Amity | Messaging App, comes out of 'stealth mode'

[Scot]

It's funny, because we've had a number of write-ups on major publications (TechCrunch included) where it's been criticized as being 'clearly a paid advertisement' because it was overly positive. We're just taking it as a massive compliment haha

Tech Crunch has been to known to be brutal when they feel like it, so thats no small accomplishment!

 

[goodguude]

Hey codo!

Amity looks really nice. I wish you all the success you deserve!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[kkompoti]

i today found out that facebook live video is using the same thing you do with emojis.

 

[toxicrain]

the catch to a successful messaging/social app is to have all your friends on it, and unfortunately its extremely difficult if not impossible to be done with a new app

the app looks cool, congrats on getting to this stage, but i don't see it going the distance and I don't see a need for another messenger in the market. features are not unique, and can be copied fairly easily. (the little emojis flying on the video were first done by periscope btw)

the only way i see for your app to break out is if someone famous joined (justin bieber did it for instagram) and started broadcasting through it, or something controversial happened around your app (leaked sex tape of donald trump) which will keep your app in the headlines... otherwise it will be lost in the charts, like thousands of other messaging apps.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Scot]

Well damn. This is depressing. I went to check it out on the App Store to see how it was doing. 0 reviews. I think this is a case of just horrible timing. It launched weeks before IOS 10 which completely overhauled the messages app.

Hope I'm proven wrong!

 

[devine]

This thread is a good example of three things:

1). Don't operate in a vacuum. Total secrecy, why? You need people like @devine to tell you where you're going in the wrong direction so you don't waste two years driving down to a dead-end.

2). Don't wait to polish your product before releasing. You don't know what reactions the market will have to the features you've created, so why waste the time to polish them to shine? Barebones and get it out as fast as you can to start getting a reading of where you stand.

Two years. Hot damn.

3). "Attaboy"s only go so far. It's great and all to be a mother-figure and unconditionally support each other, but then how would this forum be different from any other casual friend? Being blunt will give them temporary pain to avoid a more long-term one.

I don't know anything about your product, so all I can say is: Good luck.

1) It happens when people overestimate themself and their idea. In reality, they could share their prototype publically and no one would do anything in response for 2 main reasons:

a) There is nothing about it that is worth even a million of dollars. The main reason why their team believes it is called "sunk cost", peppered with illusion of potential value.

b) No major player on the market is interested in concepts and ideas that aren't executed yet. Until we don't see how well it performs, how significant the public response is and how it even fits a project long-term - there is no point in even thinking about it.

2, 3) This is a thin ice. I'd say, this is the main reason why people like me are in the industry: to make sure the project will perform well after its launch.

When I see something is destined to fail, I just kindly tell about it, like I did in my first message. But I see no point in sharing things that will determine the future of someone else's business without getting paid accordingly.

Once they know what failure tastes like - things can be negotiated. Of course if a perspective of wasting another couple of years on nothing doesn't look fine, otherwise I can't help much.

Also, I see him posting about function over beauty (Howard Roark style) a lot.

So, @devine can you recommend a text(s) that will let us avoid the pitfalls of poor design?

There is no compromise between beauty and functionality, it's just that beautiful things often have no purpose behind them.

I think the main portion of education here lays in learning how to look into things. Not to just see them, but to look into them.
Notice details.
It's not just about the visual aspect, as design has only one purpose: to deliver the substance.

What is Amity? What idea does this word convey? Is it strong?
Does it ring?

WhatsUp conveys the idea of communication excellently, because this is how communication starts for many people.
"What's up?" has become a common compound long before the app has borrowed it.
Amity is just a cool word that practically has a very weak meaning.

What their home page is about? Which feature does it showcase?
Unfortunately, all this fancy stuff has no value for a user.

As you see, I don't care much about design - you can't polish what is inherently wrong.
If you want to practice this kind of approach: just ask questions. Do people really want this? Does it have anything of substance to offer them?
How everything you read/see/hear help convey this very substance?

 

[devine]

One person's opinion doesn't make a market.

One person's knowledge is called expertise, not opinion.

There are two kinds of entrepreneurs:
1) Those who sail through trial and error with hit-or-miss decisions. They wait for "tomorrow's news" to see if they succeeded or not.
2) Those who already know what they will see in tomorrow's news, because they orchestrated it yesterday.

But this person will put it better than me.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[devine]

You've confused expertise with speculation. If expertise validated an opinion as fact, every VC-funded venture would have a 100% success rate.

I'm not confusing anything. Speculation is assumptions about how things will work.
I don't assume, I don't "maybe", I know.

I have met a couple of angel investors and VC's, pretty successful ones, and I wouldn't invest in absolute majority of projects they decided to invest in, because they are based off non-existent needs, their prototypes neglect basic principles of cognitive psychology and their teams have prima donna attitude. Much like the one from this thread.
If VC's would have more people who know, instead of people who assume, their success rate would be better.

For some people talks about tomorrow's weather is speculation.
Others know that weather forecasting is a scientific technology.
Same applies to business. It's just that first group thinks of expertise as just an "opinion", while second starts the dialogue with writing a decent paycheck.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Mr.Chaos]

Hey guys!

I'm the Director of Marketing for Amity. As many of you know, I already have some very successful businesses, but one that I haven't been able to speak about up until now is Amity.

It's a messaging app that is miles ahead of everything on the market - and has been developed by a team of 8 guys, in a startup house, over the last 2 years - in complete secrecy.

Here's a link: https://amity.io - this link has our Pre-Launch video, and you can register to be notified when we go live. If you want to share it, you'll get a referral link, and you'll get some cool in-app goodies when we launch.

That's our pre-launch; won't be long until launch, we're just finalising everything. We'll be launching on iPhone, and also a beta on Android.

Happy to field some questions

P.S. Attached is a photo of our work/living environment - it's intense!

looks really cool subbed!

 

[Scot]

You can do this with WeChat...

I'm not an expert in messaging apps, so I don't know, honestly don't care. Was just a suggestion that whatsapp, and the normal sms functions on phones do not have

 

[masaldana2]

Nice video,
have you seen the new imessage app that is comming for ios 10? I'm building an app extension for that

 

[devine]

Thankfully your sole opinion does not make a market.

The app looks like it has potential -- you never know what might appeal to young people who have smartphones glued to their faces.

Thankfully, yes.
The app looks solid, but once this Amity app demonstrates their strongest features leading to success - they are likely to be integrated into other apps that dominate the market. Instagram recently did it to snapchat, for example.

 

[Scot]

Thanks for the kind words guys! Launch has been going well, stacks and stacks of emails collected for the pre-launch so far; so we'll be hitting the App Store with a burst of downloads on Day One (will easily surpass what Snapchat did in their first week).

We always have the risk of our features being copied by the big players; but if everyone let that fear stop them, we would have no more innovation. We're not looking to go head-to-head with the big guys, we're a different experience, much like Snapchat was, so it'll be interesting to see how the market responds.

As for iMessage on iOS10, we have a copy here, and it has some cool features. We're very different, and they can't implement 'too much' functionality, as it's native, and they'll scare their older users (they're already having pushback), so they have to grow out their functionality slowly, while we can go much faster. In saying that, it really highlighted to us that we're in the right space; every indicator (WhatsApp, Snapchat, iOS10 iMessage) seems to point to this being the next frontier.

Good luck! Looking forward to watching the numbers

 

[Mac]

Have you guys considered launching a minimum viable product to early adopters to test it out before you do a big launch to the public?

 

[MitchC]

Looking at the website it's out! I never got an email but cool will try How do you even be the first one to use a messenger app when you don't know anyone with it lol, I guess tell your friends to use it huh? Slick

 

[Mac]

Is there any tips on how you guys received media attention? Or is it just by sending emails constantly?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[kkompoti]

the request function is great for one specific audience:
jealous people and their loved ones.

example:
a-babe i am with my mates chilling
b- requests photo
a- no
b- ends relationship or starts a huge fight..

don't get me wrong. this function is your moneymaker.

 

[devine]

the request function is great for one specific audience:
jealous people and their loved ones.

example:
a-babe i am with my mates chilling
b- requests photo
a- no
b- ends relationship or starts a huge fight..

don't get me wrong. this function is your moneymaker.

It's not limited to this specific audience only.
This kind of approach wouldn't make them a penny.

If @codo3500 wants, I can come up with a fully reworked prototype within 35 days, based on this particular feature.
We can talk privately.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[GuestUser155]

Also, I see him posting about function over beauty (Howard Roark style) a lot.

So, @devine can you recommend a text(s) that will let us avoid the pitfalls of poor design?

 

[toxicrain]

I don't know about the app store but it seems to be doing pretty fine on play store. Averaging around 10000 downloads and 180 reviews.

that is actually not much for play store. the rating is a bit low too, good apps are above 4.2 rating

 

[Mac]

I wouldn't jump the gun too early. Give it a chance.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[JDx]

Looks cool

 

[GuestUser155]

One person's opinion doesn't make a market. I remember when Sal (@Likwid24) first launched his product. Several people laughed at it on Facebook.

I wonder what those people are doing now, several years later? Well I don't need to wonder -- they're doing the exact same thing: NOTHING. And Armchairing guys who are actually tickling the market and seeing what sticks isn't considered something.

One person's insight can make all the difference.

Steve Job's didn't operate in a bubble and neither does Ray Dalio. They surround themselves with vocal, intelligent people, and not housewives (Facebook) and yes-men (Circle-jerk).

 

[Random_0]

One person's insight can make all the difference.

Steve Job's didn't operate in a bubble and neither does Ray Dalio. They surround themselves with vocal, intelligent people, and not housewives (Facebook) and yes-men (Circle-jerk).

Steve Jobs was an excellent marketer

 

[11elf]

Any update on Amity? @codo3500?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.