Key talking points

1. What factors have brought about the integration of privately developed apps with public infrastructure?

2. How can applications and services contribute to urban development?3. What are the benefits of connected infrastructure and how big is this market

on a national level?4. Can apps and web services built for Romanian users in this context be

adapted and exported to other markets? 5. What is business2government marketing and where does one begin working

with local government? 6. Can you share some key insights from your experience with working on apps

& services created for big cities?7. Are public companies interested in collaborating with tech entrepreneurs on

apps & web services? 8. How can you obtain data from third parties without them getting defensive? 9. What are some key behaviours that you have observed in the users

downloading your apps that are specific to apps made for infrastructure use?

TechHub Meetup Insights

The state of the city apps market: There is a high need for high performance apps related to public services, such as public transportation. State owned companies are not very good at building these apps, but they can provide valuable data (either open data or public information) for them. In order to provide these companies with a high quality service, you need to build and consolidate a business relationship with key people in their ranks. If you look at the city (Bucharest or any other), you will see its infrastructure and how it can be optimized. You have location based services, points of interests, etc. that can provide a great starting point for developers and entrepreneurs. You can perceive the size of the market as number of users, not in terms of money. The market is the number of people living in the city (millions). It’s a niche that any tech developer should be looking into because we can talk about millions of potential users and a very high probability that they will get addicted to your product and they will use it for a long time with no other further investment. What’s interesting is that people do return to city apps because they solve a real problem and it’s a valuable thing in terms of economics.

TechHub Meetup Insights

Monetization for city apps:

It depends where you get your money from. If you get it from the state, it’s about your negotiation abilities. It may be a huge market and there’s certainly a need for more developers to tackle it.

Users or the state can pay. From the public authorities’ point of view, it’s useful because they can get almost instant social feedback, crowdsourced information (they immediately find out where are bumps in the roads – e.g. Gropometru) that can replace people they hire to find out problems.

Moreover they get predictive analytics: analyze the data and make prediction based on historical information. What we have to do is go from independent apps to apps working together and get to one city app that has it all included.

Maybe right now it’s the time to unite several apps.

TechHub Meetup Insights

Doing business2government marketing:

Ask yourself if you want to spend several months/years of your life doing business2government marketing. We (Concept Apps) are passionate about urban development, so we held our groundGetting state owned companies to answer and get involved takes a long time, but, at some point, when they see their peers’ results, they will start calling you. Get them interested, be patient, convince them!If you want them to pay for the app, you have to help them understand how effective the app is for them. It’s about educating state owned companies and making them understand the benefits and time savings brought by your app.Set the right expectations for yourself and don’t expect things to happen overnight as they generally do in the tech world. Create the proper context and discuss with the right people, and things can happen. It’s important to be patient and not to give up.

TechHub Meetup Insights

On building trust & setting examples:

The key is to make state funded companies understand that you are trustworthy. Then you have to explain in very simple sentences what your product/service does and how your going to make users lives better (which gains votes – their ROI). Before the selling it’s about befriending them and educating them.You have to target the early adopter cities and the others will follow. You don’t have to follow all of them around.

Early adopters in Romania? Alba Iulia is the city that is the most open to mobile technologies and eager to embrace change. STP SA Alba Iulia was commended the best European bus company of 2013 by the IRU Bus Excellence Award 2013, because it is lead by a manager that continuously pushes it to the next level.Every time you speak about city apps you have to think about local authorities. Otherwise it’s very hard to locate things.

TechHub Meetup InsightsGetting access to public and open data: It’s difficult to make people understand that it’s not illegal to use public information. When you look at public authorities you have to take into consideration their desire to listen to the law. Data protection legislation is very restrictive in Romania. One exporting city apps built for Romanian users to other markets: The countries are different but the actual experience is the same no matter the culture.Other companies are more open and most of them are private companies interested in offering the best for the clients. The quality of the platform should be the highest, and it’s cost is very low because it is developed in Romania and it’s very competitive due to the low development costs.In order to succeed in other cities/countries, you need to have an app built with very good technology that is easily adaptable. Romania it’s a great first country to test your app in if you plan to further expand abroad. Of course the standards are higher there. Start building your app with localization in mind from the beginning, if that’s your goal.

TechHub Meetup InsightsKey behaviors of users using you app: Team up with big partners that can help you promote the app.

Example: 1/4 of the traffic in Transport Urban comes from RATB.ro because people go on to their website to check the info they need and they redirect them to us. More than twice our users are Vodafone clients, the telecom company being our partner also.

Consider seasonality and your users’ behavior patterns. Consider your user’s needs and habits. You need the monthly average to bring you a critical mass of users, so the app can be sustainable.

Example: In terms of experience it’s not very well known that one of the key factors that contributed to the Star Taxi success story was the integration with Transport Urban. The number of downloads generated by Transport Urban was incredible – these can be used for launching other city apps as well and it’s a proper way to use it. Get the user the right info at the right time.

TechHub Meetup InsightsOn Romanian entrepreneurs:

Romanians are techies and have the capabilities to develop great tech products but you have to find the proper way to monetize, to go where the money is. When you think about an app or a product you have to think about how you will make money. Are ads generating enough revenue? Most of the time, they won’t, so you have to be very careful when designing your strategy.When thinking about city apps just thinking that the clients and the beneficiaries are not the same. Who is interested in paying for those services? Answer these questions before starting to build your product.

Resources:Reading list:http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/02/technology-predictions-201

4-smarter-cities-bigger-games-drones-tablets http://mashable.com/2012/03/30/city-mobile-apps/ http://smartcitiescouncil.com/article/worlds-23-best-smart-city-apps http://www.research.ibm.com/cognitive-computing/machine-learning-applications

/smart-cities.shtml#fbid=nJ-ulbTVCcZhttp://pulsepoint.org/2013/11/cnbc-innovation-cities-the-rise-of-health-apps/http://livability.com/best-places-blog/cities-go-mobile-civic-engagement-apps-incre

ase/ CityNext of Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/government/ww/public-services/city-next/Pages/index.aspxStudy by Gartner:http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=1-1I5PT9Z&ct=130805&st=sb:::::::then#h-d2e184Examples from the US: https://www.data.gov/cities/page/city-apps Conference: http://www.appsforsmartcities.com/Contest: http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/mar/11/worlds-best-new-city-app-competition

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