Welcome to ‘Planet of the Apps’
Apple gets Alba, Paltrow & Will.i.am to mentor titans hoping to launch an app.
Have you ever had a great idea for a new app but didn’t know how to turn it into a business?
Apple found the solution, and is offering to let Gwyneth Paltrow, Will.i.am and Jessica Alba help. Planet of the Apps is a reality-competition series that premiered Tuesday on the Apple Music streaming service as a tech-savvy blend of Shark
Tank and The Voice. The first episode is available free on iTunes.
The 10-episode series, releasing a new episode each Tuesday, features the trio, along with investor and social-media marketer Gary Vaynerchuk, as advisers to budding business titans hoping to launch the latest app.
They’re not mere celebrities: Paltrow created lifestyle brand Goop, Alba co-founded the Honest Company, which sells natural baby and household products; Will.i.am has worked for Intel and designed clothing and phone accessories.
Their track records signal that “we don’t have to necessarily have super-formal business backgrounds or family members with nepotism to get here,” Alba says. “None of us are coders, none of us are engineers, none of us are programmers, but we had these ideas … and our companies were catapulted through technology, (which) gave us access to the world in a way that no other platform would have.”
Contestants first try to catch the panelists’ eyes with a 60-second “escalator pitch” as they ride down one into the studio. The advisers vote yes or no — using iPads, naturally — and if one bites, a fuller pitch is made.
The show then documents a six-week incubation period for promising apps, in which developers refine the products with guidance from their celebrity mentors, who “goes under the hood,” as Will.i.am says in one episode, to find out “is there an engine there, or a bunch of freakin’ Flintstone feet?” Together, they pitch a group from Lightspeed Venture Partners, which has invested in hundreds of tech-focused companies including Snapchat, for a share of a venture-capital pool. If they win funding, the adviser ( but not Apple) gets a financial stake, and the app gets extensive promotion on the App Store.
Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue calls apps, which didn’t exist a decade ago, a “cultural phenomenon” that now shape how many Americans work, learn, travel and play.
The tech giant last week disclosed it’s paid $70 billion to developers since 2008, and reports say Apple takes a 30% cut of most App Store revenue.
Developers “are, in a way, the rock stars of today,” Cue says. “A lot of people in the world want to know how apps are created: ‘If I have an idea for an app, how do I take it somewhere?’ ”
Executive producer Ben Silverman says app development is “where almost every young kid’s fantasy lives, and it’s the new American dream. ... At every dinner party, everyone’s got a new app they want to pitch.”
Silverman says emotion is key to the new show.
“Gwyneth is in tears at the end of an episode; Jessica gets pissed if something doesn’t get funded. It’s very real for them; these are businesses, and people’s lives and careers that are on the line.”