The audio and video are in Spanish. These notes are a translation.
There are close to 9 million applications in the App Store. That is why starting a company and getting downloads in a market as competitive as apps is very complicated. Our guest today says he got more than 100 million downloads of his applications, and without a doubt he understood how to break through in this industry.
Martín Siniawski is CEO of Podcast App, a podcast player application with more than 140,000 paid subscribers, and CEO of Rest, an application that helps people overcome their insomnia problems naturally.
Before that, Martin founded Streema and Simple Radio, one of the largest radio streaming applications in the world.
We talked about why he decided to create yet another application for listening to podcasts and how it sets itself apart from other free alternatives, what lessons he learned over the course of his career so that millions of people would download his applications, and lastly we talked about the business model behind a consumer app.
Youtube Timestamps*
[1:43] - Intro to Jobs to Be Done
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How did Martín arrive at the fascinating world of startups?
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Why does Martin decide, in 2016, to launch an app for listening to podcasts when Spotify and Apple Podcasts were starting to become so dominant?
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How did they validate that there really was a segment of people who wanted an application focused on podcasts?
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What are the metrics that define Product Market Fit for an application like PodcastApp: active users, minutes of use, retention, and so on?
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What difficulties, and therefore lessons, has Martin taken away from the idea-validation stage of Simple Radio and Podcast App?
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Martin explored several product development methodologies, including Lean Startup, which did not leave him satisfied. Eventually, he came across Jobs To Be Done theory. What do both methodologies consist of, and what limitations did they run into when using Lean Startup that Jobs to Be Done was able to cover?
[33:56] - How to Grow a Consumer Application
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How did they get the first hundreds or thousands of customers on Simple Radio?
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What was their methodology for experimenting with channels, and how does
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Martin think about channel diversification at an early stage?
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What are the channels that work best for mobile applications?
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Every year, we see the virality of SpotifyWrapped. What role does virality play in the growth of a mobile application? And what has Martin learned about how to incentivize it?
[46:27] - Business Model of Consumer Apps
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At Simple Radio, their business model is based 100% on advertising. At Podcast App, they started with advertising and then transitioned toward subscription. What role does the business model play in this choice of channels and growth strategy?
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What led them to choose a subscription business model, and what challenges did they find when implementing it?
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At Podcast App, they are basically charging for a service similar to the one Spotify and Apple Podcasts give away for free. How does Martin explain Podcast App’s success? What strategies have been key to retaining and acquiring new subscribers?
[59:15] - Rapid-Fire Questions
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If he had to start a company from scratch, what is the main piece of advice Martin would give himself?
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What has been the most influential book on Martin’s path through the world of startups?
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Changes Martin would like to see in Latin America’s startup ecosystem
Episode Mentions
You can find Martin on LinkedIn
Martín interviewed Enzo in a practical demonstration of the Jobs to be Done methodology
Recommended books: Demand-Side Sales 101 & Learning to Build: The 5 Bedrock Skills of Innovators both by Bob Moesta
Discover More from the Startupeable Podcast
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Follow Enzo Cavalie on X: @enzocavalie.