How to Build a Great Kids App with Minimal Data — Brennan Clark, Sago Mini

01/25/23 • 49 min

On the podcast we talk with Brennan about the challenge of building and growing kids apps in 2022, how to make effective decisions with minimal data, and why AppsFlyer had to build Sago Mini a custom SDK.

Top Takeaways
🧒 Building and growing kids apps is hard
🤔 Making effective decisions with minimal data is a challenge
💕 Find the right partner to invest in solving tough challenges together — especially if it’s a custom job

About Brennan Clark
👨‍💻 Director of Product at Sago Mini, which has received more than 100 million downloads. The company offers three subscription apps for preschoolers, a recently launched show on Apple TV+, and a physical subscription box.
💡 “We've staked our claim in this high-quality, interactive content — that's our competitive advantage. We invest a lot in creating the best content for kids as possible [and] making sure it's interactive. It's not passive YouTube Kids-style content.”
👋 LinkedIn

Links & Resources
‣ Check out Sago Mini
‣ Work at Sago Mini
‣ Connect with Brennan at LinkedIn

Follow us on Twitter
‣ David Barnard
‣ Jacob Eiting
‣ RevenueCat
‣ Sub Club

Episode Highlights

[2:01] Building basics: When you build a kids app, you’re building both for the user (the kid) and the consumer (the parent) who pays. Building for preschoolers who can’t read yet is a challenge layered on top.
[8:11] Think of the parent: Sago Mini complements its kids-first experience with a parent app to demonstrate the value of the app to parents directly. But how does it balance the two and prevent churn from each group?
[12:35] The pitch: Providing the best digital tools and products for preschoolers means exploring different engaging avenues of kids learning — instead of letting them passively follow (scary) YouTube algorithms. The key is emphasizing what Brennan calls “high-quality screen time.”
[16:00] What data?: Kids data management is a huge topic. Getting creative with partners might be the best solution, and Sago Mini struck gold with AppsFlyer’s custom SDK job. But it’s just as important that you (or your partners) don’t collect more data than you need.
[23:11] Product testing: Product and UX design testing is a weekly thing at Sago Mini. It’s tough to put yourself in kids’ shoes, but it’s also crucial to get features right.
[26:54] Paid ads: Sago Mini can’t use the IDFA or ATT prompt, and is about to lose its Google Ad ID. With additional pressure on retention, how does it work with so many constraints? (Hint: they get creative with ToFu.)
[36:14] Mixing up the channels: Apple Arcade is a highly-curated safe space, perfectly aligned with Sago Mini’s value — it’s also not as crowded by preschooler content as other platforms are. But it’s the Apple TV+ show that’s really driving 80% of their revenue.
[42:03] The web experience: While some kids companies build their entire funnel on the web, Sago Mini views it more as a lead-generating, ToFu strategy to get kids on the apps ASAP.
[44:25] Innate ceilings: Brennan talks about one of the biggest “problems” kids app developers face, and how looking at the path holistically helps.

Links & Resources
‣ Check out Sago Mini
‣ Work at Sago Mini
‣ Connect with Brennan at LinkedIn

Follow us on Twitter
‣ David Barnard
‣ Jacob Eiting
‣ RevenueCat
‣ Sub Club

Episode Highlights

Previous Episode

How’s Your App Really Doing? The State of Subscription Apps 2023

On the podcast we talk about RevenueCat’s State of Subscription Apps report, all the nuance that didn’t make it into the report, and why your app landing in the bottom quartile of some metrics might not be as bad as it seems.

Top Takeaways
🤔 Understand your own business model and unique leverage
📈 Consider the stage of your app when looking at benchmarks
🖐️ 5 key insights: conversions, renewals, retention and more

Links & Resources
‣ The report: State of Subscription Apps 2023
‣ Give us your feedback
‣ One year retention rate insights
‣ Join the RevenueCat team
‣ Follow RevenueCat on Linkedin
‣ Follow RevenueCat on Twitter

Follow us on Twitter
‣ David Barnard
‣ Jacob Eiting
‣ RevenueCat
‣ Sub Club

Episode Highlights

[2:33] The why: RevenueCat is uniquely positioned to measure the data set released in the State of Subscription Apps 2023 report. (By the way, if you don’t want your data set featured in the report, just let us know.)
[7:18] The how: Anonymized data from $4 billion in tracked revenue across 22,000 apps is a lot to dig into. But it’s important to take it all in context for your own app’s situation.
[13:15] The what: Be sure to understand your own business model and the unique leverage you have. Price is a factor in retention.
[18:50] The flipside: Big acquisition costs and ad spend means you need to ideally be in the top quartile to get the right returns.
[23:12] Drawn and quartered: Why the report uses the upper, middle, median, and lower quartiles is important.
[32:43] Key results: David and Jacob go deep on each of the report’s top 5 takeaways.
[40:22] Calculating value: Understanding lifetime value (LTV) isn’t easy. You have to be careful not to fall into the naive developer trap. The good news is that predictive LTV is on RevenueCat’s roadmap.
[44:53] Retention: Weekly subscriptions have a 73% retention rate by week two, which drops to 3% by the end of the first year. But while monthly subscription starts lower at 64%, it comparatively only drops to 11%. Survival analysis: The longer you stay subscribed, the more likely you are to continue subscribing.
[49:16] Annual vs. monthly: Why is annual better than monthly? The answer might not be so obvious. (Hint: product quality.)
[55:14] The magic of subscriptions: If users are more likely to stick around the longer they stick around, minimal churn on annual subscriptions means more money (for free!) next year.
[1:00:21] Trials and tribulations: What percentage of apps have a trial strategy? Perhaps surprisingly, a lot don’t have one at all
[01:08:03] Trial duration: David dives into the trial-to-paid conversion rate. The results were counterintuitive.

Next Episode

The Key Trends and Opportunities for Apps in 2023 — Lexi Sydow, data.ai

On the podcast we talk with Lexi about data.ai’s State of Mobile report, the countries subscription apps should focus on for growth, and why things still look bright for apps despite a decline in overall spend.

Top Takeaways
🕹️ Mobile app spend is down, but that may not be a bad thing
🤳 Non-gaming apps see additional growth with resilient spend
✍️ The subscription model underpins growth for non-gaming apps
📈 Look to non-U.S. markets for new opportunities
💝 The most successful apps will offer frictionless, personalized experiences

About Lexi Sydow
👨‍💻 Head of Insights at data.ai, a unified data AI company that combines consumer and market data with artificial intelligence to offer insights into trends.
💡 “We’ve gotten to a place where it’s become very native behavior — not just in the app store sense, but even mobile commerce. ... It’s those habitual things that we do that reinforce our habits.”
👋 LinkedIn | Twitter

Links & Resources
‣ Get the State of Mobile 2023 report
‣ Work at data.ai (remote and hiring!)

Follow us on Twitter
‣ David Barnard
‣ Jacob Eiting
‣ RevenueCat
‣ Sub Club

Episode Highlights
[2:16] History report: From starting as “The Retrospective” to including more forward-thinking pieces, publishing the Annual State of Mobile report has been a decade of fun for data.ai — and a valuable resource for app developers.
[4:54] More reports: Lexi outlines data.ai’s various other reports that help separate real trends from massaged data.
[7:48] An evolutionary thing: Most changes to data.ai’s reports have been organic, largely thanks to a maturation of the industry, analysis, and the team’s understanding.
[11:54] It’s data, it’s AI, it’s data.ai: data.ai’s sophisticated team collects data based on their own products, utilizing AI in the process. This helps them make their own accurate estimates, and they’re proud of that.
[18:39] M.E.T.H.O.D.: Lexi dives into the hows of data collection in the age of privacy, including data.ai’s growing categorization of apps.
[21:53] Marquee landmark year: For the first time ever, spend is down. Lexi details the data and what it tells us.
[28:03] Concentrate: The top three countries for app spend have their own chart in the report. But it’s not all dominated by China, the U.S., and Japan.
[30:21] GDP transformed: While China is three or four times the size of the U.S., China’s spend is only marginally greater than the latter. There’s still a lot of headroom for China to move.
[39:30] Top app categories: In many categories, subscription apps take the top spot. Usually in the top 10, storage subscription app Google One jumped straight to number one in consumer spending this year.
[42:36] What is a phone?: It’s becoming — if it hasn’t already become — native behavior to use phones to do everything. Meaningful personalized experiences convert to subscriptions and in-app purchases.