Applause
Applause Gets a Standing Ovation
We helped build an idea into a venture-funded success and ultimately an acquisition
Challenge
Applause (at that time called uTest) had a very technical idea and needed help with brand awareness and getting the word out to both mainstream and technical audiences. You see, uTest was all about crowdsourced testing. In order to succeed, it needed to gain awareness among the developer community on one end, and clients on the other.
We were involved from the very beginning, working with the founders to develop their marketing strategy. We needed to create opportunities to truly engage an audience that was very development focused, inundated in code and data. At the same time, we needed to create awareness in the mainstream media, in order to reach potential clients with their message. Throughout our ten-year working relationship, we always wanted to make sure that Applause would get the... ahem... applause it deserved.
Process
Since the company was driven by a vision to perfect platforms through crowdsourced testing, our mission was to first create awareness within the developer community. We worked with Applause on a concept we called “Bug Battles.” We first challenged developers to find bugs in popular platforms and apps, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. The community response was overwhelmingly enthusiastic; they were happy to dive in and complete the challenge. This was not only a brilliant strategy for getting coverage in both mainstream and technical publications, but it became a working example of the service Applause could provide to these platforms, allowing the company to target additional business opportunities.
Finding hundreds of bugs on various well-known platforms, Applause’s name became widely recognized within the developer and business communities. But we didn’t stop there. We then came up with another plan to gain massive coverage for Applause by targeting different verticals, including travel, finance, and lifestyle, among others. These verticals were each interested in reports that listed the best (and worst) platforms and apps in their respective category based on the data Applause was gathering. These reports received lots of coverage and attention in the different press verticals we reached out to and solidified Applause as the go-to hub for app development validation.
The data Applause generated helped spread the word as it sped toward acquisition
Solution
After a successful rebranding and years of collaborative work that led to tons of top tier media coverage, Applause received major venture capital investments. This led directly to its acquisition and its current success as a leader in app development testing.
Results
- From its initial $500k seed round to its total funding of $115.8 million, the outreach and attention we acquired for Applause paid off
- Thanks to our years of outreach and Applause's innovative product, it was acquired in 2017 by Vista Equity Partners
- Our PR strategy led to coverage in TechCrunch, Forbes, Bustle, Nylon, Reuters, VentureBeat, The Next Web, and many more top tier publications in different verticals
- Our media connections landed Applause on CNBC’s Squawk Box, CNN, Fox Business, and other broadcast opportunities. In fact, Applause’s CMO became CNN’s “go-to” commentator on anything related to hacking and mobile related topics
- This type of press directly generated fresh business opportunities for this growing company
- Applause made the Inc. 5000 list five years in a row, as one of the fastest growing companies
- Applause was named to Forbes Magazine’s Most Promising Companies list two years in a row, and landed at number 7
- With 500,000+ testers from 200 countries and territories, Applause now has more testers from more locations than any other players combined
Coverage
As featured in
“"The company next plans expansion of its in-the-wild testing services. This facility was, to some extent, a stroke of genius. It immediately made the company scale much faster than its competitors. This, combined with its app store analytics and its proprietary tools means that uTest/Applause has now become one of the dominant players in app testing and now with this funding ensures that it is probably on its way to rolling up the competition as well."”Read article →
“"We focus on software testing services but we're really expanding beyond that. It's about analytics, it's about tools. We've announced a company name change to Applause a few months from now and we're really ensuring the experience for brands that are launching software and apps in the market."”Read article →
“"To expand into Europe, Applause spent an estimated $5 million to buy Testhub in Berlin. It has also launched new analytics, letting customers test for glitches and monitor operations and user feedback. But it's still barely a blip in what Reuveni says is a $20-billion-a-year business for testing and analytics, overshadowed by Hewlett-Packard , IBM and CA Technologies, which specialize in Web and PC apps. It's in mobile that Applause sees its future, as the app culture mushrooms in Asia and western Europe."”Read article →
“"Applause tests and gets feedback from users about their digital experience for brands such as Amazon, Ralph Lauren, HBO and BMW. Applause, with over 300 employees, has headquarters near Boston and offices in Israel. It will use the funds to expand its testing services and launch its digital research services."”Read article →
“"But a company called uTest uses a system called Applause to crawl Apple’s App Store and Google’s Google Play, collecting user reviews and rankings. It then turns this data into scores from 1 to 100 for individual apps, and calculates average scores for each platform."”Read article →
“"uTest's (Applause) clients include Google, Microsoft and the BBC, as well as media, gaming and health care companies, plus smaller software startups. Instead of scaling up their own QA teams, sending engineers out into the wild, or contracting with another company that may only conduct an additional series of lab tests, companies can get exactly the testers they need to cover the situations they can't test themselves."”Read article →
“"With its new App Automation product, Applause customers can quickly test their apps with custom scripts and object layers written by Applause engineers specifically for an app. Customers can also test apps using Applause’s framework, which supports Web, iOS, and Android."”Read article →
