

I Am an Indie iOS Developer – Part 2 - clarky07
http://gabrielhauber.net/devBlog/2014/09/06/indie-dev-part-2/index.html

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stefan_kendall3
I don't have a family, and I wouldn't even dream of going indie with revenue
like that, and my side revenue is about 3x+ that.

Until I'm clearing 10k/month, quitting isn't even a remote possibility. It
would probably even need to be more with health insurance and self employment
tax to consider.

Edit: I wish you the best of luck. Maybe I just lack the stomach for betting
on something that isn't a sure bet.

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gabrielhauber
You're in the US, right? I don't need anywhere near 10k a month in order to
live, even with a large family and a mortgage, here in Australia.

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cstejerean
Where in Australia? I lived there for a few months in both Melbourne and
Sydney and everything was almost double the price compared to the US.

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pan69
I live in the Sydney CBD fringe, about 1.5km out of the CBD. My rent is about
$2,500 AUD a month and with other costs of living I could easily have a good
life on $5,000 AUD a month.

It's just that my wife won't let me... :)

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gabrielhauber
LOL. I think many people's expectation of what they "need" is actually skewed
way high. If I was pulling in a consistent AU$5000 a month from my app
business I would be quite content with that (as would my wife!).

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patio11
Best of luck and skill to you.

Worth mentioning: there is an attractive Plan B which is not "Sell house to
avoid defaulting on debts." It is "do iOS development contracting work at
market rates, which are somewhere between $1k and $2k per day." The failure of
this business should not cause catastrophic financial consequences for your
family.

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bshimmin
Yeah. I just don't get this desire to become an independent app developer
building your own apps. I know it's a dream to be your own boss and work from
home and so on, but as a consultant (or contractor or freelancer, or whatever
term we currently decide sounds most important and impressive), you will
accrue the kind of finances that mean you can take very long holidays if you
want, during which you can work on your own apps, or do nothing at all. Yes,
you have to work for clients the rest of the time, and clients are often
mercurial, but - especially if you're pitching yourself as a mini-agency who
can take care of development, design, and even some strategy (subcontracting
the bits you don't want to do, as appropriate) - really you often have a lot
of freedom; and remote working is definitely becoming more common.

I just can't comprehend why someone would take such huge risks with
potentially such limited returns (eg. months where this guy was making $100),
having to learn the bizarre vagaries of "App Store Optimisation" (which I'm
not really convinced isn't much more than a lottery anyway, and is hardly a
core competency for many developers), when the same strong technical skills
you already possess can guarantee you a fantastic income.

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gabrielhauber
Hi bshimmin,

I've been an independent consultant for many years, and it was never lucrative
for me. Maybe I just had the wrong network of contacts. I don't know. I only
relatively moved into the iOS space and I've had some decent work, but again,
it has been sporadic. Hence my desire to be completely independent and not
have to rely on finding contracts all the time.

I have some very specific mid-long term goals for my life, and having to
constantly find new contracts will not get me there.

There were never months I only made $100. I've only been committed to this
path full-time since July 1 this year. The rest of SongSheet's history I did
have other work that kept me somewhat busy.

You have to realise that where I live (Sunshine Coast, Qld, Australia) there
isn't a lot people wanting apps built, and there aren't a lot of companies
around here to work for, either. I chose to live here, though (biggest reason
- my parents and my wife's parents are here, so my kids get to know their
grandparents), so I have to live with the limited work opportunities.

I appreciate your thoughts, though :)

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bshimmin
Thank you for your thoughtful and considered response to my slightly hasty one
(I was half-way out of the door as I was typing it!).

You're absolutely right that contacts and location are important; I live out
in the countryside and mostly work from my home office, but I think I can only
do that right now because I spent most of the previous ten years in London
building up the right sorts of connections to allow me to do that - and I
still go to London regularly (usually weekly) and am willing to concede I may
end up back there again.

With the right approach and attitude, building up connections isn't hard, but
it takes a certain pushiness, persistence, and resilience (and an occasional
willingness to work at less than a reasonable rate in order to secure future
work - the so-called "loss leader" projects) - and in certain locations it may
be much harder than others.

I guess I'm guilty of taking it for granted that everyone lives in London, SF,
or NYC, where contract roles on eye-watering day-rates - the sort whereby you
can work for some fraction of the year and do what you like for the rest, and
still maintain an excellent lifestyle - are pretty easy to come by once you
have a bit of experience under your belt.

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kd7
(Wow, I'm late to this thread)

You seem to have a good handle on the London freelancing situation. Do you
mind if I shoot you a few questions via email (mine is in my profile)?

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antirez
> if you imagine a smoothed curve then the levelling off between $4.99 and
> $6.99 and subsequent drop at $7.99 suggests that $6.99 may be the current
> sweet spot for SongSheet’s pricing.

At 4.99 and 6.99 the income was almost the same, with 6.99 having only a small
edge. However at 4.99 more people are using your application, that may improve
the long term growth. Also in general for about the same income, isn't it
better to have more users benefitting from your work, and a cheaper to buy
application?

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gabrielhauber
Good question, one that I did consider at the time. I figured that the normal
weekly variation at $4.99 actually made the total a little higher than it
would otherwise. i.e. I went with my gut to a certain degree. You may be right
about the more users thing at the lower price point giving better growth in
the long term. The interesting thing (something I glossed over in the post)
was that during the experiment, the total during the week it was at $4.99 was
a lot higher than the baseline before the experiment (when it was also at
$4.99).

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antirez
Maybe the previous weeks have an effect on the next, for example a low price
point brings more new users that will bias the result of the next week and so
forth. It's hard to make a controlled experiment... but at least it is
possible to do multiple experiments over time shuffling the order in which the
prices are tried.

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clarky07
Great look into the harsh reality (and yet awesome optimism) of indie devs on
the App Store. I've been fairly successful doing staying independent for over
three years but I'm still constantly amazed at how hard it is sometimes. I
love seeing others take a shot, and when they have success it's a great thing.

Best of luck to you with SongSheet.

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dbtc
I live in the us. My current monthly expenses are about $1300. (Young, no
kids, rent, own a car). I have ~18 mo worth of savings and and 1 very simple
app on the App Store so far. I'm thinking I could quit my current job (java
dev, strongly dislike it) now and spend at least a year trying to become
indie. Do you think this is a reasonable thing to do?

I figure at the end of that year I will at least hopefully have enough of a
portfolio to get hired as an ios dev somewhere and continue working on my
dream with some more stable income.

I know it's probably smarter to keep working on apps on the side but I feel
like I could progress south quicker not having a full time job. Also I dread
mornings right now. Just curious about others' probably more seasoned
opinions.

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cageface
My advice to you would be to forget about it. Even if your apps do well you
can easily make more money consulting. It's good to have a few apps in the
store as a portfolio but if your goal is to become financially independent as
a developer you're better off writing web apps or perhaps native desktop apps.
Mobile is bad for indies now and steadily get worse.

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zura
I see no reason why someone should limit shimself to such a narrow field
("iOS" in this case). You shouldn't limit yourself even for "Mobile"... I
mean, you're an engineer, you solve tasks, no matter if it is iOS related,
Android, mobile in general or desktop...

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k-mcgrady
>> "I see no reason why someone should limit shimself to such a narrow field"

For one person building and maintaining an app to a high standard on just one
platform consumes all of your time. If you start developing it on another
platform the first platform will suffer.

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dcarmo
This. I'm an iOS developer and only working and learning new things in the
field consumes all my time. I can't image how would I start working on
different technology (say node.js, which is something I want to) without
impacting on my iOS learning curve.

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jbigelow76
Ignoring the more generic point the gp poster made, if you want to learn Node
but not sacrifice expertise on iOS why not identify a mobile app that requires
a server side component and do that in Node. That way you still feel like you
are working towards a singular goal of doing app development.

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ChintanGhate
Insights in the post are incredible. Even though the details make the Indie
way look a bit risky, the adventure part seems quite tempting. Wish you best
of luck and thank you for sharing :)

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gabrielhauber
Thanks :)

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thyselius
can anyone point to other articles from indie iOS/android developers where
they share figures and learnings?

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clarky07
I've done it several times:

[http://www.entrelife.com/2012/05/how-i-went-
from-0-to-50k-on...](http://www.entrelife.com/2012/05/how-i-went-
from-0-to-50k-on-app-stores.html)

[http://www.entrelife.com/2013/01/my-first-year-on-my-own-
in-...](http://www.entrelife.com/2013/01/my-first-year-on-my-own-in-
review-2012.html)

[http://www.entrelife.com/2014/01/my-app-
business-2013-year-i...](http://www.entrelife.com/2014/01/my-app-
business-2013-year-in-review.html)

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tednash
A really, really insightful post Gabriel.

Great job - it's great to see someone really detailing things.

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gabrielhauber
I'm glad you enjoyed it!

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5414h
It does look very promising i wish you best luck :D

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gabrielhauber
Thanks for that :)

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clarky07
No problem. thanks for sharing your story.

