Today, I am incredibly excited to announce the launch of MobileGrowth.org – a place for all mobile professionals to ask questions and collaborate about all things mobile. From user acquisition, to engagement, to growth hacks that boost conversions, MobileGrowth.org is designed to solve your mobile problems as a developer or marketer.
This community is close to my heart, and it came from all our struggles as app developers. When we built the Kindred app three years ago, we had no idea how hard it would be to drive new users to our app. We thought we would build it and they would come. And they did for a while – we were fortunate to be featured by both Google and Apple and that drove a lot of traffic, but as those promotions ended we struggled to keep growing. Most of the ideas on growth came from friends who were going through the same struggles.
Like most things in life, Branch was born from a place of desperation. We decided to sell our app and instead solve all the problems we had as developers and app marketers by fixing broken mobile links that made it so hard to market and grow. Then there’s the knowledge gap that exists in the mobile market.
Our meetups started one late November night in 2014. We asked StartX, our home at the time to host it, and we got some awesome speakers and tried to promote it. At the time, there were only eight of us at Branch, so everyone came to our meetup and helped out. We called all the pizza places in Palo Alto to get the best deal, went to Safeway for beer and soda, all with the expectation that 10 people would show up. What happened that night was overwhelming – not only did 100+ people show up, but the reaction was incredibly positive. They told us they had been looking for a mobile growth focused meetup for a while and were grateful we started one.
After that, we looked at our events as a way to give back to the mobile community. We focused on bringing incredible speakers from companies like Pinterest, Airbnb, Dropbox, Quizup, LinkedIn, Jet, Uber and Soundcloud. We expanded outside the Bay Area to nearby places like LA or Seattle, and later, by finding passionate ambassadors in local communities that could run these events on their own. In just 18 months, we are proud of the community we have built: 15,000 attendees in over 51 Meetup Groups in 47 countries, including big hubs like London, Paris, Seoul, Moscow, Sao Paulo— and this is just the beginning.
As we traveled to these communities, we heard, and saw your strong need to connect with mobile professionals around the world. Apps evolve differently in different markets, and something that might work well in Spain might not work in the United States. To help bridge geographical and cultural divides, we have decided to start an online community to help our worldwide members connect and discuss mobile first issues in one central place. We hope this becomes your go-to place for mobile questions and discussion.
We didn’t gate it or make it invite only – we’ve opened it to anyone who is looking to learn and we will ensure that it stays free, just like our events . No question will seem too small to ask, and as we’ve done with our meetups, we pledge to find the best mobile professionals to help answer your questions. Thank you for helping us create this amazing community and for allowing Branch to be part of your mobile ecosystem.
Don’t miss our AMA next Thursday, June 2nd, with John Egan from Pinterest, a speaker at our first meetup! Click here to register.