
How HoursTracker earns five figures a month on the App Store - wallflower
https://medium.com/@carlosribas/how-hourstracker-earns-five-figures-a-month-on-the-app-store-85a20bb972eb
======
debacle
One thing that I really notice a lot as I get older is that so many people say
it isn't possible to make money anymore, early adopters had it easy, etc.
People say this about apps and startups and the like.

I tell myself these same things sometimes, but then I have to check myself -
it is actually easier to make _way_ more money on an app these days than ever
before. What is bigger is the risk proposition, which is why people tell
themselves that success is entirely about luck - if your own skill doesn't
matter, there's no reason to try, and if you try and don't succeed it isn't
your fault.

This is a very real trap and I think in the reddit age (where if you aren't a
cynic by 15 you're behind the curve) it is a mental virus. The world still
rewards value, even if it takes some time. The people clamoring that it
doesn't are doing so because they want to believe that it isn't their fault
they didn't succeed.

You need to be willing to emotionally and mentally invest yourself in
something with a reasonable chance of failure or you will never, ever succeed.
The people that you see who you are smarter than that have succeeded haven't
gotten there because of luck - they've gotten there because they tried. Luck
just helped.

~~~
serve_yay
It's partially a problem of silent evidence. For this time tracking app there
are hundreds mouldering in some corner of the App Store. And the people who
made them aren't gonna write any blog posts, and we wouldn't read them if they
did. It's a blockbuster model, sure it's possible to make money but unlikely.
It's possible to make money acting, but you probably won't. That's just how it
works out. I don't think that's so cynical.

Those who succeed in such a scenario are often insensitive to the unlikelihood
of their success - so are those who fail.

~~~
jakobegger
There are lots of people writing blog posts complaining that their apps don't
earn them money. Conventional wisdom right now seems to be that it's normal
that developers don't make any money.

But it is very much possible to make a money selling apps. Just identify a
market that you can serve, then make a good app, then advertise it
effectively. Profit!

However, it's not easy to become a billionaire with your app; for that you
need lots of luck among other things.

I think the comparison with acting is actually pretty good. There are a lot of
people who make money acting. It's not that difficult. You need a bit of
talent and a lot of commitment, but I happen to know more than one person who
managed to become professional actors.

It is of course unlikely to become a world famous super-rich actor; but making
a reasonable living from acting is absolutely achievable.

~~~
davedx
> Just...

> It's not that difficult...

> I happen to know more than one...

> ...absolutely achievable.

I admire your optimism, but have you personally tried and succeeded at these
things you claim are so easy?

~~~
jakobegger
I make a living (and support a family) by selling two Mac apps I have written.
It didn't seem hard to get to this point, it just took a lot of dedication.

------
jonawesomegreen
I think the app store has become much more about marketing now when you are
entering with a new app. Most of the built in discovery tools are focused on
apps with an existing reputation. Given the volume of apps this makes sense,
and helps ensure that users are shown quality apps, however it also places a
barrier to entry to newcomers until they can build a reputation that allows
this virtuous cycle to take hold.

I would be interested in hearing from any app developers who have managed to
break through this cycle recently and the marketing techniques they used.

~~~
barumrho
I just wanted to share my experience that this isn't always the case. I
launched a transit app in Toronto* about 3 years ago. (There were already
plenty of them back then.) Over the years, daily downloads steadily grew
without me doing any marketing. These days I get a few hundred downloads per
day which, to me, is mind-boggling. I realize this is a bit of a special case
since people now look for transit apps when they get a new phone.

* [https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/ttc-watch-for-toronto/id5052...](https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/ttc-watch-for-toronto/id505286932?mt=8)

~~~
jonawesomegreen
That is very interesting. I always like to hear counter examples. Have you had
any success in turning downloads into revenue? Does the ad model work for your
app, or is most of the revenue from in app purchases as in the article?

~~~
barumrho
The revenue from my apps have grown to be significant. Not enough for me to
work on it full-time though.

Off the top of my head, I think 95% of my revenue is from ads. I have plans to
work on improving IAP conversion since I don't like the fact that I show ads.
This article got me thinking about what I can offer more than just "remove
ads".

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mherrmann
Cool article but I think things are very different now. If the author launched
the same app today, I think he'd have a much harder time getting to that
revenue, even in 6 years. The time when the App Store opened was great for the
first developers there but things have changed.

~~~
cribasoft
Things have definitely changed over the years, and I've had to pivot many
times along the way. I think it remains a good opportunity today. In fact,
maybe even better because the market is much more stable and the right way to
do it is more evident. I made mistakes along the way that probably cost me a
lot of money.

~~~
sixdimensional
Your use of metrics to track performance and ability/desire to experiment
clearly had an impact as well. In these kinds of situations where you can get
good quality metrics relatively easily, and experiment so quickly, it is still
surprising to see folks not collecting those metrics.

Of course, it's not ALL about metrics, and in some ways I reject the line of
thinking that you can't improve what you don't measure (qualitative
research/understanding can go a long way). But with quantitative research/data
so easily available... it only makes sense to make use of it.

Thanks for sharing your insight!

~~~
cribasoft
No doubt. That could be a whole article by itself.

I track a lot of metrics and keep a custom dashboard that I can look at any
time to see how things are going long-term/short-term/real-time.

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andrewtbham
I have a similar app, onsite time tracker, and it makes way less. like a few
hundred dollars per month.

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onsite-time-
tracker/id470803...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onsite-time-
tracker/id470803110?mt=8)

I have always been curious how much Hours Tracker makes. It dominates the app
store searches.

~~~
ianlevesque
The article says free with IAP is making much more revenue. You'd probably be
wise to try that with yours.

~~~
andrewtbham
yeh i agree. will probably make the change soon.

one struggle i had was what to make free and what to charge for. i thought
about making the app free and charge only to export data, but i felt like
people might feel duped by not realizing and then be forced to pay when they
thought it was free. the plan with limiting the # of entries makes way more
sense.

~~~
cribasoft
When I'm considering tweaks to IAP strategy, any ideas that entrap the user's
data are non-starters. The user owns that data, they should always be able to
get out what they put in.

Supertop's Unread also has a great (similar) take on IAP:
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/unread-rss-news-
reader/id911...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/unread-rss-news-
reader/id911364254?mt=8)

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viggity
I love the company name in the screenshot "Setec Astronomy" \- it's a
reference to the movie "Sneakers". It is an anagram for "too many secrets".

~~~
lrm242
It's also an anagram for Cootys Rat Semen!

~~~
cribasoft
"Too many secrets" (from Sneakers) is certainly the intent. Pretty much the
whole screenshot is full of Sneakers references.

~~~
lrm242
Oh I know. Cootys Rat Semen is also from Sneakers. It is the first decoding of
the anagram that Bishop decoded while playing Scrabble. They quickly discarded
that and found "Too Many Secrets" shortly thereafter.

~~~
c17r
It was the 3rd decoded that they didn't share with the group. The 1st two were
"Montereys Coast" and "My Socrates Note".

LOVE LOVE LOVE Sneakers

------
programminggeek
In my experience, the early apps rank well and it's much harder to launch a
new app and get downloads.

~~~
vampirechicken
So in business parlance, you're saying that it's easier to make money in a
'blue ocean', with little or no competition, than in a 'red ocean', with lots
of competition.

~~~
nine_k
The problem is that you often have to start in a puddle, in a hope (but
without a guarantee) that it will grow to a size of an ocean.

~~~
vampirechicken
The Blue/Red Ocean concept isn't about the size of the market, it's about the
lack of competition in the market either by being first in a clearly new
market, or by differentiating your offering from others to the extent that
you're not competing for the same consumers. There's a book "Blue Ocean
Strategy." It's worth a read for the explanation, and the case studies.
There's worksheets and process too, but that didn't lend itself well to
listening in the car.

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z3t4
This is the best article I've read in years. This guy understands economics,
design, copy-writing and apparently knows how to code.

What usually would need a whole team of highly educated professionals he seems
to do all by himself ...

~~~
cribasoft
Wow, thanks for the amazingly kind words.

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justboxing
I love your iPhone app landing page. I mistook it for a page on apple.com

[http://hourstrackerapp.com/iphone/](http://hourstrackerapp.com/iphone/)

Simple, yet very beautifully designed.

~~~
cribasoft
Thanks! That is high praise.

~~~
halfcat
Does the app track wherever you go? Such as, "iPhone was at this location from
2pm to 3:45pm"? Or do you have to manually add locations?

I have always wanted something that tracks my location that I can refer back
to. I drive all over, and if I forget to make a note of when I arrive and
leave, it becomes a CSI-style investigation, cross referencing text messages
and emails and phone calls to try and determine when I arrived and left a
client's office.

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coolhand
This is a compelling story. 6 years is a long time and I think that anything
can happen in the app store in that timeframe. Too much talk that things have
changed - always opp in the app store.

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__abc
Got my money simply for using setec astronomy :)

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epaga
This freemium approach is exactly the one I've chosen for my own iOS app
Mindscope - if Apple would finally get their act together and natively support
trial versions of apps, I would change to that in a heartbeat.

Until then, I offer an ad-free, functional app for free but then charge to
unlock the complete functionality. It's worked quite well for me so far (but
obviously nowhere near five figures a month) seeing as how about 15% of
downloaders end up unlocking the full functionality which I think is a pretty
good number.

------
maguay
Somehow reminds me of Stratechery's writeup about Pleco, a Chinese dictionary
app: [http://stratechery.com/2014/pleco-building-business-just-
app...](http://stratechery.com/2014/pleco-building-business-just-app/).
There's something to identifying a problem and working relentlessly to solve
it—and, of course, to being willing to experiment and find a business plan
that works for your product.

------
harisamin
Interesting read. I’ve been looking at Mac Apps for a while to make some extra
steady income. There’s definitely less competition there and yields are
usually higher. I recently launched my first Mac App to the App Store:

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mackernews-hacker-news-
clien...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mackernews-hacker-news-
client/id946730699?mt)

------
shanev
Good to see an article about an indie developer doing well in the age of
funded startup hype. I too have been living off the success of my app Drum Kit
since 2008. No longer making 5 figures a month, but it did for a few years :)

------
lmedinas
Would be interesting to see the numbers for the Android version.

~~~
cribasoft
About 15% of the iOS revenue.

It's a younger product with strong growth and lots of room for refinement. I'm
satisfied with how it is going so far.

~~~
Zaheer
Android across the industry generates an order of magnitude less revenue than
iOS apps so don't be surprised if you don't see as high figures.

------
alexvr
Seems like a great app! Thanks for sharing

------
serve_yay
Nice work if you can get it!

------
timtas
Congrats to the developer, and I appreciate his taking the time to tell us
about his journey. However, I find that the post offers little insight.

I have a special reason to seek this insight: I did nearly the same thing, and
my app makes THREE figures per YEAR. I read this post hoping to gain some
insights as to why. I was disappointed.

Actually, I didn't do what he did. If I did what he did, I would be making all
that money. My complaint about the post is that it didn't help me discern the
key differences.

In March 2010 I introduced Bill It [1], a time tracking app. I was motivated
by my own need combined with a desire to get into the exciting world of mobile
apps. Like the author, I was a .NET developer by day. As a contractor I wanted
something for myself, and I figured I was not unique.

I want to be very clear that I am not surprised of my lackluster results or
jealous of his success. (Well maybe a bit jealous.) I approached it as a
build-it-and-maybe-someone-will-come-but-who-cares-because-its-fun-and-I-
learned-something kind of thing. It hurts my head a little to think about it
marketing, so I built it and threw it out there.

But so did he: "Surprised to see it getting some traction, I decided I should
take HoursTracker a bit more seriously."

His app took off with no marketing at all. Mine did not. Had I been able to
say this about Bill It, my whole story would have played differently. Had I
seen the proverbial fishing pole starting to bend, I would have grabbed it and
stared reeling, as he did. Is that a post hoc rationalization? Maybe, but I
don't think so.

So what made the difference? Time-to-market? Features? Try-ability? Pricing?

TIME-TO-MARKET

As others have said, time-to-market is important because the app store keeps
the winners at the top, and it's easier to get to the top early on. Maybe I
was just too late to have a chance without serious marketing. Who knows?

FEATURES

My "killer feature" was supposed to be Quickbooks Integration. I was running
my consulting business on Quickbooks, and I needed to get my hours input in
order for billing to be linked to payments, deposits, revenue, etc. I created
a very nice feature set to accomplish quite smoothly (if I say so myself). I
decided not to add a timer. I explain the rationale in the product
description. Perhaps this was a bad decision. Who knows?

TRY-ABILITY

Bill It launched shortly before in-app purchases were introduced. So I created
a "lite" version and a full version. As soon as in-app purchases came out, I
added a "full" purchase in the lite app. Did I "accidentally give too much
away for free?" No. If anything, I erred on the opposite side. The Quickbooks
integration took some setup work, so my main goal for the lite version was to
allow the user to verify it before paying. I only allowed 5 time entries,
which was plenty to see how the app works but not enough to actually use it.
Maybe that was the problem. Who knows?

PRICING

Just before Bill It came out, another time tracker featuring Quickbooks
integration came out. Although I thought my integration feature was superior,
their app seemed to have a few more features and a little more polish, so I
tracked just below their price, ending up at $8.99 (about the same as the pro
version of HoursTracker), which is still a high price as apps go. Maybe a
different pricing strategy would have been better. Who knows?

I want to clarify another point. I don't expect the author the know what made
him successful where I and others weren't. My real complaint is that the rest
of us expect that of him. From the first word of his title, "How," we can see
that he wants to meet this unrealistic expectation. The post would have been
better titled "HoursTracker earns five figures a month on the App Store" but
then no one would read it I guess. I told you, I'm bad at marketing.

[1] [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bill-it-
lite/id367603023](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bill-it-lite/id367603023)

~~~
cribasoft
You make a valid point. My post does not talk about the product design, which
seems to be mostly what your comment here is reflecting on. Some quick
responses off-the-top-of-my-head:

* >70% of all time entries saved in HoursTracker are made via the timer. Having the timer is probably very important.

* QuickBooks integration would no doubt be a useful feature, but in 6 six years I've had maybe 10 emails asking for it. It's been on "the list" for almost the entire time, continually bumped.

* Once I started seeing some organic downloads/revenue, I found myself forced to address marketing.

My story is more about how I've had to adapt to the App Store changes over the
years, primarily the rush to Freemium. That focus is mostly a response to the
plentiful stories out there about how free apps are ruining it for everyone.

I could write about adapting to app store search changes, iOS 6 card results,
ranking changes, etc. In fact, some longer drafts went into some of those
things. But, I ended up trimming it to the most still-relevant things, for
brevity and out of respect for the reader's time.

~~~
timtas
Thanks for the reply and original post. To be clear, my real objection is not
with your post but with our (my) expectation that it's possible to gain
decisive wisdom from post-hoc success stories. I knew better than to fall into
this expectation and be disappointed, but I did anyway! It doesn't mean that
accounts like yours aren't interesting and worthwhile.

I guess I knew that focussing on Quickbooks and lacking a timer would narrow
my market from the start. But we're often told, narrow your focus, don't try
to be all-things-to-all-people, do fewer things well, etc. Probably I needed
to actively market from the start.

My guess is that time-to-market explains your initial lift, then a strong
quality version 1.0 created a tail wind with good reviews, then you jumped on
it and did all the right things. Kudos!

