Results 2020: Anatoly Sharifulin from AppFollow about the main thing for the year

We continue to summarize the results of 2020 together with top managers and experts of the gaming industry (and related ones). Next up is an interview with the CEO and co-founder of AppFollow Anatoly Sharifulin.

Anatoly SharifulinHow did 2020 go for the company?

Anatoly: I don’t want to be banal, but it was a difficult, but at the same time a good year for us. We have closed a new round of investments. And they did it in the midst of a pandemic. A useful experience for us.

One of the main achievements of the team, which also helped when working with investors, was stable growth of more than 5% in both MoM (Month-on-month growth) and MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue). The growth continues now.

During the pandemic, it helped us that from the moment of creation we chose a remote format of work. Unlike many other IT companies, we didn’t have to spend time debugging processes and interactions.

We also made a timely decision to shift the focus of sales to big business. Due to this, the dollar churn rate (customer churn) at peak times did not exceed 2-3%, which is a good indicator for SaaS.

Optimizing the team has become one of the central challenges for us. We have strengthened some positions, rebuilt and reduced some, trying to focus on certain tasks and working tools. This made it possible to optimize a number of costs. As a result, we “went to zero”. This fact, by the way, has become a strong point in negotiations with investors.

At the same time, the pandemic, unfortunately, “canceled” our quarterly offline lead meetings and team meetings held twice a year. At the same time, we have redesigned a number of internal processes, began to hire specialists from Europe. The latter influenced the processes of onboarding and training: we began to devote more time to immersion in the product, familiarization with its capabilities and tools.

What new trends in your niche do you consider worthy of attention?

Anatoliy: Firstly, the delivery market is growing very much. According to our forecasts, this growth will continue. The pandemic has set conditions for businesses to switch to online and a large number of companies are seeking to go directly to mobile so that customers have the opportunity to “order in one click”.

Restrictions and a very unstable situation with the epidemiological situation forced us to spend more and more time at home, so the following markets are growing quite understandably: Gaming, Health, Fitness and Online TV.

One of the main events of concern to the industry is the cancellation of the IDFA (The Identifier for Advertisers). It can even be called a revolution. Apple postponed the launch of this solution, but did not cancel it. We will face the consequences next year.

Personally, I wonder if there will be any retaliatory actions on the part of Google. By the way, it is interesting that this news did not prevent AppsFlyer from closing a new round of investments. I hope they will survive and confirm the status of a leader in the attribution market.

What new trends in the market as a whole would you note?

Anatoliy: Firstly, the transfer of most businesses “to the remote”. As I have already said, from the very first day we built the whole company in this format. Therefore, there have been no global changes for us.

Secondly, the rapid growth in the number of webinars and Zoom meetings (“turn on the microphone”, “something camera doesn’t work”, “I can’t hear you” – the daily soundtrack). Because of this, there is a defocus. There is even a certain challenge in understanding where to go and what can be missed.

By the way, we learned how to do webinars even before the outbreak of the pandemic, so we successfully continued to do them in new conditions. However, we are faced with the fact that competitors have begun to borrow formats from us. Now, including on our topic, expert panels, live audits of applications, user cases, etc., etc. are everywhere and everywhere. But we are already coming up with ready-made new formats, new online meetings. We want to hold them no more than once a month or two, so as not to “burn out” the audience.

By the way, thanks to endless online conferences, an asynchronous format of content consumption appears. It lies in the fact that now webinars are actively listened to/watched on the record, and not only online (for example, I absorb 80% of the content when I walk my dog).

What will be the stake in the development of the company in 2021?

Anatoliy: Any crisis is a great opportunity to “reassemble” and rush forward. I believe that. So we will spend the whole of 2021 precisely on moving forward. We are waiting for the improvement of processes for the most efficient remote work. This will primarily affect onboarding, retention and socialization — very important areas for any modern company (especially in the era of the pandemic). In addition, we plan to strengthen the team and enter new markets.