On February 4, 2020, ACT | The App Association visited The Dude’s Brewery, a Santa Monica, California based brewery, to engage with developers about the local tech community, California’s app economy, and general trends and opportunities for tech businesses. App Association member Dogtown Media’s Marc Fischer spoke at the event. Below, Marc highlights the innovation boom that followed the introduction of platforms, and the way that businesses like his can leverage the tools available through platforms to broaden their scope of innovation and the speed at which their innovations can be in the hands of consumers as well as the future of the relationship between small businesses and platforms.
In 2009 when Steve Jobs introduced the world to the App Store, my career path became crystal clear: I wanted to be an app developer. Nothing up until that point was quite as exciting as being able to dream up an app idea and then bring it to life for millions of people to download and enjoy in the palm of their hand.
I spent the next year and half working nights and weekends to learn the skills required to design and code an iPhone app. Dogtown Media, the mobile app development firm I founded, was born soon after. Since then, we’ve built and launched more than 200 mobile apps, solved numerous real-world problems, and helped our clients change the world. Altogether, we’ve helped startups raise over half a billion dollars in venture funding.
None of this would’ve been possible without platforms like Apple’s App Store and Google Play; they’ve enabled small businesses like mine to be recognized by an audience of billions around the world. Their extended reach has catapulted Dogtown’s success. We expanded our capabilities to include artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things (IoT), and medical apps that are making an impact in the lives of people across the globe. It’s taken a lot of hard work, but we also returned to the Inc. 5000 List of Fastest-Growing Companies in America for the third year in a row!
Recently, policymakers have raised concerns about platforms and the immense power they wield in our society. But before they enact any regulations, it’s imperative that they hear the voices of small businesses that will be affected as well.
Dogtown Media is still very much a small business at its core. Our team tops out at around 50 members. As CEO, my main mission is to ensure that the work we’re doing is aligned with our vision: To create the best mobile apps possible. But if I have a million meetings in a day, I still find time to attend daily scrum meetings, give my input on a UX design mockup, and occasionally, even get neck-deep in code to solve a technical issue. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we also face many of the same challenges as other small businesses.
Regardless of whether you’re in tech or not, innovation is key for small businesses to stay one step ahead of the competition. We never stop learning, and we’re always iterating. Besides this, the tight job market means that large companies like Google and Apple can attain and retain top-tier talent much easier than organizations like mine. So, we have to be inventive in how we appeal to and recruit team members. We also have to be resourceful when it comes to budgeting; growing a business while spending less on things like sales and marketing is a delicate balance to strike.
At the end of the day, our clients and work make the trials and tribulations worth it. We get to contribute to the development of emerging tech like wearables and machine learning. We also get to work with many passionate groups of individuals across various fields. But they all have one commonality: They want to improve the world through digital transformation.
Whether our clients are large enterprise organizations or lean startups, it’s important that we demonstrate we’re dependable, financially stable, and able to deliver mobile app solutions on-time and on-budget. Ensuring our clients that we’re partners they can trust long-term is crucial. And platforms like the App Store and Google Play go a long way towards making this happen.
It’s no secret that people want to work with big brand names — especially when it comes to making ambitious projects a reality. To put this in perspective: Would you trust an unknown organization to build a product worth potentially hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars?
In this regard, small businesses are at a disadvantage against large corporations with mammoth marketing budgets. We have to fight hard to build and maintain a sterling reputation. And sometimes (more often than not), we have to take unorthodox approaches to accomplish this. Whether it’s marketing or product development, we have to spend our time and resources efficiently to get the most return on investment and earn our customers’ trust.
It wasn’t long ago that platforms like the App Store were considered unorthodox avenues for software distribution. The fact that they’ve become so entrenched in the tech industry in just a few years is a testament to how revolutionary they truly were. But I guarantee that all trailblazing small businesses in the app economy remember this vividly.
The arrival of mobile app marketplaces leveled the playing field for nimble companies to compete. Million-dollar marketing budgets were no longer the sole determinant of exposure to potential customers. User reviews and quality began to play more integral roles in the process of establishing trust. This paradigm shift allowed innumerable small businesses to flourish.
A myriad of platforms has followed in the footsteps of mobile app marketplaces. While each of them differs in their mission, they all contribute to evening out the competitive landscape. Amazon and Shopify let any retailer open up its storefront to the world. Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud enable anyone to leverage cloud computing. And platforms like Xero and Bill.com greatly simplify finances.
It would be a shame for the progress made by these platforms to be inadvertently stunted by poor regulations. Today, countless small businesses depend on platforms to succeed. And policymakers must realize that our entire economy, not just the mobile app economy, depends on small businesses to thrive.
Small to medium-sized organizations across the globe are disrupting old legacy industries and creating immense amounts of new value. Innovation is no longer the domain of giant tech titans. Small businesses are also pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. All this effort is ushering in a new era full of unprecedented possibilities.
Soon businesses will be able to communicate with their intended customers without any need for a desktop or phone screen. 5G, machine learning, and IoT will bridge the gaps in our data to bring unparalleled automation capabilities to our everyday lives. And health tech like wearables will advance to the point where people from all walks of life can live longer, healthier lives.
Thanks to platforms, like the ones I’ve mentioned, the cost and risk of doing business is decreasing. In turn, the future now abounds with opportunities for anyone to become an entrepreneur and make a dent in the world. But swift, unscrupulous regulation could threaten the future of innovation.
Considering the current technological and political climate, it’s no surprise that policymakers are scrutinizing platforms. Some of these concerns are well-warranted. But addressing them properly will take time, calculated effort, and most importantly, an open dialogue. This is the only way that small businesses can continue to flourish. It’s absolutely necessary that we approach this correctly. After all, if we don’t have time to do this right, when will we have time to do it over?