Carlos Hernando: “It’s no use having the best app if it doesn’t get downloaded.”

The importance of ASO positioning This is an unknown topic for many people and companies that have an app, or are thinking of developing one. Regardless of the stage of development of your application, it is important to know what factors must be taken into account when positioning it, in order to achieve the expected success. Today we have the presence of Carlos Hernando, ASO specialist and consultant in ASOApp, a company responsible for providing a complete and specialized solution in mobile applications and in the entire mobile business since 2015. Hi Carlos, can you tell us about your professional experience? Yes, of course, and above all, very good. I studied Industrial Technical Engineering in Mechanics, and from there I worked for a year with a contract for a multinational construction company while I prepared my final year project, because I had already had in mind since I was at university that when I finished, I wanted to go abroad to learn English. And so I did. I went to Dublin in 2009, when I was 23 years old. There, I practiced English and tried to find work related to the degree, but I had no experience, so I started applying for all kinds of jobs, and finally, I ended up at Hewlett Packard, working in IT technical support. After almost two years, I started working at Google, and specifically in the Maps department, as a Data Analyst. At that time, around 2013, I began to train myself, creating my first websites and starting to tinker with apps, which led to what I do today. Around 2014, I was already generating passive income with some e-commerce and especially with Apps, but I still hadn't made the leap to working for myself. I worked for almost a year at PayPal, in a position oriented to the client and its analysis. Finally, in 2015, I made the leap into the world of Startups and entrepreneurship. I created the ASOApp project, and I was part of two more projects, together with more people: one was a marketing agency for creating websites, SEO, SEM, among others, and the other was an online training platform. I combined the three projects for almost two years, but, nevertheless, the economic base was provided by ASOApp and the creation of Apps. So, since the beginning of 2017, I have dedicated 100% to the project I created in 2015: ASOApp.

“Offering consultancy to third parties was the next step: selling my experiences to those who are facing the situation of positioning an App for the first time.”

How did you end up getting into app creation and ASO consulting? When I was at Google, I had in mind trying to monetize from home with my own projects, an idea that crosses many of our minds. The how, didn't matter much to me, more was whether I was able to do it. And I started to try a bit of everything, including Apps. Why? It seemed complex to me to enter into more expanded worlds, and from the first moment I started to try the Mobile world, which at that time was all very new. As I said, the idea was to monetize, the how didn't matter. In fact, with Apps I thought it was impossible because there was no previous information, but I liked entering something unknown to experiment, apart from trying in more common niches. At that time, the word ASO was unknown, which is not so much today. And really, and to my surprise, with Apps I started to monetize much more than with other ways. Curiosity came together with earnings. I had it all, so I began to create all kinds of apps without programming, subcontracting developers, among others, and above all, trying to promote these apps. Offering consultancy to third parties was the next step: selling my experiences to those who are facing the situation of positioning an app for the first time. Tell us a little about ASOApp ASOApp was born as a project that combines the creation and exploitation of own mobile applications with consulting for clients or third parties, but not only ASO, but also App Marketing or Mobile Growth, the sum of the two, monetization, among others. It is a complete solution for mobile applications, because today, apart from the above, we offer online and live training and face-to-face training such as in Companies, Institutions, Universities and Master's schools. Currently, we provide training at the Juan Carlos I University of Madrid, and the Master's schools, MSMK, MBIT and SISchool, all in Madrid, among others. There are four business avenues that are carried out. I manage ASOApp in its entirety, but currently the team is made up of five people, that is, four professionals collaborate with ASOApp autonomously to a greater or lesser extent. I have always liked that there are no bosses or employees, therefore, in ASOApp, collaborators join the project, who make it grow and it grows with them. Although it is true that since this year we are trying to incorporate people with exclusive dedication to it, but as I said, being part of it.

“This mobile world goes beyond lines of code, just like in the web world.”

We know that you are also investing in training and events (in fact, we already shared a meetup with you). Do you think that there is currently a training deficit in terms of creating and selling apps? What is really difficult is to understand what we have to take into account to enter the mobile world. That is to say, there are many, many courses on how to program in Android Studio, in Ionic, etc. And they are very much aimed at developers. This makes the rest think that it is not viable to enter the mobile world. And that is not true at all, you also need to know how to monetize an App, how to promote it, etc. Because it is useless to have the best App if it does not have downloads. What I always try to do in everything I do is to show that there is a big market, and few professionals, but in all aspects of it. Therefore, there is little training in Mobile Growth, low-cost development with objectives to create MVPs, etc. That is why the ASOApp meetup group was created last year, to give talks and above all to share that this mobile world goes beyond lines of code, just as it happens in the web world. Like the solution that you present: it has nothing to do with programming, but quite the opposite. Based on your experience in positioning apps in marketplaces, what factors are the most decisive at the moment? Do you think they will remain the same in the future? Well, it's easy, an App has to meet the following: 1. Have a product that fits into the mobile market, and I mean, not everything is worth it, nor does it have to be an App. 2. Good ASO done at the Keywords and Visibility level. 3. Good App Marketing, especially at first, to lead to non-organic downloads. 4. Have more installations than uninstalls and mainly that these are prolonged over time and that they also make users return periodically to use the App. 5. That users like it and reflect it with comments and ratings. 6. That the developer or manager of the Apps has a deep analytical capacity to detect behaviors and metrics and improve them. Therefore, my answer could be: the title of the App and the ratings. But it's simpler than that: if everything I've mentioned is not taken together, it will be very difficult to position yourself. And that's not going to change, since it's the very essence of this market. Other things will change in the future, such as specific ASO factors. What do you think about Apple's restrictive policy on publishing apps in the App Store? Do you think Google will eventually follow suit? Logically, for Apple, a priori, quality takes precedence over quantity. And it is true that the App stores have a lot, but a lot, of Zombie Apps, or useless ones. Sooner or later they had to take some measure, and in the end, it has not been retroactive as they wanted, but from a few months ago, onwards. Google? I think they are going to make a radical change, and that is because everything they do is usually very soft. I mean that they will launch the Fuchsia operating system, and perhaps with it a new market, not eliminating Google Play, but having another alternative. I have read this, and I do not see it as unfeasible. So, this may happen, and of course, a market place much cleaner than Google Play. If this does not happen, Google does not stop improving its bots for detecting fraudulent Apps, and above all because these bots feed back to themselves. Therefore, they also improve, already in great steps, only that they have not made such a drastic change as Apple.

“If you want to monetize a PWA with Google advertising, you have to use Adsense, instead of Admob, and web advertising is much, much worse paid than mobile advertising”

Due to Apple's restrictions, other app builders have opted for Progressive Web Apps. What is your opinion on this type of product? In my eyes, it is not a solution for the future, but a solution that fills a gap. It is clear that they are only halfway there. They may be useful for something specific, but they do not have the essence of mobile at all. In talks and courses, I always give the same example to understand it quickly: “If you want to monetize a PWA with Google advertising, you have to use Adsense, instead of Admob, and web advertising is much, much worse paid than mobile advertising.” They have arrived, operating systems are accepting them, and we will see what happens, but they are still websites. To me, it seems like an impressive solution in some cases, but it is certainly not valid for everything, and they have many limitations. You have spoken on occasions about the importance of not trying to create the app “that will change the world”, but rather starting with more humble expectations and learning. What would be the best advice you would give to a company that wants to start the adventure of launching its app? Yes, that is one of my phrases, because I think that to make an App that really breaks the market, you have to do some calculations beforehand and know the market well, very well, and even then, the chances are very small. It is better to start in the mobile world with something that already has some experience, such as going to niches in demand, or expanding your brand with the App product. But creating a new 100% product without knowing how the Mobile world works is crazy. I know this from experience, in fact the clients we have tend to be that type: a unique product in which nothing more than the product itself has been taken into account. I was the first to fall into this, like everyone else. The first App I made, I thought about the idea, the product, without taking into account anything else, and that is what happened, which was not worth anything directly, but it did help me learn that I should not do that, and it leads to everything I said at the beginning of the interview. Therefore, anyone who wants to start should look at the market, try to get close to what is there, and then, if they can match it, improve it, and above all, keep in mind that the product is often not the only basis for success, that more factors must be taken into account. Thank you very much Carlos for the interview and we hope that ASOApp continues to be as successful or even more so than it has already been.