#i would benefit greatly from writing a recipe on a piece of paper. it would help me encode the memories bc ur writing it down

[newyorktheater]

Bobby Steggert LMSW

Bobby Steggert, actor headshot

Ragtime, 2009 in his Tony-nominated performance as Mother’s Younger Brother

Ivan Hernandez and Bobby Steggert in Yank, 2010.

Big Love, 2015

Bobby Steggert, Frederick Weller, Grayson Taylor and Tyne Daly in Mothers and Sons, 2014

Two years ago, Bobby Steggert, a Tony-nominated actor with extensive credits on and Off Broadway (Ragtime, Big Fish, Yank! etc) , surprised the theater community by announcing that he had switched careers. In an article on Medium, he explained that he was in the middle of getting a degree in social work from Columbia University. “My master’s degree will be a piece of paper, but my life as an artist will make me a great social worker, this I know.” Since July of 2019, Bobby Steggert LMSW has been serving as a psychotherapist in private practice and a staff therapist at the Institute for Human Identity Therapy Center,. Three-fourths of his clients, he tells me, are “actors, singers, dancers, directors, writers, or designers,” and (his staff biography says) he comes to the therapy relationship with “warmth, humor, and a solution-focused approach.” He seemed the right person to ask about the specific mental health needs of theater artists during this stressful period, and he readily agreed to speak with me.

Have you had any new thoughts about your switching careers since you wrote that piece in Medium in 2018?

Time and retrospection have been even more clarifying. I think that what I struggled with most of all near the end of my performance life was a lack of meaningful purpose when not employed. This is obviously part and parcel of any freelance career, but a lot of that sense of purposelessness was within me, and in my inability or unwillingness to find sustainable and grounding purpose in other parts of my life. As a result, I focus quite a bit on finding purpose with clients, and how they can foster these essential elements of a satisfying life, even within the extreme limitations of a time like today.

Based on your own experience as a therapist, and that of your therapeutic colleagues, has there been a general uptick of mental health issues over the past few months?  

Most definitely. I think that we are in a time of great anxiety as a culture and so of course that trickles down to individual experiences. There are a lot of people who are experiencing heightened anxiety and depression, and, as a result of that, dealing with an increase in substance abuse and also relationship issues and, of course, issues with unemployment and loss of income.

My colleagues and I have gotten quite a few inquiries from people who want to enter therapy. I am at capacity so I try to find other therapists for people who call me in order to get them treatment as soon as possible.

People are struggling pervasively because we have been challenged with unbelievable limitations. When you don’t have community and you don’t have a sense of purpose and you don’t have a source of income, those are definite recipes for mental health struggles.

I understand that every person is individual, but are there issues specific to (common in) theater artists during this time of pandemic and unemployment, or ways in which theater artists feel these stresses in a different way?

The most devastating thing about this crisis for theater makers is that there is really nowhere to turn for alternative employment in live performance. Theater artists are singularly gifted in creating work that is shared and felt in one communal, physical space, and in this moment, it’s practically an impossibility. We are all making major sacrifices right now, but theater artists have their hands tied in a way that is unique, and any adjustment to other work is felt as a true loss to one’s core sense of contribution.

What advice or words of comfort have you been giving to artists — or could you give to artists now?

The irony is that so many artists buy the line that they have “no real world skills” and yet they are the most creative, adaptive, and flexible people around. They are made for shifting and unexpected circumstances. They understand the vicissitudes of a highly inconsistent industry, which uniquely prepares them for a highly inconsistent time. I try to remind my clients that their fantastic relationship and communication skills alone make them highly qualified for any temporary adjustments to employment or living situations that are required of them right now. I also like to remind my clients that they are excellent at making meaning – that’s what artists do – and one major thing we have control over now is to make conscious, growth-oriented meaning out of our experiences, even when they’re terrible. And while many can’t make meaning through work right now, they can make it through their relationships, parts of their identities outside of the profession, their bodies through health and self-care, and their creative voices, whether broadcast to the world or quietly to themselves.

What about theatergoers rather than theater makers? Are you aware of ways in which the lack of live in-person theater has had a tangible, diagnosable effect?

I am not sure if I could call it diagnosable but I do think that humans benefit greatly from gathering in groups and physical spaces and in experiencing collective energy together. I think that is why theater is so special. That’s a huge reason why people, for example, attend church. Without that live shared energy, I think that is why people are suffering from loneliness even when staying connected to fiends and family through the Internet.

So what can people do about this?

I think it depends on people’s risk level and how far they are willing to go to be in contact with other humans, but I have suggested to my clients to find as many opportunities as possible to meet friends in the park or to be around other people in outdoor settings as a way to feel more physically connected to other humans.

It’s interesting that you talked earlier about finding purpose, because that of course is the main characteristic of your Tony-nominated role as Mother’s Younger Brother in “Ragtime.” Is that just a coincidence?

In retrospect, I think that as an actor the roles you play can teach you about yourself, and I do attribute that experience to be the seed of an investigation for myself as to how I could find more sustainable purpose than I was able to find as an actor who too often has to wait around for invitations to participate n what they do. Another role really taught me something — Will in “Mothers and Sons.” He was a young man who was so integrated into himself as a gay person. That character taught me that I needed to do more work to embrace the fullness of my own sexual identity.

So you’re saying that your roles helped shaped you as a person?

Very much so. When you inhabit them you take on their energy and you take on their psychology and if you are open to it , that character can teach you new things about yourself.

I admired your performances, and was struck by how much vulnerability you allowed your characters. Feel free to disagree with my premise, but, if you agree, was that vulnerability deliberate, a reflection of your own nature, or just a result of the roles for which you were cast? And is that quality a help or a hindrance or irrelevant to  your new career?

I do agree with the premise. The purpose I did find as an actor was to expose the complexities of the human condition in a way that was raw and that was vulnerable. I think that is because I am naturally a more emotional and more vulnerable person. I think that quality inspires others to be more vulnerable, and so I find it very helpful as a therapist. I’m asking others to become more vulnerable and through that vulnerability to understand themselves and to experience life more deeply.

But do people seeking therapy want vulnerability, or rather somebody who seems confident and authoritative?

I think that the most important quality in a therapist is that the person feel safe with them. That sense of safety can help them to open up and to be braver in their own introspection. [My vulnerability] changes shape because as a therapist there are certainly boundaries, but at the same time I try to exist in a therapeutic relationship with total openness and with a certain kind of vulnerability that I hope can inspire others to be the same.

Where can people go for help?

I have two layers of an answers to that question. Specifically for theater people who are looking for mental health help, I think that the Institute for Human Identity is a great option because they have a lot of availability for therapists who are in the arts or who understand what it is to be in the arts. Another resource is the Actors Fund, which has a wonderful list of therapists who are also in some way connected to the arts. Those are the two places I would send theater people if they are looking to talk to someone.

On another layer, I think the best way to deal with stress especially under these circumstances is to find a physical practice, because being connected a one’s body is sometimes the best option. So I am finding that people are turning to yoga or exercise or mindful meditation.

But what if the theater person doesn’t have any money? As you said, most are unemployed now.

That is really rough. The Actors Fund also provides grants to people who are unemployed. There are also much more affordable options, such as a therapeutic apps called TalkSpace.

Is there anything about theater that you’ve used to help your clients – or yourself – cope with the stresses of the current situation? 

I find it oddly comforting to think about Shakespeare’s time, in which London theaters closed several times due to the plague. He mentions the plague in several of his plays, including The Tempest and King Lear. And during the two year period between 1592-1594 when he couldn’t write plays, he turned to poetry. He adapted just like we all must.

If possible for us to telescope out of this very moment, and while acknowledging all of the suffering and hardship we are enduring, we can be reminded that human history is full of enormous disruptions to life as usual, and yet we keep moving forward, because we have to. Live theater will never leave us – and we will inevitably return to the day when we gather again to take in stories in ways that no other storytelling can replicate.

  Centers for Disease Control: Coping with Stress

Bobby Steggart, Actor Turned Therapist Q & A: Theater Artists Are Suffering Two years ago, Bobby Steggert, a Tony-nominated actor with extensive credits on and Off Broadway (Ragtime, Big Fish, Yank!

[moderncolors]

I'm a homeschooling mom and we're going to continue with our schooling through the summer. We took school at such a relaxed pace, there's really no need for a summer break, but I'm human and I do need a little bit of a break every now and then. Since I started homeschooling, we're not a screen-free family anymore. My children do educational apps on their tablets, sometimes doing ABCmouse in place of school lessons when I'm busy or having a bad day, and in the evenings they are allowed to play just-for-fun games or watch non-educational YouTube videos for about an hour. During our quick little summer breaks, I don't want my kids to be glued to their tablets because since we introduced them to tablets I found that their creativity and ability to keep themselves entertained has decreased greatly. So I came up with this list of activities that I would like for my children to do this summer, activities that would also be fun for me to participate in as well. The 25 activities below my perfect for little hippies and bohemians of all ages who love to get artsy and appreciate nature. These activities are for both indoor and outdoor play and require little to no screen time. Should any computers or phones be needed, it would be simply be for looking up tutorials and research. I hope you enjoy my list because I had a blast putting it together and I can't wait to get started with inspiring my children to entertain themselves without an electronic device. ENJOY! amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "mocotw-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_design = "in_content"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "bc858d0d5ee2df9d3c043b52887ee8c4"; amzn_assoc_asins = "B00HZH68PM,B01N9OS3S8,B07K322W31,B0716ZTNWR"; amzn_assoc_title = " "; DIY Zen Garden Zen gardens can be made using materials you already have a home. This is a great way for kids to chill out and stay quiet for at least a few minutes. There's a great tutorial for making your own here. Origami Keep little hands busy with the ancient art of Japanese paper folding. Challenge your kids to create as many different origami animals as possible. Origami stars, boxes, and cranes look amazing with strung together and make great room decor as well!  Collages Collages are a great way to repurpose old magazines, books, photos, scrap fabric, ribbon, and more. Give your kids a box of materials and plenty of glue and watch their creativity unfold. Make Upcycled Jewelry Kids can make cool jewelry from items found around the house. They'll spend hours making paper beads, or woven friendship bracelets for themselves and their friends. Henna Henna is a safe, all-natural way to do temporary tattoos. Hone your art skills by decorating your kids yourself or let them henna each other. Henna art isn't just for women, it looks great on boys too. They'll enjoy fun tribal warrior inspired design. You can also henna other objects like leather, gourds, wood, and drum heads. Make Musical Instruments Give kids a little guidance or let them be as creative as they want to be with reinventing or inventing their own musical instruments. Straws, rubber hoses, rubber bands, boxes and more can be assembled to create a whole new musical instrument. Check out Make Homemade Music with These 6 DIY Instruments for instructions and inspiration. Learn Sign Language From using it as their own secret language to actually communicating with a hearing-impaired friend, sign language is fun to learn and is a valuable skill to have.  Nature Mandala Go outside and gather pebbles, leaves, flowers, grass, berries and more and arrange them into beautiful temporary works of art. Check out Making Mandalas in Nature with Kids for more info. Tie Dye Revamp old tee shirts, curtains, bed sheets, and more with tie-dying! Kids will have a blast choosing their own colors and creating their own patterns and dye methods. If you don't want to buy a tie-dye kit, consider making dye from fruits and veggies you already have.  Nature Scavenger Hunt Make a list of all the things your kids should find outdoors and send them out to collect them and have fun. Bubble Painting Create unique works of art that you will actually want to hang up and display in your home! Check out Bubble Painting with Kids for more info! Make a Fairy Garden Fairy gardens can be built in buckets, flower pots, and the corner of the yard, against trees and anywhere you can think of outside. Your children can work together to build one big elaborate fairy garden or a few individual gardens. If you have boys who aren't into fairies, suggest they make troll gardens instead. Attend a Drum Circle Drum circles are fun for the whole family and kids will enjoy getting to dance around be as loud as they want to be! (Just don't let them get crazy enough to throw off the rhythm!) Check out my post The Benefits Of Drum Circles for more info about the amazing benefits of drum circles. Paint and Hide Rocks Write inspirational messages or paint little works of art on stones and place them around town and in parks to be discovered. Learn to Crochet or Knit This is a valuable skill for boys and girls to learn and it will keep them quiet and busy for hours. Make Natural Playdough Using just a few ingredients you already have in your kitchen, your kids can create fun non-toxic playdough to play with all summer long. Check out A Simple All-Natural Homemade PlayDough Recipe. Sunprints Place objects on a piece of special paper and let it develop into the sun to create sun prints. Sunprint paper can be found in craft stores and online. Build a Teepee Sheets and rods come together to create a fun hangouts pot for the kids for both make-believe play and quiet time. Check out this YouTube video here for instructions. Play Dress Up Encourage kids to get creative by creating costumes from things in their own closets or by making costumes from materials around the house. No sewing is necessary for costumes, sometimes hot glue, and safety pins are all you need! Play in the Mud You don't have to wait until it rains to play in the mud. If you've got a garden hose or a few buckets of water, you can make your own mud pit anytime. Play Nature Bingo Nature Bingo is similar to a scavenger hunt but in this game it's not necessary to obtain any items. This is fun to play in the park as well as the backyard.  Mandala Coloring Books If you're needing some peace and quiet for more than just a few minutes, mandala coloring books designed for adults are ideal to give to children because the designs are very intricate and can take a long time to finish. When they are done they will be very proud to see but they completed something so difficult. Backyard Bird Watching Children's binoculars are very affordable and can even be found at dollar stores.  Send your kiddos outside to spot and identify birds by looking them up on the internet or in local bird watching guides. Watercolor Whether they're painting an elaborate landscape or dabbling in abstract art, painting with watercolors keeps kids occupied and inspired. Start an Indoor/Outdoor  Herb Garden Herbs are easy to grow and a great way to teach kids responsibility while teaching them a handy skill.  Which activity is your favorite? Let me know in a comment below! __________________________________ Other posts you might enjoy! Boho on a Budget: 10 DIY Summer Bohemian Crafts Your Summertime Hippie Porch Essentials How to REALLY Get Yourself Ready for Swimsuit Season  {The answer might surprise you!} __________________________________ And now a word from our sponsor! Eat Clean, Feel Great Cook healthy and delicious meals with organic produce + clean ingredients.  Easy & Convenient Quick recipes designed for busy people, delivered to your door The Best Quality Enjoy organic produce and clean ingredients. Proud certified organic handler. So. Much. Choice. Eat well anytime with quick & easy meals, snacks, and so much more. Click the banner above for more info! amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "mocotw-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "My Summer Picks"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "cc660bf2a3bf328857cbc545df1fafeb"; amzn_assoc_asins = "B07P8NQGQZ,B07MFNKK7Y,B07KKB4LFM,B01FHSTUIW,B07R67R7VY,B07LG15TD9,B01AZC36Z8,B003R68WF4";

http://www.quirkybohemianmama.com/2019/06/25-cheap-creative-summer-activities-for.html

[marketerintel]

How To Build Your First App: 7 Secrets From The Founders

Is this a huge mistake? Will it ever work? Will anyone care?

Anyone building an app for the first time is wondering these things. You’re not alone.

“No one knows what they’re doing. You think people who came before you know everything, but there isn’t one right way to do it. If you make a misstep, it’s not a big deal.” – Whitney Linscott, CEO & Founder, Bracket Dating

You can and should build an app. Don’t believe me?

I just launched my first app, 19 Minute Yoga. I’m not a developer. I have a degree in English Lit.

A technical background is not required. Do you know what is required?

Tenacity and grit.

It took twice as long as I expected. But I still did it. And I want to share everything I learned, so you can build an app too.

The App Store has generated more than $70 billion in revenue for App developers. Apps are transforming and disrupting business.

You or your company should be thinking about building an app for one reason. Eventually, someone is going to come along and build an app that disrupts you.

After I launched 19 Minute Yoga, I knew I wanted to share some honest insights and takeaways. I jumped on the phone with 10 other app founders, technical and non-technical, to discuss everything from developing your idea to developing your code.

Thanks to the founders who participated and shared their experience:

Allison Winston: President & Co-Founder, Kickwheel

Estee Goldschmidt: Co-Founder & CEO, ShopDrop

Julie Campistron: Co-Founder and CEO, Stop, Breathe & Think

Whitney Linscott: CEO & Founder, Bracket Dating

Monika Bhasin: Founder, GLYD

Alexis Monson: Founder, Punkpost

Diane Hamilton: Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Binary Formations

Lori Cheek: Co-Founder, Networkd

Amy Hutchins: Founder & Chief Product Officer, Unearth Technologies, Inc.

Suzanne Hayen: CEO & Co-Founder, Let’s Be Chefs

Building an app can be a rollercoaster and it’s important to know your community and know you’re not alone. Download the apps mentioned here and follow the founders online to learn more about these leading entrepreneurs. Welcome to the community!

#1 Put Your Idea On Paper

Some of the best ideas come from a person creating a solution to her own problem. You don’t have to invent something completely new; you can improve upon an existing idea. Research popular categories and bring a fresh spin to an existing audience. 19 Minute Yoga was born when I realized that I couldn’t find a short, audio-first yoga app–anywhere!

Monika Bhasin, Founder of GLYD, an app that connects travelers with locals, said her initial work was getting her idea validated and that went hand in hand with putting it on paper.

“Write the idea out as an essay. It needs to be simple enough to explain to a 10-year-old.” – Monika Bhasin, Founder of GLYD

To get started, consider the questions below. Write multiple drafts, as you refine your idea:

What makes your idea different?

Who is your audience?

What are your business goals?

How are you going to market and promote the app?

What is the simplest version you can build first?

How much will it cost to build the first version of your app, the MVP (minimum viable product), to get your first round of user feedback?

In addition to writing about your idea, it’s important to create a visual. Sketch a rough draft of your app. It will help you understand the story you want to tell. Don’t worry about artistic talent (or lack of!).

Suzzane Hayen is CEO & Co-Founder of Let’s Be Chefs, an app that delivers weekly menus and recipes to helps users save time and eat better. When Hayen was developing her idea, she used index cards to illustrate her user experience.

“Start writing things down on index cards. Draw each screen and show your friends. Here’s one screen, here’s the next screen.” – Suzzane Hayen, CEO & Co-Founder, Let’s Be Chefs

Before you have a formal pitch or brief, simply talking to people will help you develop your idea. Don’t wait until you feel “ready.” My experience is that “ready” rarely happens. Start a dialogue with friends now. Collect initial feedback.

Ask The Pros If you have the capital, you can hire an agency to help you get started faster. Whitney Linscott, CEO & Founder of Bracket Dating, launched her app to solve the “swipe” problem in dating. When she decided to build an app, she attended a workshop with an app development company.

During the 2-day intensive, Linscott was able to flesh out her concept, along with finer details like user stories. The workshop facilitated her first steps, but Linscott noted, “Just to participate in the workshop was $10K.”

Connect With Your Local Tech Community

Many cities have local developer or app focused meetups. Even if you’re not going to hire a development company, start networking and identify local resources. Search online, talk to people who work in technical fields, and connect with local groups. Maybe there’s a tech Meetup event you can attend.

#2 Tell Everyone

We keep our ideas locked up for too long. Fear of rejection and never feeling “ready” can trick you into keeping quiet. And, sometimes there’s concern that a person might steal an idea. We tell ourselves these stories to let us off the hook–to prevent us from executing. Because executing is hard. Get your notes organized and tell everyone.

This is a collaborative process.

Most importantly —> There should be communication with your key demographic before anyone writes a line of code. Start soft sounding your ideas directly with your prospective users. Stay connected throughout this entire process. Start early. Start now.

Early Feedback Forms When I first started building 19 Minute Yoga, I recorded a rough version of my first class, posted it on Soundcloud, and collected early feedback through Google forms. I learned what people liked best, what I could do better, and how someone would describe my class to a friend.

See one of my early 19 Minute Yoga “comment cards” here for reference and feel free to steal some of the standard questions. #GeniusSteals

Share your idea with friends, family, and most importantly, the people you want to help–your target market. A survey is a simple way to gather feedback. When Bhasin surveyed her GLYD users, she learned that she was missing some key features, including messaging and following. She realized this would greatly improve the user experience (UX).

Focus & Find Your Niche #DrillDown Amy Hutchins, Founder & Chief Product Officer at Unearth, a collaboration tool for the construction industry, said “The hardest part was scoping down what we wanted to do.”

Hutchins and her team spent months talking to people in the construction industry. They realized technology could solve many pain points in the construction process, as a vertical it was a huge opportunity.

Know Your Audience Do your research. Get feedback early and often. Share your idea with people who fit your demographic. Make edits and adjustments as necessary.

When Unearth was conducting early research, they learned a key piece of information about the construction industry–iPads are everywhere on construction sites because the industry wholesale adopted them first.

Ask yourself, is your audience using a certain device or platform?

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  #3 Don’t Skip The Boring Stuff

Get your ideas organized and start writing your project brief (here’s a project brief outline). Get specific.

Start with these questions:

Why are you building this app? What will the app do?

What content (writing/images/audio/video etc.) will be included in the app? What are the key features that MUST be included the app?

Design and UX is very important. How does your app look and feel? How easy is it to navigate? Do you have wireframes or any creative design specifications? It’s OK if you’re not a designer, grab a pen and paper and hand draw your wireframe. (I sketched the first version of 19 Minute Yoga on a piece of paper and then we made a prototype with InvisionApp).

What type of device (phone/tablet) or platform (iOS/Android) will you build for first? Hint: what does your audience use most?

Will your app be used vertically or horizontally?

Will your app need wifi to work?

If you plan to make money with your app, how will you achieve this (freemium model, ads, e-commerce etc.)?

#4 Find The Right Developer

Building an app with someone is like a marriage. It’s an ongoing commitment and not a one-off project. If you’re a non-technical founder, this is the most important step. Give it the attention it deserves.

You have a few options:

Learn to code  – Invest in training and develop the app yourself or in-house. It’s not uncommon for founders to team up with a spouse or former colleague. One person is the developer–or willing to learn to code on the job–and the other person manages operations and marketing.

Bring on a technical partner – Find someone who either knows how to code or has the technical skills (and interest) in learning to code. Search your local network, LinkedIn, and past employment for partners.

Hire an independent developer or agency – You can outsource development to contractors or agencies (anywhere from $5K- $500K+), but there’s no easy button. Expect to be highly involved. It’s a very detailed process and requires many decisions from you. As you’re researching partners, don’t make your choice based on price alone and don’t pay 100% upfront. Take the time to review apps they have launched in the past. How is the functionality? Does it seem comparable to what you’d like to build?

Also, as a non-technical founder, you’ll benefit from a technical advisor or consultant. I know I did.

Search Everywhere For A Developer When Lori Cheek launched her first app, Cheekd, she had two business-side co-founders, but no one on the technical side. Following her appearance on ABC’s Shark Tank, she pivot Cheekd from a physical dating card business to a Bluetooth dating app. After hiring one of the most expensive agencies in NYC, she had an app that looked beautiful, “but the tech didn’t work.”

Cheek reconnected with a developer she had worked with in the past. She said, “We found our CTO on Craigslist.”

“In the beginning, it was a drawback not having a technical co-founder. Finding a CTO who was invested was the missing link.” – Lori Cheek, Co-Founder of Networkd

Lori Cheek’s newest app, Networkd, helps users create better connections based on location. “You could be sitting next to someone–someone who could be the co-founder you’re searching for–and not even know it,” said Cheek.

Work With Someone You Know Hayen said that Y Combinator recommends working with someone you already know. Even if it’s someone you haven’t talked to in a long time, search your network for someone who has a technical background (engineers, IT/tech specialists etc.). See if they are interested in partnering and learning to code on the job.

“Search your LinkedIn and start racking your brain for anyone with technical skills,” said Hayen.

Hire Good Communicators Allison Winston is President and Co-Founder at Kickwheel, the mobile college fair. Winston, who connected with her co-founder on LinkedIn, emphasized the importance of communication skills.

“Hire an engineer who can explain technical things to you. Someone who can talk about what they are doing. If you’re not mind melding with someone, it’s not a good fit.” – Allison Winston, President & Co-Founder of Kickwheel Co.

Work With Students Estee Goldschmidt, Co-Founder and CEO at ShopDrop, a guide to the best sample sales in NYC, recommends reaching out to engineering students and finding technical team members at your local university. For example, in you’re in NYC, NYU Tandon School of Engineering is a good place to start.

It Takes A Village Building a strong team is critical. It takes time to find partners with the right skills and culture fit.

In addition to development skills, you’ll want to consider graphic design, copywriting, community building, customer service, marketing, PR, and more (start thinking about that marketing plan before your launch). Keep networking and sharing your idea. You’ll start to identify the best partners and resources.

  #5 Build Your MVP

The first version of your mobile app is your MVP (minimum viable product) or “alpha.” This includes only the most important features–the stuff users absolutely must have to use your app. Focus on functionality and UX. You want a simple app that tests your assumptions about what users want and need.

“When you want to throw in the towel is usually when something unlocks. You have to hang in there a little longer than most people. Ride the uncertainty. Embrace the process and never lose sight of the experience equity.” – Julie Campistron, Co-Founder and CEO, Stop, Breathe & Think

This early testing will teach you a lot.

The process of building an MVP taught me some important lessons. I started with a web-based app, but I could have saved time and money if I had built for iOS from the beginning. The web-based MVP was so buggy that I couldn’t even share it externally. We ended up having to build the entire app over.

The first version of your app won’t be perfect, but it should pass internal Quality Assurance (QA) testing. It needs to have a baseline of functionality before you share it with external users.

QA Testing Just because the app works on your phone doesn’t mean it works for someone else. QA testing is super important but often overlooked until there’s a problem. In her role, Annie Purcell MSc, Project Manager and Quality Assurance (QA) expert, identifies a broken feature and submits a recommendation on how fix it.

“I put myself in the shoes of the most destructive user possible–to try and outthink ways to disrupt the product before anyone outside the development team gets their hands on a download.” – Annie Purcell MSc, QA expert

Be sure to test your app across a variety of devices.

Get Feedback Early & Often At Unearth, a regular feedback loop was established during alpha testing.

“We looked at all the features we wanted to build and prioritized. The most important thing we did was get feedback early.” – Amy Hutchins, Founder & Chief Product Officer, Unearth Technologies, Inc.

They partnered with alpha users who were willing to provide feedback in exchange for free use of the product. Hutchins said, “People were happy to use it and we set up the expectation that they would have weekly meetings with us to provide feedback.”

With my yoga app, we conducted one-on-one phone interviews and included an optional class review within the app. After completing a class, users could apply a star rating and/or a written comment. Users always had the option to “X” out. This helped us collect early and ongoing feedback.

Tight Timelines Create Lean MVPs Julie Campistron and Jamie Price are founders of the mindfulness and meditation app Stop, Breathe & Think. Campistron and Price pitched the tech mentors on Apple’s show Planet of the Apps and landed a mentorship with Jessica Alba. After hearing the good news, Campistron and Price were on a tight timeline to launch a version of Stop, Breathe & Think for younger kids. Campistron said, “We wanted to have it live for Planet of the Apps and Jessica Alba. We really limited the functionality. We ended up doing horizontal layout only and we didn’t do account creation. We haven’t had any negative user feedback.”

Stop, Breathe & Think regularly collects user feedback with UserTesting.com. Campistron said, “This service finds candidates based on demographics. They set up the link and the task and the whole process is filmed.”

However you plan to receive feedback, insight into how someone is navigating and experiencing your app is priceless.

Release & Update After building and testing (and building and testing), it’s exciting to officially release your app into the marketplace. I was psyched to see 19 Minute Yoga in the App Store for the first time. It can also be a little anti-climatic. There’s always something to tweak or update!

  #6 Connect With Your Community

Invest in PR and community building at least 3-6 months before your launch. Find the social network that fits your goals and connects with your audience. Depending on your industry, you might have a platform specific approach. Goldschmidt’s ShopDrop takes an Instagram-first social strategy, as the photo sharing site has become a powerful tool and  “changed the face of fashion” according to Vogue.

Where does your audience spend time? Research and prioritize.

Create Partnerships Diane Hamilton is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Binary Formations, a development company with a suite of apps, including App Store Editor’s Choice, Home Inventory. She said, “The market has changed so much. You have to have a marketing plan now, you can’t just put your app in the store. Build partnerships and find people with the the same target market.” At Home Inventory, Hamilton reaches out to professional organizers, as her app helps users “cut down on clutter.”

Alexis Monson, Founder of Punkpost, an app that sends handwritten cards mailed by artists for you, said they focus on PR more than other types of marketing. Punkpost got featured in the App Store which was “huge.” Monson said, “Some of the smaller blogs have more engaged users and communities. It was surprising at first. They might publish a little less, but their readers are hungry.”

Host Events Meeting users in person builds community and creates the chance for important conversations.

“We have monthly events, every event has a theme, and we also pull people aside to talk to them about the app. I’m building a product for our consumers, so if they tell me something is not a good idea–that’s important feedback.” – Estee Goldschmidt, Co-Founder & CEO of ShopDrop

Be Helpful In Small Group Discussions Hayen said, at Let’s Be Chefs, Facebook has worked the best for them, possibly because she’s “most familiar” with the platform. On Facebook, they do some paid ads and Hayen frequently shares recipes, cooking tips, and answers questions in private groups, especially cooking groups and mom groups. Do a keyword search on Facebook to find groups related to your topic.

Reddit is a great place to engage in subject-specific threads. I have an account for 19 Minute Yoga and I search health and wellness related posts to see how I can help. It’s also fun to participate in Reddit’s signature AMA (ask me anything!). On Reddit, always be helpful, non-promotional, and authentic. Here’s one of my first Reddit comments about the benefits of short yoga.

Invest In Your Marketing Team Notably, Unearth’s third hire was in the marketing department. Hutchins said, “I’ve been blown away by the value that our content strategist, Nick, has brought to the table–the leads and PR we’re getting from his work. We learn what’s resonating with people.”

  #7 Listen to Customers, Pivot As Necessary

“Sometimes you need a palate cleanser. Sometimes it’s good to have an idea and try it. Sometimes you decide not to bring it to market. It’s not wasted time. You learn something.” – Diane Hamilton, Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Binary Formations

Plan for success by staying connected with your community. Have a system for engaging and collecting feedback. You can start with a “help” contact email. As your community grows, you might invest in customer service software. Hamilton uses FogBugz and Punkpost uses a tool from Zoho.

When it comes to software, there are automated options for growing communities, but both founders emphasized the importance of a personal touch. You want your community to know there is a person listening.

As you collect feedback and analyze user data, you’ll make ongoing improvements and updates. You might decide to pivot. After ShopDrop founders identified the most popular topic in their app–sample sales–they re-launched with a new focus to serve their most engaged audience.

In general, don’t be afraid to pivot or roll out smaller apps to test new features. It’s part of the process.

“If you’re passionate about it and you’re willing to spend years working on it, you can do it. I think a lot people get hung up on the tech part because they didn’t go to school for it. It doesn’t matter. You’ll learn.” – Alexis Monson, Founder of Punkpost

Before Kickwheel, Winston had a 10-year career as a teacher. When she was ready to make a move, she immersed herself in learning about technology and studying the industry. Some of her favorite resources include Chaos Monkeys, a book The New York Times called an “indispensable 360-degree guide to the new technology establishment” and the podcast Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman, a legendary Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor.

Winston, now President & Co-Founder of an app with more than 1.2 million installs said, “I was not going to let being a non-technical person stand in my way.”

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Stay tuned for our behind-the-scenes podcast for more info on how to build an app. 

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Quality Content Now King?

It used to be all about links, links, links!  Then came RankBrain, and now there seems to be more of an emphasis on quality content.  But what exactly makes content quality?

Quality content is hard to produce and often expensive, so its benefits need to be justified, especially if the content in question has nothing to do with the conversion path. I want to see measured results. The arguments for quality content are convincing, to be sure — but the pragmatist in me still needs to see hard evidence that quality content matters and directly impacts rankings.

I had two choices on how to obtain this evidence:

I could set up a large number of very expensive experiments to weight different aspects of content and see what we come up with.

Or I could do some extensive research and benefit from the expensive experiments others have done. Hmmmmm.

As I like to keep myself abreast of what others are publishing, and after seeing a number of documents around the web recently covering exactly this subject, I decided to save the money and work with the data available — which, I should add, is from a broader spectrum of different angles than I could produce on my own. So let’s look at what quality content does to rankings.

What is quality content?

The first thing we need to define is quality content itself. This is a difficult task, as quality content can range from 5,000-word white papers on highly technical areas to evergreen content that is easy but time-consuming to produce, to the perfect 30-second video put on the right product at the right time. Some quality content takes months to produce, some minutes to produce.

Quality content cannot be defined by a set criteria. Rather, it is putting the content your visitors want or need in front of them at the right time. Quality is defined by the simple principle of exceeding your visitors’ expectations on what they will find when they get to your web resource. That’s it.

Larry Kim on machine learning and its impact on ranking content

Anyone in the PPC industry knows Larry Kim, the founder and CTO of WordStream, but the guy knows his stuff when it comes to organic as well. And we share a passion: we both are greatly intrigued by machine learning and its impact on rankings.

We can all understand that machine learning systems like RankBrain would naturally be geared toward providing better and better user experiences (or what would they be for?). But what does this actually mean?

Kim wrote a great and informative piece for “Search Engine Journal” providing some insight into exactly what this means. In his article, he takes a look at WordStream’s own traffic (which is substantial), and here’s what he found:

Kim looked at the site’s top 32 organic traffic-driving pages prior to machine learning being introduced into Google’s algorithm; of these pages, the time on site was above average for about two-thirds of them and below average for the remaining third.

After the introduction of machine learning, only two of the top 32 pages had below-average time on site.

The conclusion Kim draws from this — and which I agree with — is that Google is becoming better at weeding out pages that do not match the user intent. In this case, they are demoting pages that do not have high user engagement and rewarding those that do.

The question is, does it impact rankings? Clearly the demotion of poor-engagement pages on the sites of others would reward sites with higher engagement, so the answer is yes.

Kim also goes on to discuss click-through rate (CTR) and its impact on rankings. Assuming your pages have high engagement, does having a higher click-through rate impact your rankings? Here’s what he found:

What we can see in this chart is that over time, the pages with higher organic click-through rates are rewarded with higher rankings.

What do CTRs have to do with quality content, you might ask? To me, the titles and descriptions are the most important content on any web page. Write quality content in your titles and descriptions, and you’ll improve your click-through rate. And provided that quality carries over to the page itself, you’ll improve your rankings simply based on the user signals generated.

Eric Enge on machine learning’s impact on ranking quality content

Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting outlined a very telling test, and the results appeared right here on Search Engine Land in January. Here’s what I love about Enge: He loves data. Like me, he’s not one to follow a principle simply because it’s trendy and sounds great — he runs a test, measures and makes conclusions to deploy on a broader scale.

What Stone Temple Consulting did for this test was replace the text on category pages — which had been written as “SEO copy” and was not particularly user-friendly — with new text that “was handcrafted and tuned with an explicit goal of adding value to the tested pages.” It was not SEO content by the classic definition; it was user content. And here’s what they found:

The traffic to the pages they updated with high-quality content on saw an increase of 68 percent in traffic, whereas the control pages took a hit of 11 percent. Assuming that all the pages would have taken the 11 percent drop, the pages with the gains actually improved by 80 percent. This was accomplished simply by adding content for the users instead of relying on content that search engines wanted back in 2014.

Eric points out in his article that Hummingbird‘s role in helping Google to understand natural language, combined with the speed in adjustments facilitated by machine learning, allows Google to reward sites that provide a good user experience — even when it’s not rich in keywords or traditional SEO signals.

Brian Dean on core ranking metrics

Back in September, Brian Dean of Backlinko wrote an interesting piece breaking down the core common elements of the top-ranking sites over a million search results. This is a big study, and it covers links, content and some technical consideration, but we’re going to be focusing only on the content areas here.

So with this significant amount of data, what did they find the top-ranking sites had in common with regard to content?

Content that was topically relevant significantly outperformed content that didn’t cover a topic in depth.

Longer content tended to outrank shorter content, with the average first-page result containing 1,890 words.

A lower bounce rate was associated with higher rankings.

Topically relevant content appears to be more about what is on the page and how it serves users than whether it contains all the keywords. To use their example, for the query “indonesian satay sauce,” we find the following page in the results:

This page is beating out stronger sites, and it doesn’t actually use the exact term “indonesian satay sauce” anywhere on the page. It does, however, include a recipe, information on what a satay is, variations on it and so on. Basically, they beat stronger sites by having better content. Not keyword-stuffed or even “keyword-rich,” just better and more thorough content.

Quality content, it seems, has taken another victory in the data.

So what we see is …

I could go on with other examples and studies, but I’d simply be making you suffer through more reading to reinforce what I believe these three do well: illustrate that there is a technical argument for quality content.

More important perhaps is the reinforcement that “quality content” follows no strict definition, apart from providing what your user wants (although that may periodically be biased by what Google believes your user wants prior to attaining any information about them directly). Your click-through rates, time on page, bounce rate, the thoroughness of your pages, and pretty much anything to do with your visitors and their engagement, all factor in.

The goal, then, is to serve your users to the best of your ability. Produce high-quality content that addresses all their needs and questions and sends them either further down your conversion funnel or on to other tasks — anything but back to Google to click on the next result.

If you need one more reinforcement, however, I have one but it has no supporting authoritative data aside from its source. Periodically, Google either releases or has leaked their Quality Rater’s Guidelines. You can download the most recent (2016) in this post. While I did a fuller evaluation of these guidelines here, the key takeaway is as follows:

The quality of the Main Content (MC) is one of the most important considerations in Page Quality rating. For all types of webpages, creating high quality MC takes a significant amount of at least one of the following: time, effort, expertise, and talent/skill.

So we don’t get metrics here, but what we do get is a confirmation that Google is sending human raters to help them better understand what types of content require time, effort, expertise and talent/skill. Combine this information with machine learning and Hummingbird, and you have a system designed to look for these things and reward it.

Now what?

Producing quality content is hard. I’ve tried to do so here and hope I’ve succeeded (I suppose Google and social shares will let me know soon enough). But if you’re looking at your site trying to think of where to start, what should you be looking at?

This, of course, depends on your site and how it’s built. My recommendation is to start with the content I already have, as Eric Enge did in his test. Rather than trying to build out completely new pages, simply come up with a way to serve your users better with the content you already have. Rewriting your current pages — especially ones that rank reasonably well but not quite where you want them to be — yields results that are easily monitored, and you’ll not only be able see ranking changes but also get information on how your users are reacting.

If you don’t have any pages you can test with (as unlikely as that may be), then you need to brainstorm new content ideas. Start with content that would genuinely serve your current visitors. Think to yourself, “When a user is on my site and leaves, what question were they trying to answer when they did so?” Then create content to address that, and put it where that user will find it rather than leave.

If users are leaving your site to find the information they need, then you can bet the same thing is happening to your competitors. When these users are looking for the answer to their question, wouldn’t it be great if they found you? It’s a win-win: You get quality content that addresses a human need, and you might even intercept someone who was just at a competitor’s website.

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If you have a page that ranks well but not great consider rewriting it.  Add more content to engage the user and increase time on site.  RankBrain is making it more and more about satisfying the user, and if the user is bouncing off your site for a particular search query, your site will be demoted.

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