hello everyone marco montemagno here
good tech alchemist and today i’m so
happy and there’s you plays super sunny
in UK for these tech alchemist episode
and here with me i guess that i really
like because in the last period i’ve
been talking a lot with people and every
two seconds someone say hey you using
banjo you using banjul and in beginning
i was thinking about you know some
playing or something and then I
understood no punches the new pot app or
mobile so I started figure out and I was
so lucky to meet Chris the set here with
us at the last the web so Chris thanks
for being here without today great DVD
marker thanks for inviting me yeah so we
basically would love to understand more
on one side orders Lee about banjo but
on the other side to steal your
experience and share your experience
with the tech alchemist audience to
understand better what’s happening in
the mobile ward the international market
and so several topics first of all in 20
seconds I’m the worst interviewer in
saying the perfect title of the gas you
know like the Vice executive president
and there are vitals that there are so
long but you are executive by pressing a
thing for banjo I am executive vice
president for banjo well that really
means is that I do everything that’s not
code and product alright so I look are
you have repeated activities it in
bungee you love simplicity because also
the title was short I got a guest I
don’t remember for ABI IBM or Oracle it
took me three minutes to say all the
title log so great and your experience I
mean ok now you work in Banja but I
remember a few years ago probably it
wasn’t a web conference or something
like that you were there with a great
company everyone talking about startled
or something like that yeah that’s right
so recently I joined banjo six months
ago from style style which is a social
media platform predominantly web-based
all those moving very quickly to mobile
happens to be the biggest digital
platform for teen and tween girls in the
world over 200 million registered users
around the world but before that I spent
at the best part of 15 years working in
media and technology companies I’m old
enough to have worked in in magazines
and newspapers but that we would
pay for paper every day you’ll get real
real baby food products so you can turn
pages and read in the bar and that kind
of stuff so and then I was part of a
early-stage digital advertising agency
called traffic interactive which is part
of the video group and then I got into
startups so a long long experience and
how was the migration maybe before to
begin how I was both koreas about how
was to the shift between web I’m the PC
era to mobile where you ventures only on
mobile basically to the yeah yeah by
religion yeah it’s very interesting it’s
completely mobile-centric mobile native
if you like and you know there are some
big differences not least how you how
you discover mobile applications
discover mobile platforms is quite
different from how you we we do that on
the web so therefore the way that we
market these platforms is different
mobile and discovery is quite different
from from web discovery but of course
there are lots of similarities and
certainly as I said that the transition
that stardoll was going through and that
pretty much every other web platform is
through now going from web to mobile
helped make my transition a little
smoother and more seamlessly with
otherwise beads I’d already been focused
on mobile platforms and mobile marketing
mobile monetization at start also but
it’s interesting it’s it’s certainly you
know that every indication every metric
and that we see suggest that that shift
from web to mobile is accelerating and
what continues to do so this year and I
mean just a question iphone or android
you’re gonna get the market because i
always keep on this discussion to have
this discussion I thinking I don’t know
any tele most of the time people say I
find the most importand everything in
his own iPhone and I think good but
Android is really hold the market what’s
your perception about it yeah well
obviously banjos an application which is
available on both on Android and Apple
so that we’re interestingly almost 5050
between the two and though it is now
slightly yet slightly ahead but
certainly we develop in a very simplest
way for both of those both of those
platforms so when we launched a new
version of the product we launched it at
the same time on iTunes and on google
play and we see differences from from
market to market banjos a global product
global platform and there are markets
where androids ahead markets in Asia for
example where and riders ahead but again
there are markets in like the US and
Western Europe where where iphone is
ahead so it’s um you know I think it’s
too early to Tori to call we’re royally
and when good astray to to bandit
understand exactly what is it and what’s
the difference with other mobile app but
the only thinking was the first time
that someone started to talk to me about
banjo I immediately thought oh gosh
another geolocation app and I was
thinking well
I have no time for another geolocation
app we know for transonic that started
to use it and I thought gosh this is
super cool because it’s not another
geolocation up but it’s got the ability
to collect all the data coming from all
the social networks and telling me
exactly what what’s going on around me
so it was something totally different in
my mind is it friday is the direction
bunnies getting yeah absolutely from
from day one we sent out to get to solve
the 0 user problem as we call it which
which effectively is asking everybody to
create an entire new social network from
scratch we didn’t want to present our
our target audience I user base with
that challenge so we provided a platform
where we were already indexing and
presenting and personalizing data from
the major social networks from facebook
twitter instagram Foursquare and
LinkedIn and uniting if you like that
social graph and presenting it as I say
in real time and in a location-specific
fashion so that people could get value
from the platform from day one they
didn’t need to add all add a whole new
set of friends in order to get value
from the platform even if they didn’t
know a single person who was on banjo
they got value from it because they
could see the content the geo location
content on banjo that their friends are
posted by our Facebook Twitter Instagram
for etc so that was really important to
us and yeah as you so like me now I
really like their losses I thought yeah
i think is a very smart approach any as
a killing tip for everyone running or
willing to running an online business
because in the end the 0 users problem
is a huge problem maybe you start with a
great project but then you have no users
so when you go out maybe prone to an
ambassador and say i have brandy this
project but then you have no user so if
you can collect all the data obviously
it’s good but to do this I guess you
need a gray
architecture infrastructure technical
you know background because otherwise is
very difficult to proceed all this big
data and so on it is it right yes
absolutely yes one percent right
wherever an engineering focused company
we we think of ourselves and we believe
we’re very much a technology company
rather than an appt company although the
manifestation of banjo today is an
application on on Android and hand on
Apple but certainly we are a technology
company and we have in our office in
Palo Alto over 20 25 people of whom over
20 our engineers in fact there any two
people working on the business side of
our of our company of which of which I
am one and the team is in my opinion
seconds and on in terms of what they’re
what they’ve been able to do in the
space of a year and a half building a
platform which is which is right now up
to we’re indexing 430 odd million
individuals across the social graph and
growing incredibly quickly and what we
built and how we enabled each individual
to receive a personalized geo specific
real-time view on what’s going on both
around them and their immediate vicinity
but I on the other side of the world is
is pretty impressive from a technology
point of view but what you more than the
two long as you got it right yeah yeah I
got it well what what you think is the
most interesting thing that a user can
do with banjo what why you would say
okay this feature this activity you can
do it with banjo you can you can do it
with a negative Facebook call for a 94
square up or whatever is yes yeah I
think I think the most useful
part of the platform is quite simply
that we allow people to see what’s going
on across the world whether that’s
around the corner from them in London
where I am right now or on the other
side of the world in palo alto
california or tokyo japan through the
lens of their friends and their
connections through the social lens of
their of their friend groups and that is
super useful for a number of reasons of
course there is the opportunity to
connect with people on a daily basis if
they’re nearby and you might not have
known that they were nearby without
banjo telling you without banjo
notifying you that there’s a friend with
whichever network at my big who’s nearby
to you but just as importantly it’s the
opportunity to see what’s going on
somewhere else in the world and that
might be someone that you’re about to go
to if I’m jumping on a plane to New York
I want to know who’s in New York which
are my friends are there what
interesting things are happening there
what’s about to happen there but also
just in terms of staying in touch with
geo political news and events we see
that news organizations such as CNN and
Fox and others are using banjo to search
for this band is not just a social
discovery tool it’s also a search tool
we have a search when the only right
forum where you can actually search by
location and find real time geo ensured
information whatever you want to go in
the world so news organizations are
using badger to find out what’s going on
for example at the end of last year in
Cairo entire square or in Gaza or more
even and business news when the iphone
when the iphone 5 launched fox used
banjo to go to different store locations
around the world to see what the
reaction from individuals was as to the
to the launch of that new like that new
products and all of that is it is
impossible to do without badges so it’s
a very unique come yeah could we see
Chris that if I think about businesses
around the ward and I think how
businesses are trying now to use the
Twitter feed to intercept some requests
or from consumer so I give an example if
I am in travel industry and have a hotel
and I try to search for Twitter and
tweet about where’s the hotel in
Brighton in UK and then if I’m running a
hotel in Brighton I can immediately
answer and say I here is my hotel and
this is maybe a discount but we buns you
probably this thing will explode because
I can go in New York and I can say okay
I in New York I want to search what
people are looking for or the topic not
only for one social networker for all
the social networks and then I can start
a conversation with them and try to sell
my products or services I think yeah
absolutely and I think I think you’ve
hit on a really important point which is
the win with unifying where we’re fusing
those social networks to create a much
larger opportunity for brands and an
opportunity which is by its very nature
geo specific so too of course Twitter’s
a fantastic tool and
you know we all use it on on a regular
basis but it’s not all geo-located a
proportion of the last bits of food that
you see is with everything that you see
on banjo is geo specific so if you’re
looking for may hotels you saying
Brighton and that hotel is interested in
engaging and creating a community around
its brand then by definition Banjos the
best place to find people in a specific
place and and engage with them on an
ongoing basis yeah let’s talk for a
second about growth so for business
growing obviously is very very important
to scale in the tech war with everyone
talked about scaling but the big
question is how can you really growth in
a such a crowded environment which is
today the online business or mobile
business so from your experience of the
growth hacking this is also another bus
word that is going very strong in this
period what are the main tips that you
could share with us about growth hacking
how can you speed up your growth what
would you do what would you recommend
yeah I think the first thing which we
talked about already Marco is solving
one way or the other 20 use a problem
and really creating momentum around your
around your platform the way that we did
that was to immediately present the
visitor the prospective user with a
solution which would give them value
from day one through having that broad
social graph and that right availability
of friends and connections but beyond
that I think one of the other things
that we we’ve done which is possibly a
typical for Silicon Valley startups in
there very early stages was to
internationalize to localize
the platform we’re now in 12 different
languages and you know from day one we
were already translating into into a
variety of different languages and that
is certainly helped growth across across
the world banjo was a global product
from from day one we have in a
significant traction in now see in the
US are home market but also in Western
Europe and some fast-growing emerging
markets in Latin America Asia as well so
that’s certainly one way to it’s a hack
hack growth if you like and then like
thirdly I think listening and listening
to community iterating as fast as
possible which again thanks to the
engineering team that we have a banjo we
were able to do fantastic in Berlin
fantastically fast but listening to the
community responding to how they’re
using the product and responding to to
what they’re telling us we’ve got a huge
amount of research over a thousand
different focus groups and interviews in
the year and a half but we’ve we’ve been
operating and certainly that that’s
helped that’s up to develop a product
which they love and you know certainly
that’s healthy the ratings that we
receive and therefore the features that
we’ve been fortunate enough to have
through both Google Play and iTunes we
were featured twice on both of those
platforms as their app of the week in
2012 and just recently both Google and
Apple included us in their apps of 2012
so I don’t think they would have done
that if we hadn’t received your kind of
ratings that we have from from from the
community where a five-star rated a pond
that on on iTunes and about four and a
half on yeah
crazy you’ve been speaking about very
important topic which is international
internet internationalization and
translations most of the time this is
really I don’t know how you say in
English a pain in the ass because it’s
really a horrible and very expensive and
tough to do is any smart way to do it I
mean I so recently jingle which is a
platform for translation or I don’t know
bubble burst that translate for events
but so which is the right way to go if
you want to translate your platforming I
don’t know 20 languages are you doing
yeah so we we have again before CH
enough to have a pretty international
team not an international team of
translators an international team of
engineers and the other guys which helps
us to have a point of view and if you
like an openness to to translating and
localizing plan but certainly I think
there’s a particular secret i think we
you know we have been comfortable with
putting the first translation out to the
community and having the community tell
us if there are things that they you
know they think that we should modify or
amanda in the language that we’re using
obviously for example Portuguese in
Brazil is very different from brush
Beason in Portugal our community is far
bigger in Brazil and then that it is
important or by definition again is a
much bigger being a country big
opportunity but you know it’s just one
example where we’re prepared to put out
at first version yeah a correct version
of yeah in Portuguese until they simply
to the feedback any specific platform
that you’ve been using for for doing
this translation task or not no just no
just a just a local firm in in Silicon
Valley so
all right out of topic I still on you’ve
been talking about being on top of App
Store and Google Play which is obviously
very difficult any tips to be on top
because there are a gazillion apps today
so how can you be on top if you it is
any I don’t know specific activity that
you show in this period that really
works very well obviously having a great
app and a great community disease either
the fundamentals but any particular
things that you think could work well to
rank high yeah I think again long term I
think having a very clear brand
proposition help certainly when it comes
to search on on both both app stores and
having a very you know quite a
difference in terms of certainly your
name can help as well but I think
there’s no real there may be some dark
arts to this but as far as we’re
concerned is much more about just making
sure that you respond to the you know to
the community and and give them more of
what they’re asking for for example you
know when we launch personalized places
which today on banjo you are presented
with a range of cities across the world
where your friends are and where your
friends are posting at any one time and
that’s the kind of really popular part
of our platform and that that we focused
on that in the back end of last year and
then again
really given us some so momentum in
terms of usage and that was all around
the reason that we you know we took the
decision to move that forward in the
roadmap which was simply but the
community told us to do that so I think
you know if we’re doing maybe a boring
answer to your question but if we’re
doing the right things and improving the
product in the right ways and we will we
will be rated continuously highly and if
we get rated highly that’s when Apple
and Google yeah tend to take notice and
tend to tend to feature those apps but
and that are getting consistently I
ratings and that and that they like and
that they feel are doing something
different from the rest of the markup
which you know for me that’s you know
that’s another important fact that you
know you meant want at the start the the
things that we do differently and one of
the most important things that we do
differently in the location world is
that we don’t just index or try to help
you find people next to you people
around you then kilometer around you
wherever you are in Brighton we’re also
focused very much on the there in
location because we think that the very
location the rest of the world which is
an a cometer away from you now is a much
harder harder technology challenged to
solve well there’s a much greater reward
for most people because there is much
more like that dynamic there are many
more changes going on in there than
there are in the hair and it therefore
becomes a much more interesting
interesting part of our user experience
so Chris what we let the next in Mobile
because this is the not as a trend but
that you think okay 2013 probably mobile
this will be the direction because this
is what you feel is what you just
described as the more you know an easier
way to discover what is all around or
something you have something more there
yeah I think I think increasing you some
you
location services to to help us discover
and to help us make sense of the
proliferation of data and just just
content social and otherwise across the
across the web across the mobile web
using location to help us make more
sense of that to help us if you like
make it more relevant give it
perspective I think is going to be an
increasing trend liking people are going
to start creating more geotagged content
they’re already creating huge amounts of
Geo type photo content and of course
people have been using maps forever but
I think people are going to start
participating in in in a much more
frequent fashion with location-based
technology a good example of that which
isn’t banjo would be the the app Waze
the traffic app Waze where you can you
can circumvent the jams and get to where
you’re going quicker by you know by but
by using that ban app which is which is
also user-generated content at its and
its core so
the value that it has without people
creating our posting location updates on
on a very frequent basis right I think
that’s one trend that we see I think you
know I think that a lot of the
innovation is going to continue to come
from man from mobile internet companies
also than perhaps and handset
manufacturers carriers but i think that
the meeting of minds there is going to
be it’s going to be interesting you know
arguably some of the kind of the
smartphone is going to get smarter
clearly that’s you know again man joe is
part of is part of that way part of that
friends in as much as we see a future
for our product and we’re not talking
years away with talking months away
where banjo will help you will help you
to find the interesting things in your
life and to help you or to help you
avoid missing out on things that you
would really want to know about by
surfacing those things through your
knowing your social graph name your
interests knowing what’s um what’s
valuable to you and instead of you
having to pull that information out of a
search engine like Google banjo will
actually if you like push that
information to you in a much more
seamless and serendipitous way so that’s
that’s a big big future trend which i
think is going to start to have an
impact in 2013 alright critter just a
last question that I after every fact
Alchemist guests I’m always curious
about the top 3 s that they have on
their phone or the best three tools that
they use every day and they say oh gosh
I just discovered this tool and I can’t
live without it or it is a poor website
or whatever is that is digital so I was
wondering what are your top three if any
that you would recommend and you suggest
yeah well well but I’m driving i
mentioned ways i think that’s a
fantastic a
and when i’m not driving which is most
of the time I I cycle back and back and
forth to the city and a spike Lee which
is you know very very useful and a whole
bunch of other apps were recycling and
raised my mother you a poor mikey likely
finally locating yeah and so those those
are two and again because I cycle a lot
and I am obsessed to a certain degree
with the weather and combining turnovo
it’s gonna rain on the way way into work
or back I use the Met Office app which
is probably one you haven’t heard of but
met office which is the UK government
weather service so met office mdg yeah
all right super cool all right Chris
that um thank you so much really the
good luck for for banjo I will keep on
checking and I’m sure will be an
exciting 2013 thank you so much guys
from tech alchemist community just go
download the app and let me know your
feedback thank you so much Chris and
keep in touch for everything thanks Marcos great fun Cheers right
good tech alchemist and today i’m so
happy and there’s you plays super sunny
in UK for these tech alchemist episode
and here with me i guess that i really
like because in the last period i’ve
been talking a lot with people and every
two seconds someone say hey you using
banjo you using banjul and in beginning
i was thinking about you know some
playing or something and then I
understood no punches the new pot app or
mobile so I started figure out and I was
so lucky to meet Chris the set here with
us at the last the web so Chris thanks
for being here without today great DVD
marker thanks for inviting me yeah so we
basically would love to understand more
on one side orders Lee about banjo but
on the other side to steal your
experience and share your experience
with the tech alchemist audience to
understand better what’s happening in
the mobile ward the international market
and so several topics first of all in 20
seconds I’m the worst interviewer in
saying the perfect title of the gas you
know like the Vice executive president
and there are vitals that there are so
long but you are executive by pressing a
thing for banjo I am executive vice
president for banjo well that really
means is that I do everything that’s not
code and product alright so I look are
you have repeated activities it in
bungee you love simplicity because also
the title was short I got a guest I
don’t remember for ABI IBM or Oracle it
took me three minutes to say all the
title log so great and your experience I
mean ok now you work in Banja but I
remember a few years ago probably it
wasn’t a web conference or something
like that you were there with a great
company everyone talking about startled
or something like that yeah that’s right
so recently I joined banjo six months
ago from style style which is a social
media platform predominantly web-based
all those moving very quickly to mobile
happens to be the biggest digital
platform for teen and tween girls in the
world over 200 million registered users
around the world but before that I spent
at the best part of 15 years working in
media and technology companies I’m old
enough to have worked in in magazines
and newspapers but that we would
pay for paper every day you’ll get real
real baby food products so you can turn
pages and read in the bar and that kind
of stuff so and then I was part of a
early-stage digital advertising agency
called traffic interactive which is part
of the video group and then I got into
startups so a long long experience and
how was the migration maybe before to
begin how I was both koreas about how
was to the shift between web I’m the PC
era to mobile where you ventures only on
mobile basically to the yeah yeah by
religion yeah it’s very interesting it’s
completely mobile-centric mobile native
if you like and you know there are some
big differences not least how you how
you discover mobile applications
discover mobile platforms is quite
different from how you we we do that on
the web so therefore the way that we
market these platforms is different
mobile and discovery is quite different
from from web discovery but of course
there are lots of similarities and
certainly as I said that the transition
that stardoll was going through and that
pretty much every other web platform is
through now going from web to mobile
helped make my transition a little
smoother and more seamlessly with
otherwise beads I’d already been focused
on mobile platforms and mobile marketing
mobile monetization at start also but
it’s interesting it’s it’s certainly you
know that every indication every metric
and that we see suggest that that shift
from web to mobile is accelerating and
what continues to do so this year and I
mean just a question iphone or android
you’re gonna get the market because i
always keep on this discussion to have
this discussion I thinking I don’t know
any tele most of the time people say I
find the most importand everything in
his own iPhone and I think good but
Android is really hold the market what’s
your perception about it yeah well
obviously banjos an application which is
available on both on Android and Apple
so that we’re interestingly almost 5050
between the two and though it is now
slightly yet slightly ahead but
certainly we develop in a very simplest
way for both of those both of those
platforms so when we launched a new
version of the product we launched it at
the same time on iTunes and on google
play and we see differences from from
market to market banjos a global product
global platform and there are markets
where androids ahead markets in Asia for
example where and riders ahead but again
there are markets in like the US and
Western Europe where where iphone is
ahead so it’s um you know I think it’s
too early to Tori to call we’re royally
and when good astray to to bandit
understand exactly what is it and what’s
the difference with other mobile app but
the only thinking was the first time
that someone started to talk to me about
banjo I immediately thought oh gosh
another geolocation app and I was
thinking well
I have no time for another geolocation
app we know for transonic that started
to use it and I thought gosh this is
super cool because it’s not another
geolocation up but it’s got the ability
to collect all the data coming from all
the social networks and telling me
exactly what what’s going on around me
so it was something totally different in
my mind is it friday is the direction
bunnies getting yeah absolutely from
from day one we sent out to get to solve
the 0 user problem as we call it which
which effectively is asking everybody to
create an entire new social network from
scratch we didn’t want to present our
our target audience I user base with
that challenge so we provided a platform
where we were already indexing and
presenting and personalizing data from
the major social networks from facebook
twitter instagram Foursquare and
LinkedIn and uniting if you like that
social graph and presenting it as I say
in real time and in a location-specific
fashion so that people could get value
from the platform from day one they
didn’t need to add all add a whole new
set of friends in order to get value
from the platform even if they didn’t
know a single person who was on banjo
they got value from it because they
could see the content the geo location
content on banjo that their friends are
posted by our Facebook Twitter Instagram
for etc so that was really important to
us and yeah as you so like me now I
really like their losses I thought yeah
i think is a very smart approach any as
a killing tip for everyone running or
willing to running an online business
because in the end the 0 users problem
is a huge problem maybe you start with a
great project but then you have no users
so when you go out maybe prone to an
ambassador and say i have brandy this
project but then you have no user so if
you can collect all the data obviously
it’s good but to do this I guess you
need a gray
architecture infrastructure technical
you know background because otherwise is
very difficult to proceed all this big
data and so on it is it right yes
absolutely yes one percent right
wherever an engineering focused company
we we think of ourselves and we believe
we’re very much a technology company
rather than an appt company although the
manifestation of banjo today is an
application on on Android and hand on
Apple but certainly we are a technology
company and we have in our office in
Palo Alto over 20 25 people of whom over
20 our engineers in fact there any two
people working on the business side of
our of our company of which of which I
am one and the team is in my opinion
seconds and on in terms of what they’re
what they’ve been able to do in the
space of a year and a half building a
platform which is which is right now up
to we’re indexing 430 odd million
individuals across the social graph and
growing incredibly quickly and what we
built and how we enabled each individual
to receive a personalized geo specific
real-time view on what’s going on both
around them and their immediate vicinity
but I on the other side of the world is
is pretty impressive from a technology
point of view but what you more than the
two long as you got it right yeah yeah I
got it well what what you think is the
most interesting thing that a user can
do with banjo what why you would say
okay this feature this activity you can
do it with banjo you can you can do it
with a negative Facebook call for a 94
square up or whatever is yes yeah I
think I think the most useful
part of the platform is quite simply
that we allow people to see what’s going
on across the world whether that’s
around the corner from them in London
where I am right now or on the other
side of the world in palo alto
california or tokyo japan through the
lens of their friends and their
connections through the social lens of
their of their friend groups and that is
super useful for a number of reasons of
course there is the opportunity to
connect with people on a daily basis if
they’re nearby and you might not have
known that they were nearby without
banjo telling you without banjo
notifying you that there’s a friend with
whichever network at my big who’s nearby
to you but just as importantly it’s the
opportunity to see what’s going on
somewhere else in the world and that
might be someone that you’re about to go
to if I’m jumping on a plane to New York
I want to know who’s in New York which
are my friends are there what
interesting things are happening there
what’s about to happen there but also
just in terms of staying in touch with
geo political news and events we see
that news organizations such as CNN and
Fox and others are using banjo to search
for this band is not just a social
discovery tool it’s also a search tool
we have a search when the only right
forum where you can actually search by
location and find real time geo ensured
information whatever you want to go in
the world so news organizations are
using badger to find out what’s going on
for example at the end of last year in
Cairo entire square or in Gaza or more
even and business news when the iphone
when the iphone 5 launched fox used
banjo to go to different store locations
around the world to see what the
reaction from individuals was as to the
to the launch of that new like that new
products and all of that is it is
impossible to do without badges so it’s
a very unique come yeah could we see
Chris that if I think about businesses
around the ward and I think how
businesses are trying now to use the
Twitter feed to intercept some requests
or from consumer so I give an example if
I am in travel industry and have a hotel
and I try to search for Twitter and
tweet about where’s the hotel in
Brighton in UK and then if I’m running a
hotel in Brighton I can immediately
answer and say I here is my hotel and
this is maybe a discount but we buns you
probably this thing will explode because
I can go in New York and I can say okay
I in New York I want to search what
people are looking for or the topic not
only for one social networker for all
the social networks and then I can start
a conversation with them and try to sell
my products or services I think yeah
absolutely and I think I think you’ve
hit on a really important point which is
the win with unifying where we’re fusing
those social networks to create a much
larger opportunity for brands and an
opportunity which is by its very nature
geo specific so too of course Twitter’s
a fantastic tool and
you know we all use it on on a regular
basis but it’s not all geo-located a
proportion of the last bits of food that
you see is with everything that you see
on banjo is geo specific so if you’re
looking for may hotels you saying
Brighton and that hotel is interested in
engaging and creating a community around
its brand then by definition Banjos the
best place to find people in a specific
place and and engage with them on an
ongoing basis yeah let’s talk for a
second about growth so for business
growing obviously is very very important
to scale in the tech war with everyone
talked about scaling but the big
question is how can you really growth in
a such a crowded environment which is
today the online business or mobile
business so from your experience of the
growth hacking this is also another bus
word that is going very strong in this
period what are the main tips that you
could share with us about growth hacking
how can you speed up your growth what
would you do what would you recommend
yeah I think the first thing which we
talked about already Marco is solving
one way or the other 20 use a problem
and really creating momentum around your
around your platform the way that we did
that was to immediately present the
visitor the prospective user with a
solution which would give them value
from day one through having that broad
social graph and that right availability
of friends and connections but beyond
that I think one of the other things
that we we’ve done which is possibly a
typical for Silicon Valley startups in
there very early stages was to
internationalize to localize
the platform we’re now in 12 different
languages and you know from day one we
were already translating into into a
variety of different languages and that
is certainly helped growth across across
the world banjo was a global product
from from day one we have in a
significant traction in now see in the
US are home market but also in Western
Europe and some fast-growing emerging
markets in Latin America Asia as well so
that’s certainly one way to it’s a hack
hack growth if you like and then like
thirdly I think listening and listening
to community iterating as fast as
possible which again thanks to the
engineering team that we have a banjo we
were able to do fantastic in Berlin
fantastically fast but listening to the
community responding to how they’re
using the product and responding to to
what they’re telling us we’ve got a huge
amount of research over a thousand
different focus groups and interviews in
the year and a half but we’ve we’ve been
operating and certainly that that’s
helped that’s up to develop a product
which they love and you know certainly
that’s healthy the ratings that we
receive and therefore the features that
we’ve been fortunate enough to have
through both Google Play and iTunes we
were featured twice on both of those
platforms as their app of the week in
2012 and just recently both Google and
Apple included us in their apps of 2012
so I don’t think they would have done
that if we hadn’t received your kind of
ratings that we have from from from the
community where a five-star rated a pond
that on on iTunes and about four and a
half on yeah
crazy you’ve been speaking about very
important topic which is international
internet internationalization and
translations most of the time this is
really I don’t know how you say in
English a pain in the ass because it’s
really a horrible and very expensive and
tough to do is any smart way to do it I
mean I so recently jingle which is a
platform for translation or I don’t know
bubble burst that translate for events
but so which is the right way to go if
you want to translate your platforming I
don’t know 20 languages are you doing
yeah so we we have again before CH
enough to have a pretty international
team not an international team of
translators an international team of
engineers and the other guys which helps
us to have a point of view and if you
like an openness to to translating and
localizing plan but certainly I think
there’s a particular secret i think we
you know we have been comfortable with
putting the first translation out to the
community and having the community tell
us if there are things that they you
know they think that we should modify or
amanda in the language that we’re using
obviously for example Portuguese in
Brazil is very different from brush
Beason in Portugal our community is far
bigger in Brazil and then that it is
important or by definition again is a
much bigger being a country big
opportunity but you know it’s just one
example where we’re prepared to put out
at first version yeah a correct version
of yeah in Portuguese until they simply
to the feedback any specific platform
that you’ve been using for for doing
this translation task or not no just no
just a just a local firm in in Silicon
Valley so
all right out of topic I still on you’ve
been talking about being on top of App
Store and Google Play which is obviously
very difficult any tips to be on top
because there are a gazillion apps today
so how can you be on top if you it is
any I don’t know specific activity that
you show in this period that really
works very well obviously having a great
app and a great community disease either
the fundamentals but any particular
things that you think could work well to
rank high yeah I think again long term I
think having a very clear brand
proposition help certainly when it comes
to search on on both both app stores and
having a very you know quite a
difference in terms of certainly your
name can help as well but I think
there’s no real there may be some dark
arts to this but as far as we’re
concerned is much more about just making
sure that you respond to the you know to
the community and and give them more of
what they’re asking for for example you
know when we launch personalized places
which today on banjo you are presented
with a range of cities across the world
where your friends are and where your
friends are posting at any one time and
that’s the kind of really popular part
of our platform and that that we focused
on that in the back end of last year and
then again
really given us some so momentum in
terms of usage and that was all around
the reason that we you know we took the
decision to move that forward in the
roadmap which was simply but the
community told us to do that so I think
you know if we’re doing maybe a boring
answer to your question but if we’re
doing the right things and improving the
product in the right ways and we will we
will be rated continuously highly and if
we get rated highly that’s when Apple
and Google yeah tend to take notice and
tend to tend to feature those apps but
and that are getting consistently I
ratings and that and that they like and
that they feel are doing something
different from the rest of the markup
which you know for me that’s you know
that’s another important fact that you
know you meant want at the start the the
things that we do differently and one of
the most important things that we do
differently in the location world is
that we don’t just index or try to help
you find people next to you people
around you then kilometer around you
wherever you are in Brighton we’re also
focused very much on the there in
location because we think that the very
location the rest of the world which is
an a cometer away from you now is a much
harder harder technology challenged to
solve well there’s a much greater reward
for most people because there is much
more like that dynamic there are many
more changes going on in there than
there are in the hair and it therefore
becomes a much more interesting
interesting part of our user experience
so Chris what we let the next in Mobile
because this is the not as a trend but
that you think okay 2013 probably mobile
this will be the direction because this
is what you feel is what you just
described as the more you know an easier
way to discover what is all around or
something you have something more there
yeah I think I think increasing you some
you
location services to to help us discover
and to help us make sense of the
proliferation of data and just just
content social and otherwise across the
across the web across the mobile web
using location to help us make more
sense of that to help us if you like
make it more relevant give it
perspective I think is going to be an
increasing trend liking people are going
to start creating more geotagged content
they’re already creating huge amounts of
Geo type photo content and of course
people have been using maps forever but
I think people are going to start
participating in in in a much more
frequent fashion with location-based
technology a good example of that which
isn’t banjo would be the the app Waze
the traffic app Waze where you can you
can circumvent the jams and get to where
you’re going quicker by you know by but
by using that ban app which is which is
also user-generated content at its and
its core so
the value that it has without people
creating our posting location updates on
on a very frequent basis right I think
that’s one trend that we see I think you
know I think that a lot of the
innovation is going to continue to come
from man from mobile internet companies
also than perhaps and handset
manufacturers carriers but i think that
the meeting of minds there is going to
be it’s going to be interesting you know
arguably some of the kind of the
smartphone is going to get smarter
clearly that’s you know again man joe is
part of is part of that way part of that
friends in as much as we see a future
for our product and we’re not talking
years away with talking months away
where banjo will help you will help you
to find the interesting things in your
life and to help you or to help you
avoid missing out on things that you
would really want to know about by
surfacing those things through your
knowing your social graph name your
interests knowing what’s um what’s
valuable to you and instead of you
having to pull that information out of a
search engine like Google banjo will
actually if you like push that
information to you in a much more
seamless and serendipitous way so that’s
that’s a big big future trend which i
think is going to start to have an
impact in 2013 alright critter just a
last question that I after every fact
Alchemist guests I’m always curious
about the top 3 s that they have on
their phone or the best three tools that
they use every day and they say oh gosh
I just discovered this tool and I can’t
live without it or it is a poor website
or whatever is that is digital so I was
wondering what are your top three if any
that you would recommend and you suggest
yeah well well but I’m driving i
mentioned ways i think that’s a
fantastic a
and when i’m not driving which is most
of the time I I cycle back and back and
forth to the city and a spike Lee which
is you know very very useful and a whole
bunch of other apps were recycling and
raised my mother you a poor mikey likely
finally locating yeah and so those those
are two and again because I cycle a lot
and I am obsessed to a certain degree
with the weather and combining turnovo
it’s gonna rain on the way way into work
or back I use the Met Office app which
is probably one you haven’t heard of but
met office which is the UK government
weather service so met office mdg yeah
all right super cool all right Chris
that um thank you so much really the
good luck for for banjo I will keep on
checking and I’m sure will be an
exciting 2013 thank you so much guys
from tech alchemist community just go
download the app and let me know your
feedback thank you so much Chris and
keep in touch for everything thanks Marcos great fun Cheers right
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