

How to invite users to your app - comatose_kid
https://medium.com/look-what-i-made/6089a7527566

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asperous
Is it just me or are these blogs posts increasing more and more about name
dropping?

Blah blah blah _artsnapz_ , blah _artsnapz_. 7 out of the 10 paragraphs had
the word _artsnapz_ in it, and 1 out of 2 pictures had it.

It doesn't mean the advice is any less helpful or informative because of it,
but reading it was like watching a commercial.

~~~
manish_gill
Because, you know, the entire point of the post is how they did it for their
own product.

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niekmaas
Is it really needed to have a 1226 x 515 px header image for a blog? I
understand that some of the readers are using the latest "retina" Macbooks or
52-inch displays, but on my couple year old Macbook I can just see the top of
the title when loading this page.

~~~
illicium
The body font is far too large as well.

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simonholroyd
Why not add a link as the 3rd step in addition to the invite code? Once the
app's installed on a user's device you can pass through the code via a custom
url scheme and avoid the possible drop off of having a user mis-enter their
code. (you'd probably still want the code there in addition for users reading
the email on a non iOS device)

~~~
hablahaha
You're already storing the code so why not just join the invite with the email
and when the user logs in with an email flagged with an invite the user's
state is already known?

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pcl
I'm a big fan of delivering utility with less barriers. It probably is worse
for your "active users" graph, but I always feel warmer and fuzzier about apps
that I can engage with at my own pace.

So, in this case, that's an argument for attaching a reasonable-sized copy of
the image to the email, or maybe a bit of embedded HTML with an obfuscated
link or something that redirects if you want better tracking of what's going
on / privacy knobs. Sure, some people will never register for an account
because they'll get all their utility out of the emails. But on the other
hand, all sorts of non-tech-focused family members will get to see the
artwork, which is what your users want in the first place.

Glympse stands out in my recent memory as an app that did a great job of this.

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orangethirty
_Your children’s profile photos and names (added during registration when the
app is first installed) are included in the email. Isn’t that cute? This
immediately grabs the interest of the recipient.We think this makes it
incredibly more likely that they will use the app._

Make the pictures bigger, and include a picture of some art. Also, don't
think. Test. You can't guess your way to success. I see some issues with the
ad you are currently sending, and testing would allow you to discover which
(I'm not telling).

Also, this is a bit creepy. Once you start spamming the address book of your
users, a lot of people will get pictures of the children. People who should
not know them.

 _But when the recipient downloads the app, there is no way for artsnapz to
know that they were invited by you. And this is where the Invite Code comes in
- that’s the alphanumeric code ‘123ABC’ above. This code is generated uniquely
to track each invitation you email out._

Can't you use an URL? The extra step typically reduces conversions.

I think this is a rather creepy product, and has many potential legal issues.
Though the financials look good, given how this "company" can start selling
overpriced printouts of the "art" to family members. Given 10,000 families.
Three users per family (uncle, parent, grandparent). One printed art per
month. Say $5 per printed art. That's a good amount of money for a simple
social sharing app.

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comatose_kid
(artsnapz founder here) Thanks for the feedback.

We don't (now or ever) plan on spamming the address book of our users.

We didn't show the entire flow, but the _user chooses_ who the email is going
to - it comes up in the standard email dialog & they see it before they hit
'send'.

Try the flow, we don't think it is creepy at all but if you still do, shoot me
an email with suggestions - ajay@a4labs.com.

We are parents ourselves and are very sensitive to our children's privacy.

~~~
orangethirty
Are you A/B testing?

~~~
gfodor
Depending on how many users this app has, A/B testing may not be possible.
After working for a larger company that had lots of traffic, I started to take
it for granted that I could run an experiment for a day and get an answer.
When bootstrapping a new product, you just have to throw stuff at the wall
based on intuition (and customer development) and hope something clicks so you
can get that stream of traffic to A/B test with.

~~~
orangethirty
You can run very small tests, though. They will not scale, but will give some
insight into what the current user base prefers.

~~~
gfodor
That all depends if you can get statistical significance. The catch-22 here is
that the only way to really get statistical significance without a lot of data
is to have a clear winner, which would have probably jumped out as a better
solution regardless of how rigorous your testing methodology is.

The worst thing you can do is run a test and jump to conclusions based upon
limited data.

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melvinmt
How about keeping track of the e-mail invites internally and as soon as an
"invited e-mail" signs up, connect them with the users who ever sent an invite
to that e-mail address? This way you don't need an access code (which can be
very annoying, especially with mobile apps) or special links at all.

~~~
comatose_kid
Agreed - the only concern was that the user would sign up with a different
email address than the one used to invite them with - in which case we
wouldn't be able to link them together.

~~~
melvinmt
Well, how often do people sign up with a different e-mail address (especially
the target group of parents and seniors)? You should measure this. Only solve
it when it becomes a real problem.

I used to think like this as well, but you're basically falling in the trap of
sacrificing usability for 95% while you solve the problem for the minority of
5%. Let's say your conversion rates drop by 25% because you have this hurdle.
In an attempt to save the 5%, you're now at a net loss of 20%.

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xriddle
Do other parents really care about seeing someone elses kids artwork. I can
understand the keep/cataloging but the share?

I have a daughter and would love find an easy way to catalogue and keep her
stuff, but other than to show her grandparents I have no need to share this
with others nor do I care about what artwork other peoples kids are producing.
Just my 2 cents.

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jasimq
I would just save the email that the invite was sent to and save the invite
against it. When the user signs up with that email I would know they have an
invite waiting for them. There's a chance they might not use the same email
address to sign up but this makes a much cleaner flow for the user.

