Ranked #1 And Downloads Up 125% - How Mindvalley Did It

In this interview, we sit down with Kshitij Minglani and Grayson Smith of Mindvalley Mobile to find out how they came up with the idea for their first mobile app and how they continue to market the app and generate ideas for new apps. Mindvalley has been a big name in personal development for awhile, so it is interesting to learn how they made the transition to mobile apps.

For people who have never heard of Mindvalley, can you give us a little background on the company, how it got started and what is its mission?

We are a global brand and company that invests in, creates and builds businesses that help push humanity forward. We stand for ideas and products that allow human beings to live healthier, happier lives.

From life-changing techniques in personal growth and education models that inspire and foster progress and innovation, to work cultures and movements that cultivate creativity and freedom – we are ambitiously, ridiculously, and irreverently determined to unleash the full potential of humanity so that everyone can truly be the best version of themselves.

Why did you decide to create the Omvana mobile app and what does it do?

After tremendous success in the "Personal Development" space spanning over 10 years and with over 1.3 million subscribers we ventured out to create a Mobile division. Mindvalley's portfolio has over 100 products and it was only rational to offer some of these over to a mobile audience.

Omvana is what we call “The greatest innovation in meditation history in 3000 years” Hit the iTunes Store in Feb 2013 and has over 300,000 downloads on iPhone alone.

Dubbed the “Spotify” of meditation, Omvana features thousands of relaxation and sleeping audios, cutting-edge binaural beats and personal growth tracks by the world’s leading health, wellness and inspirational figures. Some of the notable names featured include Lisa Nichols, Jon Gabriel, Bob Proctor, Laura Silva, Peter Diamandis, and Gabrielle Bernstein.

The app also features a unique mixing board, allowing users to combine vocal tracks from guided meditations or famous speeches with ambient sounds, music and more. These personalized combinations can be saved so users may create their own blissful experience in which they can relax, feel inspired, sleep better, or de-stress anytime – anywhere.

Another unique feature on Omvana is that it allows users to record their own meditation or guided imagery that can be mixed with any track from their personal Omvana library – perfect for any teacher, coach, instructor or meditation enthusiast. Omvana has now become one of a library of its kind on this planet. We are excited that an Android and all you can consume subscription version will hit the market in a month from now.

What have been the most challenging aspects of developing Omvana and what have been the most rewarding?

Our biggest development challenge has been developing only the features that we think will make the most impact. More than just adding all the features we think may be useful, we try to create a cohesive app ecosystem for our users.

The most rewarding part has been seeing the app blossom over the last 6 months, and as the days go by having more and more people delighted meditating with the daily new tracks on Omvana.

Which markets do you target with Omvana, and how important is it for you to expand to international markets?

For any mobile company, world is the market place :) so is the case for us. Having said that most of customer base lies in the US.

We top the charts and are number #1 in 24 countries (in the Health and Fitness category) including India, Philippines, South Africa and we were #4 in the US last month. We are excited and looking forward to play in the Asian markets too. We have our ground covered in the US and its time to capture more user base with our Android and Online version of our Omvana and Dormio app and test the waters in the Asian markets too.

Can you give us an idea of the thought process you guys go through when designing a new app like Dormio?

At Mindvalley we brainstorm a lot. Ideas are constantly coming from the all over the mobile team as well as from other parts of the company.

A month or two after releasing Omvana, we noticed lots of users were asking for more sleep meditations. So we pulled together an ad hoc team and started throwing out ideas.

In the end we decided to keep things simple, and create an app that calms you down from the moment you open it. A few dozen of mockups later, we arrived at what is now Dormio.

After an app is launched, what kind of things do you do to improve the number of times your app is downloaded?

Mindvalley as a company shares a ton of knowledge and intellectual wealth on mindvalley insights platform. An indie developer or a web based company looking to optimise or make more value can go through our library of best case practices and must dos on our Insights platform. Mindvalley Mobile has a set of key performance indicators like active users, downloads, user activity inside the app, in-app purchases etc.

We monitor this on a daily basis and rationalise our moves in a very calculative manner. We have been fortunate to have significant active users who engage with our meditation and sleep apps almost twice a day. Any app company must look at inducing high usage within its users.

Can you tell us a little about how Sensor Tower has helped you improve your downloads / ratings / understanding of where your users come from?

Sensor Tower has really helped us boost our app's visibility. The ability to track other apps' keywords, gauge keyword traffic, and understand the competition has given us a much deeper understanding of how to rank in the AppStore and has brought us that much closer to Mindvalley's goal of touching 1 billion lives by 2050.

In your experience, how much can using the right keywords improve downloads, on a percentage basis?

We can't stress enough how important it is to really nail your keywords. After improving our app title and keywords, in one app update alone, we saw downloads increase by 125%.

##Are there any other aspects of App Store Optimization, besides keywords, that you have found most effective?

We experiment a lot with our screenshots on the App Store. Targeting the right keywords will get your app more visibility, but it's how your app looks in the App Store that will convert them to download. Since the majority of users won't even read your app's text description, we focus on the AppStore screenshots to really sell the experience and benefits of using our apps.

Outside of App Store Optimization, what are some other methods of promoting Omvana and Dormio that have been effective for you?

We strongly believe in getting organic traffic and keeping the percentage of active users as high as possible. Facebook ad campaigns work brilliantly well for us and for most app companies out there.

Though one must do aggressive A/B split testing and adapt rapidly. Ad-marketing platforms out there (most of them) won't match out the CPIs that one gets using FB but are vital in driving spikes and improving store ranking.

What do you have planned for the future of Mindvalley Mobile?

Focus in the near future is to consolidate market share, strengthen our backend content management system and launch 3 new apps before December 2013.

Finally, do you have any advice for companies who may not be currently mobile focused, but are looking to create their first app?

Become an app junkie - download everything. See what the popular apps are doing well, regardless of category. Lock yourself up and study every little thing they do well. Learn from them, but only add features to your own app you know your customers will love.

Thank you for taking the time to sit down and talk with us Kshitij and Grayson, we really appreciate it and wish you continued success. If people want to find out more about Mindvalley or check out your apps, where can they find you?

• Mindvalley Homepage: mindvalley.com

• Mindvalley Insights (tips and tutorials for entrepreneurs): mindvalleyinsights.com

• Omvana App: omvana.com

• Dormio App: dormio.com

Conclusion

We hope that this interview has given you some ideas on how to improve your app. Of particular interest are the points about Facebook advertising being a good lead generator and the fact that they do a lot of screenshot testing. Just like Tapps Games, Mindvalley Mobile solicits ideas from everyone in the company and remaining open to a wide variety of ideas can produce excellent results.

What is one thing you learned from this interview that you will start using immediately? Let them know in the comments below.