A YEAR IN THE LIFE
The 2021 Phiture Yearbook
For all the right reasons, 2021 will go down as a Phiture year we’ll never forget. When we look back at some of what we achieved — record financial growth, reaching 100 team members, opening a New York office — we couldn’t be more thrilled with how much we have to celebrate.
And to cap it all off by bringing home the App Marketing Agency of the Year at the App Promotion Summit in December really was the perfect end to another challenging cycle.
This was only possible with the support and insights from our mobile growth community and every single person in the Phiture team. So before we dive into our 2021 yearbook and share our vision for the year ahead, we’d like to say a huge thanks to everyone who helped us along in our journey.
And so, without further ado, let’s take a look back at some of our happiest moments, key business milestones, and a few facts and figures.
January
We beat the January blues
With our Berlin office still closed due to COVID-19 restrictions, we eased into 2021 with a remote company breakfast supplied by Bekarei – The Good Baking Company and a few welcome back beers. And to help spread some new year positivity, we sent every team member a surprise gift box full of custom-branded Phiture gear.
On the client front, we were happy to welcome Blinkist on board as a new CRM client and get behind their mission to help people fit learning into their everyday lives.
February
Old friends, new initiatives
Our long-time friends at SoundCloud signed for CRM services — a great reunion for our founders Andy and Moritz after leaving SoundCloud 6 years ago to build Phiture. We were also excited to launch a brand new UX/UI consultancy service, as well as our first non-profit app growth project with ShareTheMeal, helping bring an end to world hunger one meal at a time.
To help us all stay connected and have fun together while working remotely, our HR team organized an online snack-making event with healthy, locally grown products from GOOD BANK.
March
Women lead the way
Homegrown talents Tessa Miskell and Maggie Ngai stepped up to lead their respective CRM and ASO teams. After joining the company just a few years ago, we were thrilled to see them both develop into senior leaders and help steer our service growth.
And in celebration of International Women’s Day, we organized a company run to raise funds for the Girls for Girls project. For every kilometer tracked by the team, we donated €1, helping to empower women all over the world with the education and skills they need to progress into public leadership roles and close the gender gap.
April
A new Director of Client Services
Former Growth and Insights Lead Alex Billaud moved to take on the Director of Client Services role, his strong leadership and big-picture vision making him the perfect candidate to develop our client portfolio.
Squarespace, the all-in-one website builder, signed for our Managed ASO & CRM services, and over 10 Phiturians hosted workshops at the App Promotion Summit US and other mobile growth community events.
May
Prepare for lift-off 🚀
After months of planning — and who knows how many hours of Zoom calls — our senior leaders finally unveiled Phiture’s long-term vision for 2025 to the wider team. We firmly established our aim to become the #1 mobile growth consultancy in the world and prioritized four key investment areas that would help us see it through: people and culture, client and service growth, knowledge and education, data and tech.
June
The ASO Conference goes remote
Following the success of the 2020 edition, we brought the third installment of the ASO Conference (completely online this time) to over 2,000 attendees. Spread across a single day with over 4 hours of specialist ASO knowledge sharing and 15+ expert speakers — including our very own Iryna Maniuk and Mateusz Wrzeszcz — the conference was a huge success and reaffirmed its reputation as an absolute must in the yearly app marketing events calendar.
July
Bring on the celebrations 🎉
The Phiture Summer Summit was a major highlight, marking the first time we’d all been together in person for over a year. And with the company reaching the big 100-employee milestone earlier in the month, there was plenty of cause for celebration. It felt great to reconnect after such a long stint of remote work, and it was exciting to see our service teams unveil their long-term plans and visions for the future as well.
To add to the celebrations, we welcomed komoot, the leading outdoor adventure planner, on board for ASO & performance marketing services.
August
Climate & mental health action
To raise funds for the Ocean Cleanup initiative and draw attention to the drawbacks of fast fashion, our climate team organized a second-hand clothes sale at a local flea market.
At the same time, we partnered with the mental healthcare platform Oliva to provide proper online therapy for all our team members and gave everyone an extra 3 days of paid holiday per year for good measure.
September
We welcome a new head of marketing
Kahnar Abdulqader joined as our new Head of Marketing and immediately set out exciting new plans for 2022 and beyond. Not long after, we were thrilled to receive a nomination for the Best Independent Agency by The Drum Agency — the first of many for the year.
October
Five years of Phiture —Hello New York
Along with celebrating five fantastic years of Phiture, we announced the opening of our first US office in none other than New York City. What a way to toast our action-packed, fun-filled journey with such a talented and ambitious team!
To cap off the month, our creative team received the Web Excellence award for all their hard work producing the app preview video for the leading music streaming platform Deezer. And Gabe Kwakyi, our long-term friend and business partner, joined the Phiture team as director of our US operations.
November
Awards & a Halloween ocean clean-up
For the first time ever, Phiture was named Germany’s #1 startup employer in a study led by Business Punk and Statista. We were humbled to be recognized as one of the most attractive employers in our field while being home to over 40 different nationalities and languages.
And to celebrate Halloween, we held a climate-action-themed fancy dress party at our Berlin office, with all cash contributions going straight to the Trees for the Future organization.
December
Christmas comes early
Just when we thought things couldn’t get any better, December brought 6 very welcome award nominations at the App Promotion Summit Berlin, most notably for our work with LEGO, SoundCloud, and komoot. It felt great to be back at the Hotel Adlon in person once again and connect with so many familiar faces from the app growth community.
Taking home the App Marketing Agency of the Year award was the perfect way to sign off the year and is something we’ll always remember. Thanks to every one of the 50 client brands who came along for the ride.
The next chapters
2022 & beyond
And there you have it. We’ve said goodbye to another action-packed, challenging year and collected lots of special memories and important learnings to put us in good stead for 2022 and beyond.
Building on all that momentum, we’re already working towards making our goal of becoming the world’s #1 mobile growth consultancy a reality by focusing on four key areas.
People & culture
We’ll continue to develop our company culture and create exciting new career opportunities across our service teams — keep checking the website for openings. And with our New York office fully up and running, there’ll be plenty of exchange prospects ahead.
Client & service growth
We’ll continue to evolve our service portfolio, with a special focus on revenue growth, paid user acquisition, and subscription optimization and monetization.
Data & Tech
Investing in our in-house tech infrastructure will be key for our engineering team as they continue to build cutting-edge data solutions and strengthen our clients’ competitive edge in the market.
Thought leadership
Keep a lookout for the 2022 edition of the ASO Book, the new Phiture Academy education platform for aspiring mobile experts, plus a whole host of new frameworks, conferences, collaborative workshops, and updates from the mobile growth community.