In today’s episode, host Tom Butta interviews Jonathan Kay, the Founder & CEO of Apptopia, in a discussion that covers past and current trends in the app market, the changing landscape of app usage, and how we are shifting towards better integrated design and functionality.
In today’s episode, host Tom Butta interviews Jonathan Kay, the Founder & CEO of Apptopia, in a discussion that covers past and current trends in the app market, the changing landscape of app usage, and how we are shifting towards better integrated design and functionality. Apptopia is a web-based market data and intelligence solution for mobile application developers which was founded back in 2011.
Tom and Jonathan also explore the concept of mega apps, where brands consolidate multiple apps into one platform. While this approach allows brands to provide a more streamlined and convenient user experience, there are also times when it might be impossible to serve each of your unique customer profiles within one singular app.
The interview further delves into how the economy impacts the mobile space, with Jonathan highlighting the trends observed in the travel, entertainment, and retail sectors. The results might be surprising as some key players have actually increased their usage and revenues during times of limited spending. Jonathan emphasizes the importance of brand loyalty and quality in a market driven by price-conscious consumers.
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Guest Bio
Jonathan Kay is the Co-Founder and CEO of Apptopia, the app data insights and intelligence company, with clients including Google, Zoom, Visa and NBC. A mobile pioneer, Kay entered the market in 2011 to add transparency to the mobile ecosystem through modeled data estimates, and level the playing field.
Starting Apptopia before there were even 100,000 different apps out in the market, Jonathan quickly saw that the best way for someone to differentiate themselves from the noise was through data. Apptopia’s most recent funding round came in 2021 when they secured their $20M Series C led by ABS Capital Partners.
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Guest Quote
“People now have more control over their data, and I think you're gonna see it get even more personalized because at the end of the day, it's just better for you. And I think once people just get more comfortable with it through repetitive, redundant education, they'll realize that more often than not, it provides you with a better experience.” - Jonathan Kay
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Time Stamps
*(01:11) Jonathan and Apptopia's background
*(03:39) How the App landscape has changed since 2011
*(04:45) What data signals you should be watching out for
*(08:05) Deep dive on how data is gathered and analyzed
*(10:38) One App to rule them all? Mega-Apps vs. Separation
*(14:26) The expansion of social media applications
*(16:09) Data privacy trends
*(20:40) Ways the economy impacts mobile usage
*(27:54) Rapid Fire Questions
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Links
[00:00:00] Jonathan Kay: The trend I see is that there are less apps and more usage and the more usage is driven by the phone and the apps being more integrated into your life. And so it becomes easier to do things with your phone than without your phone, which is why usage is increasing. It's no longer just non tech people becoming tech people.
It's the apps are getting better and I do think you're going to see less apps in the market, but hopefully with much more integrated functionality.
[00:00:34] Voiceover: Welcome to Masters of Max, a mobile app experience podcast. Please welcome your host, Tom Buda, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Airship.
[00:00:46] Tom Butta: Welcome to the latest episode of Masters of Max. Today, I really am honored and pleased to have our guest, Jonathan Kay, who I would say is one of those really cool people in the space that I'm really glad to know and call a friend. So Jonathan, welcome to the show.
[00:01:03] Jonathan Kay: Tom, thanks for having me. I loved seeing the invite and, uh, always look for a good excuse to talk shop with you, so this should be fun.
[00:01:11] Tom Butta: What's interesting about your experience, Jonathan, is it actually provides a different perspective than many of the guests that we have. A lot of the guests that we have are, I would call them practitioners, or more like leaders, you know, they work on the brand side, typically for a company that, you know, thinks of their mobile app.
Customer is one of, if not the most important customer set they have. But you represent a different perspective and provide value to those brands. Tell us a little bit more about, about Apptopia. For
[00:01:41] Jonathan Kay: sure. Apptopia is a leader in the third party intelligence space. And so we provide brands competitive intelligence.
We provide early leading indicating signals to hedge funds that are trading on public companies. But we're providing estimates. We're providing performance estimates and user level segmentation on every mobile app.
[00:02:06] Tom Butta: So you got started in this pretty early. Pretty early in your career, actually, but also pretty early in the mobile space.
Tell us about the beginnings and the insight that led to
[00:02:17] Jonathan Kay: this. Yeah, when we started the company, we were essentially doing a different business model. We were essentially a marketplace to broker. mobile app acquisitions. And we started the company around the time where Apple and Google started to limit app submissions.
So at some point, I don't know if you remember, but like 12 years ago, they were like, Hey, no more calculators, like no more flashlights, no more fart apps. And like, that was just an indicator to me that there was like a supply and demand problem like there, and that like, I'm sitting here thinking, Hey.
Energizer doesn't have one of the 33, 000 flashlight apps and now they can't build one. They're going to have to buy one. And so we thought about solving the, like, saturation problem and noise problem through, like, an acquisitions marketplace. And, you know, as the story has kind of unfolded, we learned that actually the best way to kind of work through all the noise and the muck was through insights and data.
And it simply just took us a couple of years. With different business models to realize that that was where the key was going to be.
[00:03:23] Tom Butta: Yeah, but still, you know, it was relatively early. I mean, you started the business in what,
[00:03:29] Jonathan Kay: 2011? Yeah. I think there was like, uh, like sub a hundred thousand apps at the point that we started the business, which is a milestone in and of itself, you know?
[00:03:39] Tom Butta: And so, so what's transpired since, uh, since you made that pivot into data?
[00:03:43] Jonathan Kay: Uh, essentially you have a lot of competition, right? And you have a lot of people trying to do the same thing. And you know, I don't know that like McDonald's and Wendy's and Chick fil A would all say that they're trying to do the same thing.
They all have their own brand messaging, of course, but they are, they're trying to feed someone who's hungry. They're trying to grab your attention at the exact right moment in time. And how the market has evolved is you can't really just pay out of these problems. Like the person with the most money isn't always the person who wins.
Um, and I think there was like, uh, I don't know, maybe 2014 to 2018 where money won and then the marketplaces evolved and tax became more important and enter data, right?
[00:04:29] Tom Butta: Right. Yeah. I think money can win for a short period of time, right? The question is how sustainable is it? Correct. Because then you need the fundamentals behind it in order to have a sustainable business.
So what, what would you say some of the key ways brands are using your data? You talked about signals, what, what kind of signals matter when it comes to understanding the performance of, of an app and the app customer?
[00:04:54] Jonathan Kay: Yeah. So how we think about it is there are like events that are happening and things that drove those events.
Put simply, it's like a what and a why. And so an example would be, Hey, American Airlines, uh, increased the amount of new users they were acquiring 15 percent month over month. That's a what. The why would be their organic rank for their competitive keyword, Delta Airlines. Uh, they went from being the 10th ranked app to the 3rd ranked app on a competitive keyword and like that why now has an association to the what.
And so essentially how we help brands in maybe a less tactical way is, uh, we're helping them benchmark their own performance. Like, it's very easy to get lost in first party data, but without a benchmark of what's happening around you, it's hard to know whether you're actually doing well or not. Because during COVID, you know, growing digital sales 200 percent could be the worst, like, industry worst.
And so you need context. And then the really smart brands, what they do, Tom, is... They're focusing on those whys, right, and they're trying to look at, like, what impacted that performance, right, and they're trying to learn from other people's mistakes and just take better initial swings, right, like increase their, their hit rate by learning from the things that people did well and the things that, uh, their competitors failed on.
Do
[00:06:19] Tom Butta: you see any kind of a timeline in terms of you providing data and insights and them acting on it in a way that is perhaps based on what you would recommend, and then them seeing results? Is it immediate? Does it take time? Does, I mean, it probably depends, but is there some, can you make a generalized statement, like?
Yeah,
[00:06:41] Jonathan Kay: I would say, um, And like, it may not be the most self promotional statement in the world, but like, I think data takes time to have an impact. There are definitely examples that you would find in case studies on our website that say that it happened very quickly, but it is a lifestyle decision, Tom.
Like we talked to some brands that say, Hey, we talked to our customers. We know what and where we need to build. And like, you probably get a B. You talk to your customers. Someone didn't and they're going to get a C. But the person who got an A talked to their customers and also saw what people did with their actions and their money and their time versus just what they said.
And it's a combination of these things that starts to make you better over the long haul. I know you guys do a lot of work in the QSR space, but if you look at McDonald's and Starbucks, like They're leaps and bounds above their competitors because they've taken a different approach to the DNA of the company.
Even the people that they staff on their team are more analytical. And so I, I do think there is a way to fast follow here, but I would say it's a, it's a shift, man. It's a cultural shift, making data a part of your decision making
[00:07:48] Tom Butta: process. Yeah, well, I think anyone who doesn't is, is going to be left behind because, you know, input in is the only way that you're going to get the output that you want.
But, but as you point out, asking, trying to uncover the why is going to help you, help you drive what you want to see happen. All right, so based on the data that you're gathering, maybe you could just tell us a little bit about the amount of data, how you gather data, what kind of data. Um, a little bit more specifically than just sort of the broad notion of signals, because then we might get into what you're seeing,
[00:08:22] Jonathan Kay: right?
Yeah, so our, we kind of have like two products today, Tom. First is we provide download, revenue, and usage estimates for every app in the world. And second product we offer is a, uh, like a user segmentation offering, where for a handful of companies and tickers, we actually go deeper into the user level.
And so what that means is we could analyze how time spent in Instagram is performing amongst young users versus old users. Versus, uh, people of different genders, et cetera. And so we have like a deeper insights product for people that are either trading on the stock market or are more sophisticated with their first party
[00:09:05] Tom Butta: data.
So are you seeing any broad trends over time? I mean, are app downloads continuing to, you know, more and more apps? You, you talked about before there was gonna place a limit on them, but. You know, I expect that's not the case today. Are there more and more apps or app downloads growing? Is app usage growing?
You know, are there some general statements you can make? Yeah.
[00:09:29] Jonathan Kay: I would say app usage is growing for a lot of reasons that are like more than just the obvious ones, which is like we, we bought a new TV recently and I actually use my phone to set up. All of the streaming services on my Amazon Fire. Like, my phone helped me set up my TV.
Me and my wife are pretty experimental. And so, we saw an ad recently for like a, like a Domino's. Domino's is now advertising their integration with CarPlay. And so, you can now order a pizza from your car with one click. And we tested this, by the way, and, and it, it works, not because we wanted to eat the Domino's pizza, but because we respected the technology.
And so it's, it's my long winded way of saying the trend I see is that there are less apps and more usage. And the more usage is driven by the phone and the apps being more integrated into your life. And so it becomes easier to do things. With your phone than without your phone, which is why usage is increasing.
It's no longer just like non tech people becoming tech people. It's the apps are getting better, but I do think we're seeing like the rise of some like mega apps, like what you see with Uber, Uber launched Uber and Uber eats and. They're kind of heading toward just Uber and in Asia and APAC, you've seen some, some mega apps start to take over.
And so I am hoping, and I do think you're going to see less apps in the market, but hopefully with much more integrated functionality.
[00:11:01] Tom Butta: I think Uber is a great example, but you know, there are other companies like, I don't know, you know, Nike as an example that have multiple apps, right? They have Nike training club and they have Nike sneakers and they have Nike running and on and on.
Do you see a brand like a Nike trying to consolidate into a mega app?
[00:11:21] Jonathan Kay: Yeah, I find Nike to be a fascinating example, and I have to make a disclaimer that like, I am not a runner. And so these opinions come from a data perspective, not a Nike consumer perspective, but essentially I would imagine the persona of runners.
is very different than the persona of someone who buys like Air Jordans. Um, and so arguably... i. e. a
[00:11:44] Tom Butta: shoe collector or a sneakerhead or whatever you want to call such a person.
[00:11:49] Jonathan Kay: Exactly, right? And so like, what they've done is they've built, they have two tribes and they've built a community for each of their tribes.
And so like, That intuitively passes my sniff test. Uber is essentially saying...
[00:12:02] Tom Butta: Of why it makes sense to have
[00:12:04] Jonathan Kay: two apps, yeah. Because, like, I don't think the runners are gonna get along with the sneakerheads, as you said, right? And so, or, like, put differently, like, the ambiance of the bar that they would all gather at is different.
And so, like, create an environment that is inviting and contagious for that. That
[00:12:22] Tom Butta: tribe, right? What you're saying, what you're saying before you jump, uh, is that, like, the cohort of that, I like how you talked about community, the cohort of that community, the makeup of that community, it's aesthetics, right, it's ethos, it's interests, are probably very different.
And in that case, that makes sense to keep those separate. Now, you were just gonna jump to, you know, why in the case of Uber, maybe it makes sense not to do that.
[00:12:51] Jonathan Kay: Yeah, like I'm just saying, like, I can drive myself and go pick up my own food, and, like, my desire to do one of them probably means that I'm, like, less cost conscious and more Like, convenience conscious, right?
And so, like, both of those services, as well as, like, alcohol and grocery delivery, like, they're, it's a similar type of persona, like, someone who wants things done for them. It's not the perfectionist who needs the exact brand. You're not going to get it exactly when you want, right? And so, I find myself doing those activities in the same day, all the time.
Yeah, that's a case where separation is negative,
[00:13:27] Tom Butta: right? It's actually it's a service model, right? That's their business, right? The service they're providing is convenience, right? And that's the same in both in both cases. And ultimately, both are attempting to do something that you said earlier, and I'll use my words with this, which is that their apps simply help simplify life and or help life get a little bit better.
And if that means saving time, then that is a good way to have life. You know, become better. That's something that we, we talk about a lot, like better mobile apps make life better. I mean, they just do, which is why we have, I mean, this is why we have them. And boy, oh boy, we do know when they don't. And that's also interesting.
Like, you know, all the things that don't work, do you see this across other categories, this idea of a. of potentially of, of, of mega apps. Do you think it's something that, you know, that more brands need to
[00:14:24] Jonathan Kay: consider? Yeah. I mean, like I'll speak the word that shouldn't be spoken, which is, I think threads these days, but like the reality is, is that you're seeing meta do it with threats, right?
Like you read all these news articles and like all of the news articles were. A hundred million, 120 million, 150 million. I was waiting for someone just to say a billion, just because the news would print it and then all the news was, oh my God, it's down. It's down. It's really down. And it's like, oh my God, guys, like, are we this surface level, like the, the whole story should have been Instagram like, has built such a contagious, sticky environment that they can activate it at a fricking, like at a snap of a finger.
And it's because these other services. Call it Snapchat, call it Twitter, X, whatever it is you want to say, they are incestuous. There is not enough of a differentiation between them. And like, what I took away from that is that like, Meta is dangerous. And like, their ability to activate that audience that quickly is because they do have a community.
And that these other social networks are not, it's not the difference between like, running and sneakerheads, right? It's, it's kind of like, You know, tuna and salmon, right? Like they're pretty similar. And so the ability to activate is pretty high and, you know, they lost users, Tom, because their product isn't good yet, but they have enough money and motivation and smart people to make the product good.
And then they'll ring the bell again. And it may be a different story. Well,
[00:15:55] Tom Butta: they certainly created intrigue and interest and that was easy for them to do. Uh, off of an extraordinarily, uh, as you pointed, you know, contagious, infectious, highly scalable platform or platforms, actually. So, um, the other, I think, trend that we clearly see is privacy, data privacy, right?
Uh, the consumer's in control. The consumer has much more control over what they share, what they don't share, and it changes globally, right? So, what views do you have about any trends associated with data privacy? I
[00:16:30] Jonathan Kay: tend to think these things move like the stock market, which is kind of like it goes up and then it crashes and then it just like goes up again, right?
And what I mean by that is we did a test. Me and my business partner did a test where we reset our IDs on our phone and turned off all tracking and it sucked. We started to like, we had to see ads anyway, and we started to see stuff that was like. Less interesting, right? Like the funny thing about all of this is that people don't like feeling like something is stolen for them, or it's like happening and they don't know it.
And what's happening is that you and I are like unusually educated on consumer privacy, given our professions, the average person is not. And so all this stuff scares them. So they stay away. The reality is that what I think is happening is people were collecting data on you very passively without you knowing, and that was not good.
That was bad because it allowed nefariousness to happen. We saw about 18 months ago there was a pretty major shift to stop that from happening. As you said, people now have more control over their data and I think you're going to see it Get even more personalized because at the end of the day, it's just better for you.
Like, it's like you walk into a department store. I don't want to walk through the women's and kids section to get to the section. Like if I could skip that, I would. Right. And like digitally they're allowing that to happen. And I think once people just get more comfortable with it. Through like, repetitive, redundant education, they'll realize that more often than not it provides you with a better experience.
And someone will push the limit again, Tom, and then we'll have to do this again. But like, I think we're in the uptrend cycle actually at the moment for privacy. Yeah,
[00:18:16] Tom Butta: we just came out with a survey, the mobile consumer 2023 survey of about 11, 000 people across really the entire world. And it's extraordinary how much people are willing to share about themselves.
If that information is well, you know, acted upon, right? In other words, if it serves their interests, as you point out, if it serves their interests well, if it's meaningful, if it's respectful, and frankly, if they're getting rewarded in some way for acting on this, I shared this so you can potentially do this, make it more personal, make it more interesting for me, and therefore you're making my experience better, and if my experience is better and I'm, I'm becoming more of an active.
User and potentially an active customer, then you're also rewarding me for that. So it just, I'm willing to do even more. And, you know, it's not going the other way. So I think that people are willing because I think they actually understand it. And it's the same, really, across the board. It trends highest, of course, in the younger age groups, but it still trends positively, um, across all age groups.
But where it gets interesting is when, out of the gate, you know, you, you discover an app, you download an app, and then you're, you know, you're being onboarded, you're filling out your preferences, and then you're asked, you know, tell us your location data. Are you willing to share your location data? And it's like, why?
You know, so no, no, I'm not. But for a Lyft or an Uber, that makes sense. Right? There's context. If you're going to Home Depot, actually, I do want to know because now their whole app has the ability to tell you where the stuff is and which aisle and things like that. In other words, the respect is about helping to prove the value, but be really, really clear about that as opposed to just asking just as a tick box.
[00:20:11] Jonathan Kay: Yeah, and what you said that resonates a lot with me is that timing matters. Like, ask me for the location when I'm in Home Depot, right? Not when I download the Home Depot app just because it's the startup, right? A hundred percent. Um, yeah, timing is everything, man. It's actually a way to educate people.
You're educating people through an experience.
[00:20:32] Tom Butta: A hundred percent. Yeah, it's, it's, it's relationship building and it's relationship building sort of one on one. If you think about it, right? For sure. All right. All right. Let's talk about, you know, sort of, uh, the elephant in the room, which is the economy. So how have you seen, uh, the economy impact the kind of app landscape?
Yeah,
[00:20:51] Jonathan Kay: what we typically look, um, like we've actually long felt like through mobile, you could build like a new version, like a digital consumer spending index. And we typically look at like travel, entertainment. Retail, e commerce, like those kind of four as like immediate indicators into, uh, as you said, like economic health.
And I would say like over the last three to six months, the trend we've been seeing in travel and entertainment is that while it kind of broadly recovered in 21 and 22, we've actually started to see a lot of travel and entertainment go down. Like down to neutral and the biggest areas that we're seeing grow right now are like, kind of like low cost.
So we have something that's called like low cost carriers. So just like lower cost airlines. And typically we find that cruise lines are lower cost travel as well. And we're seeing those are the only segments that are growing really over the last three to six months in terms of travel when you look year over year.
So they may be growing in year, but if you compare 23 to 22, the only ones that are still up are low cost airlines and cruises.
[00:22:12] Tom Butta: So, so it's almost like the idea of budget airlines or budget... Courses or things that are reasonably priced to give me, you know, a service, those are trending up versus, I don't know, high end, you know, highly elite types of services.
Yeah.
[00:22:30] Jonathan Kay: Yeah. What I would say is that my comment is more meant to speak to like a segment of the economy. People who take cruises are a certain demographic of person. And, um, essentially what it's saying is certain demographics are still spending, but they're spending little amounts. The most interesting thing is like, you're seeing OTAs kind of getting hit.
You're seeing travel agencies get hit. And so there's like a middle tier of the, of like the travel economy that is. Is just foregoing travel or traveling at a much reduced rate at
[00:23:05] Tom Butta: the moment. And what about, and what about in retail? What are you seeing in retail?
[00:23:10] Jonathan Kay: Yeah, so what's interesting in retail is, like, broadly speaking, you have, like, e commerce is up almost like 120 percent year over year.
E commerce is pretty broad, and so we kind of broke into e commerce. And the two biggest players are essentially Amazon Shopping and, uh, Teemu. Timu, and I apologize if I'm pronouncing it wrong, is kind of this like low cost provider based in Asia that, uh, is kind of giving everyone a run for their money.
Like I would argue, nobody listening to this podcast has been on Instagram without seeing an ad, by the way, from, from them, they alone make up almost all of the e commerce growth. And so what's interesting is that I'm still spending. I'm just more open to buying the kids toy. From a company that I had may not have worked with before for 10 versus just going on Amazon and like just buying it really quickly for 25, right?
And so it's interesting, right? It's not stopping action, but it's, it's changing the path. Like I'm willing to incur more friction, i. e. a new company, a new buying experience in order to buy the same things, but at lower costs. Tom, if you go even further down the list, you see that like, actually, like, dollar stores are like one of the other main brands, subgroups within e commerce that are also growing.
And, um, I have young kids, so I spend a lot of time in dollar stores. The things actually aren't like dollars, but it's like the equivalent of a Target. You know what I mean? Or like a Walmart. And, uh, so we're seeing that people are spending, they're just being more careful where they're spending. Thank you.
Yeah,
[00:24:53] Tom Butta: yeah. Well, that makes a lot of sense. And what's interesting, the sort of commonality of, of the, the examples you've mentioned here is the notion of a marketplace and the, frankly, to branded items, it's both an opportunity as well as a threat, right? It's an opportunity for distribution, um, but it's a threat in that your customer base is completely and 100 percent controlled by the marketplace.
And that, I mean, I, I'm pretty sure that a lot of brands, um, you know, like a Nike, you know, built their own direct to consumer playbook because of that potential threat, which is definitely looking at it on a long term basis, um, because I think on a short term basis, the probability was that there would be, you know, some good healthy economics involved, but on a long term basis, they no longer had that direct to consumer, uh, you know, connection.
So I think marketplaces are still sort of super interesting and you're seeing it in different places, right? As you point out, different, different market sets, if you will, price points, whatever it might be.
[00:26:01] Jonathan Kay: Yeah, I think there's something else interesting that's also happening, which is... I think if you asked me three years ago or four years ago, I would have told you Amazon was the least expensive place for me to buy most of my items.
And I actually do not believe that is the case at all anymore. It is the most convenient place to buy all of my items. And that shift created like an opportunity. Like, regardless of whether it was Timur or some other one, like... It created an opportunity, right? And what resonated with me with what you said about Nike is that, um, it's direct to consumer, but it's also, like, brand loyalty.
Like, there are certain things where I think the quality matters, and certain brands, like Apple is a brand that's a perfect example of that, where, like, quality matters. It's not worth me saving a couple hundred dollars there. Right, right. Um, and I think, I hope that what will come from this is, You'll see the really big brands, like, step up to the plate a little bit and like, showcase the difference in the quality of their...
Of their products and start to find a little bit of balance here because I think it is shifting too aggressively to like find the lowest cost. And I'm hoping there's some middle ground between where we were and where we are now.
[00:27:15] Tom Butta: Sure. I mean, it's the quality of the product, but it's also the quality of the service and the service supporting that quality in the case of Apple.
I mean, clearly everybody you seem to talk to at Apple in a store, you know, online, I mean, they know a lot. And, well, it certainly feels like they know a lot more than you do, and can help guide you, right, forward, uh, whether they're, quote, geniuses or not, I mean, that's kind of a cool moniker, but anyway, we've covered a lot of ground here, and, um, what I'm hoping to do is, just as part of our closing, is just to hit you with some rapid fire questions, and I've added one that, that may be a little bit of a surprise, but I know for sure that you're going to have an answer to.
So, we're talking a lot about mobile phones, so Android or iPhone? iPhone. What's the one app you can't live without? Uh, the
[00:28:04] Jonathan Kay: Hatch app, which controls the four sound machines I have running in my house at varying times to keep my wife and kids all sleeping and happy at the same time. Oh my god. So
[00:28:16] Tom Butta: you have Foundational.
So you have like four soundtracks going at the same time? No,
[00:28:21] Jonathan Kay: it's all like white noise, but I have one in each kid's room, one in the bathroom in between the kid's room, and then one next to my wife so that she sleeps. But if they all sleep, Tom, it's worth any amount of money.
[00:28:33] Tom Butta: The white noise machine. Oh my God.
That's brilliant. White noise machines. Okay. All right. So I think we talked a little bit about this, but is there an app? feature or trend that you're really intrigued by?
[00:28:46] Jonathan Kay: CarPlay. Like I have maybe a hundred apps on my phone and maybe 12 of them have an integration with CarPlay, which is, you know, there's an Android and iOS version of that, but like I find myself spending a lot of time in my car.
Especially if you think about people shipped to the suburbs and commuting now, I would use more of my apps in my car if they were more
[00:29:07] Tom Butta: integrated. So, you know, I, I love the fact that you, you tried, I think you said Domino's, you know, it has this like, you know, integration with, with CarPlay. Um, just a very short story here.
I, years ago, uh, the beginning of my career, I had the opportunity to do some work for Pizza Hut and they were just, they were kind of, they were, they were original and then all of a sudden Domino's came out. And so they were trying to figure out a way that they could satisfy the demand in college dorms for pizza and become the preferred choice.
And I said, guys, you need to create the pizza phone. They're like, what's the pizza phone? I'm like, it's the phone in the hallway, and all you do is pick it up, and it rings your local, like, pizza hutshot, and you get delivery. So. Anyway, that's what it's, that's what it's like.
[00:29:56] Jonathan Kay: Enter that, like, your dorm room is GPS, your credit card is already added on file, you pick up the phone, you say the pizza, you hang up.
It's like, life is
[00:30:05] Tom Butta: good, you know? Life is good. Life gets better with better mobile apps. Um, okay, you talked about this new fancy television, uh, that's controlled through your mobile phone. What do you, are you binge watching anything?
[00:30:17] Jonathan Kay: Uh, this is embarrassing, but I'll give it to you. Celebrity family feud.
Um, Dude, I'm telling you, we have small kids, so we like, needed a break from like, drama shows. And Steve Harvey and celebrities somehow check, check our box of pre, pre going to bed TV. Okay,
[00:30:36] Tom Butta: now this, this answer may have, this may have served as a really good answer to my next question and final question, which is what, so I know you have small children, so what parenting advice would you give for a work from home mom or dad with little kids?
[00:30:52] Jonathan Kay: Create boundaries, and you gotta teach your kids to be, like, autonomous, like, you have to let them make mistakes in their own environment, because if you don't, like, they will never leave you alone. You know what I mean? Um, and so you have to, so like, I'm up in an attic that I refinished as my office, and like, I, if I was to turn the camera, you would see a tornado of kids toys on the other side.
And my daughter knows when she comes home from school, she can come upstairs. Give me a hug. But then she has to go over there and play. And so instead of creating a hard boundary, it's like a soft boundary that allows us to be together. But she understands that if she breaks it, then she can't be up here now.
That's great.
[00:31:37] Tom Butta: That's great. I actually think that idea of autonomous behavior and learning how to be comfortable doing your own thing by yourself is a super important lesson to learn. The whole Montessori educational system is actually built on that. We have my son in that as part of his nursery school and, you know.
He was always a pretty independent, you know, he'd play by, you know, he was not dependent on us, right? Like a lot of kids are, so. Jonathan, it's always a pleasure to chat with you. Uh, you're a super smart guy, uh, an entrepreneur, probably from before you even started this company. My guess is you probably had 19 businesses, you know, before you graduated from.
from elementary school. But thank you for the insights. I look forward to continuing to work with you. And as an action item between us, I'd love to follow up on this idea of the mobile consumer spending index. Really interesting idea.
[00:32:30] Jonathan Kay: Yeah. Well, thanks for having me, Tom. Great.
[00:32:33] Tom Butta: Thanks.
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