Mr. X: Who is the person you need to meet to get to the Featured list on the App Store?

The author of the app Chored, which helps to share the cost of housing, claims that the number of downloads of the application has increased significantly after meeting with the manager of the European App Store.

Chored is an application that helps homeowners pay utility bills and share housing maintenance work. Not so long ago, it fell into the Featured category so desired for many developers on the App Store on October 12.

Oliver Southern, CEO and founder of Random Array - the company that owns Chored - states the following: “I met with the manager of the App Store in early September. The guy’s name is James Goodrum, and he really liked our app. ”
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Of course, we asked: “Do you think we would be able to get into Featured? What will happen next?""
He replied: "It does not depend on me, everything will be discussed."

“I went to rest for a week, and at that time we were on the Featured list. We became number one - the best new app in the UK App Store, which was just awesome. I left when the app had hundreds of users on iOS, and by my return there were thousands of them. ”

Southern worked at Yahoo in sales and finance for five years before joining Telefónica and ultimately founded Random Array. He said that his Yahoo connections helped him arrange an appointment with Apple, which took place at Apple’s head office in the UK, on ​​Regent Street in London.

This is what the Chored app looks like:


“My old friend at Yahoo introduced me to James, who, as I noticed, had a very professional approach. He said, "Let's go and have a chat." Then we got right to the point. He simply said: "So, show me your application." So I told him about the application and showed the functionality of the product. His reaction inspired. He said he knows the market and other applications that allow sharing costs, but noted: "Your application has gone further than others in this niche, so it has a good chance to get into Featured." Two weeks passed, and we were there, so it seems to me that he said it sincerely. ”

The Chored app was created primarily for students who share the cost of housing. It is aimed at the same market as the company Splittable, which last week raised investments in the amount of 800 thousand pounds sterling (1.2 million dollars).

After the app hit the Featured list on the App Store, the Chored downloads took off, reaching a maximum of 700-800 downloads daily.

Southern argues that 66% of customers who have installed the application continue to actively use it. He could not tell how many downloads of the iOS version of the application were before Chored got into Featured on the App Store, since the product appeared there only two weeks earlier. For example, an application for Android downloaded approximately 30-50 times a day.

Apple's London office

Southern said that Apple’s office looks very modest compared to Google’s buildings in London. “You never would have thought that this was Apple’s ownership,” he says.
There are over a million apps on the App Store, and getting into Featured greatly increases the visibility of the company.

Apple does not provide detailed information on how to get to the Featured list on the App Store, and does not notify publishers that their applications will be on this list. Representatives of one startup called StyleIt say that they found out about entering the desired category on the App Store only after problems with the application started and the company's servers fell.

According to Souserna, he was confident that the promotion of the Chored application on the App Store was a direct result of a meeting with Gudrum.

To date, Chored has collected £ 150,000 ($ 228,000) and plans to receive more capital in the near future for further business development. Interestingly, the basis of the company's business model is the payment of a nominal amount for each transaction conducted through the application - in many respects this is similar to the payment for registration.