cezary pietrzak

Yesterday, I shared a presentation with the inaugural Techstars Atlanta class on topic of building a growth engine. In it, I cover three areas:

Marketing fundamentals (target audience exploration, messaging, moments + places framework) >>> the foundational building blocks of any marketing efforts

Testing + Data (growth hypotheses, marketing funnel, data strategy) > this is setup >>> the approach to take when testing ideas and how to collect data to make sure you evaluate them properly

Marketing Channels (paid ads, message automation, lead gen, referral programs) >>> an overview of key marketing channels that startups are likely to use

Each section includes frameworks I’ve developed over the last few years, as well as examples from real projects to bring them to life.

I also recommend my favorite marketing tech tools in the presentation, including data layers, attribution platforms, marketing automation platforms and lead gen tools.

Last week, I had the opportunity to sit down with my friend Mike Brown of Bowery Capital and discuss a topic that's close to my heart: data.

In the context of startups, data is a very familiar term. Founders understand that they need to be data-driven, that numbers are the foundation of a healthy business and that all business decisions should be supported with numbers. To help them achieve this goal, they use a variety of analytics, heat map and A/B testing tools (eg Google Analytics, Crazy Egg, Optimizely), while the more sophisticated ones place an emphasis on hiring quantitatively-focused employees and data scientists.

Many live by the "Always be testing" mantra, while others go as far as wearing "data-driven" T-shirts to showcase their data-centric pride.

Being data-driven is only half the story

But while everyone agrees on the importance of data, they simultaneously overlook the needs for qualitative insights to enhance and challenge their quantitative findings. How many founders today can describe their customers in a compelling way? How many can articule their customers' beliefs, values and behaviors in detail? How many understand the bigger context of their customers' lives outside the immediate application of their product? All of these human-centric components are vital in making the correct interpretation of numeric figures.

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As startups proliferate, their approach to marketing is becoming extremely one-sided and functional: channels trump behaviors, the obvious trumps the implied and numbers trump insights. At worst, data is taken verbatim and used as a crutch, with statements like this abounding: "That's what the data said, so it must be true."

This is a very dangerous territory to be in, as over-reliance on data reduces the very core of any business - people - into faceless drones (more commonly known in the startup world as users). It also leads to weak hypotheses that are based on a very shallow understanding of context and reality.

Data alone is only half as valuable as data paired with real human insights.

In this podcast, I discuss the importance of humanizing data for startups, whether they are B2C or (especially) B2B.

I also offer a few pointers on how startups can make their data more human, such as:

Spending time observing their customers in natural environment

Researching their category behaviors and lives outside of the narrow application of their product

Developing strong hypotheses based on behavioral observations

Finally, I provide specific examples of how I've applied this approach for my consulting clients. 

Startups are the very definition of going against the grain and doing something different. Yet, during my time as an entrepreneur, I’ve noticed they have their own set of conventions around how things should be done - whether it’s fundraising, developing a growth strategy or hiring new employees.

I disagree with this notion strongly, and believe that each startup needs to find its own unique path to success. There is no incorrect of doing things, and in fact, those who take the lesser-known approach are often more successful.

Yesterday, I shared a keynote presentation on this very topic with MaGIC, a fast-growing entrepreneurship center in Malaysia led by my good friend Cheryl Yeoh.

Cheryl and I met during the rise of the New York tech ecosystem, both of us first-time entrepreneurs who were following our dreams in an environment ripe with opportunity. Over the course of a few years, we witnessed a unique transformation of New York from an also-ran to the second most funded tech ecosystem in the world (though, really, we’d happily tell you we’re #1). It was a result of the confidence, attitude and hard work of the entrepreneurs, who did what they could with the resources they had and ultimately became a magnet for the VC funding, accelerator programs and government involvement which followed years later.

One important aspect of the New York tech ecosystem is that we didn’t model ourselves on Silicon Valley or the conventional way of building a startup ecosystem. Rather, we built a community that was unique to our strengths, interest and experience. We took advantage of the diversity of our city, our dominance in many industries (fashion, real estate, banking, marketing, etc) and the city’s incredible geographic efficiency. 

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The story of New York is a great example for all emerging startup ecosystems, not only for the one in Malaysia where the seeds are already in place and the foundation for growth is excellent. Each of these ecosystems have something unique to share, but to be noticed, they must forge their own path and behave like a true Challenger. Government funding alone will not help them to succeed, nor will an attitude that’s focused more on what is lacking versus what is abundant.

Being a Challenger is difficult but very rewarding. I’ve often found that my ideas on marketing and growth run counter to startup conventions, which are dominated by blind faith in data and a culture of indiscriminate testing, while lacking a true focus on people. These ideas have been propagated for years by many who built the foundation of Silicon Valley. They’ve forgotten that people are the only ones that matter, especially as technology becomes more personal (think mobile and wearables) and increasingly molded to fit our lives.

My keynote in Malaysia was a great opportunity to articulate some of these opinions, which I list below and will discuss in more details in future blog posts:

Put people at the center of your company

Answer the “Why?” with deep human insights

Invest in relationships

Focus on one: customer, niche, message

Celebrate great ideas

Create a minimum beautiful product

Think first, test later

Create a growth process

Make growth a team sport

Thanks to Cheryl for giving me the opportunity to share my perspective on startups and growth. The experience not only clarified my own beliefs on what is truly necessary for success, but also drew my attention to the incredible opportunities in emerging startup ecosystems around the world, including Malaysia, my home country of Poland and elsewhere. It’s inspiring to see such excitement about technology and the gradual shift from shiny gadgets to products and services that truly enrich people’s lives. It validates the beliefs I’ve always held as true, and it motivates me to find the opportunities where I can truly excel.

I challenge everyone to forge their own path as well, and answer the question that Peter Thiel so eloquently posed:

"What important truth do very few people agree with you on?"

I'm excited to announce that be I'll be mentoring the newest class of companies in the Techstars Kaplan Accelerator. The program, which runs overs the course of three months, provides twelve startups in education technology with advice and access to top entrepreneurs, investors and industry influencers, as well as cash and office space. The companies range from classic SaaS products to ecommerce and hardware businesses.

One of the unique aspects of the program is its focus on helping startups to build functional capabilities for their business. To achieve this, Techstars has invited a small group of mentors to meet with all companies on a regular basis and and work with them to implement ideas, processes and frameworks from several discplines. I will be focusing on marketing and growth, while my colleagues Chris, Lindsay and Andrew will cover customer development, user experience and analytics, respectively.

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Billed as the "black diamond" of mobile conferences, the very first M1 MobileFirst Summit on May 20th in New York was an epic affair, featuring 94 speakers, 28 panels and 700 attendees. The event was organized by Nihal Mehta of Eniac Ventures and Gary Moon of Headwaters MB, with the goal of bringing advanced-level conversations to the mobile community. While it certainly delivered on this promise, it also achieved much more. Over the course of the day, a high-caliber roster of mobile experts and top execs like Ken Chenault, Mark Suster, and Shiv Singh shared their thoughts on the current state of the mobile industry as well as its future. A wide range of topics were covered in the conversations, ranging from mobile discovery, engagement and monetization to wearable technology and connected devices.

A full house at the M1 MobileFirst Summit

At times, the diversity of topics and fast pace of the panels made M1 feel a bit overwhelming. But this also made the conference special, as panelists were quick to share their opinions and engage in debates.

I had the opportunity to experience the M1 Summit from start to finish (minus the afterparty), attending numerous panels and live-tweeting the event. Not only did I build on my existing thinking on mobile, but I also had the opportunity to connect with a diverse group of people and a wide range of opinions. Below are the seven key themes that emerged across all of these discussions, as well as my thoughts on their implications.

1. Beyond mobile awareness 2. Moments as the currency of mobile 3. Owning the customer journey 4. Anticipating future needs 5. Holistic app distribution 6. Data-driven content 7. Wearables as an experience

Nihal Mehta and Gary Moon introducing the M1 Summit

1. BEYOND MOBILE AWARENESS

Since the late 2000s, the mobile industry has been claiming that it's finally "the year in mobile." Each year, it has used this rallying cry to spur marketers into action, as many still underinvest in the medium despite data showing mobile is now the second most-important marketing channel after TV. At the M1 Summit, several panelists suggested that the phrase should be discontinued, as it does not help the industry to further its cause. In fact, there was consensus that awareness of mobile is not problem in the market; rather, it's the complexity of the medium that makes it difficult to fully embrace.

In the panel on the Next Frontier of Mobile Advertising, Stephanie Bauer Marshall of Verizon mentioned that mobile still feels very chaotic for marketers. They are very much overwhelmed with the industry vernacular, technology choices and rapid pace of change, and need a guiding hand to navigate the channel.

“mobile has made marketing more chaotic” -@stephers25 speaks about a recurring theme in mobile #m1summit

— Cezary Pietrzak (@cezinho) 

May 20, 2014

John McDermott of Digiday hosting the panel on mobile advertising

In her fireside chat, Esther Lee of AT&T echoed the same sentiment for consumers, noting that they, too, are overwhelmed by mobile technology as much as they are empowered by it.

Consumers are both empowered and overwhelmed by mobile technology -@esthersoolee #m1summit

— Robbie Allan (@robbiedigi)

May 20, 2014

The key takeaway here is that industry needs to do more to educate its audience, rather than riding the wave of unprecedented growth and assuming that change will happen by itself. This includes providing ample resources to for teaching and training, as well as a high-level perspective on key industry topics. The Mobile Marketing Association has done a good job in the area, but more help is necessary. Even as companies are hiring a growing number of mobile marketing managers, the change of pace in mobile is simply too quick for them to keep up.

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2. MOMENTS AS THE CURRENCY OF MOBILE

Mobile is often viewed as an asynchronous set of activities that happen in short bursts and on the go. The erratic nature of these usage patterns means that marketers need to focus on "moments" - or specific points in time and space - to engage their users. This was the theme of Brian Wong's afternoon keynote, in which he explained how Kiip thinks about customer rewards for brands.

consumer "moments" are the currency of mobile. to leverage them, you must understand human feelings + emotions @brian_wong #m1summit

— Cezary Pietrzak (@cezinho) 

May 20, 2014

Mark Ghermezian of Appboy also spoke of "moment engagement" in the Analytics, Data and Engagement for Mobile Publishers panel. He used the term in the context of understanding mobile users based on their behaviors and finding specific opportunities to engage them via notifications and messaging. 

"moment engagement" is fnly making its way to mobile: identifying times+places to interact w customers based on mindset+behaviors #m1summit

— Cezary Pietrzak (@cezinho) 

May 20, 2014

Panelists speaking about mobile engagement and analytics 

Even Forrester Research has jumped on the moments bandwagon, including the concept in its upcoming book and even promoting the #MyMobileMoments hashtag. The company describes moments that are critical to many different professions, from sales and marketing to product usage and office work.

Mobile moments are not new per se. In fact, the concept has been used in the discipline of communications planning at advertising agencies for many years now to identify ways to reach consumers. But a growing recognition of the concept in mobile is a welcome sign, given the industry's skew to technical rather than human-centric solutions. 

3. OWNING THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY

Related to mobile moments was the idea of owning the customer journey. Ken Chenault referenced the topic in his keynote, arguing that companies today should strive to become a trusted partner of their customers at each step of the decision-making process. Given that mobile provides 24/7 access to people and is always within arms' reach, this is a highly desirable and differentiating position, but also a very tall order to execute.

focusing on the entire commerce journey is the key differentiator for co's in mobile, acc'd to & Ken Chenault, CEO of Amex #m1summit

— Cezary Pietrzak (@cezinho)

May 20, 2014

Ken Chenault, CEO of American Express, discussing mobile

To help the M1 audience think about the customer journey, Shiv Singh presented a simple framework in which cultural context and social pressures drive key insights behind the product experience and inform the way companies interact with their audience. This, in turn, creates strong customer relationships. 

Insights (cultural context + social pressures) > Experience (product + actions taken) > Consumer relationship 

On Twitter, Darren Herman suggested that mobile forces companies to think about interactions outside the transaction. This, of course, requires knowledge about what they do in between purchases as well as the motivations that drive their behavior.

@cezinho @brian_wong it's a big opportunity. think about how much is spent to get people to shop/re-shop. How about every moment in between?

— Darren Herman (@dherman76) 

May 20, 2014

It's becoming clear that successful mobile companies create multiple customer interactions prior to a sale, and that these moments facilitate their path to the register or shopping cart. 

4. ANTICIPATING FUTURE NEEDS

One of mobile's greatest strengths is that it provides marketers with a variety of signals about people's mindset and context, including their location (GPS), motion (accelerometer, gyroscope) and a view of the outside world (camera). While marketers should use this information to satisfy people's current needs, they should also anticipate what the may want in the future.

Shiv Singh of Visa spoke on this topic at length, underscoring the need for marketers to map out customer journeys and actively search for ways to surprise and delight them. He referenced a few examples of this in action, including Visa's 360 Cam at the Winter Olympics which gave fans access to a first-person view of athlete training.

focus on what people *could* be doing on mobile, says @shivsingh. sounds like anticipatory computing: http://t.co/1tEdJwxukz #m1summit

— Cezary Pietrzak (@cezinho) 

May 20, 2014

Tom Philips of Dstillery has a similar perspective on the Cross-Platform Advertising panel. He spoke about the need for predictive analytics to understand customer behavior across multiple screens, so that marketers can get proactively anticipate their audience's behaviors.

Rich Wong of Accel further echoed this sentiment, speaking about the rise of smart apps which do much of the thinking on behalf of mobile users.

Future of mobile is in predictive applications and "quant CMO" marketing -> Personalized experiences will be key. @RWong @m1summit

— Rick Zullo (@Rick_Zullo) 

May 20, 2014

I've written on the topic of anticipatory computing at length and can attest to its importance in the broader context of mobile. The reality is that smartphones today are still much too difficult to use and have an unbalanced ratio of effort to value. The more mobile companies can take the burden off users by identifying patterns in behaviors and capturing intent, the the higher their chances of creating long-term engagement. Apps like Google Now, Cover, Sunrise and Foursquare have found success on this very premise, and many others are following in their footsteps.

If building sophisticated algorithmic predictions is not feasible, mobile companies can still invest time understanding their customers to identify unmet needs.

Networking breaks between M1 panels

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5. HOLISTIC APP DISTRIBUTION

As I wrote in my summary of the recent NY Mobile Apps event, there is a growing need among apps to look beyond app stores for distribution. App store optimization (ASO) is not enough to outshine large incumbents, budgets for paid advertising are never sufficient, and getting featured by Apple or Google is highly unlikely. According to panelists at M1, it's therefore important to supplement app store efforts with other marketing channels, both digital and traditional. 

In an early-morning fireside chat, Mark Suster referenced the ongoing importance of his classic post, Web Second, Mobile First, to industry thinking in 2014. He reminded the audience that "mobile first" means leading with mobile, but it does not mean ignoring other marketing channels.

"mobile first" doesn't mean "mobile only" -@msuster sharing his thoughts on the importance of "web second" #m1summit

— Cezary Pietrzak (@cezinho)

May 20, 2014

Many companies have discovered this truth the hard way, per Erin Griffith, moderator of the Mobile Trends Among VCs panel. As a result, they have adopted web-based tactics which would have been even more valuable in earlier stages of growth.

.@eringriffith points out an ugly truth: many mobile-first co's back their way into the web to overcome distribution challenges #m1summit

— Cezary Pietrzak (@cezinho)

May 20, 2014

There were also multiple references among M1 panelists about cross-promotion as a new channel of mobile distribution. Fred Wilson recently coined the phrase app constellations to describe how companies like Dropbox (Mailbox, Carousel), Google (Search, Maps, Drive), Facebook (Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram) and Foursquare (Swarm) have built portfolios of apps by unbundling their services. In doing so, they've also amassed a collective audience which can be used to jumpstart a new app very quickly, thus solving the distribution issue.

But even app constellations come with a caveat, per Semil Shah. New companies cannot afford such a strategy because they lack an existing app audience to draw from. As an alternative, however, we may see the rise of niche app networks created by a complementary group of apps who want to help each other build an audience.

In either case, everyone agrees that app distribution is becoming increasingly complex and requires a big-picture view of marketing. Apps today need to be more creative than ever before and allocate a significant chunk of time (~20-30%) to marketing experimentation outside of app stores.

M1 brochure and swag

6. DATA-DRIVEN CONTENT

Another rising theme in mobile is making use of the bevy of data that is collected by mobile devices. Privacy concerns aside, most companies are actually doing very little with this information to add value to the customer experience, which often results in low engagement rates and abandoned apps.

Steve Rosenblatt of Foursquare believes that mobile data needs to be paired with smart, relevant content. The new Swarm app, for example, sends people notifications when their friends are making plans nearby. This not only captures moments of social serendipity, but also gives people the opportunity to connect with their friends at convenient times and places.

.@stevenjr76 believes the biggest challenge for marketers in mobile is serving up relevant content at specific moments and places #m1summit

— Cezary Pietrzak (@cezinho)

May 20, 2014

Data-driven content is just in its infancy in mobile, but it has a bright future. As apps deal with the constant risk of fatigue and rely increasingly on messaging to engage their audience, they will continue to seek ways to keep their user experience fresh and interesting. To drive these results, they will need to employ data scientists on the quantitative front to make sense of information from hardware sensors and in-app behaviors, as well as editors and content marketers on the qualitative front to creatively articulate this information. I can see data-driven content becoming an important function in the app marketing process.

7. WEARABLES AS AN EXPERIENCE

Last but not least, M1 featured several conversations about the future of wearables. The key takeaway from these discussions was the evolving definition of the term. To many companies on stage, wearables no longer connote hardware, but rather the entire experience built around these products.

This makes a lot of sense, given the shallow nature of the first wave of wearables to hit the market. As companies rush to build devices for every body part and use case (including wearables for dogs), they are forgetting to deliver real value to the experience. People are not excited about basic data on their movements and actions. They need products that fit their style as well as compelling, real-world reasons to put the technology on their bodies, like changing bad habits or improving health.

Wearable Tech: The Next Fashion Frontier panel

In the words of Margaux Guerard of Memi, wearables are challenging because they are often considered fashion accessories. Fit and feel become a prerequisite to the actual technology, turning people off to poorly designed products (or, the vast majority of the market).

Deepa Sood of Cuff adds that wearable are a true extension of a person, which ties them closely to their personality, feelings and emotions. Often, these factors are completely neglected.

wearables are a true extension of the self, moreso than smartphones. this requires a very deep understanding of human behavior. #m1summit

— Cezary Pietrzak (@cezinho)

May 20, 2014

When thinking about wearables as an experience, a big opportunity for companies becomes content and community, according to Andrew Mitchell of Brand Foundry Group. Great wearables will not only be great products, but also connect like-minded people and provide them with relevant content to enhance product interactions.

wearables shld focus more on content & community, esp in a particular context -@mitchellcandrew #m1summit. agreed, wrbls today are v shallow

— Cezary Pietrzak (@cezinho)

May 20, 2014

Wearables should therefore include foundational marketing thinking into the product development process and adopt a human-centric approach to design.

LOOKING AHEAD

There were many other interesting moments at the M1 Summit which this article did not capture, like Mark Suster's comparison of Apple to China, Brian Wong's assertion that mobile advertising does not work, and Chieh Huang's suggestion to mobile commerce companies to think more like gaming apps.

I also wasn't able to attend all panels, including the ones on health and wellness (ft Tracy Harris of Personal Zen + Brian Wang of Fitocracy), million-user mobile apps (ft Michelle Tobin of Rovio) and mobile advertising (ft Jonah Goodhart of Moat), as well as the keynote by Omar Hamoui (Sequoia Capital), but heard positive feedback on each one.

Nonetheless, my experience at M1 was overwhelmingly positive, and it was a pleasure to interact with so many great minds in one place. I have no doubt that the conference will be back again in 2015, and I look forward to the rapid changes in mobile over during the upcoming year.

I'll wrap up this post by summarizing the M1 MobileFirst Summit in four words, per moderator Seema Mody's suggestion:

Double McTwist of mobile

Over 20 people helped to organize the M1 Summit 

So there you have it, a roundup of the M1 MobilFirst Summit in 2,600 words. See you all next year!

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It’s hard to experience mobile these days without using a card interface. In just a short period of time, cards have proliferated across the medium. Popular apps like Tinder, Jelly, Swell and Secret have used the design metaphor to define their entire products, while companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter have integrated cards into their UI. Many other apps and mobile websites are also embracing card-based thinking, sold on the promise of a better user experience and higher engagement.

Cards are taking over mobile

The problem is that few people can articulate what makes cards special and why they’re so popular. In order to understand the concept, I’ll examine:

The broader context of mobile which led to the creation of cards

The key characteristics of cards

The benefits cards provide to end users

At the end of the post, I’ll present a simple definition of mobile cards. My hope is that this will establish common language around the concept for existing discussions and shed new insights on how the design convention may evolve in the future.

THE CHALLENGE OF SMALL SCREENS Despite the immense promise of mobile - 24/7 access to people, a bevy of sensors and contextual data - smartphones are still quite difficult to use. Think about how long it takes to wake up your device, input text, search for information, find apps, share content or make purchases. Then think about doing this on the go and in a hurry. It’s often frustrating and inefficient at best.

While most people blame the physical dimensions of the smartphone for a bad experience, that’s only part of the story. An arguably bigger issue is that many apps are not really built for touchscreen devices. They often force too much information into a small screen and don’t fully utilize native interactions like taps, swipes and flicks.

Cards solve the challenges of mobile presentation and interaction. They build on a metaphor that’s already understood in the physical world, giving it a natural and familiar feel, while also embracing mobile for its unique capabilities.

Cards have emerged at an opportune time. As people spend more and more time time on their devices (162 minutes per day at the last count), their frustrations with mobile will continue to grow. It’s unacceptable to think that value derived from mobile is only slightly higher than the effort required to extract it. Something must change, and cards appear to be one of the solutions.

DECONSTRUCTING CARD FUNCTIONALITY So what exactly is a card? In the physical world, the idea is fairly simple. We can all relate to sitting around a table and playing cards with friends. Most of us also have credit cards and business cards, and some of us have sent postcards or collected trading cards while growing up. Merriam-Webster defines a card as:

Card (n.) A flat stiff usually small and rectangular piece of material (as paper, cardboard, or plastic) usually bearing information

When it comes to mobile, however, this definition feels both vague and generic. While many of the characteristics of physical cards are transferable to the digital environment, mobile has its own special interpretations. Let’s take a closer look at what defines a card.

Cards are rectangular containers. Per the dictionary definition, cards are often squares or rectangles. In mobile, cards also have four sides and clear boundaries. One of the elements that make them different from news feeds - a competing mobile design pattern - is the presence of vertical constraints (upper and lower borders).

Cards are small and portable. Cards have a size limit that enables them to be both accessible and portable. In the physical world, this is typically defined by their ability to fit inside a wallet or pocket, while in mobile, the constraints are defined by the dimensions of a device’s screen. Mobile cards should also be comfortably accessed with one thumb - the most common way to interact with a touchscreen - and hence also cannot be too small.

Cards house information. Cards can house a wide range of information, from credit card numbers and personal data to playing card suits and athlete statistics. Content on mobile cards can be even more diverse and includes both static media (text, images) and rich media (videos, embedded content).

Cards present information in a structured way. Given their physical limitations, cards can only present a finite amount of information at one time. Therefore, they must contain only the most important information required for a particular context. On mobile, determining what information to include and how to structure its presentation is a big challenge, given the many possible options. It’s no surprise that a larger movement around “single-purpose apps” has emerged to reflect this emphasis on focus.

Cards can be manipulated as a single entity. Cards exists both as single entities and individual pieces of information. This means that a card can be interacted with as a whole, separate from the content it houses. For mobile, this means that certain interactions will be global (entire card), while others will be local (specific buttons on card).

Cards can have multi-directional movement. Because of their inherent flexibility, cards can be moved up, down, left, right, diagonally and everything in between. In mobile, this bucks the general convention of vertical movement and opens up the doors to various interactions based on the natural movement of our fingers.

We can see that cards are a very close reflection of mobile technology in general.  They’re small, portable, rectangular, single-purpose and built for our fingers. In fact, cards may be the most native manifestation of the mobile experience, mirroring both the constraints and possibilities of the medium.

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UNDERSTANDING CARD BENEFITS Let’s now shift our focus to understanding the popularity of cards. To do this, it’s necessary to examine the benefits that they bring to end user, or the millions of people who use smartphones. I’ve distilled these benefits to the following descriptors.

Glanceable. The structure of mobile cards allows key information to be viewed in a single glance. Viewers can quickly determine the relevance of content and to take action on it, rather than panning, zooming or scrolling just to find what they want. The term “glanceable” is becoming more popular mobile circles, especially as wearables place an even greater constraint on screen sizes and lend themselves to hyper-relevant, contextual bursts of information.

Fast. Taking action on information presented in cards is fast and easy, because well-designed cards have built-in controls. Whether it’s tapping, swiping or flicking, the desired result is only a split second away. Speed, as we know, is paramount in mobile, which is often accessed on the go and with one hand. Cards eliminate the friction of web-native interactions (eg typing, scrolling) by using the touch interface to a greater potential.

Shareable. One of the biggest challenges of mobile, in the words of Benedict Evans, is “passing things around,” because the medium lacks the URL structure of the web. Cards solve this problem by atomizing content into a shareable object, making it easy to distribute to others. This increases the chances of content spreading virally and gives it greater value over time.

Monetizable. Another challenge of mobile is poor conversion rates for transactions. Cards can solve this problem by creating a more streamlined checkout process within their borders, or by simply becoming a digital equivalent of credit cards (eg storing financial information in “mobile wallet”).

In many ways, cards are a new lens for viewing web content. Through their simple structure, they deliver a more natural, intuitive and interactive mobile experience, allowing people to achieve their objectives (find, share, transact etc) more quickly and efficiently.

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DEFINING MOBILE CARDS This brings us to the definition of mobile cards. How can the concept be explained in a simple way, and convey both its key functions as well as its underlying benefits? I've used the insights above to synthesize it as follows:

Mobile card (n.) A small, rectangular container of information that is glanceable and interactive

The first part of the definition explains the functional characteristics of a mobile card. I’ve purposely stayed away from vague terms like “unit” or “canvas” as they leave too much to interpretation. The second part of the definition explains the benefit of cards. I believe that glanceable is one of the defining characteristics of the design pattern in mobile, and also carries connotations of speed. Interactivity, on the other hand, is robust enough to embrace both sharing and transactions.

SUMMARY Born from the frustrations of using a smartphone, cards have quickly become the go-to design metaphor of mobile. They’re simple to understand and visually appealing, and they perfectly accommodate the interactive nature of the medium. While cards won’t always be the appropriate design pattern for apps, they’ve already disrupted several industries and are even influencing the underlying architecture of the web. That’s an exciting proposition, and one that every mobile company - big or small - should heed.

Yesterday’s NY Mobile Startups meetup featured an exceptional lineup of mobile experts, including Semil Shah, Steve Cheney, Jordan Cooper and Sarah Paiji. Over the course of an hour, the panelists discussed a wide range of topics in mobile - from mobile commerce to iBeacons to contextual targeting - and underlined some of the trends I’ve been seeing in the market. To capture this conversation, I’ve summarized the key themes below. Special thanks to Shai Goldman for moderating the panel and Chieh Huang for organizing the meetup.

1. Look beyond the App Store for distribution We’ve all heard entrepreneurs complaining about the challenges of app store distribution. ASO is difficult, getting featured by Apple or Google is next to impossible and sophisticated marketing tools don’t yet exist. Even if an app is doing well, it must compete against established players who either have first-mover advantages or deep pockets to spend on install campaigns.

With so little control over their destiny, apps must look beyond apps stores and embrace classical web strategies to rise above the fray. To me, this simply means thinking about marketing in a holistic way and using channels like PR, content, email marketing and SEO-optimized landing pages to drive people down the acquisition funnel.

Jordan challenged the audience to think outside the box when devising a mobile distribution strategy. He recommended that entrepreneurs find new ways to break their app store dependency, in particular by transferring the responsibility for distribution to third parties. His company, Wildcard, which powers the infrastructure behind card-based mobile interfaces, is a great example: it relies 100% on its partners (eg Twitter, ecommerce apps, etc) to scale.

2. Drive engagement through context Another classic complaint in mobile is that people are unaware of the value that apps can deliver in specific moments and places, which contributes to low engagement. Much of this is due to structural issues of a small UI paired with the growing number of apps on people’s smartphones.

On Android, companies like Cover and Aviate have been attacking this problem by surfacing relevant apps on the cover screen and via the launcher. But they also complicate the UI of the underlying OS, which is why Apple does not allow them in its ecosystem.

For apps, surfacing value in the right context is paramount to driving higher engagement. They simply cannot rely on people to develop a usage habit. According to Semil, there are two ways to do this:

1) Hardware: Using hardware sensors like the camera, GPS or bluetooth low-energy to determine context. One of the most common examples of this is geo-fencing a specific location which triggers a custom push notification. With iBeacons, for example, a big box retailer could automatically be notified of an in-store pickup as a customer arrives in the store’s parking lot. 

2) Software: Developing intelligence around past customer behaviors to personalize the future experience. Sarah noted that traditional ecommerce companies like Amazon have done a great job in this area with sophisticated recommendation engines and behavioral tracking. She added that deriving insights from data is even more important in mobile, where small screens give apps fewer opportunities to correctly guess their customers’ preferences.

3. Develop a strategy for unanticipated intent While apps may serve a great purpose for anticipated intent (eg Kayak for travel), the existing mobile ecosystem makes it difficult to find the right solutions for unanticipated intent (eg I need to address a problem right this minute). According to Jordan, this leads people to look for answers in the mobile web, which often lags the native experience on important metrics such as conversion.

To better serve their customers’ needs, mobile entrepreneurs should optimize their presence for the mobile web, either by adopting card-based interfaces or creating specific funnels that drive people to the app store. Simple tactics like adding an app store overlay module to webpages, enabling an SMS option or capturing people’s emails are a step in the right direction. While recent stats show mobile apps in a dominant position over the mobile web, this is bound to change. Entrepreneurs who successfully link the two ecosystems will capture both types of intent and anticipate the pendulum swing in the opposite direction. 

4. Understand people’s reality to drive behavior One audience member was baffled that B2B customers were singing praises for his app, but not actually using it. In response, Steve noted that:

It’s difficult to change behaviors with mobile technology

You could even argue that behavioral change is more difficult on mobile than web because it involves reaching for a device, unlocking it and finding the right app. Even big names like Square Wallet have missed the mark here, despite building very polished products.

To drive behavioral change in mobile, it’s important to understand whether your app is a “painkiller” or a “vitamin,” according to Sarah. Behavioral change is much easier for the former because it involves mission-critical work, whereas it’s more difficult with the latter because existing behaviors are often good enough. The best way to gather key insights on these behaviors is by asking customers directly and mapping out the process/flow that an app replaces.

5. Build a lean full-stack team  From an investment standpoint, building a great mobile product today is harder than ever. Jordan noted that rising development costs and the need for a full-stack team have make seed rounds in the $500-750K range not viable. He believes that a figure is now closer to $1.5M. This puts additional pressure on mobile teams to build breakout products, many of which stand out through finesse and polish (“the last 10%”).

Steve offered a potential solution: look for top talent among inexpensive offshore teams, like the new crop that’s emerging in Eastern Europe and South America. His company, Estimote, took this route by setting up shop in Poland and attracting developers from top-tier companies like Google. He also noted the number of skilled programmers graduating from college in these markets is greater than ever before, which opens additional opportunities for efficient development.

SUMMARY The challenges of mobile are many, but the promise of rapid growth in the steps of Instagram, Tinder and WhatsApp will continue to fuel excitement for the medium. As the panelists at NY Mobile Startups meetup observed, the winners will be companies which tap into a core human need, develop new ways to circumvent existing distribution models and drive engagement through meaningful, contextual interactions.

****************** RECOMMENDED READING: 2014 MOBILE TRENDS Anticipatory computing Touch-free mobile interactions Lightweight engagement Unifying app discovery The rise of the mobile marketing manager

This post first appeared on Medium and includes my full analysis.

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About a year ago, I decided to rewrite Union Square Ventures’ creative logo brief as the firm was redesigning its logo and website. The exercise proved very useful to USV, which benefited from a more compelling way to present its briefing information, as well as the broader tech community, which could see this framework in action.

Today, I’m applying my recently launched marketing fundamentals canvas to USV. I’ve deconstructed each of firm’s key marketing areas to provide clarity around its unique value proposition in the market, target audience and long-term direction. As you can seee, the canvas is a powerful yet flexible tool that applies to VC firms just as much as it does to startups.

Note that I’ve based my assumptions on publicly available information about the firm as well as my personal knowledge.

Union Square Ventures’ Marketing Fundamentals Canvas

I invite you share your thoughts and feedback on USV's marketing canvas below.

When I launched my Marketing Fundamentals Canvas last week, an important question arose:

How is the Marketing Fundamentals Canvas different from the Lean Startup Canvas?

At first glance, the two frameworks seem similar because they provide a structured way of thinking about companies and growth. In reality, however, they are fundamentally different. Here's how I explained the difference in my FAQ:

The Marketing Fundamentals Canvas helps companies to articulate their customer-facing value proposition and provides a structured approach for evaluating marketing channels. The Lean Startup Canvas, on the other hand, helps companies to validate and test their business ideas before a concept is firmly established.

But the question stuck, and I could see it becoming a recurring problem as I introduced people to the framework.

As I thought about the problem, I began drawing parallels to Simon Sinek's work about leadership. In his breakout TedX talk, "How Great Leaders Inspire Action," Sinek introduced a simple framework called the Golden Circle. It looks like this:

Simon Sinek's Golden Circle framework

Sinek argues that most leaders communicate from the outside in (What > How > Why). They inspire no one because their arguments are functional, rational and bland. Great leaders, on the other hand, communicate from the inside out. They infuse their language with beliefs and emotions, and use those factors to drive behavioral change.

To demonstrate the superiority of purpose-driven approach, Sinek presented Apple's value proposition both ways:

1. Start with "What" We make great computers. They're beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. Want to buy one?

2. Start with "Why" Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. We just happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?

Bingo - it all made sense.

What makes the Marketing Fundamentals Canvas unique is that it answers the "Why."

The Lean Startup Canvas, on the other hand, answers the "What" and the "How."

To go a level deeper, each concept presented in the Marketing Fundamentals Canvas can be rephrased as a "Why" statement:

The Marketing Fundamentals Canvas explained with "Why" statements

Mission: Why we exist Vision: Why you'll take notice Brand: Why you should love us Target audience: Why we're relevant to you Market niche: Why we're better than competition Key message: Why you should listen 

Reading these statements, it's clear that the Marketing Fundamentals Canvas has a strong emotional core. It aims to articulate the purpose of the company and the reasons why people will choose its product over another. It's a deeply human exercise and should be approached as such.

Functional modules like "key metrics," "revenue model" and "channels" are important, but they don't really answer the "Why." For this reason, I'll be including them in later frameworks.

Startups today need to stand for something more than just a list of features or technology for technology's sake. Doing the Marketing Fundamentals Canvas will help them to articulate the "Why" and arm them with the emotional language to inspire their customers. Once this knowledge is in place, it will be much easier to answer the "What" and the "How."

When I first started my blog, I was tempted to write about the latest marketing tactics, those which would immediately grab people’s attention and give them an advantage in the quickly-changing industry. But each time I considered these types of posts, I felt they lacked depth and purpose and would only serve as a temporary solution to their problems. As a result, I found myself drawn to the foundations of marketing and quickly realized that this content did not exist for startups - at least not in a form that they could understand and appreciate.

The foundational principles of marketing have been invaluable in my professional career. I’ve applied them when doing high-level strategy work for billion-dollar brands, soup-to-nuts marketing for my own startup, Wanderfly, and rapid-fire product launches at tech incubator QLabs. They have informed everything from product features and design decisions to the individual marketing channel I’ve engaged with.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of entrepreneurs have not been exposed to the full potential of marketing. Their perception of the discipline is often limited to PR, community management, online ads and spammy growth tactics. Worse yet, marketing is typically an afterthought for their business, reinforced by years of the “build it and they will come” engineering-centric mentality, notable startup exists with few marketing resources and a general lack of good startup-centric marketing content.

But what if startups could be as strategic about marketing as big companies, while still staying lean, moving quickly and iterating their ideas? And if they could, where would they start?

To answer these questions, I decided to write about the foundations of marketing specifically for a startup audience and explain each concept in a way that they could understand. More than a year and 100 hours of writing later, I’ve completed this process.

THE MARKETING FUNDAMENTALS CANVAS Today, I’m launching the synthesis of my work as a Marketing Fundamentals Canvas. The canvas is a simple one-page framework that helps companies to articulate the most important principles of marketing, namely their mission and vision statements, brand, target audience, market niche and key message. It looks like this:

Marketing Fundamentals Canvas

Each section relates to a concept that I’ve already written about in detail. I’m including links below to help you understand what each one is, why it’s important and how to approach it:

Mission: The company’s purpose and reason for being Vision: The company’s long-term, aspirational business goals Brand: A promise the company makes to its customers Target audience: The customers (existing + ideal) the company serves  Market niche: The company’s market position relative to competition Key message: The one idea the company conveys to its audience

Here is the Marketing Fundamentals Canvas with an explanation of each section:

Marketing Fundamentals Canvas with explanations

This exercise will undoubtedly spur a healthy debate in your company around the best way to define and articulate each one. Each concept reinforces the other, which minimizes the inconsistencies that arise when they are done separately. I’ve led several startups through this process and have found that it helps them to:

Clarify their approach to marketing the business

Articulate ideas that were previously in people’s minds 

Align team members around common marketing language 

Focus their efforts on serving customers in the best possible way

Ensure that design and product reflect key marketing concepts

Test the assumptions behind existing marketing initiatives

Inform the selection of marketing channels and strategies

Doing the Marketing Fundamentals Canvas will ensure that your company builds its marketing efforts from the ground up, rather than from the top down. It will give you also give you more confidence and rationale to make marketing decisions, because they will be grounded in insights rather than assumption.

BRINGING THE CANVAS TO LIFE To illustrate the Marketing Fundamentals Canvas in action, I’ve done the exercise for my own marketing consulting business. You can now see where I’m heading, what makes my business special, how it’s different from competition, who it serves and how I’m conveying my proposition. 

Marketing Fundamentals Canvas for Cezary & Co, my consulting firm

My hope is that the Marketing Fundamentals Canvas will spur a broader discussion in the tech community about marketing’s vital role in the startup process. There is no reason for the continued misconceptions about the discipline. Marketing offers and incredible array of answers to existing startup challenges, and the marketing fundamentals canvas is the very first step in this process.

Over the coming months, I will launch additional frameworks - in both marketing and mobile - that will build on these foundations and help startups build a predictable path to success.

I invite you to ask questions and comment below.

I’ve also compiled a list of frequently asked questions about the Marketing Fundamentals Canvas for reference.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Why should I care about the Marketing Fundamentals Canvas? The best organizations - both tech and non-tech - use this process to organize their marketing thinking. If you care about growth, then this is your starting point.

How is the Marketing Fundamentals Canvas different from the Lean Startup Canvas? The Marketing Fundamentals Canvas helps companies to articulate their customer-facing value proposition and provides a structured approach for evaluating marketing channels. The Lean Startup Canvas, on the other hand, helps companies to validate and test their business ideas before a concept is firmly established. As such, the Marketing Fundamentals Canvas is typically done after the Lean Startup Canvas, once the company has demonstrated sufficient product-market fit. 

How long does the process take? You can do a basic pass in just a few hours, while a deeper dive takes 3-5 days. The process can also take longer, as you’re defining some very important aspects of your business.

Who should I do it with? Do the first pass with your co-founders and marketing lead, then share it with the broader team to get feedback. If you have the resources, hire a skilled, startup-friendly marketing consultant to provide an objective opinion, as it’s often difficult to get out of the weeds of your day-to-day work.

Does the Marketing Fundamentals Canvas tell you how to bring your company to market? Not explicitly (that will be covered in my forthcoming go-to-market framework). But it does eliminate a lot of the guesswork around the initiatives and channels that are best for launch.

Why doesn’t the Marketing Fundamentals Canvas include goals? It’s impossible to define your goals until you have a better understanding of your company, your audience and the broader market context. I will include a place for goals in future frameworks that help you build out specific marketing channels.

Can the marketing fundamentals change over time? Yes. But typically these changes will involve refining existing thinking, rather than redoing the entire process (unless your market and audience change dramatically).  

Does the Marketing Fundamentals Canvas guarantee success? No. But it will help you to maximize your chances of success by minimizing the assumptions you need to make for various marketing decisions

When should I do this exercise? Immediately - especially if your company has already launched. There’s no reason to continue down the existing path if you don’t have a high level of confidence in your marketing decision.

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Read my subsequent posts about the marketing fundamentals canvas:

Marketing Fundamentals Canvas answers the “Why" Marketing Fundamentals Canvas for Union Square Ventures

In the startup world, there's a commonly held notion that companies with zero marketing can succeed. In fact, many people believe that zero marketing is the fastest path to a big exit, as it allows the company to devote the majority of resources to engineering and other technology-related functions. Why would anyone spend money on marketing if a "great product" will "go viral" and "attract users on its own"?

The problem stems from the long-held misconceptions and stereotypes of marketing in the startup community. Entrepreneurs, investors and even tech journalists think of marketing a necessary evil that comes in the form of paid ads, spammy growth tactics and annoying PR people, rather than thinking about it as a strategic asset that creates the ideal environment for growth.

WhatsApp did not do zero marketing, because the concept is a myth 

The other week, this misconception was on full display when Jim Goetz, partner at Sequoia Capital, announced WhatsApp's mind-boggling $19B acquisition by Facebook. In his blog post, he described four key metrics that defined WhatsApp's business. Not surprisingly, the key marketing metric was zero:

0. There may be no greater testament to the viral nature of WhatsApp than the fact that the company has accomplished all this without investing a penny in marketing. Unlike their smaller competitors, it hasn’t spent anything on user acquisition. The company doesn’t even employ a marketer or PR person. Yet like the world’s greatest brands, it’s created a strong emotional connection with consumers. All of WhatsApp’s growth has come from happy customers encouraging their friends to try the service.

To understand why Jim's point is incorrect, let's deconstruct:

1. The definition of marketing 2. The role marketing played in WhatsApp's success 3. The marketing WhatsApp did not do  4. The threats WhatsApp faces by ignoring marketing

1. THE DEFINITION OF MARKETING At its core, marketing is about connecting companies with people. If your company sells a product or service to a particular audience, then everything you do to make them aware of it, buy it and use it - both internally and externally - is considered marketing. This includes what you do, how you do it, and most importantly, why you do it.

Most people can understand the executional elements of marketing such as ads, press articles or email campaigns. But it's much harder for them to understand the underlying thinking behind marketing - the strategies, processes and frameworks that help companies view their business in the context of their brand, their audience and their competition. In fact, it's impossible not to engage in this sort of thinking, though most people do it in a very shallow and simplistic way.

Another important aspect of marketing is that it always comes at some cost. While there are plenty of product hooks and growth tactics like email blasts, social media posts, in-person conversations, etc. that require little to no monetary outlay, the truth is that they still take time to execute. For companies that are typically only a few months away from running out of money, time is an extremely valuable commodity. If you were to quantify the time they spend on marketing thinking, the cost of this function would be a significant portion of the overall business.

Following the same sentiment, marketing rarely happens by itself. Even in the situation where the product does go viral, it still needs continuous love and optimization to adjust to market conditions and audience sentiment. Nothing is ever guaranteed.

2. THE ROLE MARKETING PLAYED IN WHATSAPP'S SUCCESS So, what kind of marketing did WhatsApp do if the company spent no money on the discipline, hired no marketer and employed no PR person? They actually did a fair amount, though they also left many opportunities on the table. Below are a few examples.

WhatsApp built a marketing foundation by articulating its beliefs

Beliefs & values: WhatsApp's founder, Jan Koum, had a very specific view of the world having grown up in a former Soviet country. His beliefs around privacy, specifically in communications, were deeply ingrained in his pysche from a very young age, and those beliefs translated directly into what the product is today (messaging app for small, private networks), how it works (it only requires your phone number to sign up + messages are destroyed from WhatsApp's servers upon arrival) and why it was made (to facilitate connections between people). Similarly, Jan made a poster that said "No Ads, No Games, No Gimmicks" which espoused the values of simplicity and efficiency. These values and beliefs have permeated the organization and become an important part of the WhatsApp brand, defining the product for years to come.

Naming: Jan named the company WhatsApp, a play on words of "What's up?" It was a conscious choice draws connotations of a human conversation and a product that is fun and casual. While it's arguable that the name is good, but at least there was some thought behind it.

Audience: It's known that much of WhatsApp's traction was outside of the US. The team must have realized that one of the most receptive audiences were people with families and friends living outside their home country, which made the cost of SMS prohibitively high. Jan's own experience coming from a foreign country help to solidify this notion. The team must have spent a lot of time thinking about identifying their ideal customer (a core marketing function) and testing their hypotheses in market. 

Go to market strategy: WhatsApp had to seed its product in some way to get it off the ground. I would guess that this was done through a combination of in-person conversations, social events, emails, social media promotion, forums (including Jan's favorite, FlyerTalk) and a variety of other low-fi tactics. Every small interaction was important because it gave the business a higher chance of success, even if it was only by adding one additional user.

Pricing: In the early stages of the business, WhatsApp decided to charge $0.99 for the app to signal a premium position in the market and to differentiate itself from the myriad of free competitors. Later, the company changed its model to free for a year + $0.99/year after, when growth became a priority. This was most likely done through a mix of observation, intuition and testing. 

Product design: The team designed and built a product that met a specific set of customer needs, namely communicating with a close network in a private way, at essentially no cost. To ensure the product had a good market fit, the team had to decide which features to build, which not to build (a recurring discussion among the team. as the graphic above suggests) and how to prioritize customers' needs, presumably with their input. They also chose a design aesthetic that underscores simplicity over everything else. These decisions were not arbitrary, but rather grounded in set of human insights and assumptions.

Analytics & optimization: Someone on the team must have spent time analyzing the app's usage numbers to see what worked best and what didn't, and conveyed those findings to the product team to make the experience better.

In many of these examples, it's likely that CEO Jan was leading WhatsApp's marketing efforts, and rightfully so. The CEO sets the vision of the company, recruits and motivates employees, promotes the company to customers and investors and directs the broader vision of the product. If there's one C-suite role that can assume the marketing function, it's the company's leader.

But even with other team members contributing, it's clear that a lot of marketing was done at WhatsApp, at a significant cost to the team's time. It's impossible for the company to get to where it is today without this investment.

3. THE MARKETING WHATSAPP DID NOT DO Despite the marketing activities that WhatsApp engaged in, there are many others that it overlooked. Below are the most important ones. While some of them are already causing the company problems, others will become problematic in the near future.

WhatsApp's About page is a reflection of its shallow marketing thinking

WhatsApp did not develop a strong brand. While WhatsApp has some of the basic elements of a brand (namely, its beliefs about privacy and simplicity), it never really engaged in formal brand-building activities. For example, the founders stayed out of the media spotlight, they didn't voice their beliefs in a public forum, they didn't actively connect with their audience and they didn't set up a social media presence. As a result, they missed an opportunity to cement their proposition in the minds of customers, beyond building general awareness. 

WhatsApp did not create a deep emotional connection with consumers. It's disingenuous to lump WhatsApp with some of the world's greatest brands (many of which it took decades to achieve this status), claiming that the company created a deep emotional connection with its consumers. Emotions are a powerful tool in the marketing arsenal, but simple preference (I prefer WhatsApp over company X) in no way equals passion. Who can really say they're a diehard WhatsApp fan, ready to follow the company blindly as some do for app like Path and Foursquare (despite their limited success), and more importantly, brands like Coke, Nike, Apple, BMW and Pinkberry? I would guess that the number is very low. WhatsApp limited its connection with people by positioning itself solely around utility and efficiency, while leaving little room for personality, self-expression and other emotional triggers.

WhatsApp did not react quickly to people's needs. A prime example of the company not being in touch with its customers is the very late release of its iOS7 app (more than a month after the OS went live), which drew widespread criticism and frustration. Once the new update was finally released, it didn't live up to expectations. Behaving this way is very dangerous, especially in a mobile ecosystem known for fickle behaviors and low switching costs.

WhatsApp did not protect its key differentiators. If WhatsApp pioneered privacy and simplicity in mobile messaging, then the company is letting competitors beat it at its own game. Apps like Telegram and Threema are using features like encrypted messaging and uber-simple interfaces to stand out in the market, and their message is resonating with customers. On the backdrop of WhatsApp's server outage, for example, Telegram has claimed a mind-boggling 5MM new users per day, an indication of people's indifference to WhatsApp.

WhatsApp did not prepare for failures. WhatsApp was lucky to survive the last few years without any big server outages or privacy breaches. But what would the company have done if something bad happened? A mere two years ago, Airbnb found out the hard way and quickly introduced an insurance and protection plan for hosts. Now, just days after its acquisition, WhatsApp is facing heavy criticism after a 4-hour service outage - something that a status account on Twitter alone won't help to mitigate.

Many of the marketing initiatives discussed above do not necessarily require a lot of time. They do require awareness, thought and buy-in from the founders. If the culture of the company is to disregard marketing until things stop being rosy, then it will have already too late to turn back. There are simply too many messaging apps on the market for people to stick with a company that doesn't invest in them.  

4. THE THREATS WHATSAPP FACES BY CONTINUING TO IGNORE MARKETING Over the next few months, WhatsApp faces many marketing challenges that product features alone will not solve. To navigate its way around the fast-moving market, the company will have to modify its business approach from one that is indiscriminately focused on user growth to one that is rooted in a deep understanding of its audience, market niche and brand.

One of the company's imminent challenges is protecting itself from the negative perceptions of Facebook. Facebook is commonly regarded as an antithesis to privacy through business practices like invasive user profiling and the sale of personal data to advertisers. These perceptions run counter to Whatsapp's culture, so how can they be reconciled? And how much can Jan really influence Facebook by joining the company's Board? The WhatsApp brand is thin already, so the company needs to take a bold stance to reinforce its beliefs and promise to customers.

Another challenge is rising above the noise of competition from companies like Telegram, Threema, Line, KakaoTalk and WeChat. These are no longer the amateur messaging apps that WhatsApp competed with in Botswana, but world-class, refined apps with deep pockets and large consumer followings. Are utility and functionality enough to differentiate WhatsApp the more these companies claim to have better or equal product features? What is the company's unique benefit - functional and emotional - and how will that change over time?

Lastly, WhatsApp will need to address its customer happiness. What reasons will the company give its customers when they're exposed to competing messaging apps? Will it develop new ways to enhance the experience, or will it simply try to develop competitive measures to slow down switching? One thing is certain - hiding away in the comfort of WhatsApps Mountain View offices is not an option.

SUMMARY Looking at WhatsApp's path to success demonstrates that the company did plenty of marketing, even if it lacked a dedicated person for the function and spent no money on the service. The company articulated its values and beliefs, defined its audience, go-to-market strategy and pricing, built a product to meet those needs and optimized it based on customer feedback. While the team did not spend a lot of money on the marketing function, it certainly invested time in the process.

Nonetheless, the company's investment in marketing was not enough, and today the company faces more competition than ever before - much of it exploiting the weak perceptions its developed in the minds of customers. If WhatsApp is to continue on a path of success, it should stop celebrating its marketing deficiency and instead focus the organization on serving its customers' needs in a more focused way. The company needs to place a stake in the ground with much more conviction than it has in the past, and build features, services and marketing programs that support a unified message.

Engagement is a hugely important concept in the mobile world. While most discussions in the industry still focus on discovery, or getting people to download an app, an arguably larger opportunity lies in driving repeatable behavior post-install. Apps that solve the engagement challenge not only make more money, they also decrease their reliance on paid marketing and improve their visibility in app stores.

Unfortunately, building an engaging product is not easy. Just to stay top of mind among mobile users, apps must constantly fight the structural challenges of the ecosystem, from poor contextual presentation on phone screens to external distractions that make usage behaviors erratic and unpredictable. There's also very little consensus about what engagement means and which metrics should define success, as these vary widely by industry and use case.

As the competition in mobile intensifies in 2014 (there are now 1MM+ apps in both the App Store and Google Play), this situation will only get worse. More apps than ever before will fight for the same, finite time that consumers spend on their devices (141 minutes/day), and most of them will fail. To succeed, they'll have to move beyond the black-and-white reality of time spent in app, MAUs and 30-day retention rates and find new ways to engage their audience.

In 2014, apps will adopt a lightweight approach to user engagement

One promising solution will be the notion of lightweight engagement. Rather than expecting people to spend a lot of time within the app experience, apps will simplify their interactions into smaller chunks and look to channels outside the app to minimize the burden on the end user. Here are a few ways that this trend will come to life.

1) Apps that run in the background There's a common assumption that mobile engagement requires an app open. But what if it does not? What if apps provided the majority of their value by running in the background and collecting information on our devices?

Semil Shah explored this point in a detailed blog post just a few weeks ago, using examples of Heydey and Memoir to illustrate his point. These apps work quietly in the background to create beautiful journals of a user's activity, stitching together data such as location, camera roll photos and updates from social networks. The only upfront commitment is granting the app access to the data in the first place and connecting with various social networks. People can either access the data at their leisure or receive notifications about important updates.

Provided there is enough passive value in these apps, people will keep them installed, and over time this may lead to more regular, time-intensive engagement. In the meantime, they will build business value by collecting a treasure trove of personal information and gaining intimate access to the end user. Expect to see more of these businesses in 2014.

2) Apps that engage via notifications Notifications are typically considered tools for re-engagement, or bringing people back into an app. But what if apps spent more time engaging people directly in the notifications, minimizing the need for an app open? A few ecosystem changes would be necessary to make this a reality, including:

The ability to send rich notifications with images, better formatting and more data

A more interactive notification center that gives users the ability to take actions on data 

A unified format for rich notifications on the home screen

More detailed analytics on notifications

Most of the innovation in notifications has been happening on Android in the past year, but there is still an opportunity to improve and standardize their interfaces. It's likely that the next wave of notifications will adopt a card-based format, which Google Now already uses to present contextual data, along with gestures that minimize time spent interacting. While apps won't be replaced - especially given Apple and Google's vested interest in their ecosystems - I expect a greater number of interactions to happen within the notifications they send.

3) Apps that decentralize engagement App marketers have done an exceptionally poor job at engaging their users outside the app experience. In fact, they rarely think beyond push notifications when developing a plan to onboard users or build a regular dialogue. Part of the issue is awareness about the available tools, while the other is a lack of resources to develop engaging marketing campaigns.

The rise of mobile relationship management (MRM) platforms like Appboy and Localytics, paired with better access to mobile marketing talent, will address this challenge in 2014. Apps will learn to decentralize their engagement efforts across channels like SMS, mobile email, social media and even the mobile web, and in doing so break the experience into smaller, bite-size chunks. This will not only improve engagement rates through better distribution, but also increase the total amount of attention they can vie for.

Furthermore, improvements in the area of deep-linking to specific app pages will help to connect apps with external marketing channels. We can already see happening with the smart use of URIs in mobile emails and Twitter's cards. There are still a lot of silos in the ecosystem, however, so it will be interesting to see how much Apple and Google will open their protocols.

4) Apps that leverage small interfaces As wearable technology becomes more ubiquitous, the mobile ecosystem is fragmenting into a variety of small form factors and interfaces. Given their physical constraints, these interfaces will not replace, but rather complement existing mobile devices through quick access to information and simple commands. 

The implication of wearables to mobile engagement is clear: it needs to simple and lightweight. Think about what's realistic on a 1.5x1.5" screen of a smartwatch. While a tap and swipe both make sense, a pinch-to-zoom and double click may not. Even if a variety of touch-free interactions gain tractions, apps will be still forced to prioritize two things:

The information they convey to the end user

The actions they want the end user to take (eg yes / no / remind me later)

This is a big shift in mentality from mobile devices as smartphones, which offer an fairly immersive experience and only seem to be growing in size. In the context of small interfaces, app developers will need to simplify engagement and extract value from even the smallest glances and taps.

SUMMARY Engagement was, is and will continue to be a big challenge for mobile in 2014. Over time, it will only get worse, as a growing number of companies vie for a finite amount of consumer attention. To combat this problem, app developers will look for ways to minimize the engagement burden on their end users and give them a more lightweight experience. They will do this by running apps in the background, engaging via notifications, decentralizing engagement and leveraging small interfaces.

While the deep, immersive engagement in mobile will always exist, the requirement to open an app just to derive value will soon disappear.

Even the most successful startups don’t grow into billion dollar companies overnight. The majority start by identifying white space in the market and serving the needs of a small audience. They then iterate their product and message until they find a great fit and slowly expand outward. Only the perfect circumstances allow them to achieve “hockey stick” growth, a process that often takes years rather than months.

Because startups will always be time- and resource-constrained, it’s important to define a compelling market niche from the ouset. This allows you to gain initial traction, maximize your resources and parlay your success into additional funding. It also helps you to focus your product on your core customers and serve their needs better than anyone else, which is instrumental in building early evangelism and virality.

Defining a market niche is an evolution of the classic competitive analysis. It builds on the information compiled in this process to articulate a company’s place in the world, framing it in a way that is easy for stakeholders to understand. It’s also complementary to defining a target audience, as no market exists without the people who support it.

As you define your a market niche, keep in mind its two prominent characteristics:

A niche is a relatively small portion of the market. The focus is on an underserved need or a subset of the population that will eventually grow into something much bigger.

A niche is defined relative to existing players. Even if your offering is revolutionary, it’s important to give people cues in a competitive context they understand.

While there is no one right answer for defining a market niche, you can organize your thinking using several different frameworks. Below I’ve outlined four of the most popular ones: the 2x2 matrix, Venn diagram/petal model, flow chart and wheel + spoke model.

1) 2x2 matrix: Superiority in an existing industry   Many startups are simply looking to make an existing industry better, faster or more efficient. They use technology as a means to this end, but stop short of rethinking an industry from the ground up. There’s nothing wrong with this approach, though most of the ideas it generates will not attract investors’ attention.

A great way to illustrate a company’s superiority over the status quo is through a classic 2x2 matrix, which defines two arbitrary axes (eg price, speed, performance, personalization, simplicity). Competitors typically fall toward the bottom left-hand quadrant of the chart, while the startup is placed in the upper right-hand quadrant. Presenting the market niche in this way creates distance, which is easy to visualize and understand. The 2x2 matrix s one of the most popular models that startups use to pitch their ideas.

Startups that can be placed on a 2x2 matrix include:

Mailbox: mobile optimization (high) + simplicity (high) for email

Clear: user experience (high) + mobile optimization (high) for task management

Songza: personalization (high) + simplicity (high) for music

The more important consideration when doing a 2x2 matrix is to test the underlying attributes that fall on the axes. Are they in high demand by the target audience, and are they enough to change existing behavior? What looks good on a chart may not necessarily equate to something that creates real value in an existing industry. 

2) Venn diagram: Intersection of multiple industries The more visionary startups are the ones which create an entirely new industry. Even though their businesses are unique, however, they typically draw inspiration from existing industries or market segements. In other words, they sit at the intersection of multiple factors.

A great way to bring this type of market niche to life is through a Venn diagram or petal model, a variation of the concept which Steve Blank recently wrote about. This model places the startup at the center of the universe and surrounds it with various factors (circles or petals) that contribute to its idea. These factors can be industries, market segments, technologies, behaviors or trends, and each one carries a set of related competitors.

Startups that can be illustrated with a Venn diagram include:

Foursquare: social / local / mobile (the infamous SoLoMo)

Instagram: photo sharing / curation / simplicity

Gotenna: privacy / communications / wearables

Barkbox: content / commerce / subscription economy (for pets)

Circa: news / curation / content snacking

Skillshare: education / self-help / freelance economy

For startups that sit at the intersection of multiple industries, the sum of the parts don’t always equal a compelling business. For this reason, it’s important to validate the idea with customers first before committing significant resources to the product. Numerous startup ideas are generated each year using this framework, and they are neither unique nor compelling.  

3) Flow chart: One step in a larger process Some startups define their place in the world by focusing on a specific step(s) of a larger process. End users go through this process to achieve a particular goal, and naturally run into various issues along the way. Serving a specific subset of needs in this flow enables a startup to get its foot in the industry’s door before moving upstream or downstream. Sometimes, the startup can eliminate certain steps of the process altogether, adding value via subtraction.

The best way to illustrate this type of market niche is through a flow chart, which maps out the process in a sequential way.

Startups and industries that can be mapped via a flow chart include:

Wanderfly: leisure travel *inspiration > *research & planning > booking > travel > post-travel

Huntsy: job search identify career > research jobs > *apply for jobs > *interview > *accept offer > *announce news

Appboy: mobile apps discovery > analytics & measurement > *engagement

Note that owning the first step of a process is a double-edged sword. While it positions the startup nicely for future expansion and enables it to build strong customer relationships, it also makes it difficult to acquire users at that specific moment and places it far from the transaction.

4) Wheel + spoke model: Aggregation of multiple sources A small group of startups defines its niche by aggregating information from multiple data sources and building intelligence on top of it. These companies, know simply as ‘aggregators,’ are present in virtually every industry, providing insights and simplifying decisions for the end user.

There are a few ways to illustrate this niche, but the most common one is the wheel + spoke model. 

Aggregators include companies like:

Kayak: travel

SeatGeek: ticket sales

Mint: personal finance

Yipit: daily deals

Lyst: fashion

Communicating the market niche for aggregation is fairly straightforward. Building a business this way is much more difficult, as existing players are often very hostile and the business takes a long time to achieve scale.

VALIDATING YOUR MARKET NICHE

As you define a market niche for your startup, it’s important to test your assumptions. You can use these questions to valide the idea:

Does the market niche reflect a real consumer need? The fact that white space exists does not necessarily mean that there’s an underlying need for the product. Make sure there is strong demand for your offering, ideally backed by a larger trend.

Do people easily understand your market niche? If you can’t explain it in a few words and present it in a simple diagram, chances are that your business is too complicated. Simplify it or use a different framework.

How fast are the related industries growing? Positioning your company at the intersection of fast-growing industries is always a win, while finding white space in those with little growth may be an uphill battle. Go with the winners.

What is the switching cost for competing products? Startups often forget that changing behavior is extremely difficult: most people prefer to use an existing product that meets 70% of their needs, rather than switching to a new one that meets all of them. For example, Facebook is one of the biggest competitors for messaging, photo sharing and event scheduling apps, something that startups in these industries often overlook. Make sure people are willing to start fresh to adopt your product.

Why have existing players not already pursued the market niche? You’ll be surprised how many competitors have already considered serving your niche but decided against it. While many lack time or expertise, others find the niche unattractive for other reasons. Do your research to determine the rationale behind their choice.

What are the economics of the market niche? Given that many market niches are new concepts, it’s important to have an idea for how the business will be monetized. Make sure to define this, even if it means using a new set of rules.

SUMMARY

Having clarity around your startup’s market niche is essential to creating a strong business. It helps you to focus your limited resources as an entrepreneur, present a clear story to customers and also get investors excited about the opportunity.

While there are no hard and fast rules about articulating a market niche, frameworks like the 2x2 matrix, Venn diagram, flow chart and wheel + spoke model provide a good way to organize and visualize thoughts. Use them to present your company in the best possible light, but make sure to validate your idea as well. Even the best looking charts won’t save a business that lacks substance or addresses a non-existent customer need.

Many of the interactions that we have with mobile devices are time-consuming and inefficient, and some of them also feel very unnatural. Think about swiping and tapping multiple times to complete a small task, using a tiny small keyboard to write a long email, or even hunching over your phone for long periods of time.

The prank collective Improv Everywhere pointed out these strange behaviors in a parody called "Seeing Eye People," in which they hired volunteers to guide mobile phone users through a busy sidewalk. The moral of the video? We should put down our phones and come up for air, or better yet, start interacting with our devices in a new way.

Of course, the solution to the problem is not a bigger screen, as we've seen in the phablet monstrosities from Samsung and LG. Nor is it a better keyboard, despite the popularity of companies like Tactus, Typo and Swiftkey. These are all incremental improvements to the existing experience, but they mask the symptoms of inefficient interactions with our mobile devices.

Touch-free interactions will become more prominent in mobile in 2014

Given the physical limitations of the mobile form factor, I believe that a greater portion of the mobile experience will become touch-free (at least for non-business use cases). Most people use mobile to get "quick hits" of information on the go, and their needs constantly change with their context. It takes too much time to extract this information through physically involvement, especially when we only have seconds, not minutes.

Despite its promise of immediacy, mobile fails to deliver through interaction paradigms that place unnecessary barriers between people and the information they seek.

When Apple first introduced the iPhone, Steve Jobs knew that mobile requires its own set of rules, so his team eliminated the physical keyboard and introduced a new set of touch gestures and interactions. But he also knew that these would  evolve over time, especially as the mobile form factor is reduced to glass.

While we're not in the touch-free promised land yet, 2014 will bring us much closer than ever before to this reality. The market is ripe for better solutions, the most exciting of which I will analyze below.

1. Voice commands Since Apple released Siri in 2011, there have been mixed reactions to voice-activated computing and intelligent assistants. While the technology and Siri herself have often been mocked for misunderstanding speech and providing sub-par results, a surprising percentage of people say they use it each month, at least to perform basic functions.

Using voice commands requires behavioral change and education around what is possible, and it's also not appropriate in all environments (eg noisy ones) and social situations (eg talking to "yourself" at work). But the technology carries a lot of potential, especially for time-intensive tasks. For example, a voice command can surface an app that's hiding a few screens deep into your phone, find the game score of your favorite sports team on the web or add an appointment to your calendar. But the value is not apparent until you become repeatedly frustrated with a time-intensive mobile task.

Over the next year, both Apple and Google (which introduced voice search in 2012) will continue to improve their voice technologies, and independent apps like Dragon Mobile Assistant will keep challenging them to keep the market competitive. Other companies will pioneer voice technologies inside the app experience, spurring a new genre of apps in entertainment and productivity. As a result, people will become increasingly comfortable with voice as a interaction mechanism in mobile, particularly in instances where their hands are occupied (eg driving, cooking, exercising).

In 2014, existing mobile players will perfect voice technology while a new crop of companies will pioneer voice-driven interactions inside the app experience, making them more accessible and mainstream.

2. Always-on microphone One specific way that voice commands will improve is through the use of an always-on microphone, a concept sometimes called ubiquitous listening. Google took a big step in this direction by building a dedicated microphone chip in the Moto X which collects sound without draining the phone's battery. A great implementation of the feature is to allow people to activate a web search through the phrase "OK Google," without pressing a single button.

Looking further into the future, an always-on microphone will enable contextual recommendations based on a constant stream of speech. Despite the obvious privacy concerns with the idea, it has a lot of potential to create value. A company that has built interesting tools in this space is MindMeld, which recommends web content for specific phrases in a group conversation as people are speaking. The technology could be used to improve context in a variety of interactions and also to help people navigate their smartphones. It will be interesting to see what developers build on top of MindMeld's contextual speech platform when the company releases its API later this year.

In 2014, companies will tap into the power of the always-on microphone to derive context from speech data and capture the intent of their users.

3. Anticipatory computing Anticipatory computing, which I discussed in my last blog post, will also deliver on the promise of touch-free mobile interactions by minimizing the need for active engagement. Access to a growing number of sensors on mobile devices as well as data about a person's environment enables apps to anticipate a person's behavior and quickly deliver the appropriate solution. Companies like Google Now, Foursquare, Sunrise and Refresh are already doing this by making recommendations for places to explore in a particular area, suggesting departure times and transportation options ahead of flights, and presenting dossiers on people in upcoming meetings. Others, like Cover and Aviate, are using the lock screen in Android to serve contextual information and apps to their audience.

Excelling at anticipatory computing and contextual awareness will require a deep understanding of people's physical and emotional states and environments, as well as expertise in data mining and analysis. Companies with these resources will find that they can develop a much more intimate relationship with their customers than previous generations of apps, and ultimately serve them better.

In 2014, companies will adopts a much more user-centric view of their audience, using data-driven insights to anticipate the future and make the mobile experience more effortless.

4. Touch-free gestures The use of touch-free motions and gestures to facilitate mobile interactions is an area wide open for exploration. A few months ago, Apple introduced the M7 motion processor which made existing sensors like the accelerometer (velocity), gyroscope (orientation) and magnetometer (compass) more accessible to developers without impacting the phone's battery life. Since then, other device manufacturers have been racing to improve their own hardware, and there's also growing interest in sensors that capture depth via a camera or infrared light.

More powerful and independent motions sensors will enable developers to use new gestures to augment classic touch interactions. While gestures are commonly used in the in-app environment (eg navigating through a racing game by tilting your smartphone), they are not as common for general smartphone functions. Imagine if you could activate your phone by tilting your head down, call your favorite contact by moving your phone in a zigzag, or check the weather by moving your hand in a circle. Provided that these interactions feel natural, they have the potential to make common mobile tasks efficient.

In 2014, companies will introduce a new set of touch-free gestures to drive efficiency and speed in mobile, fueled by the rise of the always-on camera to detect sophisticated motion.

5. Wearable technology Last but not least, the touch-free trend will be boosted by the growing popularity of wearable technology. Given that wearables are physically small, both input and output of data are very limited. In other words, there's less to see and less to do of their screens. This means that searching for and manipulating data must be simplified, as does the information that is displayed on screen.

From a functional perspective, wearables will be less useful for content creation and computation and better suited for the consumption of short status updates and notifications. The will also be used as access mechanisms for industries like payments and the connected home. This will further increase the need for speed and convenience.

From the touch-free mobile interactions discussed above, it's clear that anticipatory computing will play a big role in wearables via the data collected in their sensors. Voice commands may also have a role in these devices. But new paradigms will also emerge, as we can already see in the gestures defined by Google Glass.

There's also the question of the relationship between wearables and people's primary mobile device. How will the two interact? And what functions will wearables replace in smartphones and which ones will they augment? Most of the products currently on the market are half-baked and don't provide a compelling answer to this question. But if the iWatch indeed launches this year, then it will be interesting to see Apple's take on the topic.

In 2014, wearable technology will promote touch-free interaction paradigms that are extremely simple and intuitive, inspired by the constraints of the tiny screen.

SUMMARY It's clear that the mobile world is moving toward interactions that are less touch-dependent and more reflective of the immediate, on-the-go nature of mobile computing. We've already started to see a shift in consumer behavior through technologies like voice commands, which will continue to improve over the course of the year and provide more tangible value when seeking information.

But the shift will really accelerate in 2014 through rise of the always-on microphone, anticipatory computing and new touch-free gestures (perhaps tied to the always-on camera). In addition to these developments, the physical constraints of wearable technology will inspire entrepreneurs to think broadly about touch-free interactions that achieve speed and efficiency.

By tapping into new technologies and facing the extreme constraints of the tiny screen, they will spur the overall mobile experience to be fast, effortless and even magical. 

It's no secret that the power of mobile lies in its close proximity to the end user. Mobile devices are with us virtually every minute of each day, helping us to navigate through our daily lives, communicate with friends, access information and even shop, along with an endless list of other activities. But 24/7 access to the web at our fingertips is only scratching the surface when it comes to the true promise of mobile.

The real beauty of the medium is that it can help marketers to better understand the context of our daily lives. Through data points like location, app usage, search queries and purchase patterns, marketers can piece together our behaviors and preferences and understand the motivations behind our mobile engagement and purchases. Once they have this information, they can then act on it in a much more powerful way, anticipating our needs before we even know that they exist.

Predicting people's mobile behaviors is more scientific than reading a crystal ball

This means we will have to worry less about doing everyday tasks from checking weather, doing groceries, getting to our next meeting or catching a flight at the airport. We can simply sit back and let or mobile devices magically tell us what to do, when and even how.

This concept, known as "anticipatory computing," has been gaining traction in the last year, but its true potential won't be unleashed until 2014. This is due to a convergence of factors this year that will make the mobile ecosystem ripe for the concept.

1. Ubiquity of wearable technology For anticipatory computing to truly take off, there needs to be a treasure trove of data available on mobile devices. To date, most of the excitement has been around location and, to a lesser extent, app usage data, but that only gives marketers partial insight into what a person is doing. The explosive growth of wearables will change this reality by giving them a better sense of someone's physical state and mindset through the myriad of sensors that are worn on their body. As I noted back in August:

[...] An altimeter can tell us when someone is in an elevator, flying in a plane, or climbing a mountain. Similarly, a health tracker can identify movement and stress levels, a microphone can detect noisy environments, and an air meter can differentiate between indoor and outdoor spaces.

The opportunities to anticipate these human states and take proactive action on them are endless. For example, apps could send us alerts to take medication when our stress levels go up, advice on breathing while we're going or warnings about excessive noise levels at concerts. In a similar manner, they can send us contextual notifications as we're driving or when we're kicking back on a couch in the evening.

There's also a myriad of opportunities around smart devices which can anticipate our presence or a change in our environment. A smart thermostat like Nest can prepare for our arrival at home by heating up the space, the front door can be unlocked through a proximity sensor as we approach it and a smart microwave can heat our dinner to perfection as we walk in. With the launch of iBeacons, a greater sensitivity to our presence will be extended to local and retail environments, with companies like Macy's and MLB already testing the technology to improve the in-store and in-stadium experience.

Once again, the real value that companies will create is not by reacting to the context, but rather predicting how things will change and serving up the right solution. 

2. Better mobile hardware Not to be overshadowed by wearable technology, the hardware that powers mobile devices will become even more sophisticated to better capture our physical and emotional states as well as our surrounding environment.

Apple is leading the field by introducing the M7 Core Motion sensor in the iPhone 5S, which runs continuously in the background to track various motion data while remaining independent from the phone's regular processor. This is an evolution from the existing sensors that Apple pioneered - including the proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, accelerometer and gyroscope - which were only activated in specific scenarios due to battery limitations. The Moto X has done something similar with a dedicated microphone chip which always tracks noise levels.

The implications of better mobile hardware are similar to wearable technology, but in some cases even more powerful given the mix of sensors available on a smartphone. As David Talbot of MIT Technology Review points out, an always-on motion processor allows us to identify specific gestures and movement patterns that signal intent and then act on them in the appropriate manner.

Given these rapid improvements in mobile hardware, it's clear that ambient intelligence is here to stay. As Google, Samsung and other device manufacturers introduce better mobile sensors in 2014, marketers will tap into this data to better serve their customers.

3. More inventive apps The final piece of the puzzle in anticipatory computing will be the app layer. Perhaps the most successful example of the concept in action to date has been Google Now, which taps into it Google's massive information trove across its various product lines (Search, Gmail, Drive, Weather, etc.) to unearth information that is both useful and contextual to the end user. The beauty of Google Now is that it just works, serving up cards with weather forecasts, driving directions, package delivery status and stock prices, to name a few. The system also learns from behavioral patterns to infer someone's home and work locations, without asking for them. 

But Google is not the only game in town, with Foursquare joining the mix as well. Last December, the company announced a complete overhaul of its app which proactively makes recommendations to people based on where they've been and what they've done. Rather than relying on people to check-in, its user intent engine crunches contextual and historical data to determine what someone may like and notifies them via push notifications. The idea is to make the experience more frictionless and effortless by tapping into data that is already available.

There has also been a rise in calendar and personal assistant apps like Sunrise, Refresh, Donna and Cue, which focus on optimizing our daily schedules (Semil Shah wrote on the topic a few months ago). On Android, apps like Cover and Aviate are providing a more contextual experience with a slightly different approach: by personalizing our lock screens to reflect our location and app usage patterns. As the anticipatory computing space heats up with the acquisition of Cue by Apple a few months ago (presumably to compete with Google Now) and Aviate by Yahoo just yesterday, there will undoubtedly be many more.

In 2014, apps will find more creative ways to anticipate our needs by:

Tapping into new sources of data from hardware sensors and wearable technology, especially as new APIs and app stores become available (Pebble is slating its app store launch for end of January 2014)

Deriving better insights from their own data as well as third-party data that they can access, which will require the expertise of data scientists

Thinking about ways they can collect this information as an invisible background process, rather than thinking about active user engagement

SUMMARY In 2014, the true promise of mobile - instant, personal access to the end user - will be more apparent than ever before. But to truly take advantage of the opportunity, app developers and marketers will need connect with their end users on a much deeper level and embrace the notion of anticipating their needs, rather than asking for information outright. The rise of wearable technology and more powerful devices will provide them with all of the data to make this possible, but it will be up to them to use it in a creative (and responsible) way.

Apps like Google Now, Sunrise and Cover have already tested the waters of anticipatory computing and demonstrated stellar results. But there's still a huge opportunity to disrupt new industries with the concept and simplify people's lives, from travel and retail to healthcare and automotive. As we move into 2014, it will be exciting to watch as more startups bring delight and magic to the mobile experience.

Over the last few years, the mobile app ecosystem has grown to support a thriving industry of service providers. Hundreds of analytics, advertising and monetization solutions - ranging from very focused products to fully-featured platforms - now provide app marketers with the means to build and manage a successful mobile business. But even though the market is growing at a rapid pace, there's still a big gap between the marketing products available for mobile apps and the web.

Marketers are a demanding group, and they're always seeking tools that eliminate complexity, increase efficiency and integrate into various pieces of the marketing process. As competition in mobile apps heats up and the ecosystem balloons to $35 billion in revenue in 2014, their demands will become even more pronounced.

An area in particular need of better solutions is app discovery. Ever since the App Store launched in 2008, getting an app in front of the right audience has been a challenging process. Apple and Google have been notoriously vague as to the ingredients of success (with the latter slightly more open in its communications), leaving marketers to rely on inferred data to improve their position in app stores.

App discovery continues to be a major challenge for app marketers 

But even with this challenge, marketers are expected to manage several activities to boost their visibility in app stores:

Surface their app as high as possible in search results by choosing the optimal title and keywords

Merchandise their app via screenshots, descriptions and app ratings (the latter of which requires thinking about post-install engagement)

Ascend Top Chart rankings by coordinating organic marketing efforts with paid promotion

Manage app performance relative to competitors

So far, mobile vendors have focused on tools that facilitate these individual elements of app discovery. They are typically organized in the following groups:

ASO platforms (eg MobileDevHQ, SearchMan) help app marketers to manage their app store search results. This practice, often referred to as app store optimization (ASO), is in high demand as search influences 63% of discovery. However, it can only be done each time a new version of an app is submitted.

Market intelligence platforms (eg App Annie, Distimo) focus on tools that help app marketers to better understand their competition and market context. Like most analytic platforms, however, they run the risk of overwhelming marketers with too much information.

Ad networks (eg InMobi, AdMob) sell ads to help apps drive direct installs and climb Top Chart rankings, which can create a snowball effect through higher exposure. Paid discovery is still out of the question for many apps, though, as the average cost per install ($1.63) outweighs average revenue.

Looking at these vendors from a big picture perspective, however, it becomes very clear that they are very siloed in their offerings, despite some convergence during the last year (ASO platforms offering market intelligence, market intelligence platforms offering ad analytics, etc). They're also too complicated to manage and too backward-looking to help marketers realize the full potential of their apps.

Given this reality, a major trend in 2014 will be platforms that unify the entire app discovery process. These platforms will collect various app store and non-app store metadata, synthesize this information into key insights and optimize an app's visibility in real-time. Specifically, they will help marketers to:

Evaluate the various elements of app discovery (search, merchandising, rankings) in a more holistic way. Imagine a scorecard, similar to Klout, that rates apps on their overall performance in the App Store and uncovers new, actionable opportunities.

Incorporate non-app store data into the consideration set. While search is still a primary influencer of discovery, external factors like advertising volume or PR mentions should be monitored to understand their impact on an app's position and ranking, especially in a competitive context.

React to changes in app store ranking in real-time. App marketers need to know when important changes are happening and what they should do about them. Automation will play a key role here to make the process seamless.

Use dynamic pricing as a competitive measure. This is an overlooked factor in app discovery, where shifting prices can quickly change an app's perception as a premium, mid- or low-tier option. A great reference point is Amazon, which has used dynamic pricing for the last few years.

One possible outcome is that the existing incumbents will expand their platforms to serve the growing demands of app marketers. If this happens, however, they will have to manage the legacy of a niche focus and be prepared for a competitive response. 

To say it's been an exciting year in mobile is an understatement. People are spending more time on their devices (141 minutes/day), smartphones are proliferating (1 billion), money keeps pouring into the ecosystem ($216B total) and the number of apps (1M+ total, 41 per phone) is growing faster than ever before. The epic competition between Apple and Google is pushing the market to innovate at a breakneck pace, and an entire new category of mobile device is coming to life in the form of wearable technology.

But this only the beginning. Just as mobile has already transformed our everyday lives, influencing everything from the way we consume content to how we interact with friends and how we shop, it's set to further disrupt the world around us.

As I reflect back on the past year and how the market has evolved, I've identified a few macro trends that I believe will define mobile in 2014. Over the next few weeks, I'll explore each of these individually to understand why they came about, how they will transpire and the impact they will have on the market. Let's start with the first - the rise of the mobile marketing manager.

THE MOBILE MARKETING MANAGER IS THE NEW SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

Mobile marketing is complicated

As mobile becomes increasingly complex, companies will need a more skilled workforce to effectively manage this function. Up until now, the responsibilities for mobile have fallen on existing marketing staff, despite the fact that they are already stretched thin and overwhelmed with work. But given their lack of time and expertise to manage a new channel, mobile has been mostly neglected.

This is true for both big brands as well as agencies, and even independent app businesses. Resources are lacking at all levels of the organization, even though its widely known that people now spend more time on their smartphones than desktop computers (141 vs. 139 min/day). It's not surprising that companies as big as Coca-Cola have openly admitted to their shortcomings in mobile, while vendors like Appboy and Urban Airship are stepping in to fill the void with dedicated client teams.

The situation with mobile today is very reminiscent to the rise of social media in the mid-2000's. As a new category of apps like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube began to dominate online behaviors, companies scrambled to establish a social presence and began hiring a new breed of social media marketers. These hires, mostly digital natives who were fresh out of school and relatively cheap, were expected to carry the company's message to all corners of the Internet. They assumed familiarity with the vernacular and nuances various social network, navigating through @mentions and shares to build loyal communities of fans.

While there were some mishaps along the way, the social media manager role has matured over the years as the discipline has proven its value in driving brand preference and influencing purchase funnels. Social media now has a real seat at the marketing table in large organizations, with brands like GE, Pepsi and Oreo hiring entire social media departments and constantly experimenting with new social media platforms. The caliber of people who represent the discipline has also risen, along with the infrastructure to support it.

The same will soon happen with the mobile marketing manager. As the number of mobile marketing jobs rises from 504,000 in 2012 to 1.4M by 2015, mobile will to dominate conversations rather than being simply a part of them. People hired for this position will cover a wide range of responsibilities and offer a skillset that's unique to the channel.

What exactly does a mobile marketing manager do?

Collaborate with digital marketing, content and creative teams to integrate mobile into the organization

Manage the company's mobile web presence and app portfolio across iOS, Android and other platforms

Manage mobile vendors and app SDKs

Improve mobile discovery through app store optimization (ASO), pricing and competitive monitoring

Develop user acquisition campaigns via mobile ads and retargeting

Build engagement and growth via customer relationship management, messaging campaigns and feedback 

Inform product roadmaps via insights from mobile analytics

Run A/B tests to optimize campaigns

As you can see from the list above, many of the responsibilities overlap with existing marketing functions like strategy, communications, content, analytics, automation and CRM. This is expected, because mobile permeates all aspects of consumer behavior and is often considered the center of the digital marketing world.

Mobile (in light blue) unifies all digital marketing disciplines

In the long term, existing departments may take ownership of their respective functional skill in mobile. But in the short and medium terms, a dedicated person or team will manage mobile from the inside out, until the rest of the organization familiarizes itself with its language and metrics. Eventually, mobile marketing managers will be the ones who assume senior marketing roles, in the same way that digital natives are today's CMOS.

For organizations who do not have a strong mobile hiring strategy, 2014 will be a wake-up call. Mobile is not the future - it's already here, and very soon it will be the most important aspect of marketing, capitalizing on its promise of personal and intimate enagement.