There is alot of similarity between this story, making iOS apps and making AdSense websites 7-8 years ago. One could slap a website together in a week, and one would see the revenue slowly but surely coming in and going up. The strategy of "making a website every week", and the total will make up for it worked too, for a while. Nowadays, every niche is crowded, and often more professionalised with several persons working on it, Google taking drastic measures to penalise spam-techniques... and the 1-week effort websites (even if you have good, quality content -- but it's just little) will get you nowhere anymore. It is almost, exactly the same story.
Yeah, it's definitely similar. Now, I would like to think I didn't cross into the spam realm, but it's a very similar concept, and it's the same problem. Without upkeep and continuous improvement the sites didn't last, and there is a tipping point where you simply can't keep up with so many projects.
The only people I know that make money on AdSense are those that have sites that provide not very good information, but just enough to get you there and click on the ad which might have what they are looking for. Can anyone tell me of a site that doesn't use this technique that makes money with adsense?
I'm wondering why you've chosen such a competitive category. You're in the same league as Runkeeper, Nike, Fitbit, and all the other fitness trackers and they make their income through the sale of devices so they can afford to put their app up for free.
How about picking a niche that doesn't have their need satisfied yet and charging money directly for that? Maybe designing a grader for teachers, or a tool for gov workers to submit reports, or a business expense tracker. There are lots of categories looking for a design overhaul and with just a little bit of research and effort you can make your app stand out from the pack of existing shitty solutions.
Perhaps it's a poor choice, we'll find out I suppose. The reason is mainly that I know it well, and already have an app that is featured by Apple with great ratings already. To be fair I "picked" the category 4 years ago, and I've made a lot of money in it so far. As for the current choice I suppose I could start something new from scratch, but I felt like it made more sense to pick a current app that I think has the most potential.
Runkeeper, and most of the other competitors (outside nike) make their money on IAP's for advanced features. I don't actually consider fitbit a competitor per se, it's a slightly different beast.
Very interesting, and a bit similar to my entrepreneurial journey with websites.
Making a single very successful website is quite a challenge, as I found out.
What will be your main strategies making your apps successful? Pure product focus? PR? Other forms of marketing?
I built 6 apps for another ecosystem (Shopify https://apps.shopify.com/partners/socialproof-it) and had very much the same experience as you. We did the low fidelity approach like you and also found that has diminishing returns as the app market matures. Once we started focusing on one app for Shopify https://apps.shopify.com/shopify-recurring-payments we found the returns quickly dwarfed what we made before. For it allowed us to be the best for thats all we did. I would recommend not focusing on two apps but just doing one really well. Doing multiple apps means your mediocre in different things takes all your energy to be the best. PS: Love the idea your going to focus on Apple Watch no one is the market leader/expert so great place to be.
"The decline soon after? That’s the Chomp search update followed by iOS 6 and the card app store layout. So sad."
Man, I do find that quite sad... the app store still has some major issues with regards to discoverability. It's funny because you'd think as the app store became more and more saturated, that they'd create more ways to deal with that, but many of the changes have actually made it worse lol :/
Users buy Apple phones (++aapl_profit), they browse or search the app store, they find something, and they spend a few more bucks on an app (++aapl_profit). Users remain blissfully unaware of the full situation or lost potential. No major user complaints and we can only speculate about lost potential Apple profits.
Sadly, I think Apple serves most users best by simply ensuring the "top" choices during an app store browse or search are good enough that users don't ever have to search deeper and really feel the pain of the App Store situation. And the top choices are often quite good.
My conclusion is Apple just doesn't feel enough pain to solve the discoverability problem that hurts developers (especially new developers).
There is a lot of hate for the app store by developers, and i've dished out some of it, but frankly with over a million apps it's not an easy problem to solve.
I actually think the store is in a pretty decent state right now overall. You can't possibly make everything very visible. It's a pretty good deal to be on the shelves, now you just have to work harder on your own promotion.
Ha, yeah I've been working to fill in that gap. I did add a skiing/snowboarding tracking app, but it doesn't have quite the same sales as the others, and the skiing season doesn't really start until late december/january. It is part of the reason january-march isn't as bad as oct-dec.
Ideally, the next project will sell well year round :-)
I'd say organic mostly. I read stories of people making the most money they ever made on launch day, and almost none after, but I've only had that experience once, with Debt Snowball. And it still has made more over time than it did at the launch.
[+] [-] limeyy|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clarky07|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icefox|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] physcab|11 years ago|reply
How about picking a niche that doesn't have their need satisfied yet and charging money directly for that? Maybe designing a grader for teachers, or a tool for gov workers to submit reports, or a business expense tracker. There are lots of categories looking for a design overhaul and with just a little bit of research and effort you can make your app stand out from the pack of existing shitty solutions.
[+] [-] supercoder|11 years ago|reply
The problem with a niche, especially on the app store, is that if you can't get people searching your app out then it's hard to break through.
[+] [-] clarky07|11 years ago|reply
Runkeeper, and most of the other competitors (outside nike) make their money on IAP's for advanced features. I don't actually consider fitbit a competitor per se, it's a slightly different beast.
[+] [-] clarky07|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdrmar|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mmcconnell1618|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aarondf|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oisino|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cclogg|11 years ago|reply
Man, I do find that quite sad... the app store still has some major issues with regards to discoverability. It's funny because you'd think as the app store became more and more saturated, that they'd create more ways to deal with that, but many of the changes have actually made it worse lol :/
[+] [-] emptybits|11 years ago|reply
Sadly, I think Apple serves most users best by simply ensuring the "top" choices during an app store browse or search are good enough that users don't ever have to search deeper and really feel the pain of the App Store situation. And the top choices are often quite good.
My conclusion is Apple just doesn't feel enough pain to solve the discoverability problem that hurts developers (especially new developers).
[+] [-] clarky07|11 years ago|reply
I actually think the store is in a pretty decent state right now overall. You can't possibly make everything very visible. It's a pretty good deal to be on the shelves, now you just have to work harder on your own promotion.
[+] [-] jasonsync|11 years ago|reply
Hope your next app is a "Winter App". Then you'll be able to sleep easy all year long :-)
[+] [-] clarky07|11 years ago|reply
Ideally, the next project will sell well year round :-)
[+] [-] bhavvik|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clarky07|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] a3voices|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clarky07|11 years ago|reply