What it takes to build a succesful couple app, Between talks about their achivements and challenges faced

If you think your relationship is tough, Between’s creators get it. Their recent funding will allow them to better apply their findings into making Between a better couple app.

Following VCNC’s latest announcement on their KRW3 billion funding (around US$3 million) for couple app Between, I wanted to find out more about what it takes to create an app that helps to enhance couples’ relationships. Edward Lee, Value Innovator at VCNC, shared more insights into VCNC’s plans for the future.

According to Edward, Between saw 900,000 active user in December 2012. Of the 2.35 million downloads so far, 70 percent of them are from South Korea, with 10 percent coming from Japan, about 5 percent from North America and another 2 percent from Europe. As Japan ranks as Between’s second largest market, the VCNC is looking to open a Japanese office in Tokyo in February. According to Edward, “The office in Japan is for business development and marketing in Japan. We have been developing many relationships with companies in Japan. However, we think we should become more serious and boost our presence in Japan.”

Since the launch of their app, the VCNC team has tested monetization models such as event boxes, gift suggestions for couples and a sticker store for in-app purchases. The gifts suggestion ran during the last Christmas period and saw it selling out within a day. Edward reflects on the success, saying “We are planning to run another campaign, but will not rush it. We want to understand what our users want and will be operating more tests for this purpose.”

With Between recently crossing its two million downloads milestone, the fact still remains that their users are highly localised in South Korea alone. By targeting the Japan market, the VCNC team is looking to grow that user base. Talking to Edward about his global outlook, he highlights the Japanese market, saying “We specifically can mention Japan, however for other countries, I can only tell that we are looking at Southeast Asia very closely and many users are loving us. I think we will figure out what country to penetrate as we make progress in Japan.” Is Southeast Asia ready for couple apps? Singapore-based couple app LoveByte thinks so and has already raised its seed round to continue exploring the region.

Talking about the challenges that Between is facing in reaching out to couples around the world, Edward commented, “It was difficult to reach out, because we don’t know much about the local dating or relationship pattern in other countries. Couples are universal. However, we find that there are some differences among countries. So, we are doing our best to find what are universal and what are different. The new funding will give us room to focus more on our product so that we can apply our findings into our product and promotions and actually enhance couples’ relationships.”

So with a new round of funding, over two years of experience observing what couples need as an online complement to their offline relationship, what next? “We wish to reach 10 million downloads by this year or early next year. I think to reach this goal, we’ll have to take ourselves to the next level in several countries. And the start will be Japan,” says Edward.

Image Credits: 4ever

The post What it takes to build a succesful couple app, Between talks about their achivements and challenges faced appeared first on e27.

Link to full article

Posted in: