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Appreneur Podcast Episode 8: Thomas Strock

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Welcome to the 8th episode of our Appreneur Podcasts.

In this series of podcasts, we’ll be bringing you some of the biggest names in the industry and the brightest app developers on the planet to discuss app marketing, monetization and development strategies with you every week.

In this episode, we sit down with Thomas Strock, founder of MobileAppTycoon.com and discuss some great tactics and strategies that he’s using right now today. You’ll learn:

*How a 16 year old got his start in the app market
*How he has gained success in the app game
*Valuable suggestions on proper mindset
*Strategies for being successful in app marketing

Check out the video and leave your comments and feedback below…

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Download Appreneur Podcast Episode 8 Transcripts

TRANSCRIPTS:

Len: Hi, I am Len Wright with AppClover.com, and today we have an exclusive interview with someone really, really interesting. This is going to be a really different departure from what we do normally in our interviews, but I think you’re really going to enjoy this. As a motivator for everyone out there, I’m going to bring about this guy’s age and what he is doing. Today we have a special guest on AppClover’s interview series, Thomas Strock. I’m going to let him explain a little bit more about who he is, what he is up to and what he is doing. I’m going to put him up as the modern-day Appreneur; sixteen years old, not letting that hold him back, but getting in the game, which I really have to give him kudos for. At the same time he has a site as well, a blog called Mobile App Tycoon that we’re going to talk about as well that you’re going to want to check out. Without further ado, thank you, Thomas, for being with us today. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about who you are and what got you started in the app space.

Thomas: Alright, pretty much it all started when I wrote this children’s book, Tomato Turtle. I did this just for fun, it was in middle school. I ended up getting it published. Surprisingly, some publishing house accepted a 12-year-old author, so that got me into the whole marketing space. From there it went to niche sites, Internet marketing, found Pat Flynn from there. I saw him doing some apps, and from there I just felt that apps are the future and it would be smart to get into that. Since then, I have been involved in a bunch of Internet businesses and entrepreneurial stuff, and it’s been fun.

Len: Wow, man. I really have to say, if I would’ve caught on at 16 and been doing what you’re doing, it would have been just absolutely mammoth. I love leverage in everything I do, and age is a great leverage. If you can actually, at your age, be doing and learning what you’re doing, by the time you’re 25 or 30 you will be so far ahead, because it quantum leaps, it isn’t just little by little. It’s like investing money if it’s done right. Tell us a little bit about the apps that you’ve developed, what you have out there and what you’re doing now with them.

Thomas: My first one I just released in the summer was SharePrayer, which is an app mostly for Christians, but also for other religions. What they do is you get prayer requests from e-mail, from Facebook, from Twitter. People send prayer requests all the time, and in person. A lot of the time when you are actually sitting down to pray, you don’t always remember them all. SharePrayer is pretty much a one-stop destination to have all of your prayer requests in one place and ready to go when you are. That was the first one. Right now I’m working on a few more, which should hopefully be launching within the next month or two.

Len: Are those functional utility-type apps as well, or game sides?

Thomas: They are mostly utility apps; I haven’t ventured into games quite yet.

Len: Right on. There is huge opportunity in both as well. You mentioned about Pat Flynn and he talks — what is his blog? A Smart Passive Income, isn’t it?

Thomas: Yes.

Len: To give him his props there, go and visit his blog as well. He also it has an app business as well that he is running on the side. You said that you sort of got on that way. At 16, you already had some experience in internet marketing and so forth, so obviously that helped you a bit. What type of marketing so far have you gone into, and what types of things have you tried? What’s working, and what things are you learning so far?

Thomas: For the first app, SharePrayer, what I started out doing was mostly external marketing. It was marketing through contacting pastors, and blogs and things like that. I didn’t really focus so much on app store SEO, and actually internal marketing within the app store because I didn’t know that much about it. That’s something I’m still learning about and gathering information, and hoping to fix about my marketing strategy there. I focused on things like e-mailing pastors, getting reviews on Christian blogs, and more external things which I was used to from the Internet marketing space.

Len: Right on. One thing I would like to stay there, you mentioned that you would like to fix. I like to actually improve instead of fix, because really what you’re doing is fantastic. It is always a road that you are following, and there’s always stuff. With AppClover right now, there are probably at least 1000 things that Matt Lutz and myself would like to be doing right now, and we just can’t. You do what you can do and you move on as you go, and you continue to improve. That way, you basically hedge your bets because you are always improving, you’re catching up on that success.

You got into this space from Pat Flynn. Was age ever something that came up to you, saying, “I can’t do it because of my age”? Let’s just touch on that. I don’t want to harp on it, but there are a lot of people out there that are using some sort of excuse like an age, or anything — it could be a range of things — as to not getting involved because of that. Just address that for a moment.

Thomas: Pretty much, going back to the children’s book I published, what I would do is I would do a lot of book signings at retirement homes. I sold a lot of books; they buy it for their grandchildren and stuff. When I’d go in there…

Len: I love that.

Thomas: They would always tell me, “Hey, I wish I wrote a book at your age. I wish I started doing _____at your age. Now I am so old, it’s not worth it anymore.” That kind of set me off. I’m like, “Hey, I’ve got a book published at 12, and they somehow accepted me. If I can do that, I can do this, and if I can do this I can do that.” Age, I think, has only helped me, it has only been a marketing thing. It help me market my book, it’s obviously helping me here.

Len: Right on. Sooner or later, that story runs out, right? You know, the thing is, your experience that you already are putting on that tool belt is enough where in a very short period of time, look at what you have already been able to do. That’s why I contacted you was because right now, even at your age, you are learning so much. You’re willing to be out there. So many people look at almost anything can be an excuse, whether it be some sort of disability or some sort of thing that they look as a disability upon themselves. Age, for a lot of people, that’s what it is. The app space really levels the playing field a lot, because it’s ingenuity and learning curve, really. If you are willing to learn, and you’re breathing — which most breathing individuals can learn — you can do this in a manner that is rewarding.

I love the way that you just turned your age, you re-framed it right away and put it as that’s what’s working for you right now. I suggest that people listening do the same thing, if it’s lack of money, well then find a way around that. You can joint venture; I have been joint venturing for over 22 years. The majority of my businesses I have never put a cent into. I have built great websites that would have been $5000, $6000 or $7000 just on partnerships saying, “I will do this for you.” The money isn’t even a barrier. The age thing, I am glad that we dealt with that. You have a great attitude about it. The Internet marketing side that you learned, how is that helping you with the marketing of your app? Do you see a difference, or are you seeing the crossovers?

Thomas: I think it’s all a collective learning experience. I think I heard this from Trent Dyrsmid from Online Income Lab, where the best way to learn business is to do business. When you get into one business, it eventually leads to another, better one. That eventually leads to another, and you keep building on top of those experiences. While there are a few things marketing-wise that connect between a few of the different businesses I have been doing, it’s mostly just that experience that has been helping me.

Len: Yes, again, great point. The only way that you learn is by doing. You can theory learn how to walk, but unless you actually take that first step, you really don’t have the experiential side of it. With business, it really is. A lot of people don’t reach out to do those joint ventures, to do those first promotions with people, to be able to reach out to that app reviewer or that blogger to write about you, or whatever it is. Either they are waiting for that perfect moment that stars line up, or they’re waiting for something else. Always just act. Take that step and then learn. Take another step, and then learn. Was that the right way to go about it or not? I always say I don’t like to do emotional business, I like to learn from results. The numbers sort of tell me, if the numbers off of my list is this and it’s telling me they don’t like something, just because of my ego I’m not going to say, “Well, I’m going to do anyway.” It’s service.

That brings me to another point. With the apps that you have done already and the ones that you are doing, are you using any type of opt-in or any type of extra? Are you planning to do that kind of thing?

Thomas: I’m planning on incorporating that into SharePrayer, possibly, I still have to work with the developer on that to find out. For SharePrayer, you have to enter your e-mail into there to send other people e-mails and to send messages directly through the app, so I’m thinking that’s a great way to build a list and to spread the word about that, and for future apps in the same niche.

Len: Exactly. Some of the things that you can do like that is even build a loyalty program along that, where it’s some sort of referral program. Instead of paying for actual advertising for downloads, you actually pay them downloads, that type of idea. I actually did an interview with Amish Shah just a little while ago. I don’t know if you know Amish or have heard about him. He actually had a really unique idea. He has been in the lead generation side of Internet marketing for a long time now. He sees that part of the app space not being covered at all in lead generation. You can actually sometimes sell leads for up to $20-$25, sometimes more per lead. In the app space, people will download an app not thinking anything of it, whereas you can actually have it where you collect their information, and then actually turn around and make money off of that lead rather than just operating from an app revenue advertising side.

Thomas: And while the app store keeps continuing to get flooded with more and more new apps, I think it’s ways like that to make you stand out and give you other creative ways to make money with it that is really going to help in the future.

Len: Yes. Not to blow off any of your future plans, to blow the lid off of it all, but what do you have planned for any marketing plans in the future? Any strategies that you want to use, or that you think is hot that you have heard and you want to utilize?

Thomas: Definitely one of the big things for me is coming into this, I don’t know much about apps or SEO. That is definitely a priority for me to research and learn about there. Like I said, while I do have the experience in book marketing, which is a lot of offline marketing and a lot of creative marketing there, I don’t really have the experience with app store SEO. That’s something I want to look into definitely marketing-wise.

Len: You are at everybody else’s pace, too. There are very few of us out there that are very knowledgeable about ASO. On that point, we actually are creating a product right now that will be out probably in about a month or month and a half from when we’re taping this that is ASO. It’s called ASO Ninja. The book is coming out in the next week or so, and then actually we are covering off. We actually do that with another expert contributor that’s coming on, so that will be great. That is one of the things – in Internet marketing, search engine marketing is so extensive, and yet most people do very little of it. The power is absolutely huge.

With the app store there are a lot of crossovers, but there are also brand new horizons like ASO, or app store optimization. It’s a brand-new thing, whereas in the Internet marketing side you still — we looked up a functionality calculator. I can’t remember what it was, but it was some simple scientific calculator, something like that. We looked up that as an app just on Google, and nobody was even showing up. It shows you how the market is still so wide open for those marketers who know what they’re doing in those little respects, right? Very few even game companies do a lot of SEO on their games and stuff to be able to capture that market that is on Google still. There are a lot of ways. Have you thought about incorporating that SEO side to it along with the ASO, or is it more along the side where you’re wanting to get into just the app store optimization?

Thomas: Definitely the more I can learn, it’s always best to learn as much as you can. I definitely think that, soak it all in. I have done some search engine optimization for niche sites and stuff, and hopefully that’s something I can carry over and use to. That’s just another connection you can make by being in business and moving forward with it.

Len: Yes, and I urge you to do that. Right now it is prime for the pickings as well. There are very few spaces that actually have much work SEO-wise, and especially with the one that you have out with SharePrayer and the other stuff you’re working on, definitely take that approach as well. Like I said, that’s what we’re seeing is there’s not a lot of that approach being taken at all.

If you had to share some of the lessons that maybe you thought were going to be easier that turned out not, what are a few things you can share with the other Appreneurs out there, no matter what the age, that are thinking about launching your first app?

Thomas: Definitely the first thing is for hiring your developer. You really want to look into that. I think the developer I was working with — I hired him through Elance because I was comfortable, I have used Elance in the past for other Internet marketing things. One of the things that I think I made a mistake on is that he did a great job, we went through the process, he was pretty cheap. But then when I got to the end, I didn’t give it enough time. I didn’t work into the contract for bugs and stuff that would come up in the app. I paid him three or four days after the app was done. After that, he did agree to fix some bugs in it, but like I was saying, we still have some trouble with the free app right now. It seems like since he was paid already, it’s not as much of a priority. He’s nice enough to do it, he’s not completely ditching me, but it’s not as much of a priority. That’s one of the big lessons for me right there.

Number two is just getting everything ready beforehand marketing-wise. Marketing starts when you think of the idea, not when it’s launched in the app store. If I would’ve gone back and do it again, I would’ve started planning out my marketing and actually implementing the marketing sooner so it wasn’t as rushed.

Len: On that, maybe we can expand. What types of things would you do now, looking back? There are a lot of people that are maybe in that position right now, where they are thinking of an app, or they are just getting into the creation of developing it. What types of things should they be laying out, in your opinion, as a strategy? What types of things can they start doing to build that buzz?

Thomas: One of the things is when I have a list of my app ideas in EverNote, and I’m going through and I’m like, “Which one do I want to do?” One of the things that I neglected to do was before I even create a proposal on Elance, or go talk to anyone about it, go to five pastors. E-mail five random pastors and say, “Hey, if this was available to you, would you use it? Would your prayer groups at church use it?” Get some feedback from them before you even think about hiring anyone. That’s something I didn’t do. I pretty much assumed, because it’s something I knew people around me would use, that everyone would use it. It turns out that’s not necessarily the case; it’s not doing too well, but I still think there is room to improve on it.

For some things, that could be detrimental. You spend thousands and thousands of dollars on an app idea, and you find out that nobody but you wants it, that’s going to be a terrible experience.

Len: And the neighbor down the street, exactly. There’s an old adage that I’ve used before on another podcast, and it always just reminds me. It’s used in copywriting. When you’re actually writing sales copy for an advertisement or for a campaign, you’re supposed to walk into a bar, or pub or restaurant, whatever and give it out to people. If they give it back to you and give you kudos and say, “Great job,” tear it up and start all over again. But if they ask you where to get that product, then you know what’s good. Instead of having people come back and say, “Yes, great idea.” They should instead be clamoring saying, “Where can I get it? Can I sign up? Where do I download it?” Those are the right types of feedback. Even then, what you said was really good — random. They are not people that feel that they have to be nice to you, and it’s more of a real market survey in that way. It can be very easy.

Those are a couple of the ways that you would’ve been able to plan the market sphere of your app, what type of need you had in that way. What are some other things that you would do in a marketing way to create the buzz? Have you done or would you do any social media? If so, what tips or ways would you start the buzz type of idea if you could do it all over again for it?

Thomas: This goes back to getting started early, too. With social media that was kind of something I threw together the week before the app was launched. Obviously, a Twitter account with zero followers does no good. What eventually happened was I just went out and followed a bunch of high-profile Christian bloggers. I searched for anyone with Jesus in their description of their profile, and followed them too for the followbacks you sometimes automatically get with Twitter. I sent a bunch of @ messages to some of the high-profile like Tim Tebows and things like that. That did do alright, I got some bloggers to reply to those messages even though it was essentially spam. Twitter did eventually contact me and say, “We’re shutting down your account for a day.”

Len: Slap on the hand.

Thomas: Yes, so I had to beg for my account back. I got it back and haven’t done that. That’s something, building up a legitimate following and doing it slowly and from the start is something that is a lot better than rushing it from a week before.

Len: But the only way that you would really know that, Thomas, is by doing exactly what you did and go, “Oh, okay.” I have bought and sold businesses for years, and really that’s the only way that you learn is what you’re saying, by doing. That’s probably really what motivated you to do the site as well, Mobile App Tycoon. I want you to talk little bit about that. What is the site, and really what’s the focus on it? So people can actually get in and jive with what you’re doing.

Thomas: Essentially, when I thought of the idea, I’m like, “Yeah, I think I want to get into this app development thing.” What came to my mind is maybe I should start a blog to help people along the way, show them what I’m going through. We were going back and sharing about those limiting beliefs. I’m like, “Well, if I haven’t even published in app, what can I teach people? I’m obviously not successful yet, what can I teach people?” That’s another limiting belief I just had to get over and say, “You know, I am going through this for the first time.” There are blogs out there where you can learn from people making tens of thousands of dollars in the app store. You can read those blogs and those blogs are great, but sometimes it’s hard to connect with those people because they are making so much money and you’re not there yet.

My blog essentially is documentation of the journey for me, where you can follow along and you can see my pathetic income reports of $5 a month right now. You can see that, and hopefully in two years you will see the income reports of tens of thousands of dollars. You can see the path that got me there, and it will all be documented there. That’s the goal of it is you can see from start to finish, it’s not some face appearing on the Internet saying, “Hey, I’m making this amount of money. Follow me.”

Len: That’s beautiful, man. It is a journey. A lot of times it can alienate the ones that are starting the journey by only looking at the end result and going, “I just can’t make it there. I just can’t do it.” If you look at the whole race and it looks like a really long marathon, it’s different than being in that race. It feels different. Again, taking that first step, that was great. What is the website? What is the URL?

Thomas: It’s MobileAppTycoon.com

Len: Right on. Everybody, go check it out. I suggest that you follow Thomas’s journey as well. Support is big in all business, I really believe, especially in the joint venture sphere. It takes relationships and the support of a symbiotic relationship. When you reach out to these different people for support, what has been their response level? Has it been pretty positive? You’re reaching out cold. I’m going there because others are probably doing the same out there.

Thomas: Yes, and there is definitely like for SharePrayer, for example, when you’re talking to these people. The thing that I have learned is it’s better to build the relationships too when you first think of the idea. Contact these people and say, “Hey, I like your blog. I like the content; Ilook forward to talking to you more.” Things like that. Build the relationship so that then when you go for the hard sale, you know the guy and you can work on that relationship where I just contact and say, “Hey, do you want to do a review?” The majority of the time it’s no. There is the occasional yes, but the majority of the time it’s no. Forming those relationships and building quality relationships not just meant to sell the people, but meant to get closer to them, and then as an added bonus sell them. That’s how it should be done, and that’s how I definitely improve it for my future apps and things like that. It also goes down to the support I’ve had from people in the marketing side of things, just to kind of point me in the right direction and keep me on track and accountable there, too.

Len: Yes, accountability is huge. Plans are great, but that is all they are if that’s all they are. Putting it into action, we have said a few times, it keeps coming back to that. It really is, making those first steps is great. I like running really fast. I can tumble faster when I do fall, and I can get back up again, but I have fallen a lot through business and so forth, as any entrepreneur has. What you learn to do is you learn to run at the speed that you’re good at, but you want to make sure that you are making forward momentum. At Appclover, we do see a lot of people that are looking for the easy way all the time; that’s just not where the road is leading. As we mentioned at the start of the interview, the space is getting more cramped.

Thomas: Yes, that’s one of the things I was saying. I heard, I think this was Dane Maxwell, who were talking about before, too, who I heard this from. It’s not necessarily about success right away, it’s about failing as quickly as possible and as many times as possible so you will eventually lead to that success.

Len: Exactly, because failing is really just a part of learning. I don’t really look at it as failing, and that’s why I say that. I really don’t see it that way in myself, I look at it instead as an education points. If I can learn through this then I don’t have to go through this again, so that’s one thing taken care of. You do, and then you can motor faster. From your vantage point, where do you see the app space going? The app store optimization and everything else is sort of building, I think, but where do you see the future of big opportunities?

Thomas: I definitely think that, as an app developer, you have to look for problems. I think that is one of the main things is that too many people in 2009 and 2010 with the iFarts and the silly little games and stuff, those days are over essentially. It’s no longer just a lottery anymore. You have to legitimately find a problem, have a solution, and do legitimate marketing. You have to take those lessons learned from “real businesses” and apply that to the app store. I think that’s how it’s going to be moving forward. It’s no longer just that gold rush, there are still a bunch of opportunities, just you have to do it the slow way, do it the right way.

Len: Exactly, quality counts. Do you have anywhere where you’re focusing on specifically? Like you said, you want to get into games, but you’re more with utility right now. Is there anywhere where you think is hotter, and where it’s going to be in the next year or six months?

Thomas: Essentially, for me it’s all around. Whenever I think of a good app idea, whenever I think of a problem, that’s where I want to go. It’s a little bit of the entrepreneur’s curse is you want to get your hand in as many little honeypots as possible. I don’t think there is one solid answer to that question, one solid direction to go with that. Wherever the problems are, follow the problems and the money follows you.

Len: Yes, that is a great way, man. I hope that we can actually every once in a while come back and do this and follow you on that journey. I urge you, obviously, to be able to stay tuned with Appreneur and AppClover so that you can learn more about that. As we cover it ourselves, hopefully then everybody else will learn as well, and we can all learn as a group and support each other. Tom, thank you for coming on. Is there any final advice that you would put on this pedestal that you would give to whoever is watching this, whether they be young or old?

Thomas: It goes back to what we were saying before, action and getting rid of your limiting beliefs. The limiting belief is I don’t have the education to do this. That’s nonsense, you’ve got to get over that. I don’t have the money to do this. Once again, not an excuse. I’m not the right age — those are all limiting beliefs. If it doesn’t feel right to you, if it’s holding you back, it’s a limiting belief. Those are all things you can learn to get over, and it works out for the best if you do. It’s getting rid of those limiting beliefs.

Len: Right on. I can’t agree with you more. Not only does that touch the app business, but it touches all of life. They are definitely intertwined. I thank you again for being with us, and we will definitely have you back and go and follow along your journey as well. I love the idea — not just the age, but the attitude, it’s great. For everybody else, thank you for visiting today and watching. I hope you got a lot out of it. Again, come back to AppClover.com for more information, where we will be having more interviews and more of the hottest marketing information available.


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