yccheok's comments

Hi,

I’m currently building a Q&A chatbot and facing challenges in addressing the following scenario:

When a user asks:

"What do you mean in your previous statement?"

How does your framework handle retrieving the correct small subset of "raw knowledge" and integrating it into the LLM for a relevant response?

Without relying on external frameworks, I’ve struggled with this issue - https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1gtzdid/d_optim...

I’d love to know how your framework solves this and whether it can streamline the process.

Thank you!

Spending time on social media platforms like Twitter, ProductHunt, and IndieHacker can often have negative effects on mental health, as seeing others' successes and high earnings can cause feelings of toxic jealousy and comparison.

To improve mental health, it may be beneficial for the author to reduce their time on these platforms and focus on practical tasks such as talking to customers, finding new customers, and developing their product. These actions can lead to a more fulfilling and balanced life.

If the author feels that quitting these social media platforms entirely is the best decision for their mental health, that is a valid choice. Alternatively, the author may find it more mentally healthy to transition from being a solo entrepreneur to an employee with a stable monthly paycheck. Ultimately, the goal is to find a path that leads to greater happiness and well-being.

First, we need to agree that "A great product will speak itself" is total BS.

But, in order to outpace millions of other apps in long run, we need to perform the following

1) ASO App store - So that our apps are searchable with the right keywords

2) Localization App store - So that our app can reach more users

3) A/B testing App store - So that we will find out what is the most effective graphics asset

4) Paid advertising - So that you will get real users

5) ... (other marketing activities)

As we can see, all the above activities require a substantial amount of money (We need to hire people with the right skill to complete the task or pay our ads network)

I think knowing how to spend the marketing money the right way, is the key to success in Google Play/ Apple App Store.

I am still learning the hard way, though.

There are a few ways for us to make money.

1) We offer 1-time in-app purchases. The price tier ranged from $30.99 to $0.99 (We offer promo prices to users when they share the app with enough people)

2) We offer a monthly subscription model of $5 per month when the user requires better cloud storage to store their notes, image attachments, and voice recordings - https://www.wenote.me/cloud

3) Every 1-time in-app purchase comes with a 7-day free trial. After 7 days of the free trial, we provide an option for users to watch video ads in exchange for additional 2 days of the free trial.

4) We decide not to show banner ads/ full-screen ads. Even though it will make us earn less, it will provide a better user experience, gaining a better user retention rate and better app reputation.

It is still possible. I have been doing so for a few years, by focusing on single note taking app

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yocto.weno...

Here's my take :-

1) Just like in other businesses, it is a competitive market.

2) However, it is also full of limitless opportunities. Google Play store helps you to reach worldwide end consumers. Only a few channels can do that with a frictionless payment system. Google Play store is one of them.

3) Since it is a highly competitive market, you need to know your niche and know who your targetted customers are very well. Then, we provide a solid solution to fit customer needs.

4) Play store tax is not a concern. Once you publish the app, the only main concern is how to market the app and how to pitch the app so that consumers will choose your app over the others.

5) With some luck, one will hit overnight success. But, the chance is rare. Most of the time, we need to invest a lot of resources, and success is not guaranteed.

Congratulation!

Building a marketplace to sell something (Apps, courses, clothes, food, ...) is a very challenging problem.

I am an App developer who sales app in Google Play. The only thing I am concerning is, how much users are Google Play (marketplace) is gonna to bring to me? Rest of the concern factors are secondary to none.

Even if Google Play choose to charge higher fee, or providing a more crappy publishing tool, I still will stay with Google Play. Because I know if I try to sell my Android app elsewhere, I will get 0 customer.

Good luck to your venture!

Ya. I am particular to try out the app itself without hardware first, to see how effective it is. May I know how can I request for the Testflight link? Thanks.

Any chance to make the app available in App Store in Malaysia? Would love to try out on it. Thanks.

I am indie developer who makes and sales apps on Android. I can tell you this is not true. Users are willing to pay for good apps.

No. Website doesn't provide experience as good as native app. Many ordinary users can tell you this.

- Privacy. A good intention mobile app, can be designed to work without Internet.

- Internet. User doesn't have access to Internet all-the-time, but you still need certain app to work.

- Fast. Web app can never be as fast as native app. It is not realistic to expect code which runs under an JavaScript interpreter layer, can be as fast as native (or almost native) code which is nearer to CPU layer.

I'm more interested to know what kind of product they are selling with that much of Ads marketing dollar.

Don't let Facebook get away with this!

Don't forget Eric as well. He is one of the trio, who turns Google into what it is today.

> "500K users, that's quite an achievement as well, pretty solid!"

Not quite :) As, majority of them are from tier-2 countries. Purchasing digital goods is not part of their culture.

> "But again, just from my gut feeling: I wonder if there's a way for you to REDUCE the number of active users and turn free users into loyal paid users."

Thank you for your suggestion! What you have mentioned are valid.

Maybe at some point, I want to introduce "ads" + "subscription" model. However, this is a competitive landscape. Most of the similar apps are using ads model. At this moment, I want to offer a compelling reason, for user to use my app instead of others. Luckily, this landscape has high stickiness, because user generated personal data are stored within the app. If they use the app for long enough, the cost is high, when they want to switch to other apps.

So, my hypothesis is that, as long as the free users are using my app, there will always be an opportunity to monetize from them, one day.

Yes. You're right. Currently, there is stress to do marketing. I need to keep attracting new users especially from tier-1 countries, so that new users' one-time purchase can help to cover my monthly living expense. I try to control the CPI cost to USD0.10 for Germany, Japan, Korea. I didn't invest for US, because the high cost is not justifiable. I do notice higher cost is required, if the tier-1 countries are English speaking country. My guess is that, less language barrier, will encourage more players in the market, and drive up the advertising cost.

> Absolutely! I wrote probably over 200,000 words and invested a lot of time in improving my writing skills

I really wish I can build a long term traffic like what you have done. Can you recommend me a publishing platform to publish all writings?

Currently, I am already using google sites (Because I do not have website design skill), to build a landing page to introduce the app features, hosing FAQ, and showing video on how to use the app. But, I don't think that is the suitable platform to host long written article.

When you write your writing, do you need to hire some graphics designer, to help to decorate your writing with nice graphic assets, to attract more readers?

Thank you!

Thank you for sharing your success. I hope I can learn one or thing from your sharing.

Currently, I'm selling a consumer productivity app (Android only) in Google Play store.

The characteristics of this category are large consumer demand, and low barrier to entry. Because of this, there are a lot of players in this category.

My pricing model is pretty simple - $20 one time payment to unlock everything. I know I can earn significant more by having subscription / in-app advertising. Since I can make a living with current income, I will leave it that way. I want to sacrifice short-term good profit, in exchange for long term growth.

Initially, I get the first 10k users, by promoting the app, via forum self-post. Later, we notice this is not something scale-able. As, you can only get that much of users from forums.

Right now, I have around 500k users. That mostly attributes to Google Play store organic/search traffic. Because of this, I spend a lot of time in optimizing Google Play store page listing - provide proper localization on product description, performing A/B testing on different product screenshots.

However, that is pretty much risky. What if Google stops sending traffic to my Google Play store page?

I spend some advertising dollar each day in Google Ads, with the hope able to keep our app ranking afloat.

Do you have any suggestion, how I can have a better marketing strategy?

From your post, I will start by purchasing

- "Rework" by Basecamp

- "This is Marketing" from Seth Godin

I also like your suggestion "Write articles that teach people something". Do you have suggestion which publishing platform I should use? Since I don't have a good writing skill, should I hire a freelancer to help me do so? How can I get an idea what to write about?

Thank you, and BIG congratulation on your achievement.

Google (Or Apple) is pretty serious regarding their app stores rules and regulations.

Google owns the app store. So, developers should abide rules imposed by Google although the rules do not seem reasonable all the time.

My suggestion is, developer can still implement in-app billing, removing "donation" wording. For the in-app item, make it as good-to-have feature like "unlocking additional app color theme".

With such, he will still abide the rule, yet able to get his monetary reward.

Careful Apple. Those faceless rioters will come to break your Apple store glass. Maybe time to upgrade them to bullet proof glass?

So that FBI can have my cat pictures?

I would be surprised if you're not banned, for personal attack the author.

Yes. Google prioritizes themselves, business partners over end consumers. I have seen many high ranked apps, which clearly violate Google Play store policy (For instance, placing ads on user lock screen)

Yet, those apps are being ranked higher than other honest apps, which are doing business in honest way.

These day, Google is not willing to do the right thing, unless being pressured by press media, or EU.