Jakub Chour: when I came they just
started with it just doing ua but
no nothing major in, in in MarTech.
Like no MMP no revenue
infrastructure no nothing.
So it was fun to start like that.
And knowing a little, at least about
MarTech, I I jump into it and, said,
okay, we need an MMP because otherwise
when we scale, we don't see the,
the true value we are getting back.
And in this scale, which might be
has of like 4 million, 5 million
monthly active users so in this
scale we need to think about pricing
and what you're getting for that.
Jacob: Hey, thanks for joining.
Really excited to have you here.
Jacob, this is Jacob Chore.
Really appreciate you having
having you on the podcast today.
You wanna give everyone a quick quick
background yourself, quick introduction.
Jakub Chour: Jacob.
Sure.
So I have been in the
industry, mobile industry for.
Maybe 10, 15 years even.
So probably a, a long time doing
everything from lifecycle marketing
and classic desktop desktop ads that
went to mobile pages and app stores.
So I remember a lot or I
wish I remembered a lot.
And for the last five years I was working
for a Y Combinator company called Her,
which is an lgbtq plus dating app.
Doing or starting as like sole
marketer, lifecycle ua, then switching
to revenue optimization, then web
optimization, web to app and whatnot.
So yeah, that's me.
That was me for the last five years.
And now I'm working for mapi.com.
That is like local hiking and
biking app that I really love.
Jacob: That's awesome.
Well, yeah, it's quite the gambit kind of
different areas and mobile growth where
I think, you know, often it's hard to.
I think often people get stuck in kinda
one area or just work on lifecycle
marketing or, or just do acquisition
or, or maybe just kind of monetization.
Yeah.
How, how how did you kind of
transition through those kind of
different, different focus areas?
Jakub Chour: It was necessary
and there was no one around.
So I just started clicking
and it somehow it worked.
At least like.
Somehow, you know, it was like, I,
I was never the, the best and most
detailed marketer, but doing a lot
of things made me just more curious
and and more knowledgeable about
everything that's going on in marketing.
Jacob: Yeah, I think I found
that too, like maybe the same.
Small companies, it's often to be,
it's often better to be to, to know a
few things than just one thing really
well, where it's just, you know,
you only have so many people that
you need to do a lot and you need to
constantly be learning a new thing.
So I, maybe that's
similar a similar for you.
Jakub Chour: Yeah, possibly.
Jacob: Yeah.
So I think what I, what I'd really love
to talk about today is, you know, you were
telling me about how at, at mappy you, you
know, you didn't join so long ago and you
didn't have a really built out tech stack.
And so I'd love to kind
of chat through like.
What what went into, into kind of
decisioning for how you decided what
tools to use, how you went about finding
those new tools, how you planned all
that, and then also like what's as a app
what, what MarTech tools do you even need?
Like, I feel like there's, there's
more and more out there every day and
sometimes for maybe more experienced
people, it's easier to kind of just
know intuitively from years and years.
But I think for.
Newer people in app marketing world,
newer founders, it's can be intimidating
to, to figure out what tools to use,
what you need, what don't you need?
Yeah, so, so, so maybe like, maybe
we can start at, at, at, at map and
just tell me a little bit about kind
of what, what you started with there,
what you were thinking about or,
and what you kind of came in with.
At, at Matthew, what tools you
have, what didn't you have, and
then we can kind of go from there.
Jakub Chour: Okay.
So with Mapi it was a little
different than in a DR company.
I was in as it was a already major
product, like it has been on a
market for like 15 years, but just
recently they started to monetize it.
It was a part of the bigger company.
It was like a freebie for people, and I
honestly think it's a really great product
for hiking everywhere on, on the planet.
It's like most precise maps but they
had never been monetizing it till last
December, so nothing was really set.
And when I came they just started
with it just doing ua but no
nothing major in, in in MarTech.
Like no MMP no revenue
infrastructure no nothing.
So it was fun to start like that.
And knowing a little, at least about
MarTech, I I jump into it and, said,
okay, we need an MMP because otherwise
when we scale, we don't see the,
the true value we are getting back.
And in this scale, which might be
has of like 4 million, 5 million
monthly active users so in this
scale we need to think about pricing
and what you're getting for that.
There was no revenue infrastructure.
It was like homemade and it's
often okay if you start with just
one tier one SKU often deriving
it from the web mapping where.
First a web product and then
it changed to, to mobile.
So they only had one product, a trial
product for a week then for a year.
So actually there's no need for
infrastructure that much for now because
if you are in for a year, the next
renewable will be by the end of this year.
So we are just working towards that date.
But the first thing I really had to
do is like start orienting myself
and see what is happening here.
It's a company of like 50 people
and some people are borrowed from
like a, a bigger mother company.
There's a local media house, so a lot
of people working on different things.
So just like usual handshakes
and seeing what our are doing.
My priority was first focused on money.
It's like if you are investing
in something, it needs
to be at least average.
Good.
So we had to do the m
and p first and then.
Jacob: it sounds like your, your kind
of initial scope was like, okay, you're
you're coming in to grow the app, or
they're gonna start monetizing and so.
That are, are you kind of owning that
overall growth and overall monetization?
For Mappy?
Jakub Chour: Yes, yes.
I'm responsible for all the
growth together with other
people that are working on it.
It's not just like one man's job,
Jacob: Yeah.
Jakub Chour: But that
should be my priority.
And then we focused on things
that I could do myself, like a SOA
little screenshots and keywords.
Something that hasn't been worked on
very much in the past also and again,
they just started, and then there's a
long queue of things we want to implement
because yeah, MNP is is one thing.
But another thing was a lifecycle tool.
Then the revenue infrastructure tool
and then some product features that we
wanted them in the app or didn't want.
And that's one huge topic for me always
is like finding out what users want.
Something that is like tremendously
important because just like by launching
a simple survey for a like few thousands
of users, you can easily find what
people like about your app, what they
dislike, features they don't, don't
want to use or, or don't want to pay
for, and features they're willing to
pay for, even they're not like fully
implemented or fully developed features.
So it's like.
Pretty easy hack, if you will.
Jacob: yeah.
And so that's why you wanted to
that's why you thought a lifecycle
marketing tool was important.
Jakub Chour: Yeah.
Jacob: Yeah.
Do you, so I think I have different
views on like, for, for newer apps
that are just kind of growing.
I sometimes don't recommend like
focusing on lifecycle marketing as
much early on where it's, it's just
especially for subscription apps where
you really need to focus on just on
monetization and like conversion.
And then once you've figured out how
to convert users into your product.
Now let's focus on lifecycle marketing,
where I feel like it could be a
traction, but for a, a larger product
I think it is like pretty critical.
'cause you have obviously
a large engaged user base.
Do you, I, I'm looking at
your facial expressions.
Maybe you disagree a little
bit wi with that, you know
Jakub Chour: a lot.
Jacob: priority of, of lifecycle
marketing tools, especially if it's like
small team versus large team new app.
Existing app.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How do you think about that?
Jakub Chour: I think maybe we are we
are talking about different thing when
we when we mean in lifecycle marketing.
For me it means also comms when
you start in the app, like when you
install including including onboarding.
Mappy still doesn't have any onboarding,
but my hope is that once we have it
implemented, you can, you can start
with a like a full size window like
HTML version of your onboarding and
ask users about different questions.
Basically like replacing the native
onboarding with your onboarding.
And I think it's very
important to have it.
Because then again, you can get
the motivations and something more
about a user, because Mapi has
like four different kind of users.
It's like general user that just want to
see, I know their, their neighborhood.
But then you have hikers, bikers,
people who want to use it for their
cars as navigation, and it's very
hard to cater for all of them at once.
If you don't know anything about them,
it's very hard to even just like.
Deciding on what to, to be shown in a
menu or as like first thing to do if
you don't know anything about them.
So that's why I think it's
important mostly in app message.
If, if, if it was anything,
it would be in app messaging.
That was very important for me
especially because it's not usually
the first thing to integrate
when you are doing a a new app.
Jacob: Yeah,
Jakub Chour: yeah, I don't
care much about emails.
Push notifications
Jacob: that's,
Jakub Chour: maybe, but
Jacob: what I was talking about.
I was, for
Jakub Chour: yeah.
Jacob: I, I, my lifecycle marketing, I
was saying push notifications, emails
essentially, where it's like, you know,
the, and, and, and my, the math in my
head is, well, the larger the user base.
The more impact you can have and,
and you're gonna see incremental
lift, but you're not gonna see
gains from email campaigns.
Jakub Chour: No, no.
Jacob: could see that from your
onboarding optimization, for example.
Right?
And so I think that's what,
Jakub Chour: Yes.
Jacob: at.
And so that, that makes sense to me.
What, what what tools do you
like for in-app messaging?
Jakub Chour: Well, surprisingly there's
not that much that would play well with
the, with the rest of the tech stack.
I mean there are some like, separate
enough messaging tools, but I don't think
there are that much that, that, that good.
Usually what you want to not just like be
able to show an enough message, you just,
you also want to somehow interact with
your user brand, with your user database.
So saving some values.
That came from that onboarding using
that database to show proper messaging.
And it's not that much common
to have it unless it's it's
like well known tune a tool.
So we are sticking with with
one signal because they, for
this, they are good enough.
They also support liquid,
which is a, a tagging language.
Something like a JavaScript so you can
use values inside and use for example,
user's name or restriction date or
whatever you have for them saved.
And I would recommend everyone to start
with them since the, the pricing is like
fair enough for starters and still good
enough for like a bigger scaling gap.
Jacob: Gotcha.
Gotcha.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think it's tough.
The lifecycle marketing tools, you
know, you get attracted by these big
guys, the Brazes, the Iterable, and then
you see the price tag and you go, huh,
maybe I don't, maybe I don't need that.
Jakub Chour: Definitely
Jacob: yeah,
Jakub Chour: I was price like four
Jacob: yeah.
Jakub Chour: times higher for a
majority of like bigger tools.
Jacob: I think there is value.
I see that what I think you've, when
you understand what you're doing there
and you, and you reach ceilings, I
think there's definitely a place that,
that they do have better capabilities.
They do have more power.
And so I've, I've used Braze with
a lot of companies and I like the,
but I, but I don't think they're,
it's the, it's the only answer.
So in, in, in, so we've got
We've got lifecycle marketing
tool product analytics.
Is that a external tool or
do you have that in-house?
Jakub Chour: It in house.
It's usually well.
It's usually not useful
because it's in-house, right?
So a few people uses it.
They are used to it, so it's hard
to share dashboards or whatever.
It's usually built on Tableau
or I don't know, some, I don't
know, some tool like that.
It's fine.
It works and I like it, and it's
the only tool we have right now.
But if it was my decision and my
budget, that is also important.
I'll probably do something
else like amplify.
Jacob: Yeah.
Yeah.
It's chopped with premium products or
free products where you go, okay, well.
10% of our users are paying us, but
we have to pay these analytics tools
for every single user regardless
if we're making money from them.
And so this, this freemium model for
apps doesn't always kind of align with
the business model of these, analytics
tools and, and, and any tool that
charges just on monthly active users.
So it's there, there's kind of a
disconnect between the business models.
Jakub Chour: There's a way around that.
Like if you decide to start the
analytics as dk just in the countries
you care for, just like in the US right?
You, you cut the rest,
which might be good or not.
Like it really depends, but for the
rest you can just use Google Analytics.
I hate it, but it's still free so.
Jacob: Yeah, that, that's
interesting that, that I, I.
It's a really interesting approach
where you go, okay, well if we
look at 20, 30, 40% of our users,
that cuts our bill in half.
But you know, the goal isn't to look
at behavior of every single user.
The goal is to look at behavior of users
in aggregate and make informed decisions.
And so if we have enough of our users.
And even better if we're only looking
at the users that are really making
us money in the top countries that's
probably even better for decision making.
That, that's really interesting approach.
Do you, do you, you've done that before?
Jakub Chour: Yeah, we've done that before.
Not here in, but it can save some
money and you, you need to know what
you're doing and you need to be sure
that this in like different parts of
the world, don't, don't matter to you.
Jacob: Yeah.
Do you think it's better to do
on country basis, or do you think
just doing like random sampling?
Jakub Chour: That depends
on your user base, really.
Like if you didn't have any any
like major country that users
are coming from, then yes.
If majority, like half of your are in
the states, then I would probably do on
the states if I had to save some money.
Jacob: Interesting.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So then you just have to set up
like the initialization of the
SDK, the work with your developers
Jakub Chour: on Firebase?
Yeah, based on firebase,
like localization.
Then the detection, local detection.
Jacob: a, you know, an ongoing feature
flag type thing where it's, it's
Jakub Chour: Yeah.
Jacob: deployed for users with
fifth IP address from this country,
or, or something like that.
Or this locale from that.
They pull from the device.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting, interesting.
So then, so, but right now you
have an internal internal database
and Tableau sits on top of that.
For visualization of data and,
and that you have web, mobile
and iOS and Android products.
Jakub Chour: Yes, yes,
that I was in Android.
Jacob: Yeah.
How I've I've worked with some web
products, but I've, I've worked with
less, like you think the important
things to think about are, if you
are if you have a mobile only product
versus a web and mobile product, how
do you approach that differently?
Jakub Chour: I think the the audience
is different or can be different.
Like what we can see is the audience
on a web is like less likely to turn.
They're used to use the app on the web.
They are probably like
long-term users, not necessarily
paying just long-term users.
I would say that it's just still
more convenient to use it on the
web because it's just bigger, right?
You don't care about bigger if
it's a banking app, but, but
you care about it if it's a map.
So I would say the audience
might be different.
It might monetize differently.
As we can see, it's a little different.
Like we still have just one product
on map, but I bet there'll be
some difference in buying behavior
when we do more tiers on a web.
It's probably also different different
time and like different setup of usage.
Like you probably check your map
on the go on mobile, but you are in
a planning mode possibly when you
are on desktop, so it's different.
Jacob: need to use different tools
or, or different things in their
MarTech stack if you're, or is it
generally the same tools, just kind
of using them slightly differently?
Jakub Chour: I would probably
prefer to use the same tools.
Yeah, you, you have a different,
probably different ab testing tool.
Or, and you can have different analytics
tool like Paul talk or I don't know
what, but I would, I would beg everyone
to use same tools because there,
then, there, there is a same set of.
Same or similar like measurements
that you can use and compare users in
between map and mobile because if it's
different providers, they have different
definitions and you might not get the,
the same answers or the same users.
Jacob: Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah.
And, and so you know, you mentioned
you have some analytics built in
house or, or tableau on top of kind
of your, your internal tool and you
aren't using other product analytics.
Have you had other roles where
you had meaningful MarTech
infrastructure built in house?
And then how do you think about
like building versus buying?
Right.
I think it's a classic decision.
You know, I think as marketers
we always go buy, buy, buy.
We want, we want to use all the
tools and, and then I think sometimes
more products or engineering
side goes, we can build that.
And and so I think that it oftentimes,
like different views internally,
there's also like different cultures
and different companies right.
About, about the right way to do things.
Yeah, do, how do you think about that?
The build versus buy?
I.
Jakub Chour: Well, I mostly was
working with with companies that
had their, like in-house data stack.
Mostly coming from product side.
Like everything like over the product,
like Mark marketing related was like
added to the product stack product
data stack for better or worse.
But I always been a buy type of marketer.
I don't.
Personally, I don't see any advantage
of like, building in-house unless
it's super important to have it
in-house and super secret or whatever.
Like it's, you are, it's just like a
matter of like saving time for everyone
and you are tracking questions.
And hard decisions that someone
did in the past for you.
And it's waiting and it's ready for you.
Just like for for your time
to your, your money for time.
And you might not need you might not
have necessarily knowledge about that.
Often I was working with super clever
people that they were like data
analytics, but they didn't have the the
knowledge for like, of implementation
and mobile world, which is like more
difficult than web, I would say.
So it's always much harder to do it, to
write when it's in-house, and I think it's
based off just for, just to pay for it.
Jacob: Yeah.
Yeah.
I forget where I heard.
This is a good a good saying that stuck
with me is where, you know, for you where
you want to differentiate, where, where
it's a really key value prop for you.
Build that for everything else.
Just copy from somebody
else or buy it like.
You, you, you don't need to reinvent the
wheel make, but focus really on where,
where it, it'll be impactful for you
and that can be be a differentiator.
Jakub Chour: Yeah.
And building on what you said often,
oftentimes, and I, I bet it's a, it's
a goal for a lot of founders that
you want to be bought the company
and invest or invested, right?
And you want to have the.
More metrics as the, as the
investors that are looking for.
And suddenly, if you need to come
up with a metrics that is not like
standard in your in-house data
stack, then it's very hard to come
up with a, like a reliable answer.
So the, the, the more common tool
you are using, the better for
you if you want to be invested.
Like I, there are very
surrounded obviously, but if
you have it from scratch, then
it's probably better for you.
Jacob: That's, yeah,
that, that's interesting.
That's a really good point of
using one, just common metrics.
Make sure you're not, measuring things
differently from everybody else so people
can, you know, investors, acquirers
can compare apples to apples, but then
also, I guess it is probably seen as
a, as a positive sign that there's more
scalable infrastructure if you're using
commonly accepted tools out there.
Jakub Chour: Totally agree.
Jacob: Yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting, interesting.
And so like, you know, you and I may, may
know a lot from, from working in mobile
and marketing and growth for years, but.
How does, like, how does someone newer,
like, okay, maybe you worked in marketing
for some other type of company, or
maybe you worked in product for, you
know, A-A-C-P-G company and now you're
getting into working for a mobile app.
Like, how, how do you familiarize
yourself with the MarTech landscape?
Like how do you learn what, what,
like what things are out there?
Where do you start?
Jakub Chour: Big question.
There's so much noise around I
was thinking about it and I would
probably ask AI to come up with
outers that I should trust and not.
For everything.
Like for a lot of things AI is not
reliable, but like, for such a similar
like kind of easy questions, I think it's
reliable enough to give you some start.
Obviously li like it's still different.
For example, Eric Zoe Ford might
be like very reliable and a great
source, but only for some people.
He's not into UA that much anymore.
Like for the details.
How to set up a meta campaign
is probably not the best source.
So if you ask JGPT or CLO or whoever
careful enough, you get some answers.
From those people.
You can, you can follow
them on x, on LinkedIn.
Surprisingly, I'm getting a
lot of like new information on
LinkedIn, just counterintuitive
because everyone hates it.
But for some reason for mobile
marketing, it still works.
Has a great is a great
resource in this matter.
Thomas Betty some.
Marcus is on LinkedIn.
So yeah, that's usually where I
go, but I think it only applies
to growth mobile growth marketing.
I can't say it works for
anything else per vibe coding.
It's surprisingly YouTube
that's probably one of the best
sources for like deeper content.
Jacob: So like instead of trying to
go like just research tools directly
go follow people that are influential
in the space and then see what
they're talking about, learn from
them and, and kind of get, get the
tool recommendations or from, from
that, their kind of content you think.
Jakub Chour: Yeah, definitely.
If, if I'm in, i'm usually,
when I'm solving, I'm trying to
solve some some problem I have.
I usually googling tool for X,
like for ideally for like smaller
things like Figma, for whatever.
Or a plugin for Figma, for
whatever that worked great.
Usually as like, usually the,
the problem you are solving is
already, has already been solved.
You just need to find that person
who made that plugin and wants
you to pay 10, 20 bucks for it.
So for smaller problems
this is a good solution too.
Jacob: Yeah, that's a good, good
little tool for like reframing for
how to, how to search and find things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think, something that's tough in Google
is just making it past the paid search
results and then, you know, big cut.
Companies even if they're not paid
search results, they can spend
more on SEO and content creation.
And like I always find it tough to,
okay, I have a few options, but.
How do I figure out from all this
marketing, like what's actually
capabilities, what actual, and
then like, okay, there's all these
capabilities and what functionality
do I even need in these tools?
And I always get excited about, oh, I
could do this, this, and this and this.
But in reality, like I don't
have time for all that stuff.
I just need to focus on the, the,
the, the most important thing that's
actually gonna make a difference.
So like, one, how do you cut through
the noise of all the marketing out
there from these big companies?
to, to figure out what you actually
need and, and then all, how do you like,
decipher the functionality that that's
actually possible versus just, you
know, marketing messages on the website.
Jakub Chour: Yeah, that's,
that's hard for me.
I'm always after new shiny things.
Jacob: Yeah.
Jakub Chour: So, the rule I have
just like a like a small rule, like
a feeling more than a, than a rule.
It's when I go to a website that
possibly has an answer for me or
a solution, maybe like if they, if
they have a pricing page, it's good.
If they don't, it's not for.
The thing goes for as like a title.
If I don't understand title, it's
probably not for me, honestly.
Like it's either my fault
because I dunno what I want.
Exactly.
Or it's their fault because
they didn't write it well.
And therefore I shouldn't be caring
much if they don't have good marketers.
And also I know like, just recently I
came came up with some some tools I was
researching and a few of them had AI on
like first, the very first word on a page.
And that also for me, it
also does something because.
Why AI is great for Royce and Image or
the whatever, it's definitely not good for
any predictions or like synthetic users.
For, for, for example, was was one
thing I was curious about, like, AI
that supposedly, supposedly like simul,
simulates users and tells you what
you know, if the anti is good or not.
So that kind of thing,
I don't really trust,
Jacob: yeah.
Why?
On the pricing page, like what?
Is it just about the transparency where
you, if you see, if they don't have
prices listed or don't have a pricing
page, you think, oh, it's expensive,
or you just don't like the, yeah.
What, what about that is a signal for you?
Jakub Chour: Yeah, exactly.
Like if, if if they are not
like it, it's connected.
Right.
So if they don't have pricing.
Exactly.
It says like, who does or something.
It's usually a sales
process, which is costly.
So the, it means that the
tool itself is costly.
While it starts on like, I don't know,
$50 or a hundred dollars, you can say it's
for small developers or small companies.
Jacob: Got it.
Got it.
Yeah.
I often, on the pricing page,
I often find that good detailed
ones are the most valuable for me.
'cause I can scroll down and
look at the actual feature set.
I always click see more like the, the,
the standard pricing page is never enough.
I go, okay.
And then I actually go down through
each little functionality and go,
okay, I need that, that, and that.
And so I think for if you if you know
what you need, it's super valuable
to actually understand the specific
Jakub Chour: Yeah, exactly.
As you say, I almost
never go to feature pages.
I go to pricing page and see what's
there in like three words for like the
line, so I can understand it better.
There
Jacob: And for, me, the
same thing as documentation.
I I, I, I usually, before I even start
using a product, or, or, or like I,
I know the marketing is gonna promise
me the world, it can do anything.
But then I go into the
documentation, look at actually what.
Functionality they have and it's
okay now they actually understand the
product and what it's actually doing.
So that's, that's my tip for cutting
through the noise is just look at
documentation and, and user guides
and, and support docs because
that's what people actually are, how
people are actually using the tool.
Jakub Chour: Yeah, great advice.
Jacob: Yeah.
Cool.
So.
All right.
So let's, let's, so, so
for tools, you've got go.
Going back a little bit.
You've got MMP you found an
mm p I think for it's a real
difference in like MMPs today.
I, I just feel like I, I'm not as Act,
touch tapped it on the acquisition side.
Like they all feel like
they do the same thing.
Like how, how do you pick that?
Jakub Chour: I only have experience
with two apps, fire and branch.
I understand there's like special kind
of MMP for guava because of the volume.
Is it Ava?
Possibly.
It's Ava, but it's like one MMP
that's mainly for games and then
maybe some smaller part MMP partners.
So there was definitely a
difference in between what branch
was offering, like in case of like
pricing and it felt like a little.
Underdeveloped compared to at fire.
I just thought to myself, I
have some budget for that.
I don't care that much for the difference
in like for the budget we have for ua,
it doesn't play that, that huge role.
And I want an, I want to
have a industry standard.
Just want to compare with others and
if there's a trouble, I want to be
able to discuss it with something.
If you pick some unknown m and p, then
it's very hard to to debug anything
really, unless they have a great
support, which is not always the case.
Jacob: Yeah.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Got it.
Yeah, I think.
'Cause branch started with deep
links and that was really their, how
Jakub Chour: And they're great in it.
Jacob: then they went into
attribution, I think, I think they
have good attribution tools now.
I, I, I'm sure it's, it's, it's solid.
I haven't I haven't used them in a
while, but they, I mean, I think if you
have complicated, deep linking needs,
they're probably still option and the
most power in terms of your deep links.
I don't.
I know most companies
need the power they have.
And I think deep links are also, or
at least like deferred deep linking is
also less works less well now after,
privacy changes in iOS 14 and, and,
and so it's, kind of works there.
There's worse work around it, but
it's not as reliable as it used to.
It is never, never worked
perfectly, but it is just not
as reliable as it used to be.
And, and then also what is it?
Google Links, the dynamic links,
Jakub Chour: Yeah.
Dynamic.
Jacob: They just guys got
Jakub Chour: Sunset it.
Jacob: Yeah, sunsetted.
Jakub Chour: Yeah.
Jacob: There might be, there
might be people out there
looking for deep link tools.
Now, are, are there any I have
found that there's not great deep
linking tool options besides MMPs.
Jakub Chour: It's not,
Jacob: do you see
Jakub Chour: it's not.
No, I was looking for exactly the same.
I was thinking maybe there's a, there's
a hole in the market and maybe like
a, a good developer can fill it in,
but it's very hard, very technical.
You would need to understand
very well, and there is so many
troubles you can get on the road.
So I, I, I understand the pricing because
just like solving different troubles with,
with different platforms is so difficult.
Then it, it doesn't make sense to
develop it on your own or go with
some like small, independent provider.
Jacob: Yeah.
Yeah, it, yeah.
So it seems like most people just
use whatever deep links their.
MP offers and that's that yeah.
Interesting.
So, okay, so we've got MMP,
you've got some deep links there.
You've got product analytics, you've got
Tableau on top of your data warehouse
for bi and visual visualization.
You have revenue infrastructure that
was originally built in house and you're
now you're exploring other options
because you want to add more prices.
But you have a year to do it,
to figure it out because you've
just added annual options.
How did you this is, you know, not, not
exactly related to the MarTech side,
but like how did you figure out that
price, that first price to go with?
That's always scary, right?
Jakub Chour: It wasn't, it wasn't me like
they, they started like in December and
then I joined in May, late May maybe.
So I think it was like decision
based on price that would be
acceptable here in Cze Republic,
which is like 10 bucks for a year.
Jacob: Oh
Jakub Chour: I was like.
Okay, then the UA will be very hard.
So there will be changes for sure.
But I think because Map pay was a
free product, like not free, free
product for a long time, I think
the, the main the main motivation was
not to make people angry that much.
And see where it goes.
Like if it was a product that people are
not willing to pay for 150 rounds, like
10 bucks, 11 maybe would not be that much.
And possibly, like, it
would not anger them much.
And yeah, you wouldn't be paying
and then it wouldn't be ma wouldn't
matter what price stack it had.
So just after we realized it really has.
Potential they decided to
go internationally and then
there'll be changes and revenue
infrastructure will be necessary.
Jacob: Got it.
Got it.
And then so, so, so you might be more,
it sounds like you might be a little more
conservative on monetization right now in
terms of how, how hard you're pushing it.
Jakub Chour: Yes, yes.
It's like the features that are behind the
pay are, I think good, but if it was on
me, I would be much stricter and do many
more behind the paywall because still you
are getting a good good value for free.
And if you want to download a
map offline, that's definitely
something you can pay for.
Jacob: Yeah.
Do you, do you take like a true freemium
approach where you just let people into
the tool and then you have a few upsells?
Or do you like have a a, a paywall that
you showed all new users coming in?
Jakub Chour: Right now the paywall
is not shown automatically.
It's just like a small button that you can
see when you are going through the map.
But yes I think the, the one metric
I really like is impression to pay.
I mean, like lunch to pay wall, sorry.
So it should be like very close to
a hundred percent, 90% at least.
Jacob: Yeah.
Yeah.
And so I, I imagine right now you're,
you're, I think one app who does this
really well is Strava, where they,
they show up payroll to everybody, but
they have all these kind of contextual
upsells throughout the product.
You kind of can use things, but
then you have you know, other CTAs.
And, and so right now you're probably
kind of drive, trying to drive usage
to those premium features to, to get
people to purchase, I would imagine.
Jakub Chour: Yeah, I, I, I liked
how Strava is doing it, but it
takes a long, a long time to figure
it out and a lot of data so it's
not for everyone from scratch.
Jacob: So you're, so you're right now
trying to figure out what features
are kind of converting people.
Jakub Chour: Exactly
like we don't know yet.
And that's why the survey back
to the beginning is important.
Jacob: Got it.
And, and so, you know, there's,
there's two pieces, right?
You can ask people what
they would pay for.
Then you can see what
they actually pay for.
Right?
And sometimes those two things are
different, where, where people say what
they pay for, but they don't actually.
And then sometimes people you
know, pay for completely different
things or other things convert.
So how do you, how do you balance
that qualitative and the quantitative.
Jakub Chour: Well I was always
a quantitative guy, but I, I
understand why you need to do
you need to talk with users.
I mean, like, you, you can't,
you, you can, but you shouldn't
be asking directly like, what's
the feature we're willing to pay.
But you can be asking like, Hey,
what's the feature you like the most?
What's the feature you would like?
You would need to download
another app if it wasn't here.
So you can, you can ask users,
Hey, what's the most important and
least important feature for you?
And then see what what the users are
like, and compare it user by user, by user
use, use that are paying for the app use.
I'm not paying for the app.
And then you can more or less easily
see that there's definitely features
that are willing to pay and features
that are just liking but not willing to
pay, like going through the map, right?
No one will pay for that ever.
Jacob: What have you any, anything
you're able to share, anything
you've learned that's maybe
interesting, counterintuitive,
or you're surprised about?
Jakub Chour: Unfortunately, we are still
waiting for a survey to, to be launched.
But I suppose like the most important
thing and thing and why we can't
ask users, because you are not, they
don't know about any feature really,
because it's not communicated well.
You can find a feature in the app if
you really want to like downloading the
mouse, but it's not actively communicated,
so it's very hard to ask because they
can't say for sure they haven't tried.
Jacob: And this goes back to
your in-app messaging tool where.
Jakub Chour: Yeah.
Jacob: messaging is so powerful
to drive early activation.
I've found that it's hard
to change product roadmaps.
It's hard to change entire product
designs, but if you can get a simple
in-app messaging functionality,
you can guide people to those
features, guide people to those,
those, yeah, those areas of the app.
Jakub Chour: Yeah, you can.
You can hack so much with just
HTML and JavaScript inside the app.
It's almost unbelievable.
Like that would be the, the biggest
hack of all the gross marketers.
Jacob: So you think like just getting,
and that, that sounds like something
you just build in house, where you
have a simple just ability to deploy
some, some drop, like a little, a
little popup or a little web view.
Jakub Chour: Exactly like I, I did
it in the past with Brace because
BRACE also allows you to come up
with a full HDML page and you can
do like so much testing and like so
much different like offering inside.
That that that web view can almost
like do the whole product net.
Jacob: Yeah.
Yeah.
And then you can, like, you have a
simple button, simple education hey,
did you know about this feature?
And then you have a deep link
that just opens up that feature.
And if they want it, yeah.
I, it is quite powerful.
And I think we've been, I, I, I've heard
people talk about it for years and years,
but I still think it's underutilized
in terms of like, it can often be,
found it helpful for validation of
the product roadmap where if you can
show, we can show this in that message.
And getting people to this feature.
Increase retention, that's a much easier
sell to your tech teams engineering
leaders go, okay, here I look.
We should, we should build it.
Please build it.
Now I, I proved that it's gonna work.
Jakub Chour: Exactly.
And even like testing like doing a
smoke test and like asking people,
Hey, would you like to try feature X?
You know, like small window
and it goes nowhere obviously.
But if they click, it's
the value you to know.
Jacob: Yeah, a hundred percent.
So, so sometimes you can get
the in-app messaging through
your lifecycle marketing tool.
Some tools don't have great options
and, and if, if you don't have
it in your lifecycle marketing
tool for in app messaging.
you, you think that it, it's
simple enough to just display to,
to build simple tests yourself.
Jakub Chour: Yeah, it is, especially with
vibe coating, you can do mostly anything.
Anything you want,
Jacob: Yeah.
Jakub Chour: like you, you have your,
your product in a figma, like what?
That's what your designer does.
And then you can take the Figma
design, make code, code use it, and
design exactly the same look in html.
Jacob: Yeah.
Yeah.
That's smart.
That's smart.
Very cool.
Alright, so this has been awesome.
I think have it sounds like generally
when you're getting started,
you wanna think about, MMPs.
Lifecycle marketing tools,
product analytics, and maybe
revenue infrastructure.
Probably revenue infrastructure,
depending on your sophistication.
And, and then like that's
kind of your, base.
Yeah.
Jakub Chour: Yeah, you can.
You can do some.
I know.
And so that's, that's useful.
But I like to, it's useful to see
what people are searching for and it's
useful to see are not usually ranking
first and how much effort it, it takes.
So yeah, if I had to, I would add effort
to, that would be a useful like app week.
Jacob: Yeah.
Yep.
And, and there's a lot of ones cheap out
that they're pretty cheap, and so it's
not hard to kinda get started there.
Nice.
Well.
I want to close it out.
We talked about AI a little bit, but I'd
love to try to, try to ask everybody you
know, it's, we have to talk about ai.
What, what any tips can you share
maybe the coolest thing you've
done recently with AI or any ways
it's like actually making your
job easier or improving your job?
Jakub Chour: Okay.
I'll go against it and say the, the
coolest thing that I did, in the last
few weeks was not cool, but it was also
not automation sorry AI was automation.
As we have a lot of different
languages and a lot of different
custom landing pages for mapping.
And it's tremendously difficult to
come up with new versions because
then we need to translate it.
Or like, even if like one version
is successful, then you need to
translate it to, to all other versions.
So what we did was automation and
figma that takes like, you have
to create the, the screen in a way
that everything on a screen is also
a text layer, including the app.
So you can like simplify the, the
UI of the app on the screen, on the
screenshot and do tech text layers.
And then there's one plugin that takes
auto text from all your screenshots.
From a play store export it as a,
as a text layer in a Excel file.
You just need to translate it and export
it back, and it a automatically creates
like all the translations for you.
So like from four variations of f
store screens and play store screens,
you have certainly, I don't know,
10 more, 20, 20 languages more.
So 200 screenshots instantly.
Jacob: What this was it.
You built this automation
or is a tool out there?
Jakub Chour: It's like, again,
like I, I was searching for a tool
that will do X in Figma for me.
It's called Copy doc.
Jacob: Copy
Jakub Chour: and it works copy
doc, and it works like a miracle.
Like still, if it's too long
you need to play a little it,
Jacob: Yeah.
Jakub Chour: it's much less
time than you doing it manually
or your designer doing it.
Jacob: Yeah.
It's, you know, there used to
be whole companies built on.
Localization and having translators
all around the world, and you pay
thousands of dollars and thou like
to just localize all your content.
And now it's like click of a button.
it's it's pretty amazing.
Cool.
Well, any before we, before we end,
any last kind of MarTech tips, any
advice for people struggling in
the MarTech world for their apps?
Jakub Chour: Okay.
I think, don't worry if, if you don't
feel like you are catching up with the
latest AI trends, because it'll be very
different in next two, three years.
So everything we are using right
now will be obsolete by then.
So don't feel bad about it, just like
you can start over in three years.
Jacob: Yeah.
reassurance for everybody.
Don't worry about it, just ignore it.
No, I'm kidding.
But yeah, that, that, that, that's good.
Cool.
And anything you wanna promote or send
people to, we will include the conclude
your LinkedIn and, and the show notes.
Anything else you, you'd
like people to go check out?
Jakub Chour: I know honestly, it's like
I don't feel like I'm oriented myself.
It's like tremendously difficult
to just stay on the top.
So just don't underestimate
LinkedIn in what it provides.
Sometimes it's not that bad.
Jacob: Yeah.
Cool.
Cool.
So yeah, we'll, we will and then
yeah, everybody go use go use map.
Jakub Chour: Yeah.
Oh yeah, that, that's for sure.
Yes, I forgot.
And it's really good
hiking and biking app.
Honestly, I'm using it.
I was using it even before I was here.
Like I'm using it last.
I've been using it last five 15 years
Jacob: all countries now.
Jakub Chour: in all countries.
Jacob: Amazing.
Jakub Chour: was great in Europe, in
states, it's very good in South America.
It's great.
So, yeah,
Jacob: Amazing.
Jakub Chour: good to, for a
Jacob: it
Jakub Chour: Sunday hike.
Jacob: Yeah.
All right, well thanks Jacob.
This is awesome.
Really appreciate you taking the
time to kinda share your knowledge
from, from all your experience.
Yeah.
Really appreciate you joining.
Jakub Chour: A pleasure.
Thank you, Jacob.
Jacob: All right.
Thanks.
Bye.