2. Today’s Talk
• About Lightricks
• Paid models: Pros & Cons
• How to succeed with a paid model
3. Lightricks - History
• Bootstrapped in 2013
• Jerusalem-based
• Five founders
• Raised $10M in August 2015
4. Facetune
• Launched in March 2013 for iPhone
• iPad - September 2013
• Android - July 2014
• Over 8 million units sold
• #1 top Paid App in 128 countries (App Store)
• Google Best of 2014
5. Enlight
• Launched in March 2015
• Apple’s Editors’ Choice
• Apple’s Best of 2015 Worldwide
• Universal (both iPhone & iPad)
• Over 2 million units sold
6. Paid Model Doesn’t Work Well on Android
• Lots of lower-end devices
• Lower rates of users who entered their credit cards
• Higher piracy rate - much easier to download pirated
versions
• Users are used to free software
7. Paid Model - Pros
• Small market - easy to get to the top
• Money from Day 1
• Easy to optimize
• Relatively easy to measure
8. Paid Model - Cons
• Competitors are likely to release a free version
• Limit on how much you can earn
• Harder to achieve brand recognition
• Ongoing cost can be problematic (support, backend,
etc.)
• Amount of money you can extract per user is
(usually) limited
9. What Does Work With The Paid Model?
• Great products
• Ads - mostly Facebook
• PR
• Influencers
• Social Media
10. What Doesn’t Work With The Paid Model?
• ASO
• Most ad networks
• Limited effect of word of mouth
• Android
11. Exploration Vs. Exploitation
• There will always be a trade-off between trying new
things vs. doing what has worked before
• Leave some budget for exploration!
• Document what you’ve tried
• Try things you don’t expect to work
12. Bursts
• Maximizing profits by getting to the top of the charts, which
will bring organic installs
• Measurement of success is not by CPI but by blended CPI,
which takes into account the organic installs as well as the
paid installs
• Easier on paid apps since less installs are needed to get to
the top, and no need to extract value from users later.
• Can start with a very low budget - we started with a $500
marketing budget
13. More Insights
• Videos vs Photos (and other formats)
• Facebook & Instagram work best for paid apps
• Overall volume in paid category is declining
• Seasonality has a strong effect
• New devices are a strong signal for potential paying
users
14. Advertising Tips
• Easy to measure and distinguish between channels -
CPI (no need to calculate LTV)
• Test as much as possible
• Explore every possibility and exploit what works
• Basic statistics knowledge can help
Facetune is a fun and powerful portrait editor. Celebrities (have you heard of the Kardashians?) have openly admitted to using Facetune to perfect their selfies.
Enlight is an artistic, more creative photo editor - almost anything you can do with Photoshop on desktop you can do with Enlight on your phone. You can combine photos, create double exposures - basically create iPhone art. Used both by professional artists and designers and average people who just want their Instagram to look cool.
From the next slide and on everything I talk about is iOS
