Logic+Emotion

Lessons Learned Selling on the iPhone App Store

With Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference coming up on June 8-9, it's time to check in with L+E's favorite iPhone App developer, Roger von Oech. Roger is the author of the creativity classic A Whack on the Side of the Head, and the inventor of the Ball of Whacks and the X-Ball.

Earlier this year, Roger turned his Creative Whack Pack card deck into an iPhone App called the Creative Whack Pack. Roger refers to it as "the App's store's premier creative thinking/innovation tool." I did several posts on it the week it launched in March.

DA: So what's happened with the Creative Whack Pack app since you launched it in mid-March?

RvO: I've learned that visibility is everything at the App Store — there are 30,000+ apps all competing for attention but only a few get noticed; the rest get buried. Selling an app is like having a booth at a huge bazaar. You probably won't get noticed unless you're near one of the entrances or on a corner.

DA: How did you get visibility for the Creative Whack Pack?

RvO: The blogging community was vital in my launch. I've been blogging since 2006, and I was able to turn to a number of fellow bloggers for help in promoting the Whack Pack and get the word out.

You were kind enough to post about it. Chuck Frey of Innovation Tools did an in-depth review. Guy Kawasaki tweeted about on Twitter. Robert Scoble had me on his TV show for forty-five minutes. Mark McGuiness and Paul Williams did interviews with me.

These posts led to about twenty-five other posts about the product and generated a lot of good word of mouth. I worked hard at this, but I felt that this was a better strategy than buying ads or relying on iPhone review sites. I'm really grateful to the bloggers who supported my marketing efforts.

DA: What did that do for product sales?

RvO: It helped enormously. Within several weeks, the Creative Whack Pack rose to the Top Ten of the Business category. This was crucial. Far and away the best exposure you can get for your app is on the App Store itself. There are a limited number of places where apps are high-lighted on the store: "New and Noteworthy," "What's Hot," and "Staff Favorites." Each of these has room for only 32 Apps.

The only other place for visibility is the Top 100 of your category, e.g., Games, Lifestyle, Sports, Utilities, etc. One media firm has said that there's "an order of magnitude" difference between being on the Top 100 and being buried further down. And obviously being higher up, i.e., in the top 20 or top 10, is better.

DA: What happened then?

RvO: At this point I get very, very lucky. I was ranked #6 in Business. This got me enough attention for Apple to place the Creative Whack Pack on the front page of their "What's Hot" listing. Most of their selections are games, but the Creative Whack Pack is different enough that I guess they wanted to add some variety.

Basically, the "What's Hot" section is four pages of 8 App icons each. If you're selected, you spend one week on page one, one week on page two, and so on. The impact was immediate: sales jumped to a thousand units a day for the first days and then slowly declined over the four weeks I was there.

The best part was that the Creative Whack Pack was ranked #1 in the Business category for two weeks.

DA: What happened after your app went off the "What's Hot" list?

RvO: This is when I learned  some important lessons about price sensitivity on the App Store. "How much should I charge for my app?" is one of the biggest questions developers have, and I'm not sure there's any one right answer. I will, though, share my experience.

For the first two months, I charged $4.99. I thought this was a fair price because I had a similar product in the real world — the Creative Whack Pack card deck — that sold for $16. I was able to get away with this price because my early traffic consisted mainly of blog referrals, and these people were positively predisposed to the Whack Pack and thus prepared to pay a premium.

When I was on "What's Hot," I was able to keep my price at $4.99, again because Apple said this was a good product.

But after I went off "What's Hot," sales dropped significantly, and the Whack Pack fell to #10 in Business. I quickly realized that without a lot of blog referrals (these were all a month in the past and we all know how ephemeral the blogosphere is), I could no longer command a premium price.

At this point I cut the price to $2.99 (which is where it is now), and my unit sales immediately went back up. I decided that it was better to have more units sales (although with a smaller margin). I was getting an instant lesson in pricing!

DA: What does this tell you about price sensitivity on the App Store?

RvO: I think the App Store is quite price sensitive. I think that's why so many apps are free or $0.99. A lot of people just want to play with an app for five minutes or so a few times and then move on. You've got to have a pretty compelling reason to get them to spend more money.

I'd be curious to see what your readers think about pricing on the App Store.

DA: What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about creating an App for the iPhone App Store?

RvO: I've had a number of people ask me for my advice to help them turn their "winning ideas" into an iPhone App.

The most important thing (from my point of view) is: Don't do it for the money. I think you need to be clear on what your motives are for creating your app. If getting rich is at the top of your list, then you're setting yourself up for a big disappointment.

A lot of people are jumping in because creating an App Store for the iPhone is the "Gold Rush of 2009." I don't have any Apple inside information, but my gut tells me that over 90% of apps that go on sale in the App Store don't make back the money it cost to produce them. I see a lot of Apps "newly released" each day, but few of them show up in the "Top 100" of their category.

These were my motives for creating my App (in descending order):

1. I wanted to learn something.
2. I wanted to put my creativity ideas in a new medium.
3. I wanted to have fun.
4. I wanted to make some money (if possible).

All of these happened for me, but I'm not so sure this would have been the case if I had these motives in the reverse order initially.

DA: What's next for the Creative Whack Pack?

RvO: I've just released Version 2.0 this past weekend. The big new feature is "Note-Taking Creative Workshops." In my years as a creativity consultant, I've found that when attendees write down their ideas and answers to prompts and questions, their inspiration increases an order of magnitude. The result: note-taking leads to more productive creative sessions!

I hope to keep listening to my customers, and add some of their suggestions to future releases.

DA: Thanks for your time Roger. Good luck with the product.

RvO:  Thank you, David. Let me just add that selling on the App Store has been quite an interesting experience. I recommend it to anyone willing to pursue it!

Q+A With Chris Gokiert: COO of Critical Mass, Chief Guitar Hero + Karaoke Coach

Chris Gokiert is the COO for Critical Mass (the company I work for).  Though Chris started his career as a  working archaeologist, he eventually found his way into the ever changing world of digital media and has never left it.  Chris has been with "CM" since pretty much the beginning and has seen it all when it comes to life in the technology lane.  I recently had the opportunity to catch up with Chris and topics ranged from Tim Horton's to "agency 2.0", to Karaoke.  Enjoy.

DA: So before joining Critical Mass, you worked as an archaeologist—is there anything that you learned from that experience that you apply to your current position?
CG:  Marketing is all about desire and motivation.  Archeology is all about understanding the context and motivation of the society that you are researching.  I was on more of the sociological or anthropological side of archeology.  I was big into the motivation and desires of the societies.  What we found on digs were really just the artifacts of the humans and society.  Marketing is the same.  We are always trying to figure out what motivates our customers.  The big difference is we aren’t dealing with dead people.

DA: You’ve been in the digital space for a long time—what got you into the medium in the first place?
CG:  Honestly, I had a wacky idea about doing a bunch of online gaming based on ancient historical figures.  I figured I needed to learn about how to do it so I applied at Critical Mass to learn.  I just never ended up leaving.

DA: There’s a lot of chatter about the agency of the future and what that will look like—what’s your take?
CG:  I think we are seeing a lot of what the “agency of the future” will look like now.  All agencies from all mediums are circling around the concept.  Digital is definitely is becoming the centering point.  The problem is that all of the agencies are roughly saying the same thing about being the “lead agency” but they just don’t know how to do it.  The agency of the future is still going to lead with ideas and customer insights.  Analytics are also going to play an important role.  Most importantly, the agency of the future is going to have to be a leader in understanding how technology is integrated into users’ lives.  The ideas and customer insights are ultimately going to play out on a technological platform of some sort.  If the agency doesn’t understand that, they won’t be allowing their clients to reach their customers OR, crucially, allowing the end customer to reach out to influence the brand or each other.

DA: We talk about having “digital DNA”.  What’s your interpretation of this statement?
CG: We live and breathe anything digital. We are able to take our ideas out to other mediums but we generally start with digital.  It’s what we’ve grown up with, it’s what we know, it’s what we do.

DA: Who are some of the companies/brands that you admire.  Why?
CG:  I generally gravitate towards companies and brands that have a sustainable point of difference, or are able to battle through the tough times.  Companies like Nokia, Sony, and Puma come to mind.  Each of those companies were considered laggards at some point in recent history but all had a sense of vision and commitment to drive real differentiation in the marketplace.  If you look at them now, they are all leaders in their categories.  An X-Box with an HD DVD player, anyone?

DA: “Web 2.0” has gotten the attention of pretty much every business you can think of.  Why should we care, or not care?
CG:  Web 2.0 has been around for a few years now so we see it as a standard in anything that you do.  Amazingly, it is still a buzzword  out there so you need to talk the talk to be a part of the party.  Kidding aside, the only people that are still talking about it are the ones who aren’t getting it or haven’t implemented it.  If you think about how much easier Web and digital applications are with Web 2.0 frameworks, it’s mind numbing to think that some folks are still doing it the good ol’ fashioned way.  I guess that’s a long of saying, “We should care.  If you want something done in a more cost effective manner that provides a superior customer experience, you should be thinking Web 2.0.”

DA: You’re a Canadian citizen.  What’s up with the whole Tim Horton’s thing?
CG: I don’t really know.  People say it’s the donuts but it’s really about the coffee.  I don’t drink coffee.  I tried to in order to fit in college but it just didn’t stick.  Just like Web 2.0, I learned the lingo.  “Double Double” is all you need to know.

DA: I’ve seen you in action at Karaoke.  What are the secrets every aspiring Karaoke singer should know?
CG:  It’s all about knowing your audience.  Pick a song that the crowd knows, get them to sing along, and you are golden.  It doesn’t matter how poorly you sing, it’s all about showmanship.

DA: You’ve worked on Dell for some time.  What did you learn from this experience?
CG:  Faster, Better, Cheaper.  Dell drilled it into us and there is nobody better at being able strategize, ideate, create, and execute than us after working with them for 6 years.  When we first got involved with Dell, we thought we knew what it was like to run with an eCommerce giant...we were definitely naïve.  We got the ideals of measurement and business cases pounded into us.  We learned the balance of incremental optimization and innovation in a world that test, test, and test again before launching anything.  We also became experts at melding brand experiences with transaction practices. If you look at the brand building and transactional solutions in the online marketing space and Dell.com, I think our track record was pretty successful. 

DA: In your opinion, what are some of the biggest challenges in regards to the agency/client relationship?  How about opportunities?
CG:  Like any relationship, communication is always the biggest challenge.  I find that the best client relationships are when there is real trust and openness.  Although partner is thrown around a lot, many clients have been trained to keep their agencies at a distance.  This leads to a lot of guessing, which leads to mistakes.  If you have a very open dialogue, the opportunities are endless.

DA: What’s one accomplishment that you are especially proud of.  Why?
CG:  I finally beat my wife at Guitar Hero.  She has a degree in music, majoring in piano.  If you play Guitar Hero, you know how hard it is to beat piano players.

Q+A With David L. Stallsmith

David L. Stallsmith recently joined us here in Chicago’s Critical Mass outpost.  David most recently comes from digital shop Avenue A | Razorfish but has also been a co-owner of a small design consultancy and he’s a product of the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute of Design where he earned his Master of Design in Strategic Design Planning (Patrick Whitney’s program).  David and I had a chance to catch up and thought it would be fun to do a Q+A here.

DA: Your background is in Strategic Design Planning.  How would you describe what this is?
DLS:  The short answer is that strategic design planning tries to answer a basic question that every business asks: what should we make? In contrast, traditional design practice goes after a different question: how should we make it? -- with the "it" already having been defined. Design planning takes on challenges that are systemic and organizational in scale. Traditional design is about creating artifacts.

Another way to think about design planning is to look at how design has changed over the last 50 or so years. Historically, designers focused only on making things, and for most of the 20th century, gave form to products dreamed up by marketers or engineers. Designers relied on marketing folks for information they needed to create new things. This method worked until about the mid-1970s, when companies began offering customers more specialized, more technically complex goods. Companies learned they could be successful offering customers endless product choices and upgrades. But as designers tried to keep up using only marketing-based data, they found they kept missing the mark. Success in this new paradigm required a different type of input -- data that revealed customers' behaviors and motivations, not just opinions. So a few pioneering designers began turning to ethnography and other novel methods for understanding customers. These methods proved so powerful at uncovering customer needs that they gave rise to a new discipline -- design planning -- for systematically turning behavior-based insights into strategic business opportunities.

DA: You’ve worked at some interesting places like Doblin, VSA Partners, Avenue A | Razorfish and were co-owner of your own firm called Method Engine. What’s one significant skill or learning you picked up from each experience?
DLS: At Doblin, I saw how Larry Keeley introduced design planning concepts to clients. He's a master at bringing planning to life and showing how powerful it can be. At VSA, I had a chance to work with some of the world's best brands just as they were figuring out what the Web was all about. Starting Method Engine taught me many things, mostly humility and patience. And Avenue A | Razorfish was the place where I fine-tuned many things I'd learned earlier.

DA: What do you think is the role of the designer in the broader fields of marketing and business in general?
DLS: In most engagements, the designer serves as a proxy for the user. Good designers can empathize with customers -- understanding their problems and pains -- while holding a vision of how things could be made better. In this way, the designer serves as a liason between the capabilities the business has to offer and the opportunities represented by its customers' needs.

DA: What about innovation?  Where do you see innovation coming from these days?  Where do you think there needs to be more of it?
DLS: So many people are talking about the flattening of the world. For the most part, they're referring to the effects of outsourcing on the U.S. economy. When it comes to innovation, the U.S. has held the title for generations. Today, innovation capabilities are emerging in every part of the world. This is bringing changes to the way we work -- breaking down barriers but also speeding up the pace of innovation.

DA: Do you think there is a common challenge that marketers, designers, and to a broader extent, businesspeople have in common?  If so—what would you say that is?
DLS:  It's getting harder and harder to draw a distinction between those roles. As the rate of competition and innovation continues to quicken, people who can move between those worlds become more valued. I think having a clear understanding of customers' wants and needs is a invaluable trait in all three of those domains.

DA: What’s your favorite animal and why?
DLS: I think ants are pretty fascinating. What better metaphor for working together to create the future? And I like cats too. 

DA: What’s been the biggest success in your career so far?
DLS: The one that comes to mind first is when I transitioned from working as a graphic designer. After grad school I suddenly found myself in completely different types of design conversations -- not about fonts and colors, but about innovation and change on a much larger scale.

DA: What would you consider to have been a "failure"?  What did you learn from it?
DLS:  I can't think of any outright failures. Plenty of things didn't go as planned, but if you can learn from a bad situation, you've found a way to succeed.

DA: What’s your favorite thing about living in Chicago?
DLS: I love how people here have turned architecture into a spectator sport. There are these three supertall skyscrapers going up right now within a few blocks of each other. It's great to have a front-row seat to watch it happen. That, and Lake Michigan beaches in summer are pretty hard to beat.

DA: Tell us one thing about yourself we might not have guessed.
DLS: A friend of mine and I ran a DJ business in high school. 

DA: If you had to give up all your digital devices but one—what would it be?
DLS: It's a toss-up between my Panasonic plasma and my Mac. Losing either would be very, very bad.

DA: What advice would you give to aspiring planners?
DLS:  Try to experience design in multiple contexts, like marketing, branding, product development and research. Good planners think about the whole of user experience, since customers come to know about the stuff we make through a whole variety of channels and touchpoints. Those of us who can quickly shift contexts are better positioned to solve the tough planning and design problems. I think it's a great time to consider a planning career. Conferences like The Overlap are being organized just for those "misfits" who think about their careers as extending across traditional design and business boundaries. And schools like IIT's Institute of Design and Stanford's D-School are offering planning degrees that really mirror these trends.

Getting Whacky with Roger Von Oech

Four years ago, I was unpacking some boxes and came across a deck of cards called the "Creative Whack Pack".  I didn't remember how I got the deck, but I opened it up and easily killed an hour going through them.  Since that time I've used the cards in numerous brainstorming exercises with clients such as HP.  Fast forward to a couple of months ago and my mobile phone rings.  Hello?  "Hello David, this is Roger von Oech—I saw your site in BusinessWeek".  The rest is history.  Roger has added blogging to his resume and is extending his influence to a whole new audience.  He recently indulged me with a little Q+A.  Don't be deterred by the lengthy post.  It's worth every word—so enjoy.

DA: What is the correct pronunciation of your last name anyway? 

RvO: I pronounce it "von Eck" (rhymes with Neck)

DA: You’ve been a creative evangelist for some time now—how are things different now from when you first started.  How are they the same?

RvO: When I started my company, Creative Think, in 1977, it was very difficult to sell creativity to corporate America. Companies back then thought they had all the answers and they were a lot more rigid. The only other people I was aware of who were promoting creative thinking at that time were Edward de Bono and (Stanford professors) Jim Adams and Bob McKim.

After I left IBM, I put together a creativity seminar. I then did two important things that helped me be successful:

1) I didn't sell "creativity" as my product; instead I sold the "product of the product," that is, what creativity would do for a company, e.g., "higher productivity," or "better communication between marketing and engineering," or "projects completed in less time."

2) I sold really hard -- I was a man with a mission. IBM was my first client, then Hewlett-Packard, and the Federal Reserve Bank. By 1979, I was doing creativity seminars nationwide with the likes of DuPont, Sears, Chevron, Hughes Aircraft, and ARCO. I even worked with Apple before they were a public company (1980).

My two big breaks were: 1) the recession of 1980-82. Companies discovered that what worked in the 70s wasn't going to work in the 80s, and so they realized they needed to be creative. That's when they would call me to help them.  2) My other big break was when my first book, "A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative" was published by Warner Books (since then it has sold nearly 2 million copies and been translated into 17 languages).

By 1985, I was featured in BusinessWeek, and ABC's 20/20 did a 7 minute feature on me. I'd say by the mid-80s the field of creativity consulting gained a great amount of legitimacy. By the early 1990s, it seemed like there were 200 "creative consultants" out there doing their stuff. It was a pretty heady time. I did a lot of seminars, workshops, and speaking gigs in the 80s and 90s.

After the "Bubble Economy" of 1998-2000, 9/11, and the recession of 2001-2002, most companies turned inward.  But in the last 18 months, INNOVATION has gotten to be quite the big deal again  in corporate America and beyond. There must be 2,000 or more "creative consultants" out there doing their thing these days. I think this is great!

DA: What are the main barriers that you see standing between companies and innovation/creativity?  What do they need to overcome?

RvO: Three things:
1) Past success in a particular area can make it more difficult for them to try new approaches that might jeopardize that revenue stream;
2) hierarchical organization prevents cross-fertilization of ideas
3) not listening closely enough to one's customers.

I recommend to my clients that they put an "innovation quota" in every employee's performance plan -- this is true for people in IT and accounting as well as marketing and R&D. This encourages people to look for ways to make innovative changes in their business structure. Those who don't do this will not be rewarded or promoted.

DA: What do you think we need to overcome at the individual level?

RvO: We need to break out of "the prison of familiarity." No matter who you are, the more often you do something in the same way -- again and again and again -- the more difficult it is to think about doing it in any other way.

Here are two simple strategies I recommend to break out of this prison:

1) LOOK FOR THE SECOND RIGHT ANSWER. When most of us have a problem, we stop with the first solution or right answer we find. If you want to be innovative, you need to force yourself to go beyond the first answer, and look for other right answers -- sometimes it's the fifth right answer to a problem that will turn into creative gold.


2) HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR. I think there's a close relationship between the "haha" of humor and the "aha" of creative discovery. If you can laugh at a problem, you open up your thinking to other possibilities.

DA: What inspired you to put your thoughts about creativity and innovation in the format of a deck of cards as in the Creative Whack Pack?

RvO: I had always wanted to have a creativity workshop in a box. So, in 1986 I boiled my main creativity concepts (from my first two books: "Whack" and "Kick") down to 64 ideas -- which is just about right size for a deck of cards. I divided these into four suits -- after my model of the creative process: Explorer, Artist, Judge, and Warrior -- of 16 cards each.

The key thing was the design of each card. Put a creativity strategy at the top, for example, "Don't Fall in Love with Ideas," or "Sell, Sell, Sell." Then have a drawing by my artist George Willett. Then have a story, parable, or example of this creative strategy. And finally, have a question or two to force the reader to apply the strategy to his life.

I did a deal with US Games in Connecticut, and the first edition came out in 1989 (there have been two subsequent editions). Both Fortune and CBS News did stories on it in 1990, and the product took off. People love using it. It's been a very popular product: about a million decks sold.

One thing I'm really proud of is this: prior to the publication of the Creative Whack Pack, there weren't decks with business content on them. The Whack Pack was the first. Now, there are many, many decks. I feel somewhat like a pioneer in that field.

DA: How about the Ball of Whacks—what inspired that?

RvO:  I wanted to move beyond written stuff -- books and card decks -- and create a product people could really get their hands around. I often get my ideas when I get out of the verbal part of my brain. Flipping a ball size object about does the trick.



Several years ago, I stumbled on to the 30-sided polyhedron, the rhombic triacontahedron. It's one of geometry's most beautiful shapes. One day, I idly asked myself, "How can I improve the playability of this shape? Why not cut it into thirty rhombic pyramids? These were beautiful shapes, but how to hold them together? Why not put rare earth magnets in each side. Bingo! The Ball of Whacks. It's a great manipulative, and you can make many, many shapes with the pieces.



The last two years have been a very interesting experience in developing this product and bringing it to market. I have had to learn how to write a patent and deal with the USPTO, work with a mechanical engineer and CAD guy, learn about SLA, aluminum, and steel tooling, go to China to get a manufacturer, get sales, marketing and distribution in this country, and so on, and so on. It's been an incredible learning experience.

One of the positive, unintended consequences of bringing the Ball of Whacks to market has been my getting involved in the blogging world. I started a blog in September to promote the BOW. What I've discovered is an amazing and energetic place -- a big frothy soup.

As it turns out, the BOW was a stepping stone to my contributing to the blogosphere.

DA: You are both a husband and father—how has this influenced your own personal creativity?

RvO: I often get this question from parents, "What can I do to stimulate my child's creativity?" I guess my simple answer is: "Be creative yourself. You are their model. If you do creative things, they will too." 

The key thing with my children was teaching them that there's a time to be creative and there's a time when it's inappropriate, and that it's important to learn the difference. (They seem to be turning out okay: my daughter graduated from Stanford several years ago and is working at Ning.com, a Marc Andreesen-backed internet startup in Palo Alto; my son is a Marshall Scholar in his senior year at USC.)

DA: You have taken to blogging like a duck to water—what are the aspects of blogging that came as a surprise to you?

RvO: It's been really nice to have "beginner's mind" again. So, I've had to learn a lot of the ins and outs of the craft. That makes it exciting. At this point, I'm trying "find my own voice." Also, I figure if you're going to do this (blog), it's good to have an audience. So, I've found that it's really important to get out and read other blogs and comment on them. And, I'm not shy about saying, "Nice post," or "interesting comment," or, "I didn't know that, you really made me think." By the way, there are a lot of very good blogs out there.

Two surprises:
1) hearing from so many people who've said, "I've read your books and they changed my life," or "I've used your Whack Pack," or "You came to my company fifteen years and stimulated management to think creatively." It's a really wonderful feeling.
2) The other surprise is all of the new people I'm meeting -- especially those in their 20s and 30s. What a great medium.

DA: Open mic—anything on your mind you would like the audience here to know about?

RvO: David, I really appreciate the guidance you've given me in the early stages of bloggerhood. Thanks a bunch. If your readers have a few moments, drop on over to my site and scroll down through my posts. If you like some of what you see, then just hit the "Subscribe" button in the upper right hand corner! (Is that too shameless?)  Good luck to all your readers, and happy whacking!

[Images ©2006 Roger von Oech]