[tommizzle]

I launched the beta of my app in mid-November, although I must admit I did start mid-October so I'm hoping I still qualify!

I decided to build a revenue generating URL shortener. This was one of the first full projects where I basically did everything myself - research, design, development etc, which was a bit frustrating a times. It's ridiculous how unproductive my design days were compared to my development days, but I guess I'm just going against the grain there (I'd be interested to know how many people have 'mastered' both design & development.) That said, I learned quite a lot about the whole process, so definitely a good result.

I decided to launch before a lot of the esential functionality was complete (conversions, payments etc) just to get a feel for what people wanted, and most importantly if it was worth persuing the idea further. I'd probably do the same again next time, although I must admit I felt a bit helpless in the first week of launch when bugs were being uncovered/features were being requested and I was still working on the core.

I'm now onto marketing my app with my business partner. The market we're trying to is obviously insanely saturated, so it's a little frustrating at times, but I'm super motivated to get this out so lets hope we get some traction sometime soon :)

The URL of the app is http://shrtn.co

[poincare]

It looks like users can make money by having their affiliate codes embedded in (qualified) links they submit. But, how are you making money?

[tommizzle]

We have the relationships with the merchants, the users don't. We take a small cut of each sale.