He's clearly not delivering enough value then, or he's not focusing on a large enough target audience. He's probably also not charging enough. Every single app that I've built has easily grossed >$30-50k each in less than 6 months after launch without having to do significant marketing. And we're talking apps built in <30 days.
The app store has a massive audience; you need to focus on large enough target groups. How many people use RSS apps these days?
Now that I think about it.. I should probably write an ebook on building profitable apps from a developer point of view.
When did you build/release those apps? Were they all iOS? Do they keep generating any sort of revenue after 6 months? Any specific niches/categories you had better/worse results?
Honestly; I've made money on most platforms. I've launched Android, Windows, iOS and Mac apps. As long as people are using the platform, it doesn't really matter. Smaller platforms (such as windows phone) have the advantage of less competition. I know a guy who was making $40k a month from a Palm Twitter app a few years ago.
It brought in hundreds of thousands and took me 2 months to develop + the occasional bugfixes and small updates. Probably 3 months of work over a 4 year period.
> Do they keep generating any sort of revenue after 6 months?
Depends on the app. In most cases, it's not worth investing an additional 2 months developing/improving an app if you can build it 1 month. Launch an MVP and see if it sells. You can always improve it then. But once you have an MVP ready, it usually doesn't take much more time to "finish" the feature set of an app. That's what great about apps; as a project they can be "finished". Some apps sell for years, others only last 6-12 months. Also, for some apps the money comes in fast, for others it's slower but they will last longer.
You just have need to find a target user group of significant size. The app I linked above integrates with a system that, a few years ago and at the time, had around 10m daily active users. It's a niche communication system.
That means a subset of those users will automatically search for your app if you get it to pop up for the expected search keywords ("app store seo"). You're tapping into that user group without having to spend a dime on marketing.
Find a user group with lots of users - people will buy your app.
> Example: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ventrilode/id486115720. That's an app I launched 4 years ago.
It brought in hundreds of thousands and took me 2 months to develop + the occasional bugfixes and small updates. Probably 3 months of work over a 4 year period.
That seems like a free app atm, how did you monetize it?
It was a $5 paid app for about three years. Usage numbers of the communication system it was built upon went down overall (people started using alternative systems) and the amount of users went down, so I changed it to free + $5 iAP.
In retrospect, I should’ve charged $8/$10/$15 for the app. I’m 99% sure it wouldn’t have made a difference to the amount of sales, but it would have doubled my profit.
Apps have a receipt attached to them with transaction information. All users who purchased the app while it was paid (date check + version check) received a free upgrade.
You don't look for profitable markets, you look for groups of users. Groups of people within a certain segment will generate revenue; then it just depends on how you differentiate and how much of the searches on the App Store you can capture.
A random example: there are 1.6 billion muslims on the planet. Some of those will own smartphones. Most of those read the Quran. Meaning, some of those will look on the App Store for a Quran app. If you build a good Quran app, you'll be making money. It could be $50k a year, $100k or $500k; that I don't know. But you'll be making money.
Also, don't forget, even though my apps have never been featured, Apple does actively look for good apps. That can help significantly if you build something nice. But you still need to target a large enough group of people.
Based on that rationale, how did you come up with another app of yours: Flix? I mean, how did you figure out to create a $10 app to stream Netflix? What market would do that rather than use a browser?
The author is on point in describing how to create a business not just an app but he glosses over that many people develop apps with monetization as an afterthought and that monetizing an app is as complex as rocket science. Pleco had a lot already going for it before it even before it launched on iOS. Its founders had years of business experience and a strong market differentiator. So even though they had to retread their business models, they knew that Pleco had enough value that people would pay for it. A lot of other developers however, like Sinclair, develop apps for themselves, find a small user base and decide its enough to establish there own business, but usually these apps are cool but not unique. Pleco was built on licensed and unique tech, which gave its value. The author should mention that not every app can be turned into a business and that you need to create enough unique IP for yourself, so that you can grow and create value others can't. Sinclair has the entrepreneurial drive, he just didn't have the right idea to be a business.
I really wonder what Sinclair's rationale for quitting his day job to work on his app was.
I wonder if he had some sort of analysis that made him think it would be more of a success which turned out to be wrong (e.g. projecting early sales numbers into infinity, whereas in reality they dropped off), or if he just jumped into it thinking that if he built it they would come.
If you want organic growth, don't charge money for your app. Period. No one wants to pay money for something they can't even try, unless they are positive they know it will work for them. For example, I paid money for the Pure ad blocker because it had tons of positive reviews and coverage in the NYT. But this will not be you.
Make money on ads, paid upgrades (remove ads, get premium features), and subscriptions. Show that you have value first, then it becomes very clear how much more value someone can get by paying a little extra.
Especially for mobile apps, ad revenue is very high right now as freemium games and VC money has flooded the market. I get as high as $5 per click, usually around $1-2, which is much higher than it used to be.
Banner and interstitial, interstitial happens every 5 minutes. Often people open my app several times a day just to check their financial status, triggering an interstitial every time. I'm sure finance ads pay very well. What mobile ad networks do you recommend for higher payouts? I would love to experiment.
The key takeaway is the ever common mantra 'what is your sustainable competitive advantage?'. As many App Store developers have found out, design is not one.
Rather, paying for exclusive license to a dictionary, and ensuring his apps are on the school syllabus was the path to success for this app. (Remind you of those TI calculators?)
I'd like to add that this is a great example of how a great In App Purchase can be utilised in place of free trials. People are so against IAP because of companies like Zynga, but there are good examples of IAP like this one.
The app store has a massive audience; you need to focus on large enough target groups. How many people use RSS apps these days?
Now that I think about it.. I should probably write an ebook on building profitable apps from a developer point of view.