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Insights to Success on Facebook from fbFund Statistics

Before We Begin
First, these statistics are skewed and in no way represent successful applications as a whole. These are a tiny subset which Facebook decided to fund. For example, this is the categorical breakdown of all fbFund apps:

“Just for Fun” is highest because it’s the most likely to succeed, “Utility” and “Education” are next because they add value to the Facebook ecosystem, and the strong balance between all the rest is intentional. These applications were chosen to meet the goals of the fbFund, and it’s important to keep that in mind.

By Genre
ChubbyBrain first organized the 29 apps into tiers based on monthly active users, with the highest tier ranging from 30k to 500k MAU. The graph below shows the distribution of the top-tier apps:

It’s easy to conclude only half of the categories are worth pursuing, but I doubt it’s that simple. Compare these to the Tier 4 categories:

The important thing to note is that most of the bottom-tier applications were in the same categories as the top-tier applications. There are no guaranteed wins, suggesting execution is key. As for guaranteed losses, I still believe that there are none That said, some of these categories are significantly tougher to crack. Mobile, for example, is something that entrepreneurs are still trying to figure out. It is true that most endeavors thus far have not been successful, but somebody will get it right.

User Data
These next two graphs are very much related:

The Active Users:Fan Ratio is accompanied with a note that the ratios were calculated as a weighted average. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but we’re probably fine as long as we don’t take the exact numbers too seriously.

This part is important:

User ratings do not vary much across tiers. This makes sense. All of these applications were funded for being excellent, so they’re bound to be good quality applications that add value. The ratios are also good news. For the Tier 4 apps, every other user is a fan of the application. The Tier 1 apps have a much higher ratio, but the sheer magnitude of their user-base means that their fans are by no means few. All of these applications were made well, and have pleased their users

So then, what sets the Tier 1 apps apart from the rest? The answer is probably organic virality. See, only a minority of Facebook users will rate applications and become fans. I would imagine all of these applications were successful in holding the attention of those people who care about quality and utility. The secret, then, is to collect as many Facebook sheep as possible. The graph of MAU:Fan does not mean “how many users do not like your application very much?” It means “How many users did you grab who wouldn’t have found you otherwise?”

If the metric you care about is a sheer number of users, you need:
1) A natural way for the user-base to grow itself, and
2) Large, attractive arrows and directions to herd the masses through your app’s user experience.

Tags: analysis, business, facebook, startup