Watch the video version of this show on YouTube »Matthieu Rouif is the co-founder and CEO of PhotoRoom. PhotoRoom enables anyone to create studio-quality photos on their iPhone. Before founding PhotoRoom, Matthieu was the Senior Project Manager at GoPro. Matthieu is also the co-founder and CTO of HeyCrowd, and co-founder and CEO of As-App.Matthieu earned his graduate degree in materials science and engineering from Stanford University, and his bachelor’s degrees in economics, and physics from École Polytechnique. While at École Polytechnique, Matthieu was a member of the skydiving team and debate team. Matthieu also served as a Parachutist Commando Officer in the French Air Force.Matthieu started developing apps in 2009 as a student at Stanford, and subsequently started two iPhone app companies. He was part of the Replay app team when they won App of the Year in 2014. Matthieu started PhotoRoom after leaving GoPro in 2018.In this episode, you’ll learn:
Matthieu’s retention strategies for keeping app users subscribed
Innovative and clever ways to get users to demo your app
Balancing your app’s pricing and features
How churn can be an asset

Links & Resources
YC
HeyCrowd
GoPro
Photoshop
Zenlea
Shopify
Poshmark
Depop
Corel
Matthieu Rouif’s Links
Matthieu on Twitter

Matthieu on LinkendIn

PhotoRoom is hiring!
10 Tools to Ship an iOS App in 2 Weeks
PhotoRoom’s Website

PhotoRoom API

PhotoRoom on Twitter

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David Barnard
Jacob Eiting
RevenueCat
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Episode Transcript00:00:00 David:Hello, I’m your host, David Barnard. And with me as always, Jacob Eiting, RevenueCat CEO. Our guest today is Matt Rouif, co-founder and CEO at PhotoRoom, the app for removing backgrounds and creating studio quality photos right from your phone.On the podcast, we talk with Matt about how his time at GoPro led to founding PhotoRoom, how churn can actually be an asset, and how being locked in Apple’s basement led to one of PhotoRoom’s biggest marketing wins.Hey, Matt. Thanks for joining us on the podcast today. How are you doing?00:00:48 Matthieu:Great. Hey David, Hey Jacob.00:00:51 Jacob:Hi, it’s nice to finally meet internet/virtual face-to-face. We’ve known each other for a little while. I’ve become fortunate to know you kind of through RevenueCat, but not actually know-know you. So, it’s nice to finally put a face to the name.I was looking back through my email and I think the first I ever heard of you was from our mutual friend, Cisco, if I say that correctly?00:01:23 Matthieu:Yeah, Francisco.00:01:24 Jacob:Francisco, who shared with me a blog post that I had seen that you wrote where you talked about RevenueCat as part of your stack. Since then, I think we talked as you were thinking about going into YC, and then after YC, I put in a little bit of money, so this is a good opportunity to check in on my investment.I’m super excited to dive in, because there’s a lot of questions. I kind of have followed you guys and kind of seeing some of the stuff you’ve been doing, but I don’t know, like the behind the scenes decision making processes and like, and all that stuff. So yeah, I’m excited to hear the story firsthand.00:02:04 David:Yeah, but before we get into PhotoRoom, you’ve got quite a history in app development. So, I want to go back to the beginning and talk war stories. A lot of people were in the industry way back when. Jacob and I both started really early as well. So, you got your start during the Stanford class and you were actually a teaching assistant at Stanford at the time, right? I’m kind of stealing your story, but yeah. Tell me, tell me how you got into it.00:02:34 Matthieu:Yeah. Actually I wasn’t a teaching assistant in physics. I was doing a master’s in physics at Stanford, right at the moment of the first iPhone class. And, I actually went to Stanford because I was fascinated by the entrepreneurship. And I had this business idea of printing photos and sending them.And that seemed a lot easier not to buy hardware