Thread: Hi from an App Entrepreneur

Honestly, that basketball game looks like there was explosive growth.

Yes, that's right Wado.
We used a lot of cross promotion techniques for the basketball games app. I am expecting it to be our most successful app so far.

The basketball game does look like alot of fun, You said you were exposed to the world of the app business I was wondering what did you study at school or did you learn how to build apps independently?

Hi there.

Thanks for sharing your links.

Originally Posted by ypchoudary

I have since launched multiple successful apps.

I see the apps are free. How are you making money with them?

How much money are you making per month with them?

If you can't produce this information then your course is borderline deceiving, unless by "successful" you mean having a bunch of downloads and no money.

I'm still waiting for an answer to this question about monetizing free apps, and calling them successful while making no money...

Originally Posted by andviv

I'm still waiting for an answer to this question about monetizing free apps, and calling them successful while making no money...

With Ads?

Originally Posted by theag

With Ads?

You have to have really HUGE numbers to make money with ads. If you showed 200,000 ads a DAY at $.50cpm (you get .50 for every 1000 ads shown) you gross $36k per year, and $.50 is an aggressive number. So even with 100,000 downloads everyone would have to play it every day for long enough for 2 ads to display to make that. My guesstimate is that with 100,000 downloads, you have about 1,000 that actually play more than once, and 500 that would be "addicts". So you probably make somewhere around $1.00 to $2.00 a day with a successful free game.

Originally Posted by healthstatus

You have to have really HUGE numbers to make money with ads. If you showed 200,000 ads a DAY at $.50cpm (you get .50 for every 1000 ads shown) you gross $36k per year, and $.50 is an aggressive number. So even with 100,000 downloads everyone would have to play it every day for long enough for 2 ads to display to make that. My guesstimate is that with 100,000 downloads, you have about 1,000 that actually play more than once, and 500 that would be "addicts". So you probably make somewhere around $1.00 to $2.00 a day with a successful free game.

Perhaps it is more than 200k per day. The slots and roulette apps have been installed over a million times each. I would be curious of the numbers...

Originally Posted by BostonH

Perhaps it is more than 200k per day. The slots and roulette apps have been installed over a million times each. I would be curious of the numbers...

some of the top comments say "very addicting" as well I would have to imagine he is making decent money from ads. I have not installed the apps though

Originally Posted by BostonH

Perhaps it is more than 200k per day. The slots and roulette apps have been installed over a million times each. I would be curious of the numbers...

ok, so take my numbers by a factor of 10 on the number of users and addicts, still comes out to a guesstimate of $10.00/day. I make much more than that everyday with my app that I charge for and is free of advertising.

There is certainly more than one way to do it. I don't believe that $2 - $3 is going to stop someone from putting an app that they want on their phone. E-books sell for $100, a fifty page e-book on how to exercise is $50, I don't know why so many are caught up in the cost of a phone app you will make way more money selling 1000 copies at $3, than what you make off advertising of 100,000 free downloads. At the end of the day its about what is in the bank account, not the number of downloads....

Originally Posted by healthstatus

At the end of the day its about what is in the bank account, not the number of downloads....

Well... yeah, I agree with your.

However, I've met people that rather have a million downloads than a million bucks. They place more value on the geek-o-meter reputation that in money.

To each its own, I rather make $100K than having 1M downloads.

That is why I asked about his/their definition of success... and still waiting an answer about income.

My guess is, we will never know...

Originally Posted by Barry

The basketball game does look like alot of fun, You said you were exposed to the world of the app business I was wondering what did you study at school or did you learn how to build apps independently?

Barry,
I have a degree in materials engineering, absolutely no coding knowledge. Most of what I know has been learned through experimentation.
I do not develop apps myself, I hire other developers to create the apps.

Originally Posted by andviv

Hi there.

Thanks for sharing your links.


I see the apps are free. How are you making money with them?

How much money are you making per month with them?

If you can't produce this information then your course is borderline deceiving, unless by "successful" you mean having a bunch of downloads and no money.

Andviv,

I unfortunately cannot tell you the exact numbers but I mainly make money from ads, in app-purchases (limited time offers) and with affiliate links when possible.

But my main source of income so far has been ads. I am sure you do realize that with a total of 10 million plus downloads, it is impossible to not make any money.

Originally Posted by healthstatus

ok, so take my numbers by a factor of 10 on the number of users and addicts, still comes out to a guesstimate of $10.00/day. I make much more than that everyday with my app that I charge for and is free of advertising.

There is certainly more than one way to do it. I don't believe that $2 - $3 is going to stop someone from putting an app that they want on their phone. E-books sell for $100, a fifty page e-book on how to exercise is $50, I don't know why so many are caught up in the cost of a phone app you will make way more money selling 1000 copies at $3, than what you make off advertising of 100,000 free downloads. At the end of the day its about what is in the bank account, not the number of downloads....

healthstatus,

your logic is sound and in fact there is a whole art to pricing which we can have elaborate discussion about. The revenue you make from your app follows a bell curve with the revenues on Y-axis and the price on X-axis. So theoretically you can always try to price your app at the point where you get the maximum revenues (the peak of the bell curve). This peak might not correspond with a highest number of downloads.

BUT what you fail to realize is the power of cross promotions and leverage with ad networks. The number one reason most paid apps fail is because they are unable to scale. when you have huge numbers, you can easily get users for your new apps. Just look at our Basketball games app. Its growth rate is insane - all because of cross promotions, not a single penny in ads.

To put this in perspective, take a look at this image of the top 20 grossing apps. The one with a white background are Paid apps and the rest are free. So JUST 3 of the top apps are paid apps.

So here is a piece of unsolicited advice, make your app a free app and monetize using IAPs and ads.

Originally Posted by ypchoudary

take a look at this image of the top 20 grossing apps.

Image missing...

Originally Posted by ypchoudary

To put this in perspective, take a look at this image of the top 20 grossing apps. The one with a white background are Paid apps and the rest are free. So JUST 3 of the top apps are paid apps.

here is the image I was referring to...

Is there a way to identify in the graph which ones are paid and which are free? I see all but one have the dollar sign icon...

Andviv,

The apps with a white background are paid. Anyway checkout appannie.com I sourced this data from there a while back. It is even more crazy now - Top Charts - iPhone - United States - Overall | App Annie

There are no free apps in the top grossing list. The $ sign signifies IAPs