I'm not sure how your app's interface works.. but there might be a potential audience with digital artists/painters, who use Wacom tablets and often have to go into very precise details on tablets that are generally much smaller than their display monitors. Slowing down the mouse on-the-fly could give them added creative flexibility.
Again i'm not sure how this works and perhaps simply zooming in gives them this same advantage but just maybe something to explore. A good community to start with is http://www.conceptart.org
Great post, especially about the Accessibility niche. You might be onto something there.
A quick note: "I am losing possible customers because it's not 100% clear what FinalTouch is and how it works."
Nowhere in the blog post did I see a description of what FinalTouch actually does -- I had to go to the product page to find out after reading about the paralyzed man. Considering this is your first blog post about the product, it would probably be beneficial to have one sentence at the top. Still, I can't wait for the second post of the series.
Hey I can understand the confusion. Will add a legend.
First there are 4 data points.
1. Total number of visitors
2. How many of those are mac users
3. How many of those clicked on the "Buy" button
4. How many bought (those are the red dots)
As you can see in the vertical axis it's a laymans logarithmic scale since I had high numbers of visitors compared to how many bought the app.
Second
I actually hand crafted the graph.
1. Getting number from Analytics + numbers from App store
Reviews and ratings are very important on the App Stores and you don't have any for your app yet. It's a bit of a chicken and egg type problem to get those first reviews but they are really important. I don't know of a good solution for getting genuine user reviews reliably other than asking in-app. That's something that's done often in iOS apps, but I haven't seen it in a Mac app. It can be annoying and intrusive so it's definitely something to consider carefully. I don't have your app, perhaps you could suggest a user review in an intro screen that comes up the first time your app launches?
A non-App Store version is probably a good idea — I've heard from developers who offer them that the website version is a decent portion of their sales. But don't put in a lot of effort to cater to people on OS X versions older than 10.6, and I say that as somebody who regularly uses Macs with 10.4 and 10.5. That's a demonstrably stingy demographic whose numbers are decreasing all the time — not a good investment.
As far as your conclusions at the end, you're right. You definitely need to be better at letting people know what your app does. It took me until the anecdote about the paralyzed man to even have the tiniest idea of what your app did.
Of course, this also likely wasn't intended to be marketing material, but considering it made the front page of HN, it very well is now.
Do you feel having your own homepage is important? I wonder if the conversion rate would be higher if you funneled people directly into the Mac App Store web link.
I'm now two weeks in, selling two Mac Apps: one for $2 and the other for $99. Thanks for the blog post, I'll be doing the same when I get back results for the month.
pkamb it's a good question. As someone pointed out, until I get the reviews (and they are good) I have to do what I can to attract traffic.
From everything Apple is great it their reporting system is like waiting in line in the Soviet Union pre 89. So unstable reporting and when it's finally there so horribly lacking.
adding a testimonial from the paralyzed man and any other satisfied customers on your front page might go a long way to show how your app can be useful to certain niche markets.
[+] [-] mladenkovacevic|14 years ago|reply
Again i'm not sure how this works and perhaps simply zooming in gives them this same advantage but just maybe something to explore. A good community to start with is http://www.conceptart.org
[+] [-] ThomPete|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mirkules|14 years ago|reply
A quick note: "I am losing possible customers because it's not 100% clear what FinalTouch is and how it works."
Nowhere in the blog post did I see a description of what FinalTouch actually does -- I had to go to the product page to find out after reading about the paralyzed man. Considering this is your first blog post about the product, it would probably be beneficial to have one sentence at the top. Still, I can't wait for the second post of the series.
[+] [-] ThomPete|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] positr0n|14 years ago|reply
What do the different colors mean? What are the red dots?
[+] [-] ThomPete|14 years ago|reply
First there are 4 data points.
1. Total number of visitors 2. How many of those are mac users 3. How many of those clicked on the "Buy" button 4. How many bought (those are the red dots)
As you can see in the vertical axis it's a laymans logarithmic scale since I had high numbers of visitors compared to how many bought the app.
Second
I actually hand crafted the graph.
1. Getting number from Analytics + numbers from App store
2. putting them into a google document spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0As_7Yc_iucRqdGo...
3. Then building the basic graph in illustrator 4. Styling it in FireWorks
Do I wish there were an easier way for what I want to accomplish?
You bet!
[+] [-] timeuser|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chc|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThomPete|14 years ago|reply
Alternatively I guess I have to use something like paypal.
[+] [-] vorbby|14 years ago|reply
Of course, this also likely wasn't intended to be marketing material, but considering it made the front page of HN, it very well is now.
[+] [-] ThomPete|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pkamb|14 years ago|reply
I'm now two weeks in, selling two Mac Apps: one for $2 and the other for $99. Thanks for the blog post, I'll be doing the same when I get back results for the month.
[+] [-] ThomPete|14 years ago|reply
From everything Apple is great it their reporting system is like waiting in line in the Soviet Union pre 89. So unstable reporting and when it's finally there so horribly lacking.
[+] [-] karolist|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThomPete|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ra|14 years ago|reply
Congratulations on identifying a niche, I look forward to future installments.
[+] [-] option1138|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dzine|14 years ago|reply