Bringing my first Android app to market - The process

[Jake]

Look who just showed up!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.conditiondelta.screenshotanddraw.trial

I cleaned up the description a little while ago. Hopefully it getst he update soon. Looks a bit messy at the moment

 

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[Jake]

A couple of weeks ago I decided I would start making(or paying to have made) Android apps. I need to find a way to bring in income without calling or receiving calls from customers. I also need to generate cash flow without face to face customer interaction. Applications seem to be a good way to do this. I realize it won't be easy but you don't get anywhere without trying.

I'm in Afghanistan. I'm at work close to 70 hours a week and nearly all other business ideas are damn near impossible to execute on. Last year I made what I believe to have been an awesome real estate website. I busted my a$$ on it for 2 months straight(not all that long but 5+ hours a night after a 10.5hr shift) managing 5 part time Elancers. I had just launched my website when I was told I was going to have to move from my cushy base with a private internet connection to an overcrowded shithole in Kabul with only Government provided internet. I ended up "quitting" my job over it. About a week into my 3 week notice I talked to my boss and ended up backing out of it. I decided to keep my job :nonod: I have a family to support so decided to keep earning. I did not have enough to time to prove my website was going to become profitable and didn't have the balls to walk.

I let the site die and didn't look back. On to my next venture..Apps!

Once I came up with my idea for an app I checked out google play. Google play is the new Android market where you can upload your app and sell it to the masses. I did a search on the market to see if my idea had already been created. it had! Many times...Great! The idea is proven and it's selling like crack. I plan on taking market share away from the couple that are dominating and get compensated with a nice little stream of income. If I'm able to successfully penetrate the market I'll release app #2. With 2 apps on the market earning money without me trading hours for dollars I believe I'll be able to quit my job and focus on building more apps or another venture that I haven't been able to put in the time to get off of the ground yet.

After I came up with the first idea I decided that it was time to start learning all I can about these little applications. I picked up the book App Empire. It's a good read if you're new to the app business but it is completely focused on Apple iOS. I decided I needed to learn more about Android so I knocked out 2 more short books that are specifically about Android, Genius Android Marketing and The Best Book on Marketing your Android App. They were both short reads and I'd recommend reading Genius Android Marketing if you're going to read a book on Android.

On May 31st I posted a very vague work request on Elance. I said I would like to have an Android app created and that was pretty much it. I received 32 responses within about 12 hours and I contacted somewhere around 10 of them. Most of them were pretty slow to respond so I crossed their names off the list. I decided to contact 1 more programmer who didn't have much of a portfolio but he had created an app that I wanted tied into mine. He was super responsive from the start and seems to work all hours day and night. He must sleep when I do because he always responds within 15 minutes of my emails.

I decided to select him yesterday and try my luck. He's been devoted to this since then and sent me the apk of the UI today. Pretty sweet having the app on my phone already :icon_super: even if it is just a rough user interface things are moving along.

So this is where I will document "the process" I hope to have it live within 3 weeks..probably even sooner at this rate.

if you made it this far thanks for reading.

 

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[Jake]

Jake - How much did you pay the elance developer to create the app. ? I've been quoted $10-15k for iphone apps in the past which seems a little pricey. $2-3k I can pay. I figure throw 5-10 apps out there and see what works.

$1100. $900 has been paid so far and he's working on a few more things before I release the rest. (Getting it to work on ICS and a few gingerbread phones without root or .bat file) Also fixing bugs as I come across them.

The design work was done separately.

 

[Tarheelfan2009]

Great execution man. Followed this thread and it is great to see that you followed through and brought this thing to fruition. Great idea and good price point for this app, IMO. Just looking at your screenshots, app icon, and description...you killed it! If I was comparing your app to the competition I would buy your app because your graphics and icons really give the impression of quality AND it is cheaper. :eusa_clap:

 

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[andviv]

people are retards and don't know what a rooted phone is

I don't see calling people retards because they don't know/want to mess with their phones. This is complicated for most users.

If this is critical to the strategy then the application has a very limited audience.

I am sure you know you can "root" your TV. And your car's computer. There are hacks for everything with a processor in it.

The number of people that want to follow this route is very limited.

I, personally, do not want to go for a small market that also is very technical. Most will think they can build the same app themselves but better, after all, they are 'hackers'. I rather focus on a wider audience so I can reach many more users.

I think competition is doing the opposite and bumping all the crap reviews.

Are your competitors also needing the users to root their phones?

Downloads are high but they don't appear to be quality.

How do you define a quality download?

 

[PopEmersen]

If that's true, congratulations! Maybe now theag can quit being such an a$$ to people starting apps.

theag isn't being an a$$, he is asking real questions that need to be asked. He reminds me of Kevin off the shark tank, he asks direct questions that need to addressed.

Thats just my opinion.

 

[Jake]

Figured I'd give this thread a bump.

After about a year of struggling to make the app profitable I decided to sell it. Happy to announce that I ended up making a profitable exit. It was by no means a big win but it's always nice not to lose money

I sold the app through Apptopia so if anyone has any questions about selling through them feel free to ask here or shoot me a pm.

 

[Jake]

Thanks



Coming soon... :hammertime:


I'm glad I went through 99designs. it's nice being able to talk to a bunch of designers and tell them how you want the designs tweaked and re-tweaked after more ideas flow.

 

[Jake]

what does your app do?

It takes screenshots and lets you share and draw on them. What sets mine apart from the rest is you can capture multiple screens and merge them together showing off your entire background. and it has a much nicer interface

I just published it a few minutes ago. Now waiting for google to update so I can find it!

 

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[Mike39]

It takes screenshots and lets you share and draw on them. What sets mine apart from the rest is you can capture multiple screens and merge them together showing off your entire background. and it has a much nicer interface

I just published it a few minutes ago. Now waiting for google to update so I can find it!

Give me the link when it does, I want to check it out!

 

[Mike39]

Installed and shared on FB, haven't had a chance to look at it yet but I will shortly!

 

[mavwrx]

congratulations. once my galaxy nexus arrives tomororw, i'll take a look.

please keep us abreasts on the numbers.

 

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[PopEmersen]

Installed on my Evo and Xoom

Is this only for rooted devices? If so, how do u plan to monetize it?

 

[oddball]

Jake - How much did you pay the elance developer to create the app. ? I've been quoted $10-15k for iphone apps in the past which seems a little pricey. $2-3k I can pay. I figure throw 5-10 apps out there and see what works.

I wouldn't just make 5-10 apps and just throw them out and see what happens. Not saying build 1 expensive one, thats not the best idea either. I would build one at first, really focus on what you are doing and how it effects the app for good/bad. Once you get the hang of what works and doesn't, apply it and build another.

 

[oddball]

Did you notice the PR effect sales? How are sales going anyways? Anything you've done to market that has or hasn't worked?

Looking good so far.

 

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[tm33]

Make that 6 :eusa_clap:

and a few credit card rejections

Love it! I'll be watching closely to see how you do. Good luck man!

 

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[Jake]

I made the "Top New Free Apps" chart :eusa_clap: #418 (page 18 lol) Long way to go before any significant amount of eye balls start seeing it.

 

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[Jake]

Missed these

Great job on the app. Too bad people can't follow simple instructions and leave bad feedback. Jeez...
One thing that would worry me though- what if there's a built-in screenshot function in future droid versions?

As Wado said.. there is. I was (am) fighting against time but I added features that improve upon the basic screenshot function so it is still worth having imo. I thought(think?) that there is enough demand to make it worthwhile.

I just got a new phone with ICS and you can now take a screenshot pretty easy without a 3rd party app. Right now, most people still use GB so you still have a mkt, but it is shrinking.

See above.

Update: I'm looking for a new programmer who can sort out some issues. The app doesn't appear to be working on some devices from the feedback I've been receiving. Doing some testing at .99 but I think $2.99 may be the better price point.

Over 60,000 downloads so there is demand for the app but that demand currently isn't translating into many $'s.

 

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[100k]

Thanks..but that stats don't reflect the amount of $'s coming in my direction. It was a money losing venture.

So what?

You took action and you learned something!

It did not work out this time.... maybe next time it will Live and learn!

 

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[McNandez]

Jake, thank you for sharing this with the forum - I learned a ton from everyone who contributed to this thread!

 

[Victor Santiago]

I was reading the thread and speaking as a developer myself I think it's quite impressive that you got 100k downloads!:eusa_clap:

Could you tell me more about your marketing strategies or what did you do to get to that number?

 

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[Jake]

I was reading the thread and speaking as a developer myself I think it's quite impressive that you got 100k downloads!:eusa_clap:

Could you tell me more about your marketing strategies or what did you do to get to that number?

Thanks. The trial app crossed over 400k installs before I sold it. The installs didn't convert so I'm not saying that number to brag but to give you an idea of how it all went.

-I picked an app with a feature set and a name (keyword) that millions of people were already looking for.
-I made my icons pretty

I think those two things were by far the largest contributor to the high install rate.

Additional items I did at the very beginning:
-I kickstarted my app with paid downloads and ads (My biggest waste of money but I am not sure how fast I would have ranked otherwise)
-Built and ranked a few websites around my keyword and funneled them to google play
-Released a PR
-Paid an Android blog to review my app (which was absolutely horrible)
-Posted on various forums. Android forums and also others


I gave all this up when the bugs couldn't be resolved. My downloads steadily increased after all marketing efforts were halted though. Google play feeds a serious amount of traffic if you're what people are searching for.

I blew through way to much $ on the initial push. I think the key here is what I said before. Discover what people are searching for(what do they need?), make an attractive app that people want to install, make it awesome.

I failed at the third.

 

[sitemaster]

I end my epic app career with a book

App Idiots: Quick Stop Guide to Save You from Blowing Your Money on Creating an App: Jake Williamson: Amazon.com: Kindle Store

Are you generating much from your kindle book sales? Great job!! Taking what you learned in this process and turning it into another revenue generator. Congrats on the app sale as well.

 

[DarkZero]

I have an idea for an app that I need to find developers for among a bunch of other things. It's been stressing me out actually. I'm going to check out your book. Thanks!

 

[andviv]

Pretty cool, and congrats on getting the ball going.

About your app, are you planning to sell the app? or make it free with in-app sales? or is it going to make money with in-app ads?

Good luck!

 

[Jake]

Thanks, andviv. I'll have a free trial..full functionality for a limited amount of uses and a paid version. Ads wouldn't work well on this type of app.

Long term I think a combination of free and paid apps is the best strategy. Funnel users of your free apps to paid ones and if it's an app that gets a lot of uses or users on for a decent amount of time you can monetize with ads.

 

[andviv]

Funnel users of your free apps to paid ones and if it's an app that gets a lot of uses or users on for a decent amount of time you can monetize with ads.

My gut feeling is that this rarely works, but have no data to confirm it.

Do you know of good examples of apps where people get the "lite", free app, and then upgrade? (I don't recall ever upgrading from lite to full for my iPhone. maybe the Android crowd behaves differently, or I am just the odd ball)

 

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[Jake]

Yes, you can find a lot of examples in the Android market. Android OS is spread across a wide variety of phone models so sometimes the apps do not function correctly on certain models. It also has a large community of rooted phones and some apps will not function on phones that are not rooted. It allows users to test it out on their phone to see if it works before they buy.

It should also prevent a lot of 1 star reviews from showing up on your paid app. If someone pays for an app that doesn't work they'll give out a negative rating. If someone downloads a free app and they don't like it they may not waste their time giving a rating because it didn't cost them anything. That's the theory anyway. I obviously have not put it to the test yet.

I'd give examples I know of but it would give away exactly what I'm having built. I'd look for other examples now but I'm on a connection that does not allow me to see paid apps. Horrible working environment but it's one of the many things I deal with out here. Time to get my VPN sorted.

 

[oddball]

Just a thought, I could be wrong, but from what I have learned about apps I think it would be better to implement ads on an Android app. Reason being, Android users are less likely to pay for apps. That is actually why I went with an iPhone app. There are many more Android users than iPhone but iPhone users are more willing to spend money with apps. My app is actually a free app with in-app purchases.

Just a thought. Subscribed for future updates though. Good luck!

 

[Bond]

Funnel users of your free apps to paid ones and if it's an app that gets a lot of uses or users on for a decent amount of time you can monetize with ads.

I've checked a lot of apps with free and paid versions and it seems that ~1% conversion is the norm....

 

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