MVNO product development - post pay vs. prepay part 1: launch

MVNO Product Development - Prepaid MVNO vs Postpaid MVNO

When launching an MVNO, simple and low risk is key "keep it green" :)

One thing that has been a bug bear of every MVNO process has been keeping things simple, which invariably means prepay only for launch. Yes, there is a reason why pretty much all the successful MVNOs that are still here launch pre-pay only; when you are new to a market (most MVNOs are new to mobile) it pays to keep your front and back end processes as simple as possible.

Which leads to the next bug bear which is trying to base your launch product on other players follow-up and mass-market products. Just because your competitors have moved to post-pay does not mean you need to launch post-pay and or even compete with their prices.... (this will be another post...)

Keeping things simple in MVNO is easy, right? 

So back to keeping things simple: Everybody buys into it, yes, but not everybody gets it, and even those that do are easily distracted: It's a bit like being a good citizen; some will never get it, and you should keep them as far away from anything important as possible; others need reminding often, and others only the threat of prison makes them adhere to the rule. The analogy is important here, as most people the fear of failure, like the fear of prison,  is the only way to keep them on the straight and narrow!

Evidence of this is when you get comments from people who you thought got it like: "that cannot have taken long, look how simple it is" or "why are we launching with just pre-pay again?" Simple takes time; anybody can take a collage of other products, jam them together and come up with a half decent proposition in a day, the problem is it will cost you a lot to market, a lot to service and will cost even more in lost sales and churn, and most likely it will fall into the 50% of new businesses that fail and cost the highest business cost of all: failure!

Simple takes time, a lot of thought and often counter-intuitive - but achieves success

So back to why keeping it simple is important? I will start with one of the best comments of the last MVNO conference in Rome by Adam Holt of Tuenti at the last MVNO conference, who said that if they did it over again they would not have done post-paid, as it lengthened the product cycle. I will deal with this in another post, let's just stick here to the precursor of this which is launch:

Basically, before  launch you will need to build a product set that fits with your business model, your strategy and your marketing plan and investment. The variables here are huge alone, but simple will in short be easier to manage, cheaper to market and quicker to implememt. I have seen months' delay from just one billing product complication in run up to launch causing a no-go.

Launch and post launch prepaid mvno benefits

The critical time however comes at launch and post-launch. Here you will be dealing with configuring of a new billing system, running reports hourly at first and trying to work out not just problems, there will be supposed problems that are not actualy problems but have you in a tizzy anyway and real problems as well: It's all so much easier when the product is simple. There will be over performing and underperforming tariffs that need revising up and down, there will be customers who fall short of the next bundle up who will need targetting, and guess what- its all very easy, and very profitable, if the product is simple.    I have seen a first consignment of overcomplicated bundles never make it to acual customers: The offer was well concieved and attractive, unfortunately so much so the SIMs sold very well - to fraudulent SIM box use that was not even in the country of origin within days: the losses were not just the fraud on the network, but the marketing that excited real customers who could not get a product...

Do I need to be a post pay mvno at all?

Then there is the recent developments: I have been using the above slide for over 10 years now, but since then we have seen products like the Oyster Card on the London underground, targeting some of the most affluent people on the planet with pre-pay only, and Starbucks as well with their closed user group that is pre-pay only, with average revenues way above average post-pay mobile bills. The important point is that they do not market the product as pre-pay, and do not allude to the fact, nor hold back on their marketing based on assumptions of post-pay being on the horizon.

Why do mvnos go post-paid at all then?

Most MVNOs may eventually benefit from postpay, the key word being eventually. The 80 / 20 rule, is key here - if you want to get all your customers, some my want a contract, and part of being simple is not making the pain of adoption any more difficult than it has to be, however there are other considerations at this point such as can you afford, or do you want to afford, the higher subscriber acquisition cost? Remember MVNOs live and die by acquiring customers cheaper and keeping them longer, post-pay may lend itself to the latter, but is very hard on the former, as well as being the MNOs bread and butter.

So, even if you cannot keep it simple... At least start it simple, and your chances of sucesses, as well as those of avoiding failure will be much higher, mostly because your marketing budget will have gone further and attracted better customers (you see where I am going here) let alone the fact that your boss / shareholders will not have been breathing down your neck while you are pulling 15 hour days on the red boxes on the slide above!

MVNO Conference 2013 Rome LTE MVNO opportunity

I though I would share my slide and thoughts on LTE and the MVNO, having written many of the requirements, negotiated a major full MVNO with LTE and now building the full LTE MVNO, here in the UK for yet another FTSE 100 company entering mobile.

The Opportiunities for LTE in MVNO and LTE wholesale are huge

I feel in a strong position to talk about the opportunity because I have negotiated a lot of MVNO agreements over the last 10 years across mostly Europe, which has seen the advent of 2G MVNO and 3G MVNO and its contractual, organisational and other issues. Also because at Virtuser we run a lot of value added services for MVNOs, like top-up over SMS and OTA data settings for MVNOs so we see what handsets are being used, what data propositions are being used and other first hand experience of not just walking the talk, but walking the walk, to use the consulting analogy (consultants are often accused of only being able to talk the talk, or at most talk the walk :))

In assessing the LTE MVNO opportunity, we need to look at the facts, not 3G+

Its important that we look at the facts when assessing the LTE opportunity and not make the 3G mistakes, not only on the commercial proposition side, but also from a network and business side. That is: its clear that 4G handsets are slower in uptake than 3G, and that so far this service, as such, commands a premium over 3G. We also know that data currently represents high double digits percentages of network running costs (87% in the case of a major MNO in the UK) but no where near these levels of revenues. We also know that while mobile data costs in the region of 5X the cost to provision, it does not command a yield price 5X that of fixed broadband data due to strong competition on the MNO retail market... Wholesale therefore is a significant opportunity for MNOs and MVNOs to charge the higher yields and returns to MNOs and MVNOs alike in this space. This will require the MNOs, and their notorious contracts to adapt and enable all new MVNOs with "4G ready" status.

Please can we not see MVNOs still launching with 3G SIM cards 7 years from now like with 3G

 I was still negotiating 2G SIM card deals for MVNOs in 2007, 7 years after 3G! All new MVNOs should be 4G ready MVNO or LTE ready MVNOs, however you wish to call this. This means 4G MVNO SIMs, but also 4G LTE MVNO on the MNO roadmap, in the commercial contracts and support services.

4G has had a lot of marketing spend and will be big, but a 4G MVNO campaign does not need  huge spend

A lot of marketing money has been spent on 4G and it will be big, but that does not mean 4G MVNO marketing needs to be big. Sure, EE has spent tens of millions, if not hundreds, on Kevin Bacon on prime TV ATL campaign... but they also launched #OM4G around the social networks and hit exactly the same audience for the cost of a couple of your marketing execs and some creative freedom free of corporate risk constraints (unlikely in an MNO :)) Data MVNOs like Bliep* launched and grew almost entirely on Twitter. Cheap marketing and a niche = low SAC, the mainstay of wholesale. add the fact that MVNOs are generally attracting a higher yield for their data and we have an ideal scenario for 4G to pull us out of the 3G hell we have, where heavy competition and unlimited packages mean 5% of the users are using 95% of the data and nobody can get a fast connection when they need it, reliably at least.

Clever Twitter and social marketing by MVNOs that is too risky for MNOs can hit at core 4G data market with low SAC

So the dawn of clever MVNO marketing is already here, and shifting the focus of MVNO marketing spend from being like MNO spend (mainly ATL with some dabbling elsewhere) to very experimental, experiential and social marketing... exactly what internet savvy 4G target market consumes. So no need for an overcomplicated six degrees of separation to attract a market and generation who are more 4G aspirational than 4G ready.

So you got past 4G and LTE contractual, MNO roadmap and other issues: is your MVNO platforms operationally ready?

Many MVNOs today have 3G, however nobody uses it as they are obsessed with competing with MNO bundles. The fact is that 50% of UK smartfone users use less than 100mb of data, and the rest use around 200mb. That means that by paying as much as 5p to 10p per megabyte on an MVNO, these users will be better off than getting an unlimited MNO tariff. What is more, the host MNO is better off, as retail yields are around ten times less than this. The MVNO is better off, as these data revenues are what shifts MVNOs form what I call a "£10 minus ARPU MVNO" to a "£10 plus ARPU MVNO".

By enabling the most advanced OTA MVNO data settings on the market we have seen huge growth in data usage in even markets which the MVNO would never assume they could generate usage.

The key issues around negotiating LTE MVNO and getting an MVNO 4G ready

The back-end is still critical, even the slickest MVNO architecture from tier 1 providers does not come with the back-end to enable MVNO friendly OTA and APN data settings, some of them incur up to 50% of customer care calls, which at an average of around £4.50 cost to an MVNO of a customer care call today, can easily wipe out the increased ARPU from data, and even all the profit from a user. Finally, the proposition needs to work. From running the SMS tariff top-ups form MVNOs we have great insight to the propositions MVNO customers actually buy, and they are very different from what most MNO propositions are, and a world away from the tizzy that MVNO management and proposition consultants can whip themselves into.

Every informative case study should end with a shameless plug for our services Virtuser MVNO consultancy :)

personal or celebrity MVNO Jennifer Lopez mobile mvno marketing

One of my more popular posts of just over a year ago was around the plans for Samuel Eto'o to Launch an MVNO in his native Cameroon, and it was for good reason: there is a lot of mileage in the personal mvno, or as it is now becoming more commonly referenced as celebrity MVNO.

So along comes Jennifer Lopez and announces an Hispanic MVNO or strategic alliance with Verizon to sell phones. What is more interesting about the JLO mobile deal however are two things: firstly that there have already been some Hispanic MVNO plays in the US market with Movida, Tuyo and Dexa among others, and secondly that it is in a market and host operator that has done this kind of thing before... yes, I am saying it will take a little longer to launch (the first) MVNO in Cameroon than an existing model, in an established market with a celebrity twist.

MVNOs need more than just a brand now, they need a brand that plays in many spaces and moves forward

This Celebrity twist may be the key, as so far the Hispanic MVNOs have had initial success, but ultimately have failed, and this is due to a mixture of two things:

1. The customer outgrowing the brand: most Ethnic MVNOs sell on the USP of having a native language IVR, something which a customer can quickly outgrow
2. Most MVNOs are very good at getting the first customers on board, the early adopter, however those that fail typically do so due to not evolving the product marketing to the second wave of "me-too" and mass market

So how can someone like JLO help? well it depends on how much she is involved, but on a simplistic level the customer is less likely to outgrow the product when they ground themselves in their environment.

Secondly, if someone like Jennifer Lopez is involved in the product cycle, even if at a very high level like the Will.I.am Intel innovation can really help to keep the customer engaged and the product evolved for longer.

You only have to Google "Jennifer Lopez Enterprises" to uncover companies such as BioWE, Nuyorican productions (nice!) and more, all this can add a much needed injection of ongoing product development and innovation to a mobile model, both the MNO and MVNOs that is in need of a different approach to product development and innovation that the new wave of celebrity or personal MVNO could add.

The celebrity in technology is not new, Clive Sinclair was the centre of the ZX spectrum,

The entrepreneur behind the spectrum was key, tho not enough for his next venture, the C5

Richard Branson was as bigger part of the value of Virgin Mobile as the trade mark itself, even beyond its native brand strong-hold, the UK

Launch publicity like this costs millions... or you can hand a celebrity / personality behind the brand from a rope!

Steve Jobs was the centre of Apple's ability to enter the mobile space that everybody, and it is hard to believe, everybody thought they would fail at. Indeed the then Nokia CEO famously expressed; "if I launched a 2G phone with those specs..." (the first iPhones were technically behind, but the OS and eco system more advanced, driven by vision, not typical technology product development.

Steve Jobs, and his vision of UX and eco system over hardware, were key to the success of  the iPhone

and many of the Victorian industrial revolutionists were a key part of the evolution of the brand and products and innovations. the Rocket, is not known as the rocket, but Stephenson's Rocket

Rocket? ah... you mean Stephenson's rocket!

The ideal is to return to business to attract the right people, which will happen, but in today's safe, grey and boring corporate world were management salaries are lagging, the talent is elsewhere and in entrepreneurial roles, and recruiting celebrities and personalities to inject a bit of life into your technology product is no bad thing.