The Founders of Women in Mobile Talk Retention, Personalization, and Their “Army of Sparring Partners”

The tech industry is infamous for being male-dominated: at Google, women hold only 18% of the tech jobs, and the recent “Elephant in the Valley” survey reveals frustrating stats about women encountering harassment in the tech world, primarily in Silicon Valley.

But that certainly isn’t the whole picture. Business Insider has published a list of the most powerful women in mobile since 2012, and Women in Mobile, a networking group founded in 2014, empowers women to discuss, learn, and network in the mobile world, and ultimately shape the future of the industry.

At Appboy, we sat down with Vanessa Estorach and Caroline Ragot, co-founders of Women in Mobile, to talk about all the group has achieved so far, and what they’re looking forward to this year.

If you like what you read, be sure to check out Women in Mobile’s next event, on February 23 at Mobile World Congress: “How To Bring Users Back to Your App.”

The two of you co-founded Women in Mobile as a worldwide networking group. What do you hope the women involved will gain from this network, and from your events?

VISIBILITY! We want to avoid all-men panels because it doesn’t reflect the reality at all. Have you seen many companies, even tech companies, with men employees only? We want women to stand up and speak! For example, last Saturday we had a storytelling workshop with a TEDx curator, empowering attendees with great tips and tricks to connect with your audience and deliver an inspiring talk. Giving visibility to women is at the core of our mission but we also publish job opportunities, share learnings, get advice on projects, discuss the latest industry news…

How did you get started in mobile marketing?

Vanessa Estorach

Caroline Ragot

VE: 4 years ago, I was working in online marketing when I was invited to join a sports-monitoring app project, to promote this new app using online strategies. It was then when I discovered the amazing app world and everything you can do to attract and retain users.

CR: As the mobile strategist of InfoJobs, the leading job board of Spain, my role has been to convert InfoJobs into a mobile-first company. I started working very closely with the product team, leading our mobile development effort to build great apps. We released our first app in 2012 and that’s when I started learning all that I could about mobile marketing.

We both started discovering the fabulous world of ASO, then got quite deep into paid acquisition, and now are experimenting with mobile marketing automation and other technologies and strategies to get our users more engaged.

What led you to found Women in Mobile?

At the time we were both feeling quite lonely in our work, Vanessa being freelance and Caroline being the sole person responsible for mobile in her company. We were lacking a sparring partner and to be honest we were not the only ones. And when going to tech events we were not feeling at ease in a crowd mostly dominated by guys. Therefore, we decided to organize mobile girls’ dinners where we invited friends from the industry. We all shared the same interest to learn and share. The dinners became after-work parties, and our community grew and became Women in Mobile. Now, we have an army of sparring partners. 😀 And together we want to shift the balance and bring more women into tech. The future is being shaped by technology and if we want a better world for all, men and women have to design it. So we will give more visibility to all the women who are already having great mobile successes, hoping that these role models will inspire more women and girls to join us.

Since its inception in 2014, what are one or two of the most memorable moments for the organization?

At the first edition of our MWC Women in Mobile event, tickets sold out! And of course, last December when we received the Women in Tech prize from the Catalonia government for our contribution with Women in Mobile.

Women in Mobile, Barcelona, 2015

Women in Mobile’s next event, on February 23 at Mobile World Congress 2016, is all about bringing users back to an app. What, in your mind, is the biggest challenge in app user retention?

Changing user retention stats is a huge challenge. On average, we only use five apps per day and more than 90% of apps are uninstalled one year later. We want to share the secret recipes of successful companies such as Runtastic, Happn, King, and Rocket Internet to learn how to bring users back to your app.

What can attendees expect to learn from the presentations and panel discussions?

Our speakers are experts on app retention and we expect them to share their best tips and tricks with the audience. We will also have retention tips videos from our sponsors, including Appboy. We are expecting the best from you guys. Surprise us!

What mobile development are you currently most excited about and why?

Mobile marketing automation without any doubt!

If you had to make a prediction about what the mobile landscape might look like in five years, what would that be?

It’s hard to say, things are changing so fast and the mobile industry has been pretty surprising so far but let’s make a guess. We think that in five years, thanks to all the new sensors that will monitor our lives, personalization will become ubiquitous and as a result the same app will look completely different from one user to another.