It’s estimated that $143 billion dollars will be spent on apps this year. Trends range from mobile e-commerce, utility apps and new and improved social apps. Even if you’re not a coder or have an engineering background, you can still create a successful app. But how do you rise above the noise and the clutter and how has the economy shaped the demand? 

Joining Randi to discuss this were Scott Darling, co-founder of Sniffr, the Tinder for dog owners; Suzanne Felson, founder of Reso, an app to book local activities for your kids; and Melody McCloskey, CEO of StyleSeat, the app where you can book beauty and wellness services online.

Here’s their thoughts:

Scott from Sniffr

“People view dog owners in a kinder light. You’ve proved you’re a little less selfish than the rest of the dating world.”

“A guy met up with his ex-girlfriend on Sniffr.”

“We’re such a visual app. We have an abundance of cute dog photos.”

“A lot of people are vying for this little space in this big world. We were doing our beta from a few Instagram posts. With only 1500 photos we became global instantly.”

Fave Apps: “My Starbucks app because I love to collect those stars.”

“Hype Machine, I’m a big music person but I don’t have a lot of time to discover new music and LaterGram to schedule posts.”

“My favorite dog breed right now would be a Frenchie.”

Suzanne from Reso

“You’re creating experiences to add value to your children’s lives.”

“ Art classes, soccer, sports, academic, and music. Pretty much every activity kids can enjoy. Even small kids’ cooking schools.”

“Perfect for the mom who wants to book at night and only wants to enter credit card info and their kids allergies once.”

“This is a marketing channel and opportunity for businesses. One single platform for them to book and be paid.”

“Moms are the strongest advocate and they love to share really good things with other moms.”

“Chief Connector Moms connects other moms to Reso and shares their experiences.”

“Co-branding moments are thriving right now.”

Fave app: “Common Sense Media is my go-to for understanding what kind of media content I want my kids to watch.”

“Munchery is for us to eat, what else can I say?”

“I move pieces of furniture with Uber.”

Fave dog breed: “My kids are all about the Labradoodle.”

Melody of StyleSeat

“I was interested in the beauty industry because I felt that it was off the radar in Silicon Valley where it’s mostly men.”

“I realized that beauty was a space no one was paying attention to.”

“The average woman books 55 appointments with 13 different people throughout the year.”

“I wanted a place where consumers could use a service to find a hair stylist available in their neighborhood on a Friday night.”

“Stylists don’t really have a way to grow their own business. I wanted to give them a mobile app so they could grow themselves.”

“There are a lot of stylists out there who are entrepreneurs but don’t have the tools to grow their own business.”

“We got a lot of doors slammed in our face. Investors said it wasn’t a burning challenge for them.”

“We knew when we walked in a room if there were two bald guys were weren’t getting the money.”

“They can turn down an idea but they can’t turn down numbers and traction.”

“We ended up raising money from Uber as our first investor.”

“A lot of the investors were like, ‘we don’t get it, but you’re crazy and I know you’ll die with this idea’ so they wrote a check.”

“It’s really hard to raise the first couple hundred thousand dollars. Once you get traction it becomes a lot easier.”

“The core of who were are and what we do has remained the same since the beginning. One thing that changed was mobile. We were web first.”

“After building a mobile app for our stylists we found we were so much more accessible.”

“People want simplicity so that’s what we have to give them.”

“I wish I would have focused on mobile sooner.”

“Men do use StyleSeat, they’re about 25% of our customers. Barbers are some of our highest frequency customers.”

“Nail art is starting to be very popular.”

“San Francisco women spend just as much as New York women.”

“About 25% of stylists that sign up don’t appear in the directory because they don’t reach the quality standards we have.”

“We focus on promotion. How busy a stylist is, how much activity they have on their site, and we have an editorial rating.”

“We have 300,000 stylists today.”

“I ended up getting a job in products. You’re helping and supporting engineers build products and watching the coding they’re doing.”

“I think you should know as much as you can about the engineering process. Read as many books as you can, talk to engineers, ask how things are built. Get walked through the process.”

“Have a tech co-founder or someone who knows about tech to give you the honest answers.”

“Our community has been a huge voice for us. We give them hashtags, graphics, and newsletters to send out to their own community.”

“The most important thing is to find an advisor. Mine was Travis at Uber. We’d sit down three times a week.”

“A lot of women think they can do it on their own. Get support and get advice. You’ll be able to do it so much faster.”

“Women in Silicon Valley need to be able to support one another and ask for advice.”

Make sure to join “Dot Complicated with Randi Zuckerberg on SiriusXM” next week as she sits down with Founder of Buzzcar and Zipcar, Robin Chase. Only on SiriusXM channel 111 at 12pm ET/9am PT.

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