Welcome to the Tech for Non-Techies podcast

Every app and site is made up of lots of different tech tools and languages. Like a house, one part is built on top of another and they need each other to function. If one part of the structure breaks, the rest can fall down too. 

These are called dependencies. To keep a product working, all the dependencies need to work together. This is part of the invisible work that software engineers do.

Learning notes from this episode:

• A tech stack describes all the tools and programming languages used to build an app or a site. Some of those tools are custom made, some are rented as licences and others plug you into a bigger ecosystem.
• Examples of bigger eco-systems that many products depend on are the Apple App Store, Google Play and Amazon Web Services. If one of these ecosystems has a problem, the apps and sites they support will have issues too. An app on the Apple App Store depends on Apple, hence the term dependency.
• Product teams have to update...

Why do some products go viral and others die a quiet death? The answer lies in growth hacking. 

Growth hacking is a type of marketing that combines working on the product, which is an inside job, and working on promotion, which is an outside job. It is a new discipline born with the tech sector, and growing in popularity today.

Learning notes from this episode:

• The Dropbox growth hacking case study is still seen as the Holy Grail in the sector. The team created a double referral program to grow 3900% in just 15 months.

• A growth hacking effort is always done by a multi-disciplinary team, and will often involve a product manager, a designer, a community manager, engineers, someone with a marketing or PR background, and maybe a data scientist.

• Traditional marketing is outside facing: billboards, TV ads and articles in the press.  Growth hacking is different because it looks at the inside of the product, and adjusts it to grow users and revenue.

• PR...

Worldwide spending on Google Play and the Apple App store is projected to reach $171 billion in 2024.

The opportunity in making apps and investing in them is huge, but what exactly is the app economy? Before you get started, you need to know the key differences between the Apple and Android ecosystems.

They cater to different audiences and make money in different ways. Listen to this episode to learn why.

Learning notes from this episode:

• While there are more apps on the Google Play store, Apple apps account for 70% of all revenue generated on Apple and Google combined.
• Apple users are wealthier than Android users. The median iPhone app user earns $85,000 per year, which is 40% more than the median Android phone user.
• Most apps on Apple monetize via subscriptions and in-app purchases, while Android apps make money via advertising.

To join Sophia's FREE masterclass on mid March 2021 on Break Into Tech: Masterclass for Non-Technical Founders, register here.

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