

Lessons from my app launch, with stats - ktusznio
http://www.ktusznio.com/blog/2012/09/04/the-my-minutes-launch/

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nanijoe
Your SEO, Landing page, plus posts on HN and reddit probably had little if
anything to do with your sales. Most people discover iphone apps on their
devices(app store), and the closer you are to the top of a list, the more
likely you are to sell . In your case, the list you were on was the new
releases list

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kolinko
There is web SEO and App Store SEO ( www.slideshare.net/kolinko/new-rules-in-
app-store-search ). Most people use app store on their devices, and that's why
SEO matters - especially when you're an independent developer with minimal
chances of getting to the Top#25 lists.

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dmils4
few takeaways (having just gone thru the same experience of launching our
first app in July)

1) don't assume that because you're bootstrapping, you "have to charge
something for the app". View free/paid as two different marketing channels
(that's really all that they are). With free apps - they are ad, in-app
purchase and/or lead supported - while paid apps support themselves. There is
no right or wrong way to monetize, but by having one of each, you're eligible
in both top app chart categories, which helps.

2) you may have benefited from this (or maybe you didn't) - but one thing that
surprised me was the market for "apps gone free". We released our app as a
free app at first, but once the downloads started to fall off, we figured
"what the hell, let's make it paid" after which we rose even higher in the
rankings on the paid side than we ever achieved on the free side. Then when
paid installs started to fall off, we switched the app back to free, which had
a surprising result: it got picked up by all of these "apps gone free" feeds
(tons of blogs subscribe to app pricing updates - so it was suddenly eaten up
by this niche market of users who download all of the apps that recently
became free). Granted - these weren't engaged users, but it padded download
stats for a few days. When that happened we experienced our best two free
install days ever before normalizing again.

Interesting to see your stats, thanks for sharing.

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gsibble
Congratulations on your launch and nice work on the app!

I'm concerned though about the economics of your investment. Have you
calculated what your break-even point is in terms of sales? Do you expect to
hit it?

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ktusznio
Hey, my main goal for the app was actually to learn iOS and all about
releasing and marketing an app. I didn't care to set financial goals for it
really. I'm definitely aware (and have been) that it's a time investment, and
I can't afford to sink my resources into it forever.

But even if the app fails in the end, the skills I've gained in going through
the process of building and releasing the app should pay off in the long run,
whether that's in making another app or freelancing or finding another full-
time gig.

~~~
gsibble
Fantastic! This is definitely a great way to learn and it will pay off.
Congrats!

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albumedia
Congrats and keep shipping :)

