1. Varun Thunuguntla

2. AGENDA
• (Breezy) Introductions
• Why am I in the weather business?
• Meet WeatherPro
• What makes it tick?
• How not to be an app zombie…

3. AGENDA
• (Breezy) Introductions
• Why am I in the weather business?
• Meet WeatherPro
• What makes it tick?
• How not to be an app zombie…

4. • Chennai, south-east India, by the coast of the Bay of Bengal
• Total Population of more than 6 million, is one of the largest cities in India.
• November ‘15, Chennai saw 13 inches of rain, which is the largest 24-hour downpour since
1901.
• Floods caused due to insufficient drainage etc. led to 400+ deaths

5. Introducing WeatherPro
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10-Nov-08
Cumulative Installs
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4/1/2015
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1/1/2016
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Total Store PageViews over Time
Meet WP

6. Mission Statement:
“The best location based weather information system”
Meet WP

7. AlertsPro
High quality severe
weather warnings managed
24/7 including automated
push notifications (EU & US)
WeatherPro Free
7 day forecasts
for 2 million locations, world
wide alerts and severe
weather warnings
RainToday
Up to the minute
and hyper local rain
warnings for the next hours
including a stunning, smooth
Radar animation
MeteoEarth
Stunning interactive
weather animation
on a 3D globe. Adapted from
our professional weather
broadcast tool.
Local forecast
Severe
weather
Nowcasting for
Rain showers
Global events
+ education
Supplementary growth engines
Meet WP

8. Early days – Get those Prosumers!
First purchasers (Prosumers were addressed like SLR instead of compact cameras)
1. Definition: Semi professionals, buy products in between consumer and professional grade standards.
2. Expectation: High quality, complexity, functionalities and customization
3. Behaviour: Produce and consume content.
Alvin Toffler, “The Third Wave’”
(1980)
Meet WP

9. Meet WP

10. Job-to-be-done
When user [context],
then user wants to [action],so
that [desired outcome].
What ‘jobs-to-be-done’ can be
identified that WeatherPro
needs to solve?
Solving a user’s everyday real world problem
1. Thursday/Friday updates for weekend weather, BBQ, sports
2. What do I wear to work today? Do I take the bike or the bus? Weekly weather forecast
3. Vacation destination weather
4. Bicycling enthusiast, route planning.
5. Wind surfers and Kite Surfers use the wind theme before heading out.
What makes it tick?

11. WeatherPro – Evolves as it goes!
• Improvements over time (customer feedback, constant product tests, OS support and
adaptive UX)
• Look and feel supporting OS guidelines over time
Android Widget feedback implementation
What makes it tick?

12. User Generated Content
• Questions on WeatherPro & RainToday
• Social Sharing
• More to come
Keeping with both Prosumer and Websumer ideology
What makes it tick?

13. Beta Testing
Why do it?
• User Engagement
• Valuable feedback loop
• Virality build
• Test Hypothesis: Customer profiles
• It’s free!
What makes it tick?

14. Quicker than the competition
• Mainstay of weather is Precision - best in class observations and predictions
• Mainstay of mobile is to be first in market with new technology (Smart ecosystem)
- Reach new + existing audiences
- Maintain Kingmaker relationships
• Early OS strategy to start wide and optimize:
- Support Blackberry, Samsung, Windows, Chrome Web store etc.
- Data backed decisions to stay or get leaner
What makes it tick?

15. Localization
What?
• Language in graphics, text etc.
• App Store Metadata
• Cultural adaptation of likes and
dislikes
• Conversion of units
Why?
• Increase in reach, better marketing
• Sign of investment in end user
• Huge ASO wins for Organic installs
• Fairly inexpensive
How?
• In house or 3rd party services
• ASO
• Integrate content as separate localized files
from executable code
• API management of user values (price,
currency, date, weight etc.)
• UGC must be allowed in multiple languages.
What makes it tick?

16. Personalization: Deep rooting into a User’s
expectation response
- Solve a person’s real world problem
- Be present as a mechanism in the daily
workflow of a user
Find the sweet spot: The right mix of data and
user behaviour
What makes it tick?
Push right!

17. Smart Handouts
• Reach new loyalist segments
• Viral uplifts
• PR campaigns & Social Media
What makes it tick?

18. Objective: Self fulfilling
product growth
How: Marketing tactics +
product development.
Process: Understand user
behaviour, optimize
digital touchpoints so
users take action.
Dave Mc Lure, 2007
User First Experience
NPS = Growth
ACQUISITION:
1. Paid Sources: Go where the users are (Social Media etc.)
2. Product Cross Promotion: App2App, Social2App, Web2App
3. App Landing Page: Promotions on PC’s or other operating systems, use wisely for A/B banner testing for
ASO or UA. (weatherpro.eu)
4. App Store Optimization: Undisputable king of Organic reach, the face of your app; experiment and scale.
5. Beta Launches: Collect Beta Users through teasers on landing pages, gather network effects through
limited invites and set the virality ball rolling. Work on staged rollouts with a little help from your friends.
How not to be an App Zombie

19. ACTIVATION
1. Onboarding: Clear Value Proposition
2. Create User account: Meta Data Profiling
3. Set Favourites: Locations
4. CRM: Choice of communication, level of commitment
5. Deep Linking: Keep users engaged and escape a zombie app situation; Weather stories
RETENTION
1. Use: Every day need/problem being solved
2. Communication: In App messages, Push notifications & Newsletters
3. Retargeting: Bring them back in!
4. TAT: A grade Customer Service
5. Power of many: Crowd Sourcing on forecasts
6. iCloud synchronization across IOS devices
7. Novelty: Adopting new technology and trends; evaluate customer wish lists
REVENUE
1. Freemium: Ad backed basic free offering
2. Free to Paid to Subscription: Healthy conversion rate from free to paid, and IAP’s
3. Choice: Tiered Subscription levels
4. More bang for the buck: Umbrella subscription to premium services across MG Apps
REFERRAL
1. Deep Linking: Easy to Share referrals
2. Loyalty score: Points on referral thresholds
3. Social Wave: Easy sharing and personalization on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram
How not to be an App Zombie

20. Gateway to weather bliss
How not to be an App Zombie
Convincing Satisfaction
Quotient to buy premium
services across apps
Specific use cases with inflow into main
offerings (known gaming strategy)
Healthy conversion rate into
Paid WeatherPro
3 or 12
months
And
/or