherwise Zynga could have a chance to be the next Electronic Arts for social and mobile gaming.

- Posted using BlogPress, please follow me on twitter @schlotz69

Location:Spinning Wheel Ln,Brooksville,United States