Stav Zilbershtein is the CEO of SellMyApp.com, a source code marketplace. Listen to how his platform is differentiating itself from Chupamobile or Apptopia, and hear his point of view of the future of indie app development
Show notes:
www.SellMyApp.com
SellMyApp guide on How to create an App
Interview with Stav Zilbershtein
Yohann: Welcome to another episode of the Mobile App Flipping podcast. Today I have an amazing guest. His name is Stav Zilbershtein and he is the Co-Founder and Product Manager at SellMyApp.com. Now, welcome Stav!
Stav: Thanks for having me, Yohann.
Yohann: It’s my pleasure. So, before we start, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and what SellMyApp is about?
Stav: Sure. Okay, I am mostly an Internet entrepreneur ever since I remember of myself. I have experienced the becoming of the Internet from nothing all the way to where we are today. We’re complaining about our fast Internet when it’s not working; I’ve been there when we still had like dial-up modems, playing Doom one-on-one with my neighbors by connecting my computer.
Yohann: By cable, right?
Stav: Yeah. It was a phone line. It was like calling another modem, like a fax method and I would have to place my computer next to the phone socket in order to play and I would play on the floor. So, this is just something funny on how it began.
Yohann: So, you are from the dinosaur time of the Internet?
Stav: Completely! Actually, even before the Internet there were many other things that I think some old-school people know, like MIRC chat and like BBS, which is the old version of a download server. People would just allow other users to call using a dial-up modem and just connect to their computer and download files. The funny thing about it is that only one person can log in at a time, so basically you just redial and redial, and when you get access to a certain server, you just stay there for as many hours as you can, downloading files and all the other people are just redialing and redialing, again and again hoping that you will lose connection in order to connect themselves.
Yohann: I’m glad these days are over.
Stav: Yeah. And my background is in Internet Marketing and User Experience. I’ve been doing this for almost 10 years now. I started in providing services to other companies who wish to appear and to gain more exposure on search engines and social media and so on. And from there I’ve started with years to like more the idea of doing things for myself.
Yohann: Okay, hold on. Before the Mobile App Industry and also before 2007, you were mostly into; I mean social media was already almost non-existent there.
Stav: Yeah.
Yohann: So, what were you doing before these times of having smart phones and when the Internet was already here, but there was no smartphone yet?
Stav: Well, I was mostly into Search Engine Optimization, you can say. That was my major practice. I had a few online ventures of my own – there were in a completely different niche and yeah, as soon as the Mobile Development world started to evolve and the Digital goods era itself. You know? All the digital products that are out there, there are many of them and the mobile source codes are just one. This was appealing to me all the time, because I knew there is nothing more fun than a 100% Internet-based business. I think that what’s exciting about the Mobile Industry also is that it resembles a lot of the same. People just create a virtual good of some kind – a game, an application, a utility, then using in-app purchases and other methods they turn it into something that is monetized, something that generates income.
Yohann: Okay. So now,