Feb 9, 2023 · 1h 3m · a16z
The State of Apps with Olivia Moore
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In this episode of The a16z Podcast, host Steph Smith and guest Olivia Moore analyze data tracking every #1 app on the US iOS App Store in 2022, uncovering major shifts in consumer social behavior, viral mechanics, monetization models, and global distribution trends.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. The host holds 38.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 3.5 Guest teaching 4.8 Guest disagreement 0.1 The host pushing back 0.2
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 13:53 Rejection of traditional media reach vs organic word-of-mouth
In a generally harmonious episode, guest Olivia reframes host Steph's example by pointing out how traditional TV press like the Today Show generates negligible app conversions compared to genuine user word-of-mouth.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 51:19 Steph's marketer pushback on creator marketing ROISteph pushes back from her real-world marketing experience, challenging the notion that businesses can reliably engineer creator virality or repeat single-creator success stories.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 53:38 Geographic shift statistics in App Store dominanceOlivia drops hard dataset evidence revealing that US-developed apps lost dominant market share, falling from 85% of top apps in 2021 to just 45% in 2022.
The host holds their own ▶ 28:11 Steph's apparel industry 'messy middle' pricing analysisSteph demonstrates sharp business expertise by connecting Tinder's $500 pricing experiment to economic dynamics in apparel where budget and ultra-luxury tiers outperform the weak mid-tier.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Methodology: Tracking Daily #1 Apps on the iOS App Store | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Steph inquires about Olivia's methodology in tracking daily top App Store apps and sets up the framing around whether social media is entering a new era. Olivia shares detailed findings on top apps like BeReal, TikTok, and Gas. | |
| Authenticity, In-Real-Life Hooks, and Un-Curated Feeds | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Steph observes how modern social apps push back against hyper-curated feeds and asks about the difficulty of maintaining top placement. Olivia educates the host on the 100,000 daily iOS download threshold required to reach number one. | |
| The Challenge of Retention and Traditional Media Channels | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Steph brings up cultural references like the SNL BeReal parody and short attention spans. Olivia explains product re-engagement hooks, such as BeReal's simultaneous daily notifications and Gas app high school FOMO mechanisms. | |
| Organic Virality, Re-engagement Hooks, and Unplanned Explosions | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Steph highlights the contrast between traditional PR like the Today Show driving only 1k downloads versus viral word-of-mouth, citing a TikTok boating app example. Olivia illustrates organic virality using the Talking Ben the Dog meme resurgence. | |
| Non-Social Drivers: Platform Shifts and Home Screen Widgets | 4 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Steph notes that underlying human emotional desires stay evergreen across app generations. Olivia educates on how iOS widget updates created new utility categories like LockIt and LiveIn, alongside AI avatar trends. | |
| The Fast-Monetization Paradigm and Lensa AI Case Study | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Steph explores the shift towards early monetization over Facebook-scale reach. Olivia breaks down consumer spending comfort through Apple Pay and cites Lensa AI's multi-million dollar early avatar revenue. | |
| Shifts in Consumer Payment Behavior and High-Tier Pricing | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Olivia outlines gaming whale monetization strategy and subscription price experimentation, including Tinder's $500 tier test. Steph adds expertise by drawing a parallel to the apparel industry's messy middle dynamic where mid-tier pricing fails. | |
| B2B/Insurance Monetization and Technology-Driven Gamification | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Olivia explains B2B models where insurers fund health apps. Steph demonstrates expertise by sharing a detailed anecdote about insurance-incentivized activity tracking apps. | |
| Mobile-Native Distribution Advantage: Lensa vs. Web-Based AI | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Steph highlights early web-based avatar tools like ProfilePicture.ai and asks why Lensa blew past them. Olivia explains mobile-native distribution advantages, specifically push notifications and frictionless UX. | |
| Real-World Events and Cultural Spikes in App Store Rankings | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Steph reflects on how real-world history is captured in App Store charts. Olivia presents real-world event spikes, including 7-Eleven Slurpee Day, McDonald's Free Fries, Starlink satellite launches, and post-Roe v Wade period tracking. | |
| Looking Ahead to 2023: Temu, Invisible AI, and Controlled Virality | 4 | 6 | 0 | 0 | Olivia outlines 2023 predictions like Temu's group-buying mechanics, invisible AI recommendation feeds, and startups deliberately archiving viral TikTok clips to throttle unmanageable user spikes. Steph contributes insights on the transition to interest-based social algorithms. | |
| Vertical Social Networks, Niche Communities, and Collectibles | 4 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Steph brings up Strava as an activity-centric vertical social platform and parallels Squishmallow collecting to Beanie Babies. Olivia shares how a niche Squishmallow tracking app cracked the top 200 charts. | |
| Digital Behavior Penetrating the Physical World | 4 | 5 | 0 | 2 | Olivia shares how creators like Keith Lee drive thousands in physical restaurant sales via viral TikTok reviews. Steph provides marketer pushback on the inconsistency and unpredictability of creator marketing ROI. | |
| Global App Studio Diversity and TikTok Distribution | 3 | 6 | 0 | 0 | Steph notes the geographical diversification of app creators. Olivia delivers statistical proof showing US-developed #1 apps dropped from 85% in 2021 to 45% in 2022, highlighting global studio distribution via TikTok. | |
| The Subway Surfers Resurgence and Multi-Sensory Media Habits | 3 | 6 | 0 | 0 | Steph discusses split-screen media formats designed to bypass copyright or hold short attention spans. Olivia educates on Subway Surfers growing downloads 50% decade after launch due to TikTok split-screen gameplay pairing. | |
| Brainstorming a #1 App: The Pet & Dog Concept | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | In a fun, collaborative pitch session, Olivia proposes a digital pet/dog ownership app concept. Steph extends the brainstorm with an idea for an app matching dog and owner facial similarity percentages. |
Statements from this episode (34)
Olivia Moore: BeReal, TikTok, and Gas were 2022's top iOS apps
“So there were three big winners of 2022, which were Be Real, which is a new social media app. TikTok, of course, was number two, and then GatsApp was number three.”
Olivia Moore: Gas App reached #3 iOS spot despite launching late
“GatsApp is an interesting story because it was actually released later in the year in the fall, so it kind of came from behind with less time to grab the number three spot for the year overall.”
Moore: Top five 2022 iOS apps were social; three were brand new
“The top five apps this year in terms of days at the top were actually all social media products, and three out of those five were apps that didn't even exist two years ago.”
Moore: Instagram and Snapchat missed top app charts due to US saturation
“To me, the fact that Instagram and Snapchat didn't appear at the top doesn't necessarily mean they're kind of dead as products. I think part of what it means is they've saturated the US user base, so they aren't getting a ton of new downloads every day.”
Moore: Hitting #1 on US iOS App Store requires ~100k daily downloads
“My data polls show you need probably around or maybe a little bit above a 100,000 downloads in the US on iOS. On any given day to hit number one.”
Moore: Over half of 2022's #1 iOS apps stayed top under five days
“The largest number of apps that hit number one this year were number one for just a day, or maybe half a day, not that long at all. And more than half of the apps at number one were up there for less than five days throughout the whole year, not even five cons…”
Moore: Breaking into top iOS app rankings is easier now, but retention is harder
“So my view is it's in some ways easier to break into the top than it was five years ago. But it's probably actually quite a bit harder to stay at the top unless you have a very kind of magical and retentive products.”
Gas app's exclusive Today Show segment generated only 1,000 downloads
“Prior to the acquisition, Nikita, the founder went on the today show and had this big exclusive segment, which in the past would have been like, Huge for an application or a company. And he said he thinks it generated a thousand downloads.”
Moore: Building a startup audience on TikTok will get progressively harder
“It's probably harder to build an audience on TikTok, especially as a startup, than it was a year and a half ago or two years ago, and it'll get harder and harder over time.”
Moore: Old app Talking Ben the Dog hit #1 via YouTuber meme
“One of the top apps this year was called Talking Ben the dog, which is a kid's educational science game where you're taking care of this fluffy dog and you can ask him questions about science and do experiments with him. But it went viral after this YouTuber w…”
Moore: Apple's iOS widget update catalyzed viral app growth in 2022
“Lock It Widget was probably the first one to explode in, in January, and then was followed by Live In, Widgetable, a bunch of other apps that really capitalized on this kind of, not a full platform shift, but kind of a, maybe an operating shift, a system shift…”
Moore: Anonymous social apps decay quickly without an explicit act two
“These apps that are based around kind of anonymous networks. Can you really build like a lasting social network? Because people aren't really storing relationships on the app. They're not really communicating or direct messaging through the app. So they get ve…”
Olivia Moore: Opportunity to rapidly build and monetize mobile apps is unprecedented
“I think the opportunity maybe has never been greater to build and monetize a mobile app quickly, make a few million dollars and retire if that's what you want to do.”
Gas app reached 10 million downloads and $6 million revenue before acquisition
“One of his last tweets about the app before the acquisition said they had had like, ten million downloads and six million in revenue, which is just amazing.”
Lensa AI generated over $20 million in two weeks from avatar packs
“And some of the external app data estimates say that they made, you know, upwards of twenty million dollars in a couple weeks, getting people to buy Pack of avatars for eight dollars.”
Moore: No paid-download app has hit #1 on the App Store
“I still think we've yet to see an app hit number one that charges for a download.”
Moore: $60/year subscription apps struggle to scale revenue
“Many of those are amazing companies, but it's hard to generate hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue on, on things like those.”
Moore: Tinder should proceed with testing a $500 per month subscription tier
“And if someone's willing to pay 500 dollars and feel like Tinder is delivering that value to them with Maybe a more sophisticated product. Like I think they should go for it.”
Moore: First-to-market advantage is not required to win app categories
“And I think like the fact that there were so many widget apps and so many AI art apps that made it to number one shows that it's not necessarily the first to market that kind of wins the space or gets all the value out of the space.”
Web-based AI avatar tools preceded Lensa using identical underlying APIs
“So there were at least, I'm aware of two or three different web-based applications, ProfilePicture.ai and then Avatar.ai as well, which had come out first with this idea of creating personalized avatars. I believe all, all of these products are based off of th…”
Mobile-native UX vaulted Lensa past earlier web-based AI avatar tools
“I think them, their capitalization on mobile as a platform was really smart and kind of vaulted them ahead of a lot of the web-based avatar products that did come out first and have similar quality images, but were just harder to use.”
Moore: 7-Eleven app consistently tops App Store on Free Slurpee Day
“Another one that I think a lot of people were surprised to see hit number one this year was the seven-eleven app for the convenience store chain, but that almost always hits number one on free Slurpee day, July, every year, because you have to have the app to …”
Moore: Period tracking app hit number one after Roe v. Wade decision
“There's a next gen period tracking app for women, which claims kind of special encryptions that make it harder for, you know, subpoenaing the data or anything like that. And that reached number one just a few days after the Roe v Wade verdict, so after it was …”
Temu held #1 on US App Store for 22 of 25 days
“For my most recent check, I think of the 25 days so far this year, Temu has been at the top for like 22 of them. They were not number one on New Year's Day because some like habit tracker app or New Year's resolution app hit it, but otherwise they've held the …”
Moore predicts Temu will finish in the top five apps of 2023
“So I'm going to make an early call that we'll see Temu at least in the top five, if not higher.”
Startups are intentionally archiving viral TikToks to throttle unmanageable app downloads
“And so we've seen actually a few startups I've talked to recently have started limiting their own virality, which sounds impossible because virality is theoretically organic. But what they'll do is if a video starts performing too well on TikTok, it gets too m…”
Moore: Gen Z never adopted Yelp and seeks alternative local discovery tools
“So Gen Z, Yelp is not their favorite place to be. They've never really been big adopters of Yelp, and so they're looking for a new platform.”
Moore: TikTok reviewer Keith Lee generates tens of thousands in instant business revenue
“There's so many stories out there now, if you Google him of businesses that were really struggling and he was able to generate tens of thousands of dollars in revenue for them in just one or two days.”
Moore: A next-generation Yelp platform will emerge in two to three years
“This next-gen Yelp vision that I think we believe is going to play out over the next two to three years.”
Moore: US-developed breakout #1 apps dropped from 85% to 45% in 2022
“In 20, 21 of the new startups that kind of cracked the top number one for the first time, almost 85% of them were developed in the U.S. But in 2022, that had dropped to 45%.”
Russian app Travelboast hit #1 in US after gaining 500M TikTok views
“There's one app that hit number one this year called Travelboast. Which is kind of an interactive map where you can visualize all the places you've been. It originated in Russia, but it ended up with five hundred million views on TikTok because people globally…”
Subway Surfers cracked top 10 most downloaded apps globally in 2022
“And now, more than 10 years later, they just cracked the top 10 most downloaded apps worldwide, so not just in the US, and not just for games, across both games and non-gaming apps.”
TikTok creators use Subway Surfers split-screens to retain short attention spans
“It turns out that especially Gen Z users but all ages have started kind of split screening TikTok videos because people have such short attention spans. So they'll put the real video on top, or they'll put, you know, the voiceover on top, and then they'll put …”
Moore: Young people spend record amounts on dogs over children
“There's this fascinating trend around dog ownership and dogs, especially for young people becoming the new children because people are having kids later or having fewer kids. They're spending more money on their dogs than ever before. And there are not that ma…”