hey everyone this is stefan from
projectlifemastery.com and today i'm
excited to be interviewing Chad Merida
who's a founder of app empire and also
the co-founder of the number one most
downloaded emoji app of all time chad
has been the app industry for a number
of years now and has made millions and
millions of dollars from his mobile apps
and that chad has spearheaded the
development of over 300 mobile apps
which have been downloaded over a
hundred and 60 million times worldwide
and today Chad helps regular people be
able to start their own lifestyle
business through leveraging technology
and mobile apps with his online training
program called app Empire
so Chad thank you so much for joining me
today and I'm excited to talk to you
thanks for having me brother appreciate
it excited for this awesome man so you
mind sharing a little bit about your
story and how you got into the app
industry yeah sure I so basically like
most people it takes you know usually
something to inspire you to sort of
shift your patterns and so for me I was
then always been sort of a serial
entrepreneur wanting to you know make
money and have a really good life I grew
up you know watching other people that
you know we're in jobs and just not
happy and you know money seemed to be
the biggest sort of challenge on most
relationships and so I decided early on
like that's not going to be me I'm gonna
find a way to improve my life and make
money and then really enjoy and create
the life that I want and so I thought at
that time it was you know real estate
and so I ended up flipping some
properties and you know my early
twenties and I made some money and then
I decided okay I made some money how do
I kind of scale this insided up buying a
real estate company and it was like the
worst possible time that you could
invest money into real estate back in
2006 and I just watched you know I
watched everything that I had created
worked so hard on just start going down
the tubes and so I was working work
working and not really having life at
all I was in you know connected with my
friends I wasn't paying attention to my
health and I had all this one night that
sort of uh you know transformed my life
going to a basketball game and I was my
only night that I was actually picking
off I met an old high school friends we
went to this game I was looking around
and seeing people and everyone's happy
enjoying their their their night and
watching the game and I got to meet my
idol Michael Jordan which was really
really cool and I remember thinking like
wow what am I like what what's off here
I need to I need to change my life up I
need to figure out what I can do to
shift because like what I'm doing now is
definitely not working and so it's in my
head into my hand I'm thinking about it
watch the game I end up driving back as
in Charlotte North Carolina and end up
driving back from that basketball game
and it's amazing how you know when you
start sort of asking those questions
universe shows up and says here you go
and so I ended up unfortunately
hitting a deer it was raining the night
before and I had this big huge massive
Lincoln truck and so a train and I
before and I counter Stewart after I got
the deer and I flipped my truck over
four times on 70 miles an hour in the
interstate and so so yeah I mean that
gave me a pretty big opportunity to
understand you know okay waking up when
you're in a hospital I couldn't move my
arm I didn't really know where I was I
had a friend with me in the vehicle and
I was like okay this has given me a
whole new perspective and opportunity to
sort of re-evaluate life and you know
long story short you know I said that
was my arm and I'm in the hospital
trying to figure out my do the surgery
and what's going on my life my real
estate business going to down the tubes
and a buddy of mine came to visit me and
he passed me this article about iPhone
apps and and he passes along and he said
look he's like you're gonna be in here
for a while he's like you know it's a
new
industry you should really think about
getting into it because you don't have
to code you have to do anything like
look at this article it was an article
on two guys that had developed these
apps without any tech skills they just
come up with ideas and I remember laying
in my hospital bed and getting excited
and yes I was on you know morphine and
lots of other interesting probably
cocktails at the time but I'm ever
getting inspired to to kind of draw out
this idea that I had and me imagine
laying my hospital bed I've got you know
no clothes on the only thing that
survived but if it was me and my phone
that I just gotten that day my iPhone
that day and I had like no power on it I
remember people like grabbing and
touching house thinking about security
and so long story short I ended up
talking to this guy in the same hospital
room that was from India who is a body
cast and I started talking about this
idea and you know mapping it out with my
opposite arm and next thing I know which
I'm a little fuzzy on I ended up calling
his cousin in India who worked for this
company and I outsource my idea and that
idea ended up hitting being a top 25 app
and it propelled me into this whole new
industry now and it's just yeah it's
incredible me and talk about a gift you
know what I mean so I luckily and
unluckily fell into this this uh this
business it's been incredible changed my
entire life that's that's the pretty
encompassing a story I love how the fact
that you're in the hospital and you're
implementing and taking action while
you're there as many people like that
would even be in the reality but that's
that's pretty amazing and before you got
into this I mean did you I mean you did
you know anything about the app industry
before this you mentioned you just just
got an iPhone um you know did you have
any online marketing experience or
anything like that no no no I didn't
have any any experience with that I mean
I was an entrepreneur but it was all
like real stay on a news favorite
company before um I was you know
honestly it was probably the single
thing that was able to give me hope to
build my life back and so I'm sort of
look at it that way and I invested all
my time into like thinking about that
business and luckily for me I mean the
reason I even was able to become
successful and keep building and
building in some companies was because I
mean I was in a hospital bed I was
laying there I had nothing else to do
besides look at the app store and to
play with these apps and most people
don't do that most food on the luxury of
like I have all the time to sit there
and just see what works and what doesn't
work and so I became a super user of all
these apps and of like really reverse
engineering what what's going on in the
App Store why do people successful why
people not successful and so it was sort
of handed to me in a little way and
obviously I work for it but it was more
or less this just motivation I was like
I had this opportunity now to completely
change my life
and and I'm not looking back you know so
yeah awesome in um well for people that
are maybe watching this and don't know
you mind sharing a little bit about the
success that you've had since then
person yet maybe a little bit about the
success that you've been able to help
other people achieve as well totally
totally
so that app the first app that I did was
a security app and that you know I did a
couple million downloads into top charts
and then I started building out my
portfolio really understanding how apps
work and so I'm done probably three or
four hundred apps over 160 70 million
downloads and sold now it's six app
companies so I've been able to build up
apps successfully build up companies
sell them off and kind of continuing to
do that and then you know right now like
you said got the number one emoji app in
the world so you probably have it most
people on their phones they have we've
got like a hundred million devices that
are using our apps so that's sort of the
exciting thing right now that's going on
but yeah 2000 basically after the
accident when I figured out this work I
started making money I started you know
getting cash flow and I was starting to
be able to rebuild myself and travel and
find the best people to get my arm
to work again and and other people need
to be able to do this because you know I
finally understand this good life I
finally understand that I don't have to
fight and it doesn't have to be so hard
and and that was inspiring for me and I
just wanted to show everybody my friends
my family and anyone I could and so I
decided that you know I wanted to write
a book about it
and my process because it actually is a
system that works consistently and so I
ended up sort of calling in this this
book deal with Wiley and I wrote wrote
my first book a half Empire and that did
really really well and and you know with
that I said okay well I did this book
people are getting a lot of stuff how
can I you know create the system even
more and so I ended up you know creating
our Empire sort of education course that
was taking what the book taught and just
adding even more layers to it and and so
yeah it's a minnow it's been a really
amazing ride I probably you know putting
things back pieces back together to
being able to you know help people you
know become successful in some of some
people have helped it become more
successful than I am so it's it's just
very very grateful and very exciting too
for the timing of Technic right now with
that such an exciting time to be in the
mobile that's awesome in a tie
I love success stories and especially
one that's like yours going through an
accident like that that's pretty amazing
so congrats on everything that you've
been through um you might be feeling a
little bit about the business model of
apps exactly how it works because I
understand there's you know there's a
free model there's a back-end model
maybe just explain the whole process
totally totally yeah so there's
different models have changed right
through the time like any industry so in
the beginning when I was doing it it was
more of a premium model so it would be
you know 99 cents or dollar 99 because
there wasn't as much inventory and so we
really focused on that and then that
switched over the last few years to
really more of a freemium version
because there was no barrier to entry so
most people they see a free app they
want to download it and if they get
value which is the whole goal you have
to give people media value especially in
today's world no matter what you do you
have to deliver value and you have to
deliver it immediately so they feel it
that's how you differentiate yourself
and so with the free app the freemium
version that model is get as many people
in there give them value and then upsell
them right what do what else do they
want and so that's how we built up this
portfolio as a lot of free apps either
doing in-app purchases or people I mean
we literally you know you push your
finger now especially with a fingerprint
and now it just advise it right so
you've got something an interesting pet
you a sale
quick move payment that we sort of play
into that with with the device now
that's the main model that works now is
really this freemium model but there's
lots of other models that are working
really well but that's the one that I'm
concentrating on currently people that
may be watching this like wow okay cool
apps sounds awesome
you know I download them I buy them but
they've never thought of them as a
business opportunity so maybe as someone
that's watching this right now give me
the explain why do you think Selleck
creating and selling apps is a great
opportunity for people and I know a lot
of people also have some barriers like
you know do I have to I'm not a
programmer so I can't create it myself
do want to maybe share some of the
obstacles that people have and how
people get started with it
totally totally yeah um so and so I'm
not a developer I'm not a tech person
and I think that is probably the number
one reason most people stop don't go for
it as they say I'm not tech or I don't
know how to hire somebody and it's
actually an advantage because what I
noticed is early on especially now the
people that our coders are sitting at
the computer and just coding it's a
different brain I highly respect it it's
not mine but the advantage to not doing
that is that you're able to see sort of
the whole picture you know the contract
in your marketing and understand your
customers and so um you know the the
opportunity
me now with all these devices coming
onboard all these you know I mean
everybody has a smartphone and it's
incredible because when I first got in
it was sort of new so a lot of people
were like hey you know well okay I'm not
a coder but you're saying that that's a
good thing which it is because you can
now go on to up work and you know Elance
a lot of sites and finds people remotely
that's constantly what I'm doing even
now with our success we have different
teams but a lot of it's all run remotely
um and so you know a lot of people say
okay well you know that's great but what
about the marketplace and you know
there's there's too much competition but
what's happened and what's happening now
is that you know you look at China that
just I mean China literally came on
board you know recently and all the
devices that are being you know open
they're its mining belongs you you have
about you have about a third to a half
of the world having access to
smartphones and having apps and you're
having this wave come now or all these
new customers are coming online and the
availability to buy hats and so the
market right now is is wide open and
it's really exciting because other
profit centers are opening up you know
you're seeing big companies now invest
into apps you're seeing b2b companies
and you're seeing just customers and
people like you and me we do everything
with their phones you know we we buy
things with them we it's like this never
leaves our side so you know it's it's
just increasing increasing more
engagement with with customers so that's
what's exciting about that and I think
those you know the main objections are
probably that the coder thing I'm not a
business person but I mean hi I didn't
have any money and I found somebody and
outsourced it didn't even know what I
was doing and ended up hitting an app
but then when I looked at everything I
said wow like this is the first business
and industry where I can look at a store
and I can see what's working on a
digital world and I can make it better
and get it out into the store without
dealing with inventory without this
product about doing that there's just so
many things that I can get a
Media information for my people I mean I
can send it on vacation and engagement
up to the customer service and it's it's
such an awesome business to have into
own because you get paid 24/7 all around
the world it's it's it's fun I've never
had this much fun in business that's
awesome it sounds very much similar to
the publishing business on Amazon or
just Amazon business in general you know
a lot of people they come to me and they
say well Stefan I want to sell a book on
Amazon or Kindle but I'm not a writer
and they don't realize you can actually
hire ghost writers that are talented and
skilled at writing and write for you and
you can focus on the publishing the
marketing aspect of it as well so so
yeah I'm very similar in that way um you
know for people and what you're
basically describing as well as you can
hire people overseas um essentia or the
Philippines in these countries you can
actually get work done so inexpensively
over there which is pretty amazing and
you know I hire people overseas all the
time in my business too and it's just a
really good opportunity uh you know to
be able to outsource you know we live in
a great time you that leverage
technology in that way which is really
cool come on totally yeah so I want to
ask a little bit um just about the
process of uh you know a lot of people
for example might also watch this and
say that's great I don't have any ideas
to create apps on you have maybe a
little bit of a process in terms of how
people can find is there's a lot I guess
different niches in the app world
whether it's gaming or productivity or
communication type apps how to find
profitable ideas and opportunities in
the app world great question
yeah so um that's what I love about it
because it's always giving you these
ideas and that's why you know I mean
most of our apps that we've launched
we're able to to make money with um you
know it's it's it's a process of market
research it really is going into the
store and you know depending on what
your goals are I mean you can just if
you don't have a passion in air
area you can look at the app store
objectively and say okay this is showing
me that there are you know like with
emoji I was seeing that there were a
bunch of emoji apps and I was like okay
well how do I make this better there's a
market for this and and I basically look
at it you can see how many how many
people actually downloading these apps
and what is this one thing that I can do
to to increase this and what's what's
nice about the way we do marketing is
that we there's a lot of
cross-pollination so I can you know I
know which keywords work I know which
keywords people are searching for so I
will I will look at the app idea make
sure that I'm you know very much in tune
with it so I'll download probably ten
the same similar apps and I'll go
through it and I'll say okay you know
what are they doing well I mean it's
it's a very simple process it probably
sounds even and even simpler but it's
that's all you do is you I go through it
I say okay what what our customers
saying about it and this what you do in
any business really the difference is
digital I think is just much faster
right and get these things going much
faster and then if I like a certain area
like we you know vest it into a weather
app it's like I know that that is always
going to always look for evergreen stuff
I don't want to jump in on a fad and be
like okay you know this this app is
crushing it because it's only a two
month window or like a Christmas app so
I look for evergreen topics I know
people are always going to be texting
going in from og or weather or photo
stuff or you know you're all going games
I'll go into an evergreen model and I
will be the number one customer of that
those groups and I will study those
successful ones and I'll be able to put
out ok this is what I would do better
this is what I can do better and I'll
follow them they're giving me all the
information I got they're giving me the
copy that they're using their
screenshots are giving their title
they're giving me how they're walking
the customer through their entire thing
and so it's so easy to say okay these
guys this well these guys this well and
then put those together and then you
know you immediately have this this
launch
you know mechanism that most of the top
people don't even know about so it's
it's actually pretty fun and now
what I tell people is you know you can
do that to any app and make money but
would it be nice to actually be a user
of that like to be proud of it and think
of your idea as something that you know
you're going to use yourself so it's a
little bit more detailed in that
direction that's awesome so even if
someone has a great idea I just still
have to do the research to make sure
there's a market there there's demand
and and you can that's great you're able
to see exactly how well the other apps
are doing and that already right then
and there tells you whether or not
there's a market or demand based on it
people are buying and downloading the
other apps in that market so that's
exactly you know and also just to jump
in there so the other thing too that's
really nice about having apps and
digital is that when I develop an app
you know it's not it doesn't cost a
crazy amount of money and what I can do
is I can skin that and go after
different shops so for an example you
know say I did a photo app and I had
lots of different features right I could
take that exact same code and I could
call it the selfie app and I could take
away most of the features but use that
makes the pictures clarity on your face
I could also use that same one and I
could say you know this is a you know
but without color app it's the same
features but it's marking a little bit
different and I can launch three or four
apps that's the same source code same
cost but I essentially a fear for extra
skins going out there that a little bit
different and that just gives me such a
better chance to make more cash flow
more importantly get data you know
what's working with that and that's
that's what I've been really enjoying in
the app business because it is so fast
and when you hit that you look at it
that way it's incredible the amount of
money that you can make on these things
that's awesome so what kind of startup
costs would be involved um you know from
someone that's just wanting to get
started and test out a different app
yeah it depends obviously on you know
which app you're going for like a high
high involved you know photo photo
camera app video processing whatever it
is that could be more money than you
know a simple game or vice versa
crazy game could cost a bunch of money
so
but I personally don't like spending
more than a thousand two thousand bucks
I mean I think you can test out a market
pretty easy and get it to win and then
you can scale up from there so I never
recommend spending you know if you
understand in apps and you've been doing
it before
again I'll spend $5,000 on an app and
make it win but that's because I I know
the business yeah you know what I mean
so I don't recommend get people a time
and say oh I've got a quote for thirty
thousand dollars and I'm no don't you
don't do that especially if you don't
know what you're doing it you know what
I mean so you work up to that point if
you get you know let you get good enough
but you really don't to spend that much
money and in a thousand bucks you can
get two or three shots you get two or
three apps when you skin it properly for
the first price that you pay for it's
awesome and what kind of potential is
there in terms of you know a lot of
people might wonder how much can app
really make you know obviously there's
once I make millions and millions of
dollars and everything but he wanted to
be sure a little bit about you know how
much revenue a an app can make yeah I
mean we made billions of dollars for
sure and you know some of our students
that we've had in the past and clients
have worked with I mean they we've had
so many stories of people spending
couple thousand bucks and making a
couple million or I think it's more
about like the guy just talked to
actually is making forty thousand bucks
a month and he was making $300 a month
launching his first app but he just kept
adding on new features and new and app
purchases and then he started skinning
he took kind of same ologists at me he
spread it out to a couple companies
because you can have a company and you
could have your own name it's really
cheap to be a developer it's like a
hundred bucks to sign up on Apple to do
it and you could have multiple sort of
profit centers coming in the same code
so you know you can you can make quite a
bit of money with apps but I would say
that the most important thing that I see
is setting up your network and your
infrastructure so you're making 20 30 40
50 thousand hundred thousand dollars a
month whatever it whatever that may be
so you can you can kind of live this
lifestyle and continue to grow that for
me is most important
is I want cash flow I don't want to kill
myself working and I decided from that
accident that you know enough is enough
I'm not going to do that anymore and and
so yeah cash flows King you know and
then you can read us into your business
and come up with new ideas and and stuff
like that so it's it's sort of wide open
right now when it comes to even big
companies are sending us messages like
we just go on from from you know big
company Nike looking to spend you know
some money with us and you got some
other company so it's it's like once you
have the mobile game figured out because
because it's so important to these big
companies that are now reallocating all
their budget or to mobile it starts
opening up different things for you you
know traffic is king you can sell your
traffic you can you can jump in and
consult with a company you can make an
app for that I mean there's just so many
things you can do with with mobile but
with my system I purely try to teach
look it's about freedom it's about
setting yourself up so you're building
an asset it's working for you while
you're sleeping while you're traveling
while you're taking care of yourself
you're spending time with your family I
mean it's for me it's truly about that
but we have countless stories from our
students from anywhere from you know a
couple thousand dollars a month which
has been really help for people to
making we got one person doing over a
couple hundred thousand dollars a month
and they just you know got into the
business so it's you have a you a big
range right depending on where that goes
so it's crazy um you know one of the
process let's say you develop a great
app but obviously there's a process to
launching it and marketing it to get
exposure and have people download and
buy it um you know how exactly does that
work you know are you basically first
aiming just to launch it in the App
Store for iPhone or you know a turn out
ranked it for certain keywords because
code in the app store how exactly do
people find the app buy it download it
and how does that work
great question yeah so I when I start
off my start off what I recommend for
most
people to do iOS just Apple because it's
it's a lot easier than Android you don't
have all these different devices and
stores and parking limit huh that's the
biggest market Apple it's the most it's
the most month it's the highest
monetization market for a preneur for
sure and it's easiest they collect all
the money all around the world to pay
you once a month and you have to worry
about it goes right into your account so
and now they have all this analytics so
they can tell you this many people look
at your page and this many people down
so it's nice they're actually spending
time giving the data that needs but to
answer your question when you launch an
app it's all about velocity so the App
Store the way it's ranked is yes it's
very important for you to know what
keywords people are searching for you
know so for me the beginning ones were
security and so I want to make sure that
security protection stuff like that out
put them in my title because you want to
put them in your title because they they
value them in your title much more and
know what you want to do is you want to
make sure that like here's one actual
major tip secret tip the log of L know
about is you have a certain amount of
keywords inside of your app and you can
take the most prominent keywords some of
them and translate them into Spanish and
put them into the US store as a Spanish
key word because there's a lot of people
at speak Spanish that are searching in
Spanish from the US store and that alone
shoots your app up right so there's
stuff like that that happens and what
you want to do is you want to be very
careful when you launch you want to push
some traffic to it but you want to make
sure that you do the friends-and-family
plan so reach out to a few friends have
them rate it because I've Apple sees
that you're getting ratings and I mean
literally I just had my first launch my
house was like five to ten people's like
my mom and my little brothers and
they're just downloading and rating it
and that rating because those four five
stars shoots the app up even more and so
there is a process for sure
and when you do that Apple rewards you I
say okay well we're going to give you
more traffic because people like it it's
relevant and it's converting and so did
pending on sort of where that is that's
the game it's like you launch it you get
your data and then you tweak it you make
it better or you say okay we're making a
lot of money here how can we add another
in-app purchase to make even more money
and and that's where the game is when
once you launch it stepping back and
like any business what did I learn from
this and luckily with digital and with
mobile it's like you can make these
changes dynamically so I'll pop up
screen you've been like on a website I
can change the copy and say today only
you know check out this and then boom we
can monetize in our traffic a lot more
or say we need ratings hey guys you like
this please give us a rating boom will
get rating and I'll shoot us up so it is
it is a very simple process and it's
it's one that you know if you don't
follow it then it's sort of like you're
throwing things into the wind you're
like I hope I hope this hits and I hope
the enlist works out you don't mean it
that's sort of not how you win at this
game you need to follow a specific
process and and that's what we've done
and so I have luckily been able to do in
the beginning and figured it out when I
had to write the book and know what was
going on and it's continued till now you
know yeah 2009
yeah well that's awesome you know I'm
just going to having a flashback because
there's a few apps I'm just thinking
just it's making me look at the business
model of a lot of different apps that I
have on my phone and it's true you know
I'll be apps are free but the in-app
purchases that's where I guess they make
most of money even a lot of games and
stuff you know they'll get you in the
front end for a free app but then you
know as you're playing the game you want
it get to the next level or whatever it
is you want to buy that the crystals or
the gems or whatever it is to give you
these other features and things like
that so I can see that's a really
powerful a business model and everything
- which is really awesome even
advertisers like you put your load in an
SDK don't do anything and just know you
have advertising going through your app
without you doing anything that's that's
the most beautiful part is yeah you have
in-app purchases then you have this
advertising model where I mean you're
just sitting back and making money on
traffic and they do it all for you right
there are a lot of maintenance once
you've launched nap and it's selling is
there a lot of ongoing maintenance with
it or for the most part is it just kind
of set it and forget it you know
there definitely is set it and forget it
for sure
I would say you know the industry now
you know depending on what your goals
are you can set it and forget it and
just go for cash flow and not want to
build anything and a lot of people do
that and do really well my goal isn't to
online earning,make money online, earn money online, online earning, online earning sites,
make money online free, online money income, earn money online free, money online, best way to earn money online, online income site, money earning websites, best online earning sites, easiest way to earn money online, earn money payment bkash, online money income site
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment