[PreMoney MENA 2015] 500 Startups >> Edith Yeung," DIALING UP RETURNS: The Complete Guide To Evaluating Mobile Startups"

The Complete Guide to Evaluate a Mobile Startup
Edith Yeung (@edithyeung)

Edith Yeung is a Partner at 500 Startups’ Mobile
Collective, focusing on investing in mobile apps and
consumer internet startups.
Before 500, Edith was the VP of marketing & business
development for Dolphin Browser. Dolphin Browser is a
Sequoia-backed mobile browser with over 150 million
installs worldwide. She also founded RightVentures -
seed stage investment firm focusing on mobile and
consumer internet companies. Prior, she led many
operation roles at Oracle, Siebel, AT&T, Symantec,
Telstra, Cisco, Autodesk, etc.

Why should you care about mobile?

105 mobile internet unicorns’ total enterprise
value ~ $839 billion
Source:
Digi-‐Capital
-‐
h3p://www.digi-‐capital.com/news/2015/11/mobile-‐internet-‐stocks-‐down-‐15-‐unicorn-‐valuaBons-‐drop-‐by-‐
average-‐1-‐billion/#more-‐1049

85% mobile internet unicorns came from US
& China – Q3 2015
Source:
Digi-‐Capital
-‐

1.  United States
2.  China
3.  India
4.  Japan
5.  South Korea
6.  Israel
7.  Sweden
8.  United Kingdom
9.  Germany
10.  Finland
11.  Denmark
12.  France
13.  Singapore
14.  Malaysia

7 sectors made up 90% of total mobile
internet enterprise value – Q3 2015
Source:
Digi-‐Capital
-‐

1.  Social,
2.  mCommerce
3.  Transport
4.  Finance
5.  Messaging
6.  Games
7.  Food & drink

Growing Mobile Startups is Tough

Growing Mobile Startups is Tough
•  Mobile marketing is tough. ASO vs SEO.
•  Mobile engagement is tough. MAU, DAU, Churn
•  Mobile monetization is tough. Mobile CPM is still
relative low.
•  Mobile payment is still not 100% ready. iOS users still
worth more than Android users.
•  Device fragmentation. iOS or Android first?
•  Big guys are all eating your lunch. Tough to find
opportunities that Facebook, Apple, Google, Amazon,
Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent are not working on.

[PreMoney MENA 2015] 500 Startups >> Edith Yeung," DIALING UP RETURNS: The Complete Guide To Evaluating Mobile Startups"

How to evaluate a mobile deal?

A few questions you
might want to ask…

Mobile marketing is tough. How to market
your app? What is your CPI & CPA ?
Top 10 ways to market your apps
1.  Cross promotion – partnership or
your own app
2.  App Store Optimization
3.  Banner ads
4.  Social campaigns
5.  Email campaigns
6.  PR
7.  Video ads
8.  Interstitial ads
9.  In-app viral campaign
10.  Web organic search
Source:
Venturebeat
-‐
h3p://venturebeat.com/2014/12/08/mobile-‐acBon-‐releases-‐free-‐app-‐store-‐opBmizaBon-‐and-‐intelligence-‐
toolbox/

Mobile engagement is tough. How do you
retain your users?
1.  How to keep them coming back?
•  Push notification
•  Emails
2.  What is your DAU?
3.  What is your MAU?
4.  What is your churn?
5.  What is your life time
Source:
h3p://www.spaceotechnologies.com/make-‐a-‐great-‐mobile-‐app/

Mobile monetization is tough. How will you
make money? What is your ARPU/LTV?
1.  Advertising
2.  Subscription
3.  In-app purchase
4.  Affiliate
5.  Driving installs for other
apps
Source:
h$p://epaperbird.com/

Mobile payment is tough. How would you
collect money?
1.  Apple iOS
2.  Google Pay
3.  Carrier billing
4.  Paypal / Alipay / Stripe /
Tenapy
Source:
h$p://epaperbird.com/

Android vs iOS. What platforms would you
choose to start and why?

Android dominated the market with an 82.8%
share in 2015 Q2.
Source:
IDC
-‐
h$p://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-‐os-‐market-‐share.jsp

A few good tools for evaluating mobile
deals
1.  Mobile Action (https://www.mobileaction.co)
2.  Apptopia (https://www.apptopia.com/)
3.  App Annie (https://www.appannie.com/cn/)
4.  CBInsights (https://www.cbinsights.com)
5.  Mattermark (http://mattermark.com)
6.  Angellist (https://angel.co)
7.  Industry & local experts (https://edith.co)

A few more thoughts in finding deals…
1.  Find your co-investors & make friends ☺
2.  Partner up with industry experts
3.  Identify top talents (from your country) with unicorns experience
4.  Identify first clone opportunities in your region
5.  Do your research – on industries, categories, person, competitors,
and many more.
6.  Stay on top of the latest mobile trends. Subscribe to Edith’s
newsletter ☺
7.  Invest in category leaders (not followers)

A few thoughts in evaluating people
•  Resiliency
•  Visionary
•  Curiosity
•  Product vision
•  Fearlessness
•  Resourcefulness
•  Charisma
•  Commitment
•  Man or Woman of their word

Internet of Everything
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the
network of physical objects or
"things" embedded with
electronics, software, sensors,
and network connectivity, which
enables these objects to collect
and exchange data.
Source:
Chris
McCann

h3ps://medium.com/@mccannatron/esports-‐market-‐ecosystem-‐map-‐c6ae5bc6a7d0

eSport
eSports is big, bigger than you
imagine. 27M people watched
the final League of Legends
event vs. 19.9M viewers
watched the full 6 game series of
the 2015 NBA finals
Source:
Chris
McCann

h3ps://medium.com/@mccannatron/internet-‐of-‐things-‐iot-‐market-‐ecosystem-‐map-‐28a73d1393f

Next 5 Years of Mobile innovation will come
from Asia, not Silicon Valley.

You can have your mooncake and eat it too.

You can find my presentation at:
•  Deck http://www.edith.co/#blog
•  Email edith@500.co
•  Twitter @edithyeung
•  Newsletter http://www.edith.co/#newsletter

[PreMoney MENA 2015] 500 Startups >> Edith Yeung," DIALING UP RETURNS: The Complete Guide To Evaluating Mobile Startups"

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[PreMoney MENA 2015] 500 Startups >> Edith Yeung," DIALING UP RETURNS: The Complete Guide To Evaluating Mobile Startups"