How does Fancy use Apple In-App-Purchases? Apple's TOS says this isn't allowed?

Shopify is best use case for $0 to $1M ish, depending on product line, how many transactions that makes up, and if their are some custom things that are not possible on Shopify that realistically lead to huge gains that would cover more costs of a custom solution with something like magento. I recommend Shopify to everyone starting out. That's what we used at Diamond Candles up until about a $5M run rate. We were/are growing quickly so we hit a point where payoff of customizing checkout flow, add of social sign on, etc. that could not be done because of Shopify, would cover and surpass costs of a more custom option. Best to think about this simplistic example. View the ecom platform market in about 3 buckets. 1. Starting out: $0-$1M ish 2. Wow looks like you have a business: $1M-$20 or 50ish 3. You are/could be publicly traded: $50M+ Take a look at usage #'s for market share size from independent third party analytics tools from Builtwith: http://trends.builtwith.com/shop/Shopify/Market-Share http://trends.builtwith.com/shop http://trends.builtwith.com/shop/hosted-solution Just because something is found on the web more isn't the full picture. Ie. I could make a blogging platform and have a bunch of scripts and bots install it on millions of domains and I would have majority of the market for blogging platforms (ya that would take a while and isn't a realistic scenario but you can get the point). Providers dominating the different categories by companies in those areas actually doing volume and being succsessful? 1. Shopify, BigCommerce, Volusion, Magento GO, 2. Magento (varying editions), Yahoo Stores, Symphony Commerce 3. Demand Ware, GSI Commerce, Magento (varying editions) At the end of the day a good illustration goes like this. A truck and a moped are two different things. A truck is not trying to out 'moped' a moped and a moped not trying to out 'truck' a truck. They are both perfectly suited to different applications, situations, needs, and circumstances. The same goes with who you choose to handle your ecom platform. For 2-3 search for internet retailers first 500 and second 500 lists. Pull off all ecommerce companies doing between $10-$50M as an example. Use the builtwith.com chrome toolbar to tell you what platform they are using. Hire someone for $2 an hour via odesk to make a spreadsheet of everything and the make a pretty little pie chart. Now you know what each revenue volume level chooses as 1, 2, 3 preferred platforms. Option 3 as a side note but very important one, is primarily a platform and commerce as a service model with companies like Demand Ware and GSI Commerce leading the market with platform and services including but not limited to customer service for the brand, fulfillment, marketing services, website product photography etc. Their pricing models are based on gross revenue share. ie. SportsAuthority.com does $100M online this year, GSI takes 30% of that to cover everything. (I am not sure who Sports Authority uses, just an example) You can almost pick any traditional brick and mortar retailer and if they have a website where they sell things, they all do, GSI or DW are the people behind the scenes running the call centers, shipping etc. Diamond Candles, my company, who started on Shopify decided to not go with a the market dominating option of Magento for a few reasons. One of which being upfront cost for an agency or on staff magento CTO type. We decided to partner with a newer entrant, Symphony Commerce, which blends the 3rd category model of platform plus service. Rev. cut is significantly smaller than providers in category 3, but still get benefits of volume savings on shipping volume, scalable customer support that can handle rapid growth and occasional spikes without us having to worry about scaling or implementing best practices, and a fully customizable platform as a service so to speak that doesn't require us to have in house tech but where we are essentially renting part time ecommerce engineers from with resumes that list Google, FB, Twitter, Magento, Amazon, etc. So in summary. If you are <$1M in revenue just roll with Shopify. Greater than that but less than $50M ish then I would recommend looking into Symphony. If Symphony is interested in letting you in then you won't have to incur the upfront costs of an agency or implementation and you will have an ongoing partner equally incentivized i your long term success financially which I prefer as opposed to an agency model which economically is incentivized to offer a one time finished product and their revenue is not tied to my financial success. It is the closest thing to an equity partner while returning our full equity.

They are getting interest through their traction in other cities. Since they are already in 20 cities and have approximately half a million users if you look at their Android app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.hinge.mobile.android), they can simply wait until one city "tips". This might also just be a strategy to artificially use scarcity since it works sometimes, such as with Mailbox(http://www.nirandfar.com/2013/07/psychology-of-scarcity.html). I think it doesn't really matter if they launch city after city, as they have $8M in funding and can just spend $5,000 on Facebook Ads and get 1,000 user in one city within a day. The effect of scarcity makes sense, if you are new and if you're a hyped startup such as Mailbox used to be. On the other hand, it makes sense if you don't have the resources to launch in many cities such as Uber, because they need the drivers first. I can also schedule a call, where I can tell you more about this as I've done a lot of apps and have a social network myself with Tennis Buddy.

There is NO simple answer for this. Is the app a game? Is it a utility? Is it a social app? All apps have different advertising/launch strategies. On a broad level, Facebook's in-stream mobile app ads have proven to be very effective for conversions so I would probably start there. The key is to concentrate your efforts in the first 3-4 days of launch for advertising so you can drive up downloads and app reviews in a short period to (hopefully) be recognized in the "new and notable" and "what's hot" categories in the AppStore. Doing that effectively elongates your launch by getting in front of more people and increasing downloads.

If I had to pick a single efficient and affordable way of getting in front of a targeted audience I would have to recommend Facebook in-stream ads. You control the budget, the target group and the message and they are, right now, offering the highest conversion rates for mobile apps. Keep in mind that your app needs to be amazing - that's the most effective strategy of all...

Here are the main alternatives to AdMob divided into tiers based on scale: Tier one: a) MoPub b) Amazon Publisher Services c) Facebook Audience Network Tier two: a) Verizon b) Smaato c) Fyber d) MobFox e) InMobi f) AdColony g) Rubicon h) AppNexus i) Pubmatic j) OpenX k) Chartboost l) Unity Ads m) Vdopia n) IronSource o) Adtoapp p) AdinCube q) Appodeal r) PubNative Let me explain them one-by-one: 1. MoPub: MoPub is another industry leading SSP option. It was an early entrant in the space, and it was acquired several years ago by Twitter. Since then it has continued to develop and it runs one of the largest exchanges for mobile app inventory, tapping into the advertiser base of Twitter. 2. Amazon Publisher Services (APS): Amazon Publisher Services is one of the newest options available to mobile app developers. Amazon has been rapidly developing their advertising capabilities and they have their own massive demand source because of all the merchants advertising on their platform. They also run a product called Transparent Ad Marketplace (TAM) that allows you to mediate other demand sources as well. It's not as easy to use as AdMob, but it's a very potent competitive option. 3. Facebook Audience Network (FAN): Facebook is the only other demand source that truly rivals Google AdMob in sheer size. FAN is not a mediation service, but it is so large that many apps would not need anything else, so it is an AdMob alternative. It is possible to use it as a demand source in other mediation solutions and if you can, you should. 4. Verizon (aka Nexage and Oath): The name of this one keeps changing. It was originally known as Nexage, which was another older exchange and SSP. Nexage was acquired by Millennial Media, which was acquired AOL and marketed as a product called One Mobile, then AOL was acquired by Verizon. Verizon deals in all digital ads, whether desktop, mobile web or mobile app. They have a full-featured SSP option and they are also providing header bidding to publishers. 5. Smaato: Smaato has traditionally been more internationally focused but has started to perform well in the US too. They have a sizable exchange of their own. 6. Fyber: Fyber is a roll-up of a few different companies, one of which was Inneractive which has a good-sized ad exchange for mobile app traffic. Fyber is a game focused SSP but they can and do operate on a variety of other types of apps. The mediation platform HeyZap was also acquired and rolled into Fyber. 7. MobFox: MobFox is the in-app monetization arm of the Matomy group. 8. InMobi: InMobi has long been a large ad network in international markets and a while back they acquired Aerserv. Aerserv is a video focused SSP with a mediation platform and exchange that performs well in the US, making it a great addition to InMobi. 9. AdColony: Many of these SSPs were formed through acquisition, and AdColony (formerly known as Opera) is a successful public company that was created through several acquisitions. Their SSP offering is underpinned by a mobile ad serving and mediation layer called AdMarvel. That platform is augmented by demand from a performance network formerly known as Moolah Media and a brand network formerly known as Mobile Theory. All of this has been combined and they have created their own proprietary exchange as well under the brand AdColony 10. Rubicon: Rubicon is a long-time player on web inventory. They grew rapidly and ultimately went public a few years ago. Rubicon operates a large exchange, and they have an SSP offering for in-app inventory, but their roots are in web inventory. 11. AppNexus: AppNexus runs a large exchange that traditionally was focused on web inventory. Again, their roots are web, but they are moving aggressively into app inventory as well. AppNexus is a more robust platform than other SSPs, which is a pro and a con. It can be used as a platform to run a whole ad network. However, that large scope of features can make it daunting to use as an SSP. As part of that platform, it has a very robust direct ad serving offering. 12. PubMatic: PubMatic is a large company running their own exchange. PubMatic acquired mobile ad network Mojiva a while back and Mojiva's ad serving counterpart Mocean, so they do have a robust direct ad serving system that can be used to operate a whole network, like AppNexus. That acquisition also gave them some technology that was developed specifically for mobile. 13. OpenX: Yet another large SSP from a private company with web roots. OpenX operates an exchange that is large and worth accessing. OpenX started as a direct ad serving platform and that is still one of their core offerings. They are one of the few SSPs that has a robust direct ad serving option. 14. Chartboost: Chartboost focuses exclusively on game apps. They run interstitial and video ad formats only and offer cross promo and a direct deal marketplace so you can coordinate with other app developers. 15. Unity Ads: The Unity platform for game development has an ad platform called Unity Ads woven into it. This makes it extremely easy for apps developed on Unity to use, but it focuses on rewarded video units exclusively. 16. Vdopia: Vdopia runs an optimization platform and video ad exchange called Chocolate. 17. IronSource: IronSource is a full-featured platform with a variety of ad units available, but they tend to focus on game apps and on rewarded video. If most of your inventory is rewarded, do NOT skip over this one. It is one of the leaders in that space. 18. Adtoapp: 20+ demand sources and monthly pay-outs. 19. Appodeal: 60+ demand sources and flexible payout options. 20. AdinCube: Ogury acquired this product and turned it into their publisher solution. 21. PubNative: Native ad network and good mediation add-on for other SSPs. Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath