Episode 7, Tomas Joscak
coupons galaxy store badges banner promotions social media multi-language support best of galaxy store awards transcript note transcripts are provided by an automated service and reviewed by the samsung developers web team inaccuracies from the transcription process do occur, so please refer to the audio if you are in doubt about the transcript tony morelan 00 02 hey, i'm tony morelan and this is pow! podcasts of wisdom from the samsung developer program, where we talk about the latest tech trends and give insight to all the opportunities available for developers looking to create for samsung on today's show i interview tomas joscak from vienna studios tomas is an amazing watch face designer, even won the 2019 best of galaxy store award for best indie watch face designer some of his designs, he's priced them in the hundreds of dollars, and people are buying them and the software he uses to create the graphics it's typically not used for designing watch faces you're going to be surprised enjoy so thomas, tell me who is thomas joscak tomas joscak 00 48 welcome, i just check interesting question oh, well, i will describe myself as somebody who has to learn as an example and cool class storage goals i said one goal a few years ago, i wanted to run a marathon so i prepare myself one year long and afterwards, i barely use the sport shoes so then i have other goals again tony morelan 01 18 so it sounds like maybe a short attention span that you're into something for a brief moment and then after that you move on to the next challenge tomas joscak 01 27 yes, definitely tony morelan 01 29 so tell me, how did you get your start in design, tomas joscak 01 32 design was always kind of a hobby of myself and even if i do have two phds in natural sciences, i always have to be somewhere in a field where nobody had been before so it is a research where i'm working on something new, or i'm producing something new in the field of design i love it tony morelan 02 00 so you're so your education is not design base you said you have two phds in natural sciences tomas joscak 02 05 yes, yes, i never studied design tony morelan 02 08 wow it's pretty amazing because i mean truthfully you are one of the top sellers on the galaxy store when it comes to watch faces and you know your quality is amazing so to hear that that is really coming out of as a hobby is pretty impressive tell me how did you first hear about the samsung galaxy watch tomas joscak 02 26 the exact moment i cannot remember right now however, i cannot forget the first day after my first launch phase having published on galaxy store and after i looked at the statistic and there have been more than 4000 downloads for this first model myself i was surprised shocked and i definitely knew that this might be something you how did you first hear about selling tony morelan 02 53 watch faces, you know in using our software galaxy watch designer at the time which is now a galaxy watch studio tomas joscak 03 00 okay, i was starting designing workspaces in a phasor creator studio before so i had some basics already learned before and so switching to galaxy stir was actually nothing new from the big difference was only the market, which seems to be extremely huge from my point of view tony morelan 03 26 so the market for the galaxy watch faces is much bigger than the market when you're producing them through facer? tomas joscak 03 32 yes, at least, this was my impression one year before tony morelan 03 36 okay, so how long have you been designing watch faces tomas joscak 03 39 right now it is three years i know it before i got my first model, which for my brand as a present to my 14-year celebration party and since then, my i'm just playing with watch faces tony morelan 03 53 or so is this what you do full time or do you have like a is this a side gig for you? this is, you know, what's your main focus? for income tomas joscak 04 02 at the moment is my full-time job and he has is creating nice income actually the best i ever had before even if i compare it with my company in vienna a few years ago tony morelan 04 15 in what was that company, tomas joscak 04 17 this was a pure research company at a field of renewable materials so completely different staff we had up to seven employees but however, from the revenue point of view now it's even bigger tony morelan 04 31 wow so you are based in austria but tell me where are you originally from? tomas joscak 04 36 so i was born in czechoslovakia, in slovakia in part where am actually right now as we are speaking, this podcast together, i was doing my parents and afterwards i got few opportunities in austria and germany and so i stayed in austria tony morelan 04 53 and is it just yourself or do you have employees tomas joscak 04 57 at the moment? my brother is strongly supporting me creating also some brands, domino's martinez, a luxury brand from our portfolio is coming from him so we are two full time now working at this project and sometimes we are cooperating with tony morelan 05 16 freelancers in this globally he'll reach out to freelancers from around the world to have you help with some of the design aspects tomas joscak 05 23 yes, we use platform where different designers are implemented or can make some projects corporation tony morelan 05 32 do you work out of your house? or do you actually have a place of business tomas joscak 05 36 i started as maybe also other designers in my kitchen so my first project so first watch faces have been created in a kitchen afterwards, i go to one room in my flat, and at the moment, we do have an office with my brother and as a next step, we would like to establish a full time or full-size photo studio tony morelan 06 02 okay, okay so i noticed that you have actually four different brands when you go to your website vienna studios com there's actually four different brands on their vienna studios masterpieces we are watching as well as dominus matthias, can you explain the different brands? tomas joscak 06 21 we have many different brands and actually the basic order first one has been vienna studios, which started everything else domino's martinez is luxury brand for my brother, as i mentioned before, is really creating original design i'm more focusing on the functionality and if you're asking about many brands, we are dividing different products into brands, according to price segment, basically tony morelan 06 52 yeah and let's talk a little bit about that because, you know, one thing that's unique with your brand is that you've got some very high-priced watch faces i mean, it's my understanding you have watch faces you know, you've been in the above $100 $200 tell me about those high-level price watch faces and why is it that you decided to offer them so expensive? tomas joscak 07 16 well, we started, i started to sell my watch faces at 199 $1 99 yes, dollar 99 for a piece however, this space is so competitive and it's really hard to be a good designer in this place that after i could feel skills and i was able to prepare high complicated watch faces, i decided to offer them for higher prices and actually, at the moment, you're correctly we are offering different special watch faces up to 400 was dollar per piece tony morelan 07 55 wow, that's amazing so another amazing aspect to you is that you actually won best of galaxy store award in 2019 can you tell me what the award was that you won and what that means to you? tomas joscak 08 08 i can remember well, this call will shout and charlotte called me and mentioned in a wonder indian designer 2019 only after nine months really to be full in the business, so i was completely shocked and even more impressed by the fact that we are to four bestsellers worldwide, so i would never expect it such a sexist after a few months tony morelan 08 39 that's amazing that's amazing and that's when i actually first met you is when you came out to the award show that i was hosting, to give you the award for best indie designer, so congratulations again so i want to talk a little bit about marketing and some of your tips and approaches for marketing tell me about your use of coupons tomas joscak 08 59 coupons is a big project for us it's excellent instrument however we use coupons very solely and actually, as a customer or a fan of vienna studios or dominus martinez, you can win a free coupon once a mount so this is the way how some people could get our expensive watch faces even for free tony morelan 09 28 okay, that's great that's great i also noticed that you when you go to your website, you actually are doing promotions where you're giving away actual watches so tell me a little bit how you're utilizing that as a promotional giveaway tomas joscak 09 42 yes, after a few months, as you mentioned before, we are pretty successful in the business and we try to give something back to nice community which is growing and we do have more than 3000 subscribers at our website and everybody who is subscribing there has a chance now to be not only free coupons, possibly, but also a smartwatch galaxy watch active two at the moment we are running this giveaway until end of this year, and we will think about something new for the next year tony morelan 10 19 excellent that's a great way to build your subscription community it's interesting, i can tell that you've got a lot of marketing experience so tell me a bit about how did you gain that marketing experience? is this something that you're just learning, you know, on the fly right now? or do you have a background a little bit with them with when it comes to marketing? tomas joscak 10 36 i think a good opportunity to learn this stuff was to have my own company so i am partly not only a designer, but also a kind of businessman so we are always forming activities and evaluating it and checking what is working for us, where we do see some revenue streams who are not and this elevation happened maybe on a daily or weekly basis so there's a lot of adjustment and trial and error actions we are using tony morelan 11 13 that's great it's great to be so active when you're, you know, figuring out your marketing approach, or using any social channels like instagram to promote your watch faces tomas joscak 11 23 we are in instagram right now we do have a couple of thousands of followers however, we are not sure if this will be our future instruments, at the moment as a best a marketing instrument for us is to collect email addresses through subscription of our website, which was also in a recommendation from around from samsung, who don't know us this feature could bring something even after maybe three months of my activity at galaxy store thank you okay thank you here's tony morelan 12 02 ron's got a lot of great advice ron's the one who he runs our forums so yeah, much appreciation to ron what about galaxy store badges? are you using any badges on your on your platform to help promote your watch faces? tomas joscak 12 17 yes, we are using standard general veggies for our different stores and those are placed actually in description of our watch faces as well as the instagram on or on our website tony morelan 12 33 excellent and i know that badges are a great way for you to go back and see the analytics you know the data on what's driving your sales so always happy to hear when designers are using the using badges what about banner promotions, have you had a chance to be featured on any of the banner promotions on the galaxy store? tomas joscak 12 50 yes, we are featured in the banner promotion is always a great and profitable issue for us or the banner can drive the revenue really high so the laughter banner promotion and we are happy that we are in tony morelan 13 11 sure and for any new designers out there that are listening in band promotions they run for is it two weeks? is that what it is on the on the galaxy store? tomas joscak 13 19 yes, yes, two-week periods tony morelan 13 21 and this is where you provide a graphic of a banner it's basically an advertisement that appears that helps drive users to your to your store and i know speaking from my experience of banner promotions are huge so great way to get your name out there and drive up your sales so one thing unique about your business is your quality of your photographs and your videos tell me a little bit about that do you have some experience? are you hiring an outside photographer to come in and do that or is this something that you're actually doing yourself? tomas joscak 13 55 and my short fuck us character i was happy to be a photographer as well for a few months before so i have pretty nice lenses and some good technique from that time so i just use the good quality stuff i have already and maybe the pictures are now good or we are we are happy able to quality however, i started just to be in the front of a window and making my first video with a smartphone only so all of this you can actually see it our youtube channels where we delete the old videos where the quality is so poor however, to have a visit video presentation seems to be really important at every watch face so 99% of all our watch faces do have a promo video tony morelan 14 48 okay, and it's you can always spot a vienna studios watch face video because of the white gloves that's something unique i always see these white gloves you know, holding the watch very elegantly are you? are those your hands inside the gloves? or do you have a professional model that you're bringing in to wear the white gloves tomas joscak 15 10 these are my hands the big advantage of making these videos was that before as i work from home, i prepared a small mini photo studio close to my computer so after which phase was ready, i just turn my position into this photo studio beside me and making a video really in a short time in the best possible quality and then i sell off the first two videos that at this magnificent because the watches are so small, have different displacements or some few nice places of my fingers have been there in a really big screen so i started to use goals and find now so i don't need to care about my nails quality anymore? tony morelan 16 01 got it so you don't have to hire a professional hand model that you don't have to worry about getting a little dirt under your fingernails because you just put on the nice fancy gloves love that tomas joscak 16 12 that's the point i think customers like it too tony morelan 16 15 sure, sure so how many watch faces have you published to date? tomas joscak 16 21 published maybe together it will be more than 700 wow, think about this number the three years? yes i think the 700 are solely on galaxy store so like count also my former watch faces it would be somewhere around 1000 and more watch faces tony morelan 16 40 i do understand though, that they're not all available that you actually utilize what you're calling a pop-up brand, which is where it's just for a limited time this watch faces available which kind of helps drive up you know the uniqueness behind the watch face which increases the value so tell me a little bit about your approach on offering a limited release, watch face tomas joscak 17 00 okay, we are playing with different business models and this was one of those we created a brand out there limited, which is a lot more available and to store it delimitation was only 30 days during this time we sold a nice amount of this ultra-limited brand so we'll prepare something for the future as well tony morelan 17 26 excellent no, that's it's a great a great approach again, showing off your marketing experience to help drive your sales so tell me where do you get your ideas from your watch faces tomas joscak 17 39 it's hard to say i'm just walking through the streets or driving and has the hardest time when i got some ideas under the shower tony morelan 17 51 so in the shower, tomas joscak 17 53 in my shower tony morelan 17 54 yeah, typically people are singing in the shower but you're actually designing watch faces in the shower tomas joscak 18 00 well i'm singing to, and then i find myself as i'm running to the corridors our white paper and putting ideas on it and then i can dry myself and doing other stuff tony morelan 18 14 that's good it's great yeah, you're already on the paper so is your approach into first sketch? or do you start designing your watch face straight on the computer? tomas joscak 18 23 yes, i'm sketching a lot i have much more ideas let's say it's time to make a real product out of it tony morelan 18 32 okay tell me a little bit about the tools that you're using so what software using like adobe photoshop adobe illustrator? what are you using to create and design your watch faces? tomas joscak 18 42 well 95% of all my vote faces are created in powerpoint tony morelan 18 51 powerpoint yes, the microsoft program for doing slideshows you're using that to create your watch faces? tomas joscak 19 01 yes, yes, definitely a lot of designers surprised whenever when i mentioned this, however i am is a really powerful instrument of powerpoint tony morelan 19 12 that's crazy i mean, i've used a lot of powerpoint, you know, in my years in fact, i often tell new designers, if they're looking to start a career in freelance graphic design, they really need to learn powerpoint, because people typically don't like using powerpoint, you know, when it comes to putting presentations together and if you can become, you know, a master of powerpoint, well, there's a lot of work out there because people just hate using powerpoint so to hear that you're using powerpoint to create the graphics on these luxury watch faces is just mind blowing i mean that that is absolutely amazing that you have figured out a way to use powerpoint at that level so that's excellent so tell me to date i think i read somewhere that you have over 1 million downloads, is that correct? tomas joscak 20 04 oh, well done 1 million, i think tony morelan 20 10 no, actually at the moment we have more than 5 million downloads 5 million wow that is just amazing so congrats on that tell me a little bit about leveraging free watch faces i know that a lot of designers they'll offer some of their watch faces for free but then the others are paid give me your idea on utilizing free watch faces to help raise your brand level tomas joscak 20 44 free workspaces are great however we are using it very rarely maybe there's one or two per brand and in our stores where we are offering luxury, luxury watch faces which we did $100 plus, we don't use any of those free watch faces so my recommendation would be it's a nice to have some, but not a lot tony morelan 21 11 got it? yeah and i agree with that because you want to really drive your sales so, you know, utilizing free watch faces to help raise brand awareness is excellent but don't over saturate the market with free watch faces so yeah, totally agree with you with that having been a designer now for watch faces for three years and millions of downloads i'm sure you've come across a few challenges so share a little bit about some of the challenges maybe that you've had to face tomas joscak 21 39 well, at the moment, i cannot remember any issue according to brands selling points or design, however, are big challenges right now, according to the coronavirus i spoke to other designers and currently we are the most hated at this crisis at the moment so our sales go to really down in everyone met this year and what we saw was that actually the elect luxury segment a lot of watch faces was actually stopped selling in this time really? tony morelan 22 17 yeah and that's not surprising considering all the you know, our world is going through right now that can understand where people are wanting to you know, watch where they're spending their money so hopefully that will change in a soon enough time so tell me are there any features you would like to see added to the galaxy store or to galaxy watch studio? tomas joscak 22 38 well, i'm personally very adaptive person so i, i am working, whatever is on the table, i try to squeeze the most possible out of it and i asked myself, what can i change to be successful at the market or with the two which is provided to us so basically, i could have some issues but i'm focusing on the on the market right now and on the on the revenues we are able to produce tony morelan 23 12 okay okay so tell me what is in the future for vienna studios do you have any, you know, any updates? what's your plan for the future? tomas joscak 23 23 we will definitely launch some new limited additions to the code successful pilot project we ran before and we have a plan to make a really, really very realistic digital watch face version of a real mechanical watch i cannot tell you any more to this project we are right now speaking to possible licensing partner, but these will be i think, very original offer at the galaxy store tony morelan 23 57 awesome super excited to see that when it actually becomes available so can you talk a little bit about multi language support and how you're utilizing that feature on the galaxy store to help market your watch faces globally tomas joscak 24 11 in the galaxy store, we are starting always with only english version of our watch faces however, if this one particular watch face is popular in other countries, so afterwards, we are translating all the descriptions and promo pictures into the language where the sales are growing tony morelan 24 31 okay, so just to just to help new designers understand, when you first publish a watch face, you publish it in english, that's the preferred language but seller office allows you to create alternative pages that you can put in the native language for different countries so that if a user from that country is viewing your seller office page, they'll see it in their native language it's great to see that you're united in the future, and it's a nice approach when you're just looking at you know, if you've got increased sales in those different regions that it's worthwhile to then translate it so who's doing the translation? tomas joscak 25 10 basically, we are using automatic translations, okay and for example, german language is familiar with me so i look at the languages where we are in and rest is automatic at the moment tony morelan 25 24 okay, nice so i also understand that you're doing something that you're calling an outlet store so tell me a little bit about your outlet store and how you're utilizing watch face watch faces on that tomas joscak 25 36 outlet store is a really another success story of vienna studios as we started promoting and selling, high priced looks at a watch faces there was a lot of people who would like to have one but i don't want to pay as much are cannot afford for these high prices so afterwards we have a certain amount of dyslexia watch faces, we decided to put the oldest one into a new creative outlet store with a huge discount so at the moment the people are able to buy alexa watch faces even for much lower prices in the outlet store tony morelan 26 23 that's a great approach it's the first that i've actually heard of someone using that approach to sell some of their older watch faces so very interesting i love that so i'm guessing you're familiar with some of the other top watch face designers out there on the galaxy star can you tell me you know, give me some names who are the designers that you that you are impressed with that you follow with the names that kind of jump out for you? tomas joscak 26 48 okay, there is a lot of great designers out there i can i could mention a few x9 studios, infinity watch faces however, the best one for myself and now level four for himself is matteo dini a few of his watch faces, and he could claim be like designing every pixel so i'm really impressed by work of matteo tony morelan 27 18 yeah, he is he's an amazing designer based out of italy you know, one of our top watch face designers i think a lot of people are impressed with what matteo dini has done some of the other names that you had mentioned x nine i actually am doing a live chat with john from x nine studio tomorrow so we're going to be doing a live chat and i'll be talking to him about theme designing and watch faces signing he's also another past winter with the galaxy store awards let's say you had mentioned infinity watch faces that's chris shomo he's an excellent designer he's actually the one who i first discovered when i learned about galaxy watch designer at the time, which is now galaxy watch studio so, you know when i first learned about chris and what he was doing with galaxy watch, and let's see, you mentioned your rarity oh urarity yeah, he's got just amazing designs and if you have a chance to look at his videos, the work that he does with his videos is just outstanding is definitely someone that can inspire a lot of people tomas joscak 28 25 yes, uratity tony morelan 28 27 yet another guy? yeah so bergen is great he's an excellent designer again, one of the designers that has been there for a while, who does some very nice realistic watch faces so definitely some designers to go in and look for when you're looking to get inspired for creating watch faces so i have one more question for you when you're not designing watch faces what do you like to do for fun? tomas joscak 28 50 oh, fine and except designing watch faces, which is really relaxed for myself if i am looking for fans my buddy, i love to visiting sauna tony morelan 29 02 oh, asana yeah oh, nice that's a good time to relax good time to relax now, i also heard that you are the father of twin four-year olds is that correct? yes, correct good i'm sure you're looking for a lot of time to relax i can only anticipate that that would be a little crazy at times tomas joscak 29 23 now, and they have been my twins have been at the beginning of my business, actually, because i couldn't work only during day slept so we started to get actually tony morelan 29 33 oh, nice nice nice wonderful okay, tomas i absolutely appreciate you taking the time to sit down with me and record this podcast, tons of fun lots of great inspiration so keep up the great work and i'm looking forward to seeing what vienna studios puts out in the near future so thanks tomas joscak 29 48 thank you thanks outro 29 50 looking to start creating for samsung? 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