Nexus reached out to Emily Chan, the creator of StupidFox, to see if the artist would be interested in publishing a stickers app for a revenue share. Emily agreed, and so we built the StupidFox app.

The app allows users to add 75 creative stickers to their photos, swipe for filters, add comic book style text, and share their creations on social media.

Brett Wharton designed the app’s UX and UI, and Srinivas Naathireddy built the app in Objective-C.

Since launching, thousands of people have downloaded the StupidFox app, and the app currently has roughly a hundred 5-star ratings on the iOS App Store. The app monetizes through in-app purchases that allow users to buy more stickers. To maximize earnings, we also launched Emily’s stickers on Line, a text messaging app that is particularly popular in Asia.

Every year, people buy roughly $200 billion in virtual goods. E-books, games, courses, movies, NFTs, and metaverse objects all require significant time to produce. On the other hand, stickers are quite easy to draw, and they still serve a valuable purpose of helping people communicate with each other.

From our experience launching numerous stickers apps, we’ve learned several important principles.

• Stickers resonate best when each sticker clearly expresses a common emotion like love, surprise, or joy. When an emotion isn’t clear, it’s ok to add words like “Wow!” or “OMG” to the design.
• The more you can tie a sticker to an emotion, the more people will want to use the sticker in text message chats or add it to their photos. You can articulate emotion with color, shapes, motion lines, face expressions, and text.
• Because users select stickers while looking at a tray filled with stickers, each sticker needs to be readable even in a small size like 150×150 pixels.
• Stickers that depict everyday activities like eating, texting, or working at a computer will be more relatable to users.
• Cuteness is everything in the stickers market. Before rushing to create graphics, make sure you’ve designed a character that consistently draws people’s attention.