Welcome to the first episode of Masters of MAX, where you’ll hear from Hasan Luongo, VP of Global Marketing at Chipper Cash. Chipper Cash is a financial technology company serving more than five million customers across the African continent. In this conversation, you’ll hear how much weight Hasan places on the user experience, and why Chipper has always been mobile only.
Welcome to the first episode of Masters of MAX, where you’ll hear from Hasan Luongo, VP of Global Marketing at Chipper Cash. Chipper Cash is a financial technology company serving more than five million customers across the African continent. Their app-only experience enables customers in five African countries, the U.S. and the U.K. to pay bills, make cross-border money transfers, and purchase cryptocurrencies.
Hasan is an entrepreneur 1st and foremost, then a Growth and Product leader, and last but never least, a User. And in his conversation with Tom Butta, you’ll hear how much weight he places on the user experience, and why Chipper has always been mobile only to support that notion.
Trust is everything when it comes to the finance space. And without conventional banking locations that customers are used to, it’s a tougher hurdle to climb over. Listen to find out how Hasan relies on transparency and marketing to support Chipper’s efforts in earning their users’ trust.
PS, don’t listen to this episode until after you’ve had your morning coffee, as we cover some of Hasan’s favorite blends and regions on the show as well.
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Guest Bio
Hasan is an entrepreneur, marketing, and product leader with extensive experience building and scaling high-growth technology companies, marketing, and growth teams.
He's a data-informed creative thinker. Hasan cut his teeth in digital marketing as co-founder/CEO of HoodiePeople, an e-commerce retail startup way back in 2006
Currently, Hasan leads Growth & Marketing as VP Global Marketing at Chipper Cash, a pan-African Fintech. Hasan joined Chipper at the pre-seed stage and the company is now at Series C, and valued at $1.25b, with more than 5 million users globally today.
Just prior to Chipper, Hasan lead Growth Marketing at Voicea, a B2B SaaS startup that was acquired by Cisco in 2018. Over the last 15 years, he's relentlessly focused on building high growth technology companies including Homejoy, YourMechanic, Fairy, Honey, and TuneUpMedia. These organizations have collectively raised over $800m, launched in 1000's of markets across the US, Africa, and EU, with multiple major exits.
Beyond work, Hasan loves coffee, admittedly more than working. If you’re interested in finding what he’s got brewing today, head over to his personal coffee blog here.
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Guest Quote
“Trust starts with reliability, right? And when things go wrong, you need to be transparent and get out in front of that as soon as possible. And things do break. That is the nature of the beast.” - Hasan Luongo
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Time Stamps
*(2:20) A bit about Hasan
*(4:53) Digging into Chipper Cash
*(6:56) A mobile-first product
*(9:15) Enabling fast movement
*(10:52) Building customer trust in finance
*(14:05) Retaining users and customers
*(18:10) Life after the download
*(23:15) What’s next for Chipper
*(26:12) Hasan’s advice for other leaders
*(27:39) Rapid fire questions
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Links
[00:00:00] Hasan Luongo: Building trust . As a new entrant is just absolutely paramount, right? And the way that we look at it is we aim to build transparency within the product. First and foremost, it's like, why are we collecting this information? What's the minimal amount of stuff that we need to know about you so that you.
[00:00:28] Hasan Luongo: Started in experiencing the product [00:00:30] and having that trust focused around transparency and communications from the product out, and then using other forms of media to kind of fill some of the gaps where your brand doesn't exist. Welcome to Masters of MAX, a mobile App Experience podcast. Please welcome your host, Tom Butta, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Airship.
[00:00:55] Tom Butta: Welcome to Masters of MAX. Today we have the great pleasure [00:01:00] of speaking with Hasan Luongo. Hasan is Vice President of Global Marketing for Chipper Cash, which is a fascinating company that we'll hear a lot about today. Little bit about Hasan. Hasan is an entrepreneur, marketing and product leader with extensive experience building and scaling high growth technology companies and marketing and growth.
[00:01:22] Tom Butta: What's really interesting is Hasan cut his teeth in digital marketing kind of back when it began as a Co-founder and CEO [00:01:30] of a very interesting name, name named company called Hoodie People, which is an E-commerce retail startup. Way back in in 2006. As I mentioned today, Hasan leads Global Growth and Marketing as VP of Global Marketing at Chipper Cash, which is a Pan-African FinTech.
[00:01:48] Tom Butta: We'll hear a little bit more about. In a little while, Hasan joined Chipper at the preseed stage of the company and today the company is, is in a Series C stage and it's valued over 2 [00:02:00] billion with 5 million users, which is fascinating. Another interesting tidbit about Hasan is beyond work, and it may be something he's even more passionate about.
[00:02:12] Tom Butta: Hasan loves coffee. So
[00:02:14] Hasan Luongo: Hasan, welcome. Thank you very much for the great intro. Really appreciate it. Nice to.
[00:02:19] Tom Butta: You're welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself in your
[00:02:22] Hasan Luongo: own. I mean, I think you covered some of the main things, right. But on the professional side, you know, I've really mostly worked for various [00:02:30] Silicon Valley tech-based startups, immediately proceeding Chipper.
[00:02:33] Hasan Luongo: I was at a company called Voia, which was like an AI meeting assistant startup that actually got acquired by Cisco and then worked in the consumer sort of e-comm world with Honey that was also recently acquired by. So some good experience on that side. And then over the last four years, really focused on learning and developing and growing Chipper on the continent of Africa, which would be my first like real big international focused startup, [00:03:00] global focused startup, and certainly focused on the continent in particular.
[00:03:03] Hasan Luongo: So it's been just a series of different, you know, really cool learning experiences across, across some great c. Sounds
[00:03:10] Tom Butta: like if I were to describe it in one word, sounds like you're a
[00:03:12] Hasan Luongo: builder. I like to think of myself as a builder. Definitely. That's a high compliment, so I
[00:03:17] Tom Butta: appreciate. Yeah, of course. Well, a builder that has, you know, people lined up to occupy the place that you've built.
[00:03:24] Tom Butta: And it sounds like you've had some great outcomes so far. So that's, that's fantastic. Congratulations. I tucked that [00:03:30] little tidbit in there that you shared with us about your love
[00:03:32] Hasan Luongo: of coffee. Yes, it's just generally a passion of mine. I mean, I like, uh, e every sort of stage of the coffee, you know, experience from sort of, you know, having the chance to visit some cool farms in Kenya and Uganda at different times.
[00:03:46] Hasan Luongo: And certainly looking forward to traveling a little bit more in South America and seeing some of the spots there all the way through to just, you know, liking to spend time in cafes and hanging out and, and drinking coffee. So generally, you know, a passion shared by many I. I'm
[00:03:59] Tom Butta: an [00:04:00] absolute, uh, fan of going to really cool cafes and every place I go I try to discover the ones that that are cool there.
[00:04:06] Tom Butta: There's just so many of them these days. It's, it's actually fantastic, isn't it?
[00:04:11] Hasan Luongo: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Actually, my favorite way of finding nice coffees right now is actually also a really awesome mobile messaging experience. So it's this company called Drops, and each week they text you with a new featured coffee and a roaster and a, and the story behind it.[00:04:30]
[00:04:30] Hasan Luongo: And then you just reply on the text message how many bags that you want, and then the, the coffee gets shipped to you directly from the roaster. So it's like, I love it for the cool coffee beans and all of that. And I love it as like a mobile messaging experience that really kind of stands out and, and, and is unique.
[00:04:47] Tom Butta: That's very cool. So mobile actually is involved in how you experience coffee. No, definitely. Yeah. Why don't we dig into Chipper Cash? Tell us in your words a little bit about Chipper Cash. Yeah,
[00:04:58] Hasan Luongo: so Chipper is about [00:05:00] four and a half years old at this point. Originally launched with one intra Africa.
[00:05:08] Hasan Luongo: Corridor for sending money between Uganda and Ghana, right. And quickly sort of scaled out to a couple neighboring East African countries. So that core use case is peer-to-peer payments, both cross-border and then local transfers within countries, right? As we've grown and scaled, we've added a sort of suite of financial [00:05:30] services that were either previously unavailable or unavailable in a way that, you know, working better, in a way that better serves the needs of our, of our customers across the continent in a global diaspora.
[00:05:41] Hasan Luongo: So, A couple good examples are the cards, products. You get an internationally accepted card that you can use on apps and subscription sites and streaming sites and so forth. You can do fract fractional stock investing in global companies like Amazon and Tesla and, and Microsoft for example. So you can, you know, with the [00:06:00] equivalent of a dollar, you can buy some stocks and start building, building a portfolio in that.
[00:06:04] Hasan Luongo: And so in that way we really look at it as, again, like when you open a Chipper account, you get access to all of these very high quality free or low cost financial services that represent sort of a more global view of kind of what's available and what's out there and what these services should cost, just kind of made available to the widest possible group.
[00:06:26] Hasan Luongo: And that's kind of the, the core focus of Chipper. Wow,
[00:06:29] Tom Butta: it [00:06:30] sounds like you're getting, you know, fuller and fuller in terms of the capabilities you provide your
[00:06:34] Hasan Luongo: customers. And going back to that, you know, like the original kind of part of it is really just also really expanding out the number of countries that you can send.
[00:06:42] Hasan Luongo: Making sure that countries are two ways, so it's not just money into the continent, but also money from the continent landing across various big global markets. Really kind of thinking of it from the continent out versus like just pure remittances.
[00:06:56] Tom Butta: Very cool. So, so Chipper Cash is an app only product, correct?
[00:06:59] Tom Butta: True, [00:07:00] yes. What were the factors in making that decision?
[00:07:04] Hasan Luongo: So Africa as a continent is mobile first, right? That's probably the biggest and most important distinction. Like if you're building for Southeast Asia and you're building for LA time, you're mostly building for mobile and you're mostly building for Android, uh, users there, right?
[00:07:18] Hasan Luongo: And. The challenge that lies there, right? Is that in a Western market, you could see that it's predominantly high-end smartphones with unlimited connectivity, right? And that's the norm across, across every [00:07:30] state in the US for example, right? But certainly not the norm across every country, across the continent, or even just rural versus urban in some, in some of those areas.
[00:07:39] Hasan Luongo: So definitely mobile first was the easy decision, but then there are challenges that come from that, whereas, you know, core infrastructure and the, just the availability of smartphones is still progressing. I
[00:07:51] Tom Butta: see. Is one of the factors in terms of satisfying your users and your customers in terms of their experiences, [00:08:00] one of the factors.
[00:08:02] Hasan Luongo: Yes. I mean speed at the core of money movement is the factor, right? It's like we look at it in the sense that when you're sending money, there is a need waiting on the other side for that money to land and, and something that needs to happen from that, whether it's paying school fees or. Investing in some real estate or whatever it might be.
[00:08:23] Hasan Luongo: Right? And so speed always is that, you know, just as the core product from the remittance side. But then [00:08:30] like that's one sense of, of the product delivering speed. The other is like, how quickly do we get you in and out to do the thing that you need to do to deposit the money onto the platform, send it off, make sure it lands either in the user's Chipper account directly to their mobile money wallet or into a bank account in.
[00:08:47] Hasan Luongo: And making that whole flow as fast as possible. So speed wins all around. So
[00:08:52] Tom Butta: CHIP or cash then is definitely one of those companies that, that lives what we often talk about, which is operate the
[00:08:58] Hasan Luongo: speed of mobile. [00:09:00] Absolutely. Right. And just make that thing lightweight. Right? Make that the speed of mobile, not be this massive application that struggles on a, you know, a 4G connection to get moving.
[00:09:10] Hasan Luongo: So the screens need to be fast as well, right? Not just the movement of money. Absolut. Are there specific, you know, features
[00:09:17] Tom Butta: or ingredients within that experience, that lightweight, fa, agile experience? Are there certain features that maybe stand out that enable people to move through it quickly? I mean, I know that [00:09:30] there's the transfer side of things, that's probably one thing, but then there's the, the, the user experience.
[00:09:35] Tom Butta: Can you talk about that
[00:09:36] Hasan Luongo: for. Yeah, it is currently just very nicely optimized. I mean, we're, you know, working hard to make that user experience better and, and have a lot of really cool stuff coming up along the app, core app experience, but, That simplicity is very key, but also that interoperability, right?
[00:09:55] Hasan Luongo: When you're in each market, the way that you [00:10:00] localize and make it effective is that it works with the existing infrastructure that sits below it. So in a country like Nigeria, your existing infrastructure is primarily bank accounts, right? So there needs to be an easy way. Add cash from a bank account, right?
[00:10:14] Hasan Luongo: Or a debit card. In that instance. For a country like Uganda, most East African markets are mobile money centric, meaning that, you know, you carry a balance on your wallet and digital transfers are already really the norm. And for there, you know, you just [00:10:30] have to make sure that you're. Connected in with the main money networks and you're actually offering this like advanced service of interoperability on top of that, right?
[00:10:38] Hasan Luongo: So you can send to mtn to Airtel just as easily and and for no fees when you're using Chipper. Whereas if you're on your phone and just doing it via mobile money, you'll incur some fees and it'll actually be much slower cuz it's cross network.
[00:10:52] Tom Butta: So therefore then how do you build trust with your customers?
[00:10:56] Tom Butta: The product that's digital only, that's doing a lot of things. Perhaps, [00:11:00] you know, you're. Many things, whereas others are perhaps doing just one thing. How do you build trust with, with, with your customers as a digital
[00:11:08] Hasan Luongo: only brand? Yeah. I mean, building . Trust as a new entrant, as a financial service company is just absolutely paramount, right?
[00:11:17] Hasan Luongo: And earning trust with consumers across. The major market and the continent is, is certainly not like an easy task, right? It's doubled up where if you can walk into a local bank and, and talk to [00:11:30] somebody about a pause transfer or a delayed transfer, that's a far more reassuring than, you know, maybe chatting with somebody over a messaging service, for example, right?
[00:11:39] Hasan Luongo: So I think the way that we look at it, right, is, is we aim to build transparency within the product. First and foremost, it's like, why are we collecting this information? What's the minimal amount of stuff that we need to know about you so that you can get started in experiencing the product and make the other.
[00:11:59] Hasan Luongo: [00:12:00] Further, like identity verification and other things we need to do really kind of come in secondary as you're reaching certain thresholds. Right? So giving good experience upfront is a quick and easy one. We actually really leverage outdoor media, billboards and, and, and sometimes in TV ads and things like that for.
[00:12:18] Hasan Luongo: For that particular reason where we are trying to establish and, and show the brand in the market. And we use a, you know, a wide variety of local and very famous [00:12:30] African influencers to also build trust within the market and tell those stories, you know, through the eyes of our customers in some of the great personalities and talent across the.
[00:12:39] Hasan Luongo: So it's like a full scale effort across marketing? Definitely across product. I mean, trust starts with reliability, right? And when things go wrong, you need to be transparent and get out in front of that as soon as possible, and things do break. That is the nature of the beast, for sure. So it covers so many different ways, but I [00:13:00] mean, I think like having that trust focus around transparency and communications from the product.
[00:13:05] Hasan Luongo: And then using other forms of media to kind of fill some of the gaps where your brand doesn't exist.
[00:13:12] Tom Butta: All of that sounds really smart. I, I absolutely love how you talk about the ethos, if you will, of the user experience. You talk about absolute relentless focus on transparency, which, which I'm sure has a lot to do with.
[00:13:25] Tom Butta: The fact that you're in, I, I wouldn't expect highly regulated industries across multiple [00:13:30] countries and borders. And that must be just challenging on and of itself to figure out how to make all of that work and therefore the need for data exchange. Right. And, and you know, if I ever take transparency to maybe another level, which it sounds like you very much practiced.
[00:13:47] Tom Butta: There's an integrity to the brand that's about honesty. And like you said, you know, you know, you said scalability, reliability is super important, but you know, stuff happens. Yeah. But when it does, you, you [00:14:00] don't wanna be left in the dark. You actually just need to know what's going on. And people make mistakes.
[00:14:05] Tom Butta: All right, so customer loyalty. How have you been able to maintain loyalty? You know, app downloads continue to be on the rise. Your last best experience is what's determining your next experience, or at least to the expectations, right, of the next experience. How have you been able to maintain customer loyalty?
[00:14:24] Hasan Luongo: I mean, this is the challenge, right? And, and, and the more digital you [00:14:30] get, right, the less loyal people seem to be. Right? Or just the less signal and and relationship you have built there to build upon, right? So it's a challenge for the industry at large. For sure. I think really understanding, it's like there's many different use cases for P2P financial services apps, certainly for just sending money peer to peer.
[00:14:55] Hasan Luongo: And part of our, you know, ability, I think, and certainly even over just [00:15:00] the way the strategy is shifting over the last 12 months, right? Is really just getting clear of like who those core customers and users are. What are the use cases that are really driving consistency and the customers are coming.
[00:15:18] Hasan Luongo: And focusing there. So, you know, part of it that we'd like to look at and segment our customers around, you know, these are depositors, these are folks that are adding value onto the platform, connecting a bank account or a mobile money account [00:15:30] and adding value into it. And then you have, you know, senders, spenders and traders, right?
[00:15:36] Hasan Luongo: And understanding those core needs and sort of keeping an eye on those primary cohorts are those numbers grow. And maybe even like not paying as much of attention to. Much larger sort of groups is just like finding who your core users are, digging in and spending time there to learn more [00:16:00] about them and tell those core stories, I think is a way or an approach where you can kind of say like, Let's right size this.
[00:16:08] Hasan Luongo: Let's get some focus around some core areas, because it can be very disenchanting if you're only looking at the high level, top of the funnel macro numbers and trying to pick a strategy or trying to pick something to focus on. Right.
[00:16:21] Tom Butta: I love the names actually. When you name something about. Behavior, I think it's actually easy to understand the depositors, the senders, and the traders.
[00:16:29] Tom Butta: So are you, are you [00:16:30] looking at their behavior? Is that how you're analyzing or do you also do
[00:16:35] Hasan Luongo: y Yeah, I mean it's, it's a, you know, it starts with like the, the first party data around, you know, these are the types of transactions, this is where money is moving, this is the average amounts, and the, you know, the various data that you get from the usage of the product.
[00:16:49] Hasan Luongo: And then taking that further and saying, okay, cool. This is like what our current users are doing now, so let's learn more about the use case behind that transaction. Right? Where's [00:17:00] the need that's being fulfilled by this getting done? And then dang cool, like that's our current user base now. But what are those needs that are out there in the market that.
[00:17:09] Hasan Luongo: You know, our product is, is either, you know, able to serve, but like customers don't think about it in that way or people are using the product for something that maybe isn't like the main use case in that sense. So definitely taking this, sometimes excluding your own users and asking some questions is a really.
[00:17:27] Hasan Luongo: Nice contrast in that core [00:17:30] focus, but we really sit most strongly with user data than going into talking to those users and learning about the why and trying to connect the dots there. Yeah. Yeah. It's about a 70 30 split, you know? Yeah. Do you ever do any in-app surveys? We do, absolutely. We used a great product, shout Out Spring, which is a partner of ours that does these really nice in-app surveys.
[00:17:51] Hasan Luongo: Yep.
[00:17:52] Tom Butta: So let's talk about another, you know, so there's loyalty, but then it's like one thing to get to loyalty. One of the [00:18:00] first places to start is actually to en engage, if you will, or. People who just downloaded your app. Yeah. And the statistics like across almost every industry, it's actually quite shocking.
[00:18:13] Tom Butta: If, if I may, um, you know, we spend all this money promoting, you know, promoting the app, download the app, all these ads, blah, blah, blah, and people download the app and they continue to do it. We do app store optimization to get people to find it. They download it. Less than [00:18:30] 10% of people who download an app, cuz already they've taken a, a behavior to download.
[00:18:34] Tom Butta: Right? Less than 10% of those people on average remain as a customer after just a few days and it just keeps dropping off after that. Like we call it the chasm of no return. Right. So, so what are you doing like in an, with an onboarding experience or so. So once somebody downloads, what's that experience like?
[00:18:55] Tom Butta: So you can kind of hook them and show them value, if you will. What do you do? [00:19:00] Yeah.
[00:19:00] Hasan Luongo: I mean, so challenging and I think such an important topic for where we are now in the. Economic cycle and what a lot of marketing teams are facing today with smaller budgets going out and this like absolute need to focus in on your best customers and really growing with with what you have.
[00:19:23] Hasan Luongo: Right? So I think perfect topic for the times. I think the biggest thing is always really focused on this kind of [00:19:30] drive to first transaction, right? And making that simple and having a variety of offers to engage in a couple of our products right up front, right? What we see is we see two kind of segments, right?
[00:19:42] Hasan Luongo: You have this very high intent, mostly organic segment that is coming in and discovering. You know, and there's some, there was some preceding need to it. So those, those users really drive to a use case very quickly and, and it's like in that sense, when [00:20:00] people are moving through quickly in that first couple of sessions, you just get out of the way.
[00:20:04] Hasan Luongo: Right? You're not trying to. Drive them into this product and drive them into that. But the vast majority, right, that 90% that you were saying, you know, they need the coaching at some reasons why, to kind of find like, what is this? What's in it for me? Um, one of the big shifts I think is how we're spending acquisition, right?
[00:20:22] Hasan Luongo: Like that focus can either be on the install, right, of getting somebody who doesn't have Chipper to go out and, and download it and [00:20:30] register right? And do that. Or you can also focus that ad spend more on that group that has over the last three to six months, had some experience with Chipper, downloaded it, maybe did one or two transactions but didn't stick right.
[00:20:43] Hasan Luongo: And so I think that just with a less spend and, and, and more and sort of more need upfront to kind of connect those dots and leverage a lot of the acquisition and, and, and brand exposure that we have been earning out over the last [00:21:00] couple of. That's a big focus for us as a team, really making that experience so that it's the same offer that you see when you download the app and then it comes through the onboarding message, and then you might see the same offer on Facebook or Google or something like that, and it drives you back into that experience within that first condensed period of time to try to kind of really do whatever we can to make that happen across that
[00:21:23] Tom Butta: Chas.
[00:21:24] Tom Butta: That's really smart. You're clearly very good at your job. I love some of the naming and the way you've captured the [00:21:30] thing that you're doing. I love this idea of drive to first, it's a simple idea, right? Which is how do we get them to do something quickly? Yeah, right. What's the first thing right? That starts, the usage maybe starts to build a little bit of a habit.
[00:21:42] Tom Butta: And I, and I also love this source, so for people who know what they want, like let's just get out of the way. Yeah. You know, let's make it as easy as possible. But then there's a whole lot of other people perhaps where this is new. And I, and I love the idea of like pro, you know, showing them the way, guiding them.
[00:21:57] Tom Butta: That's a big word I like to use, you [00:22:00] know, guidance, be the guide. And you talked about coaching. I mean, you know, they're all part, that's all part of it. Yeah,
[00:22:06] Hasan Luongo: there's a lot of user education and the thing about the user education challenge that I think is unique for Chipper is that, you know, the level of financial.
[00:22:16] Hasan Luongo: Savviness and education and understanding of FX rates and different cash out rates and the complexities of these various markets. Like you have a user base that probably you just need to show the right value [00:22:30] propositions and it's really understanding what those are and like what's important to that user.
[00:22:34] Hasan Luongo: Right? Cuz at some, some users are just like there and they're here to check your rates and they've got four other apps. And the one that's giving the best one, like that's where the money moves. Right? And that's a, that's a user segment. And then you have like the segments that are really like more hesitant sending for the first time potentially using an app when oftentimes that experience previously was like a hand to hand cash [00:23:00] transaction, right.
[00:23:01] Hasan Luongo: That is a huge leap of trust. And so the range and the scope of those different, you know, user segments as they're entering into Chipper, I think is really broad and, and certainly presents a big challenge. Right. Yeah.
[00:23:14] Tom Butta: Fascinating. All right, uh, the last question about Chipper is really like, what, what's next?
[00:23:20] Hasan Luongo: I mean, the scope of the markets that we're in today is vast, right? And what our focus is like is [00:23:30] not just rapid sort of vertical expansion to have major Chipper markets across every country. What we're really focused now is just to serve as. Different use cases as possible. So one, one thing we're really excited about is a new feature that you can decide if you wanna deliver the money, direct the account.
[00:23:50] Hasan Luongo: You can kind of pick that final destination versus like it has to land in the user Chipper account and then they can cash it out how however they want to. So you can direct the source of fund. This is huge [00:24:00] for the diaspora markets as well, just to make that experience a little bit better. Why is Chipper the best place to receive money?
[00:24:06] Hasan Luongo: International. And then it's to really expand out that use case, you know, the value proposition of what having a Chipper wallet is and getting really clear and just really delivering that core, send trade and spend use cases and, and, and, and helping people understand the value propositions like throughout there.
[00:24:24] Hasan Luongo: So, It's less about big new products, right? It's more about just going [00:24:30] deeper into those markets, deeper into those core use cases so that more folks are getting value out of Chipper. Really, that's it's very core for the 12 month view specifically. Great. So you've, you,
[00:24:41] Tom Butta: you've had all this experience, you know, you've had this experience in Silicon Valley, you know, kind of classic technology background, and now you're working in a continent, Africa, that you have said in, you know, when you did your presentation at, at the Airship customer event, elevate, you said Africa is the future.
[00:24:57] Tom Butta: Can you, can you just
[00:24:58] Hasan Luongo: maybe give some meaning to [00:25:00] that? Yeah, I. It's really true. And, and, and I, and I even say, you know, Africa's the future today. Right? And so the growth that is happening across the continent is staggering. Right? And that in Nigeria, for example, will surpass the United States as the third most populous country in the world in, in like 10 years, right?
[00:25:25] Hasan Luongo: The rate of population growth and development and economic development that's [00:25:30] happening there is really. But it's also happening now, right? So these shifts are happening, like as we speak, and each year, you know, there's more opportunity and there's more need there, right? So I think sometimes, you know, the future can feel very far away, right?
[00:25:44] Hasan Luongo: And like many things that are facing us, you know, as a. Global humanity, there's a certain urgency to the next 10, 20, 50 years that I think hasn't been there forever. Right? And so I just, I think that urgency is also very much on the [00:26:00] continent as well. And there's just such a huge opportunity to kind of really level up and unlock some really amazing opportunities for a very large, traditionally underserved population.
[00:26:11] Tom Butta: Yeah, fascinating. What would be the, your top or the, you know, the number one piece of advice that you would give other, other, or other leaders of, of companies that have mobile apps?
[00:26:22] Hasan Luongo: I've been thinking about this a lot because it's like, it, to me, it's just, there's so much magic possibilities that you can do with [00:26:30] technology and data when you're really like thinking.
[00:26:33] Hasan Luongo: Specifically about those flows and those use cases. So really it's like the classic never dies, right? It's like, don't make me think or decide things. Just like get me to that experience fast, right? I have s you know, like every time I have to think through and make a decision, it's just like one more chance for me to give up and be like, yo, I've got 30 other things competing for my attention right now.
[00:26:58] Hasan Luongo: That's been my, you know, that's been my main thing as [00:27:00] we've been going through a lot of optimization and, and, and things is like how much cognitive load are replacing onto the user to make these decisions and figure these things out when we know the end case that they're going for and like, how can we remove that and get 'em to that point as fast as possible?
[00:27:17] Tom Butta: That's great. There's an expression in Japanese, I think it's called Barracuda. Um, and it's, it's effectively the removal of, of waste. And that's exactly what you're talking about. You're just basically, yeah. [00:27:30] As you said before, just get out of the way. Like just make this as simple and as, as seamless and as intuitive as possible.
[00:27:38] Tom Butta: Right. Yeah. Don't make it complicated. So we're gonna move into the rapid fire questions. This will just take us a minute or two. You ready? Yeah. Dark roast, medium roast or light
[00:27:48] Hasan Luongo: roast. It depends, but mostly medium to light. Right.
[00:27:53] Tom Butta: Okay. How many cups of coffee
[00:27:54] Hasan Luongo: a day try to go for three? That's, that's, that's pretty, that's pretty solid.
[00:27:58] Hasan Luongo: Uh, four is a little [00:28:00] jittery, and two, it kind of doesn't cut it sometimes. Is there a cutoff time for your last cup? I mean, ideally like two, three o'clock, right? Other, otherwise it's not, it's no good. Okay. Okay.
[00:28:11] Tom Butta: Favorite
[00:28:11] Hasan Luongo: vacation? Favorite vacation spot? Let's see. I think most recently, um, uh, I'm gonna cheat a little bit here.
[00:28:19] Hasan Luongo: I spend a lot of time in Cape Town, South Africa. The more exploring that I get to do, like just outside of the sort of, there's, there's core sort of the Western Cape region and. Between the [00:28:30] mountains and the, and the sort of kelp forests and the various different sort of geographical landscapes that you can encounter that I've been, I've been really enjoying that.
[00:28:39] Hasan Luongo: So just kind of spending time on those, like weekend trips outside in the Western Cape is, is really fun.
[00:28:45] Tom Butta: Wow. Fantastic need. I need you to look into that. Okay. Android or iPhone?
[00:28:49] Hasan Luongo: Um, iPhone. And I wish I had more choices. And what app can't you live without? You know, like I think it really comes down to like WhatsApp, right?
[00:28:57] Hasan Luongo: And WhatsApp on a couple of different, WhatsApp is just [00:29:00] core infrastructure for the rest of the world and on, on those coms things. And so a big fan of. You know, there's a couple magazines that like did that did do their distribution on WhatsApp and sort of those kind of mobile experiences are there.
[00:29:13] Hasan Luongo: But I think if at the end of the day, like that's the most core one.
[00:29:16] Tom Butta: And what's really intriguing you right now, and it could be a new app, it could be a new feature, it could be a new trend. What's, what's intriguing you?
[00:29:25] Hasan Luongo: It's mobile web, right? I mean, I just think that the app world is [00:29:30] struggles based on a very two controlled sort of like entities managing the whole ecosystem.
[00:29:37] Hasan Luongo: And mobile web remains that like free space where you can just publish and do things. The speed and efficiency of delivering code and, and, and shipping things on web is incredibly faster, right? So things that are like mobile that are outside of an app, uh, you know, ironically are, are, are, are really what's fascinating to me right now.
[00:29:57] Hasan Luongo: Very cool.
[00:29:58] Tom Butta: Well, Hasan, I really enjoyed it [00:30:00] and you've got great, great stories here. Thank you so much for being with us today,
[00:30:04] Hasan Luongo: Tom, thank you.
[00:30:08] Hasan Luongo: Thank you for listening to Masters of MAX, a mobile app experience podcast, brought to you by the team at Airship. Find out more about how you can help your brand deliver better, more personalized app experiences@Airship.com. If you enjoy today's episode, please take a moment to subscribe and rate the show.[00:30:30]