How I went from financial App failure to finding success on the App Store

[Rcaraway1989]

I spent 4 months developing my last app to perfection, building a fancy website, setting up support, only to have it completely flop. So painful, and it wasn't the first time I've done it.

I knew I needed better process, so I've since been seeking a more "lean" approach to the infamous anti-lean App Store.

In contrast, the initial release of my next app GifShare took 6 days to build, had no fancy features, minimal design, and was pretty buggy. Yet it was doing $800/month (now up to $1,200/month a month later).

So what did I change? How did I learn to ship faster more profitably?

1. Validate - I setup a landing page using the service QuickMVP which took maybe 10 minutes. I setup an ugly v1 of the App icon on it which took an hour. The point of the page was to convey what the purpose of the app did, and to see if people would click through to get the app.

2. Test - I wanted to see if I could drive traffic to the landing page with minimal effort. GifShare's proposed purpose was to allow posting GIFs to Instagram, so I search google for things like "post gifs to instagram".

I found things like blog posts, youtube videos, and Yahoo! answers where I left a comment saying "This app is built specifically for this - [app link]"

The way QuickMVP helps you test is, if enough people click through and give you your email in a certain time period, then your idea is "validated". For me to find this idea worth building, I wanted to see if I could get 50 emails in 3 days.

I got double that (101 emails). With less than 3 hours of total work.

3. Build - The important part about building is that you build NO MORE than a minimally working version. I marketed "Post GIFs to Instagram" so I built just that in its simplest form.

I did it this way because it would take me less time -- and if I solved the problem in its basic form in a way that would generate revenue for me. If the business model wasn't panning out, I at least didn't waste time or energy to figure it out.

I've since added extra features and tweaked the app a bit to do $400/month than it originally was doing.

There's a lot more complexities to the process, so feel free to ask questions. I'd love to discuss.

 

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[Rcaraway1989]

Wow 8k downloads. Very impressive.

As for my plan its a big idea with absolutely zero competition. Just a couple downloads wouldnt cut it for me.

I agree wasting time on a big idea sucks. My suggestion is to think about the least amount of work you can put in to validating the idea. Are people solving this problem in a more primitive way already? If so, why not interview a few and gauge their responses to see if it feels like you're on to something big.

Then, even still, you can just throw up a landing page after you've identified a target customer and see if you can get lots of emails.

Building the actual app should happen waay down the line -- until you've validated everything else.

 

[Rcaraway1989]

I'm guessing you developed the app yourself? How long did it take to make the prototype version where you tested the market and got paying customers and at what point did you begin to think about upgrading it?

I'm a really good app dev, so I made it myself -- the initial version was built in 6 days. What I did was send out an email campaign to those who had signed up and got about 15 beta testers (this is validation in itself -- signing up for beta testing an iPhone app is a very annoying process).

What I did was build a beta version with a whole bunch of fake features and only the illusion that you had to pay to upgrade (since you can't actually have in app purchases until its on the App Store). This allowed me to measure what features people would actually use and to see what price point I could get people to pay for.

I should note that while I developed the app myself, my next app is being outsourced -- doing dev work myself has proven to be too strong of a bottleneck -- it's very important to have my energy focused on things like market analysis and other higher level activities.

 

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[Vespasian]

Great example of why you should create MVPs for your business.
What would you say was your risk if none opted in while doing the trial run? 3 hours for free marketing and 1 for the whole setup?

Now some more ideas to make more money:

• Did you contact app review blogs / Youtubers to review the app?
• Increase the app price to 1.99, then contact 'App Deal of the Day' apps to get free promotion (for example this http://appgratis.com/). You'll get more reach and as you monetize the app via IAP it won't hurt you. Just don't forget to decrease the price after the promotion again.
• Try to find out what your audience looks like. It's not easy, but it's very the money is at. If you know what your audience looks like you'll see tons of opportunities to make money money off your app by cross promoting a new app. You can do this by asking your audience simple questions about their life (3 choices, one tap will select and trigger the answer) every 10th time they use your app. This will be a little bit tricky to put together in the backend but gives you valuable insights.
• Also try to get them to either opt in via email (best but hardest), Facebook page like or Twitter. If you can reach your audience through different channels you can get tons of downloads for your next app within a day (for free).

 

[BrooklynHustle]

Kudos and keep going!

I've not really talked in the forums, but this post is in one of my main areas of interest.

I currently run a small mobile gaming business leveraging the talents of outsourced developers & designers. My first app launched June of 2012 to the iOS store without much fanfare after 6 months of work & preparation. Since then I have built a portfolio of over 100 apps which have amassed ~8 million downloads and revenue equaling multiples of my former salary as Manager at a Fortune 50 tech company... but most importantly they granted me freedom from my employer and from exchanging time for money.

There have been ups and downs and I am far from finished with this adventure, as I have not reached my final goals, but the points consistently made in the book and the forum regarding process & struggle ring especially true. Things are always changing in the app market. What worked 2 years ago or even 2 months ago is not necessarily going to be the winning formula now, but for those who persevere, the rewards can be great (sounds familiar, right?)

Would certainly love to share more if people are interested to hear about it. Gotta run & pick up the lady from the airport

 

[Rcaraway1989]

Great thread.

How did you come up with the original idea? "Instagram Gif" could almost have been generated at random from a list of internet buzzwords. (Maybe thats an app in itself.. App Generator app)

What are the two books that you would recommend? I haven't found any decent ones.

I've been looking into some Phone Gap frameworks recently. Much quicker way to get an app up and running and it opens up both the Android and iOS markets.

If I'm being honest, I stole the idea from someone. I get into "Idea search" mode where I write down/brainstorm different ideas. Someone happened to tell me about this idea while I was in idea search mode, and it seemed reasonable enough to look into. After initial research, I felt it was worth testing a landing page.

I had probably 40ish ideas before I found one I thought was worth even testing a landing page for. I still come up with ideas all the time. I have like 4 landing pages I tested with QuickMVP that were complete duds.

The two books I've found are App Empire by Chad Mureta and Appreneur: Secrets to Success in the App Store. I'll also give a shoutout to Lean Analytics although its not specifically mobile.

 

[Rcaraway1989]

So MVP sounded great and all. I set it up with no problems and increased my google adwords to $150.

Over 7 days I received 13 unique views and 0 clicks (meaning 0 people submitted their email).

My landing page and website look great visually and the offer is better than my competitors. Any analysis on this?

Also, it took 4 days for google adwords to be approved... when the landing page lasted 7 days...

I agree with Tafy, tweak your ads and keywords. The ads are the top of your funnel -- if no one is clicking here it doesn't matter what's happening on the landing page. Or as I like to say, "If no one's coming through the door, it doesn't matter what's in the store". Fix this first.

If there's no market? Then you should be proud that you failed so fast. Saved yourself a lot of time and money and there will ALWAYS be more ideas to test. In fact, generating ideas should be your most important task until you find one that sticks.

 

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[BrooklynHustle]

If I'm being honest, I stole the idea from someone. I get into "Idea search" mode where I write down/brainstorm different ideas. Someone happened to tell me about this idea while I was in idea search mode, and it seemed reasonable enough to look into. After initial research, I felt it was worth testing a landing page.

I had probably 40ish ideas before I found one I thought was worth even testing a landing page for. I still come up with ideas all the time. I have like 4 landing pages I tested with QuickMVP that were complete duds.

The two books I've found are App Empire by Chad Mureta and Appreneur: Secrets to Success in the App Store. I'll also give a shoutout to Lean Analytics although its not specifically mobile.

@Rcaraway1989 Read both of those books and App Empire was definitely influential for me. It's still pretty powerful information which remains fundamentally true even though some of it is now outdated (market moves fast!) Since then I've had the opportunity to meet Chad and speak at one of his seminars. Learned a lot from him.

Another cool resource to check out is the Bluecloud Solutions blog at bluecloudsolutions.com. Carter is extremely knowledgeable about the app marketplace and very giving in terms of the information he provides. I learned countless things from his blog free of charge well before we ever met and became friends.

@ProblemOd - there are pros and cons to each approach. What attracted me to outsourcing was the potential for speed to market, a higher quality product than I could produce in reasonable time (used to program, but years ago), and scalability. Plus I figured I should be laser focused on how to earn downloads and revenue which is a whole beast on its own.

The benefits of programming yourself are that you retain more control and can save some much needed dollars before you have revenue, while also learning a valuable skill. Left to me, I'd still choose outsourcing, but that's a personal decision.

Definitely recommend checking out the resources mentioned above for starters.

 

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[tafy]

Great approach and thank you for sharing. If more people would use this mvp/validate-test-build approach (not just with apps but with many other types of business) hey there would be much less opinions like 'entrepreneurship is difficult and not for everyone' (of course it is if they try to build&sell something that noone needs!).

Validation is difficult sometimes, take the case of Twitter, if they tried to validate that then they would have not built it at all

Twitter took 2 years before it got popular?

Sometimes you have to build what you believe

 

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[Yury]

@Rcaraway1989 do you stick with AppStore or you cover (or plan to cover) Android as well?
Thumbs up for going from AppDev to BizDev.

But I can easily imagine, once you've reached good success with your business, people looking at your latest app and some your interview about it and thinking, Hey! He just took an idea, outsourced it and earned lots of cash! Wow! I'll do the same.

And they'll completely miss all the processes of you carefully building up the experience, digging the "dirt" with your hand, validating, testing, iterating...

So thank you for sharing your real quest here!

 

[Rcaraway1989]

@Rcaraway1989 do you stick with AppStore or you cover (or plan to cover) Android as well?
Thumbs up for going from AppDev to BizDev.

But I can easily imagine, once you've reached good success with your business, people looking at your latest app and some your interview about it and thinking, Hey! He just took an idea, outsourced it and earned lots of cash! Wow! I'll do the same.

And they'll completely miss all the processes of you carefully building up the experience, digging the "dirt" with your hand, validating, testing, iterating...

So thank you for sharing your real quest here!

You're welcome! I plan on sharing much, much more -- I guess I should make a progress thread?

There's an astounding lack of information when it comes to making a successful app business (Only 2 books worth reading on the subject matter, zero forums or groups dedicated to Appreneurship, only like three or four decent blogs). Most info out there is so vague and obvious (look at the top charts to get app ideas! Genius!)

Android is a whole other topic. If I ever do move into Android territory, it will still follow the same process - I'll put up a link or something linking to an android version of an app to see if anyone takes the bait.

 

[tafy]

13 views means people are either:

1. not searching for your product/offer
2. Your adwords keyword list needs expanding
3. Raise the CPC

I would get more traffic before changing anything about your offer or product to get more data

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Wow, great thread. Not sure how I missed it. Rep+ to @Rcaraway1989 for sharing his experience.

 

[BrooklynHustle]

Am on a similar lane. Building an app that solicits your bank account transactional SMS information and gives you an notification on the cash flow and the savings detail on the end of the month. Looking forward to monetize it after 3 years, until then it is free for every possible user across the world.

Why did you choose 3 years?

As someone with a fair bit of experience in this arena (over 8M downloads and $800k from the App Store) I would highly recommend that you attempt monetization much sooner.

1. The Mobile Industry moves extremely fast, and the keys to success today may not hold true in even six months. I have witnessed & been affected by big shifts several times

2. You want to know if your users value your product/service enough to pay for it ASAP. It would be a shame to wait 3 years to find out they really want something different. Find a way to get this information FAST

Best of luck!

 

[Yury]

Validation is difficult sometimes

Correct, sometimes it's difficult or even impossible.

And sometimes actions based on wrong beliefs bring tremendous success - take Columbus and his "East Indies" across the Atlantic.

But way too often the gamble is not required and does not add any value but wastes one's resources.
In this case some people/companies manage to pivot in the process but others can't afford it and just fail.

In this case @Rcaraway1989 explains exactly how you can validate it and what's the risk when you don't do it.

In other cases the validation and testing process will be different and sometimes you'll have to get creative but ignoring the basic homework and blindly dumping lots of resources into a project hoping for a good outcome... wow, that sounds more like gambling.

Sometimes you have to build what you believe

Yeah. Something tells me though that it's important to be careful and tell apart cases when it really can't be validated (or not worth doing it due to low risk etc) or one's just lazy...

At least that's what I've seen around me (and not just seen but participated sometimes, duh) as one of the main causes of failure - being lazy and ignorant and relying on luck too much instead of taking simple measures to assess and adjust one's course when it's not too late.

 

[Young-Gun]

Just wanted to say thanks to @Rcaraway1989 for this thread.

Great examples and breakdown of how Lean Startup methods can be applied to solo entrepreneurs.

And, nice comparison of the "Venture Capital" model (try 10 times, look for 1 home run) vs the "Silicon Valley founder" model (validate before building, do MVP and quick pivots to hit a solid triple in a reasonable amount of time)

I'm working on my SaaS startup right now, starting as someone who doesn't know how to program at all.
So, there's a lot of risk that I could waste time and money... but I'm doing everything I can to prevent that.
As a 2nd-time entrepeneur, I agree 100% with the "Validate BEFORE Build" method.

I know for myself, my first business has taught me: I'm no longer trying to "THINK of my great business idea."
I'm trying to research a widespread NEED that already exists in the market.
Then I'll build to solve that problem.
But, proving the NEED comes first.

Thanks again for all the great info, I read every post!

 

[Rcaraway1989]

What are your downloads like for this app compared to others? Im considering having a friend develop an app for me, and im curious as to what a real expectation would be, and im guessing its either a hit or miss thing.

The app did 8,000 downloads in its first month.

I would not say App Store success is hit or miss as I described in my post. There's a lot of factors at play, depending on how ambitious your app idea is. Is it a big idea or small? Lots of competition or niche market?

 

[Rcaraway1989]

Great post! So you mainly promoted it just by commenting on different sites?

Yes. And yes, before I made the app, I posted on Reddit to see if anyone thought the idea was good.

 

[Yury]

Great approach and thank you for sharing. If more people would use this mvp/validate-test-build approach (not just with apps but with many other types of business) hey there would be much less opinions like 'entrepreneurship is difficult and not for everyone' (of course it is if they try to build&sell something that noone needs!).

 

[teabag]

Thanks for MVP, I'll be setting my landing page tonight and will report back here with any results

 

[Wuz]

If I'm being honest, I stole the idea from someone. I get into "Idea search" mode where I write down/brainstorm different ideas. Someone happened to tell me about this idea while I was in idea search mode, and it seemed reasonable enough to look into. After initial research, I felt it was worth testing a landing page.

I had probably 40ish ideas before I found one I thought was worth even testing a landing page for. I still come up with ideas all the time. I have like 4 landing pages I tested with QuickMVP that were complete duds.

The two books I've found are App Empire by Chad Mureta and Appreneur: Secrets to Success in the App Store. I'll also give a shoutout to Lean Analytics although its not specifically mobile.

There is abook called lifehacked by "Rego apps". Besides some good life advice he gives, he talks about apps. I didnt read it, but i heard it is a good book.

 

[Rcaraway1989]

There is abook called lifehacked by "Rego apps". Besides some good life advice he gives, he talks about apps. I didnt read it, but i heard it is a good book.

Wow that book actually looks worth reading. Here's the link for anyone else interested.

 

[PopEmersen]

There is abook called lifehacked by "Rego apps". Besides some good life advice he gives, he talks about apps. I didnt read it, but i heard it is a good book.

Great book and the creator is a forum member @regoapps

 

[Rcaraway1989]

1.if you would need to outsource your app(to build the very first version)- in assumption that this first version is easy to make, would you outsoruce an amateur programmer and have professional QA go over it? or would you advice gettin a professional from the start? or any other way.
2.Do you know a way to make income before the app is on the play store?(for example, is it possible to put ads before uploading to the play store?)
3.Can you estimate how much income i get from app with 100 users that click one advertisement per day or view 100 per day?

Rob, I appreciate your time and effort, thank you
Ofir

1. Shitty programmers will build shitty products. Would not recommend ever.
2. Nope unless you collect money via some kind of kickstarter like funding service
3. 100 users will generate almost nothing. Ads require massive traffic. In app purchases are your best bet.

 

[Crissco]

I believe money can be made anyway, people say websites are dead, thats the furthest thing from the truth. Just my opinion, even if it doesnt work out, its still worth a shot to give it a go, worst that happens you learn a crop load, win win

 

[Rcaraway1989]

So I have to ask for your opinion, as this is a subject I've been doing a lot of thinking on lately.

I've been reading a lot of blogposts and such about the odds of making money by starting a mobile app business

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-worth-it-to-enter-the-mobile-apps-business-now-Is-it-too-late
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possibl...er-to-make-a-living-off-the-App-Store-in-2016
http://dazeend.org/2015/01/the-shape-of-the-app-store/
http://readwrite.com/2015/07/20/indie-app-developers-success-enterprise-the-man/
https://tyler.io/a-candid-look-at-the-financial-side-of-building-mac-apps-on-your-own/

There's tons more like this that seem to suggest it's harder these days to make money as an indie developer on the App Store - as there's more competition and most of the money goes to apps made by large companies with huge teams of developers and huge marketing budgets.

This is discouraging to me as my fastlane plan, initially, was to start my own mobile development business to 1. develop my own app ideas and sell them on the app store or 2. use my apps as a sort of 'portfolio' I can use to solicit contracting work making mobile apps for small businesses.
https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/software-dev-in-chicago.70118/

I have been hard at work on my first set of apps, they are almost ready to go. But I put a lot of work into them and once they're launched I then have to start marketing them. I may not make much money back, as my monetization strategy is a 'freemium' model with in app advertising.

I even talked to a 'business coach' - a certain well known startup blogger who I hired for coaching several days ago. He told me that the monetization you get from apps is not worth the time that you put into making them and marketing them. He advised me to look into other businesses like affiliate marketing and posting online learning courses.

All of a sudden my passionate idea to start my own mobile app dev business does not seem like a wise investment at all, given the effort vs the potential reward. It also doesn't seem very 'fastlane' to be taking a road that everyone seems to be taking, and with very uncertain chances of success.

Do you still believe in 2016 it's worth it to get into the app business? given my goal is financial freedom. Right now I'm sort of weighing if it's worth it to push through with my mobile app dev business plan, or if I would be better off trying to think of another plan at this time. I'm still committed to getting my first set of apps in the app store - but I'm not expecting them to turn over much money - as I basically did them as a learning experience, and did not do much market research before starting. I was planning to really focus on the marketing and them refine my approach with my next set of apps.

Any comments on this are appreciated. Thanks!

Forgive me for the late response,

Your fears are justified. The App Store is saturated. I don't think the App Store alone is a great fastlane option because there's generally only one option for good profits: really low margin mass market.

The way I have approached the process, I think its almost always worth taking my process and instead applying it to a web product (SaaS, informational product). I used the web to validate my business anyway, right?

There's still a place on the App Store for 2 very specific type of Entrepreneurs. Someone who loves to immerse themselves in the trends and play the speculative game (kind of like a wall street daytrader type) either buy making apps with trend keywords, or by "flipping" apps.

The other type is a well-funded company that makes their products 10x times better than anything else out there (for the photo/video category, see Prisma, Enlight).

Both of these strategies require a lot of money. For the speculative type, its LOTS of cheap programmers, designers to build LOTS of apps (or large stashes of cash to buy apps), and the other type is hiring THE BEST to make one-two AMAZING apps.

Neither of these strategies favor the entrepreneur who is just starting, with one exception. You're making a killing doing consulting work. For example, iOS programmers (me) are one of the most in demand type of developers, and knowing the business side well means I've been able to charge $10-20k per WEEK on some projects. Learning to be killer consultant is a great gateway to starting an app business if you have the patience for it.

I've recently sold my app portfolio, and am looking to just teach people what I've learned about entrepreneurship and innovation. Writing a way bigger post with more detail than this one on everything I learned.

Edit: Or my route is probably still viable but more rare. Legitimately find an idea that has demand but next to no solutions solving it. The thing I like about approaching things this way is it's not dependent on a platform. If you find a unique idea, you might find really quickly that people want a web app instead. Or an Android app.

 

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[RJ the first]

Ah that's fine. You're playing the VC strategy game (invest in lots knowing 1 home run pays for everything). My personality favors the 2nd model, where I've learned most of my strategy from web entrepreneurs and the startup world (lean startup, Steve Blank, Ash Maurya, etc).

My biggest concern with what you're doing is search and promotion -- what is your process for targeting keywords for your apps? What channels can users find your apps through?

My process for targeting keywords is:
-I pick the top 10 competitors for my app
-I collect all of their keywords from App Annie, and I put them into a spreadsheet, I wind up with about 100 or so keywords
-While I'm gathering competitor keywords, I think of my own and add them to the list
-In my spreadsheet I also record difficulty and traffic for each keyword - my spreadsheets wind up looking like this -- http://prntscr.com/d8ey15
-I sort my spreadsheet by difficulty, then use sensor tower keyword suggestion and optimization tools tools to narrow down my list of keywords from my spreadsheet by - relevance, difficulty, traffic

My users can find my apps through Apple App Store search. I have not explored doing stuff like -
-targeted Facebook ads for mobile, manually promoting my app in forums and FB groups, cross promotion through Blog/Twitter/Youtube influencers. I haven't even tried localizing my ASO in other languages.

I basically release an app, maybe I'm lucky if it gets 40-50 downloads a day after several weeks, and several attempts to tweak the keywords and ASO. At that point I think that my downloads are so low - so my idea must be flawed - so why bother with doing further promotion or ASO optimizations. With the last app I really meant to follow through with promotion via FB ads for mobile and promoting it on FB groups. But I ran out of money, and have to wait on this for a while.

 

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[Rcaraway1989]

I decided to outsource. with all the respect to my research, I'm not a tech guy and this is my first business. I need help to plan the best solution for my app; these are some of my roadblocks:

-should I go hybrid or native app
-what services best fit my app? (e.g. BaaS such as google Firebase or AWS? OR other?).
-if I want to hire a backend developer do I need to hire a front-end developer first?

My question is:
Is it possible to outsource the entire technical planning of my app?(services, programming languages, skills needed for long-term reliability, cost-effective, etc - ) to someone who knows's what he's doing that I can sign him an NDA upfront? -without hiring a developer and hoping for the best?

THANK YOU.

native.
Firebase.
Firebase allows you to do all in one.
Are you new to outsourcing? Make sure you know enough about each subject before you hire others. Or you won't know what a "good job" looks like.

Since you are outsourcing, read App Empire by Chad mureta if you haven't yet. The only thing I'll add to it, since its kind of a dated book, is that if you want success, get ready to fail for awhile and the money you put into your business will be a sunk cost for awhile. There's nothing "get rich quick" about this way, but its still entirely doable.

 

[Y.B.]

So how are you generating revenue from the app? Paid upgrades?

 

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[Rcaraway1989]

So how are you generating revenue from the app? Paid upgrades?

Yes. I tested this before I launched the app, too. I got a few users to beta test, but I put the pricing in their anyway to see if they would bite. They did, so I moved forward with the app.