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We are Khwan & Simon, co-founders of Ling App. Every other week, we talk about our experience in the app business. Get actionable advice on app marketing, team management, technology and much more. If you're an aspiring app developer or marketer, we help you take it to the next level.
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Bluecloud Podcast: Build an App Business | App Marketing | Make Money With Apps | Passive Income | App Development
Carter Thomas: Appreneur, Business Strategist and App Marketer
Learn how to build an app business and live life on your terms
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Clariti brings together all communication – emails, chats, calls, to-do, documents…and links them by topic in TopicFolders. Each Clariti TopicFolder organizes all communication and related artifacts (documents) by topic so you are never lost and can find information easily. Signup for free: https://clariti.app/
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Kingdom Business Bac Ministry is a powerful Ministry Bishop Adam Criddle is the Overseer and Bishop Adam Criddle is a powerful Christian speaker Gospel Of Jesus Christ support and listen to the proadcast . Supporte it cash app / $kingdombbac2 Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/kingdombbac/support Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/kingdombbacpodcast/support Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/kingdombbacministry /support
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In this episode we talk about our new process of hiring A players. As we got more applicants for certain roles, we added another interview to the process. We talk about: - Our current process of selecting and interviewing candidates - The screening interview - The case study interview - The Who interview - The reference interview - Interview best p…
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Today we talk about ways to analyze your app and web audience with Google Analytics 4. We cover - Ways to setup Google Analytics 4 on mobile and the web - The difference between Google Analytics 4 and Google Analytics Universal - What events to track inside an app - How to plan your tracking - Limitations of Google Analytics - Alternatives to Googl…
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5 must-have SaaS-based productivity tools for remote teams 1. Clariti 2. Bit.Ai 3. Proof Hub 4. Insightly 5. Dropbox Signup for free: https://clariti.app/ Click the link below: https://clariti.app/blog/5-must-have-saas-based-productivity-tools-for-remote-teams/
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In this episode, we talk about sponsored startup programs and our experience with it. We talk about - The programs we successfully applied for - What are the benefits of sponsored programs? - How to apply? - Pitching best practices - What to do when you're excepted? - Examples of local government programs…
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This episode is all about in app purchases! We talk about - What types of in app purchases exist (one offs, subscriptions) - How to implement in app purchases in your app - Should you use your own server? - Apple's and Google's payment system vs Stripe - Consequences of the recent decision in Epic's lawsuit against Apple - Frequent in app purchase …
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Let's talk about our blog today, https://ling-app.com/blog . It's been a wild ride from starting the first few posts about learning Thai to creating a content machine that churns out over 20 articles per week (and counting). We cover: - Why we started our language learn blog in the first place - Initial strategy and how we shift over time - When sh…
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This time we talk about our experience with working with clients. How does this compare to developing your own product? We share - The pros and cons of working with clients and making your own products - What do to when you're just getting started - Things we learned when working with clients
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In this episode, we talk about our 3-monthly retrospective sessions and how they helped us building a great company culture. We talk about - The beginnings: How and why we started the retrospective with 3 team members - How to organize a retrospective - Best practices when running the sessions - Examples of what we learned from the feedback…
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Today's episode is all about translating your app, or app localization. We cover - Why you should consider translating your app - How to find out what languages to translate into first - How to find good translators - How to setup a process to ensure great translation quality - Take it to the next level: Automate the process via OneSky app Resource…
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In this episode, we discuss the Getting Things Done (GTD) method invented by David Allen. Simon has been using this method for the better part of a year, and has had a great experience with it. We talk about - What Getting Things Done is and why you might wanna use it - The method in detail: Collect, clarify, organize, review - The value of cleanin…
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While we focus on learning languages at Simya, this week we talk about an app we built for a completely different industry. Smart Court is an app that lets people book badminton courts easily. The idea of the app originated when Simon regularly took badminton training and realized the bookings were all done manually. We cover - How we validated the…
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Time for another installment of the "How We Built..." series! This time, we talk about our brand new app, Ling Live. It's a platform app to connect students and teachers, enabling everyone to book a language lesson in seconds. We talk about: - How we came up with the idea of Ling Live - How we did market research - How we validated the initial prot…
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Today, we talk about team outings. At Simya we're doing them regularly and are amazed again and again how much fun they are. We cover - Why we do team outings - When and how we got started - 3 examples of our past team outings - Best practices and benefits of outings Enjoy!
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This episode is Khwan's turn to talk about her experience before we started our app business. She shares how she grew up in a village in the North East of Thailand, how she came to Germany to study and eventually worked as management consultant before quitting her job. Learn about her challenges, lessons learned, and turning points in her life that…
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How was our life like before we quit our jobs, went to Thailand and started an app business? This episode, Simon talks about his life story and some lessons learned along the way. Enjoy!
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Inspired by the "20% project" famously once implemented by Google and other big names, we started to do hackathons at Simya. The idea is to devote some of our time to side projects and try to create something cool in the process. Last week, we did our first hackathon day (we call it "Awesome Time") and it was a great success. In this episode, we co…
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About 18 months ago, we bought an office building in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Our main motivation for this was to fulfill the capital requirements for our BOI company. It turned out to be a great decision in all respects. So today we talk about the process of buying a house in Thailand. We cover - Why we made the decision to buy an office building - H…
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This is episode is about our app Flow Yoga. It's a pretty cool app to learn Yoga. What's special about it is that you can configure your lessons in any way you want it. We cover - How we came up with the idea of Flow Yoga - How we researched and validated the idea on the market - UX planning, mockup and design - How we used our network to create th…
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A slightly off-topic but fun episode today: Our favorite board games! As LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman said though: Board games can teach a lot business, too. We'll cover - What we learned from board games about real life - How Khwan discovered the world of board & computer games - Khwan's favorite board game: Terraforming Mars - Parallels of strat…
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Automation is the key for small business to succeed nowadays. We spend a lot of time and energy in finding new ways how to automate things to make our life easier. Trello Bots via a Trello power up called "Trello Butler" is a great example of this. We talk about - How and why we use Trello in our projects - How Trello Butler works - Simple automati…
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At Simya, we do a informal meeting called "Coffee Break" every 6 weeks with every team member. It's been a great way for us to give and get feedback, improve teamwork and make the team overall happier. We cover - Why and how we started regular coffee breaks - Benefits of regular feedback - How to give open feedback in the Asian culture - Creating a…
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Time for another app story! Today, we talk about why and how we created the app "WriteMe". It teaches how to read and write in a foreign alphabet such as Japanese, Korean etc. and has been downloaded over 1.5 million times.We share- How Khwan came up with the idea of a writing app- How we did the market research- What is our unique selling point?- …
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As your team grows, it's getting more important to ensure a smooth onboarding for your new team members. In this episode, we share the process we use at Simya. We talk about - What to do once the employment or freelance contract is signed - The template we use to send out to all new hires - A simple checklist that makes sure everyone is on the same…
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GSuite is a great portfolio of apps you can use to make your business more effective. In today's episode we talk about - Why we started using GSuite - What apps we use and how to use them most effectively - Alternatives to GSuite - Is it the right choice for you? - Should you get the free legacy edition of GSuite? Resources mentioned: - Example of …
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What is it like to be a business owner and parent at the same time? Today, Khwan will talk about her own journey and how her life changed after the arrival of our little daughter Layla. She talks about - How she managed her work and recreation before becoming a parent - What was her life like in the months before and after birth? - When and how to …
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It's not always easy to manage our time effectively when you're a small business owner. In this episode, Simon talks about how he manages his daily tasks and how his system evolved over time. Here's what you'll learn: - How to manage the transition from developer to biz owner - The benefits of the Getting Things Done method by David Allen - How the…
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Since Covid 19, remote work has become pretty much mainstream across companies of all sizes. At Simya, we've been working remotely for 5 years now. In this episode, we talk about our experience with remote work, including - Why did we start going remote in the first place? - What are advantages and benefits remote work? - What are some of the chall…
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In the past year, we started driving traffic to our biggest app Ling by asking affiliates and users to promote our app. This works best if you have an affiliate program in place, so the influencers get rewarded by attracting paying customers. In this episode, we share - What's the idea behind affiliate programs, and why we started it - How to imple…
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Once your business grows, hiring probably becomes your most important task as a founder. In this episode, we talk about - When and how we started hiring - How we gradually discovered a good hiring process - Strategies on how to find, interview, and select people - How to delegate parts of the process Resources mentioned: Smart, Street - Who (book):…
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Today's episode is all about organizing your finances. We cover - Should you care about accounting right from the start? - The accounting software we recommend (Zoho Books) - Features to look for in accounting software - How to automate your book keeping - How to effectively outsource your finances Resources mentioned: - Zoho Books: https://www.zoh…
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Wordpress is still the market leader when it comes to publishing content. Our site ling-app.com is powered by Wordpress. In this episode we share five of our favorite plugins to improve site speed, SEO & traffic. Plugins covered: RankMath: SEO Plugin Hurry Timer: A neat little tool to create custom timers for your promo pages LinkWhisper: Automatic…
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As your team grows, it's more and more important to share know-how effectively. In this episode, we talk about 5 of our favorite tools we came to love in the past years: - Google Sheets: Powerful filtering options, easy collaboration + pivot tables - Dropbox Paper: Free for organizing your how-tos and SOPs, great formatting options - Facebook Live:…
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A couple of months ago, we started to reach out to influencers to promote our apps. It has been a great success so far, so we want to share some of the lessons learned. We talk about - How we implemented our affiliate program - How to find the correct influencers to contact - How the outreach process works - The best tips on how to get new influenc…
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In this episode, we do a deep dive on iOS ASO. We share some useful hacks you might not know about App Store Optimization on the App Store. Today's hacks include - Don't use stop words - Inflections: Do you need to use them? - Should you mention your competitors in your store listing? - English/Mexican keyword trick - Much more! To learn all about …
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At Simya Solutions, we constantly test new ideas on how to increase our app downloads. This week, we share 7 tips you can instantly apply to your store listing to level up your downloads. Here are the quick tips: - Add social proof to your short description or screenshots - Use horizontal screenshots - Add a badge of the current year to your icons …
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Just having celebrated our company's 4th birthday, we start a series covering some of our biggest projects. In this episode we talk about our first baby Simply Learn, a simple phrasebook app. We talk about how we came up with the idea, how we improved it over time and how we scaled it into over 50 apps eventually. Enjoy!…
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This episode is all about localizing your app. Localization is one of the most underrated tool to increase your app downloads. We have several apps that saw 10x increases in downloads just by translating the store listings in multiple languages. Here's what we cover in detail: - How to decide if you should localize your app? - What languages should…
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This week, we talk about how we use UX interviews to continuously improve our apps. A UX interview can be as simple as asking your family and friends about their opinion on your app. If done correctly, they are a powerful tool to get feedback from your users. We talk about - Why did we decide to have regular UX interviews? - How do we find intervie…
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Last time we talked about how to hire non-technical staff. As for hiring developers, the hiring task involves some interesting decisions. Should you hire a new developer on an existing project? How do you find the right person? How to check the quality if you're not a coder yourself? We're covering all this, plus - Hiring with existing code base vs…
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Hiring the first employee is a huge milestone in any small business or startup. But how do you know when the time has come? What are the risks? And how to find that new hire? In this episode we talk about these questions. Here's what we will cover: - Our thought process behind our first hire - Automating as an alternative to hiring - How to get sta…
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Many small businesses start with side projects next to a full time job. So did ours. How long should you wait before you take the leap and quit your job? - What was our decision process for quitting our jobs? - Our experience before and after starting the business full time - Do you need a backup plan? - Tips to keep going and motivate yourself Lin…
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When we just got started with email marketing, we didn't know what we were doing. Blasting out 150,000 emails to an unsegmented audience was just one of our early mistakes. This episode is all about our experience with email and what we learned along the way. Topics covered: - Why bother doing email marketing for mobile apps? - Our email marketing …
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Last week was Black Friday! We run our first campaign ever using landing pages, ads and email promotion. It was a big success thanks to the joint effort of many people: marketing team, developers, POs, and designer. Today, we talk about - How we run our first Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions - How we created landing pages and sales tracking…
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In today's episode we talk about our favorite books, which include fiction and non-fiction. We cover - Our yearly reading goals - Goodreads, our favorite book platform - Eric Ries - The Lean Startup - Ayn Rand - The Fountainhead - Nelson Mandela - Long Walk to Freedom - JK Rowling - Harry Potter - The Three Kingdoms - Jared Diamond - The Third Chim…
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Let's talk about increasing your downloads! This week, we share 5 free tactics to increase your downloads: We share - How we utilized Facebook Groups to drive early downloads - Apps Gone Free strategy for 3000 free downloads in a day - Post your app on Product Hunt - Seeding on boards like Quora, Reddit etc. - Instagram automation Links mentioned i…
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Customer support is a very important part of our business. Today, we do a deep dive into our customer support process. We'll cover: - How we did customer support when just starting out - How we transitioned from doing it ourselves to delegating it - What software we use to do effective support - What's our current process - How we classify our tick…
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In this episode, we lay out our strategy that we use to get backlinks for our apps and websites. Backlinks are an important factor to rank your site on Google. Specifically, we cover... - Why do we want backlinks as app developers? - Outsource or do it yourself? - How do we identify high quality backlinks by spying on our competitors? - How to get …
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In this episode, we share our top 5 tools for testing our mobile apps. Discover how we use 1. AWS Device Farm: Amazing tool for uploading your apps to one of 100s of real devices and simulators. It lets you either manually run your apps or run automatic scripts. It also has a very generous free trial, so there is no reason not to try it today. 2. F…
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Today we talk about KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). At Simya, we have half-yearly meetings with all employees where we review past KPIs and set new ones. KPIs are for tracking performance but also about giving and getting feedback, as well as setting effective goals for personal development. In this episode, we talk about What are KPIs? Why do w…
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In this episode, we talk about how we share feedback within our teams. An important part of this are the Retrospective meetings. They are extremely useful for reviewing the past teamwork and improving for the future. Learn how we - What is the Retrospective team in agile? - What are purposes of the meeting? - Examples of how to run a Retrospective …
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