Over 1 million users, 5 million videos, and a huge community behind the app.

But Double Dog had a problem:  56 rejections from the major app stores in two-years.  To clarify, that’s about one rejection every other week.

Sometimes the rejections were valid and objective.  Those were easier because we simply fixed the issue and as a result the app would be approved.  But it wasn’t always that simple.  For example, when a new person joined their review-team, we’d get a rejection for reasons previously discussed at length.  And as a result it would take weeks to get their new team-member up to speed and the app approved again. Certainly deadly for a startup.

But even harder was being rejected for vague reasons. Those not only destroyed morale, but also took the longest to solve; sometimes months.  Picture a hard-working team of designers, engineers, and marketing working 14hr days to submit a new release.  They get it all ready and “submit for review”.   Excitement level is high.  Users are contacted.  A few days go by.  We wait.  Then a rejection note comes in:  Your app was rejected for having hidden features.  The team is confused, so we instantly reply: what hidden features?  No response for a full week.  When a response finally comes it reads something like this:  The hidden features are hidden so we don’t know what they are or where they are. You are welcome to make changes to your application and resubmit it for review.

It was hard to keep anyone involved with the company motivated.

Double Dog didn’t have the financial means to survive in this environment.

If you are here looking for something similar you can try Anonymous Request.

Thank you all for the continuous support.

It has been nothing short of fantastic to work with this incredible user-base.

Sincerely,

The Double Dog team