

Show HN: 8 million downloads after one year on the App Store - ronyeh

Tiny Piano recently reached its 8 millionth download. Here's my analysis &#38; experience with indie iOS development/marketing.<p>http://blog.squarepoet.com/post/44099054060/one-year-on-the-app-store
======
ronyeh
[http://blog.squarepoet.com/post/44099054060/one-year-on-
the-...](http://blog.squarepoet.com/post/44099054060/one-year-on-the-app-
store)

------
fab101
Great job. And thanks for the inspiration. I realize that I will have to fail
a multiple times before something great happens.

Q: Would you mind me asking what is your revenue model and how much success
you have seen with all the streams ?

By the way, I downloaded your app a few days after the commercial aired, and
my kid absolutely loves it. Thanks again.

~~~
ronyeh
You definitely don't _have to fail_ before you succeed. But if it happens,
just accept it, learn something, and move on.

Do you have it on the iPod or iPad? On the iPad, you'll see a banner ad that
spans the bottom of the display. That generates about half of the revenue. The
other half comes from In-App Purchases of song packs ($0.99 each, or $2.99 for
a full unlock). And about $40 a day comes from LinkShare commissions, which
happens when someone links out from my app to an iTunes song, and buys it.

~~~
fab101
Thanks for your reply. I agree with you and I meant that failures are not
really that bad, and mostly help you to learn from mistakes.

Also, what's next for Tiny Piano ? How do you plan to keep it simple and yet
add features to keep it relevant for new and old users - both ?

~~~
ronyeh
In the immediate future, I think I'll stick with adding new content (more paid
song packs and more free songs).

Farther in the future, it might be fun to add a "game" section where users can
play short DDR/GuitarHero style games to practice rhythm and possibly learn
how to read music.

------
scottchin
Congratulations! And thanks for writing this post. I find these types of post
from developers extremely insightful and inspiring.

I particularly found your experience with improving Chinese SEO very
interesting.

Keep up the good work!

~~~
ronyeh
Thanks for reading! I remember reading a lot about other developers when I
started out, so I just want to make sure I give back. Plus, it's a bit of free
marketing for my apps. :-)

------
t0
How did you get your first few thousand? It seems like once you're on the
charts the growth can explode.

~~~
ronyeh
These days, I don't think there is a guarantee of anything, even if you have a
few thousand downloads. Even with the initial downloads, my app languished on
the store until I introduced iPad support, added more song packs, and improved
the keywords.

I think the biggest thing was the simple and catchy name, and a decent looking
icon. This will help you get the random users who search for "piano" on the
App Store. Of course, being a free app helps. People will download pretty much
anything that's free. :-)

------
rex_gsd
Congratulations!

~~~
ronyeh
Thanks! Feel free to ask me any questions. Happy to respond.

~~~
rex_gsd
I remember seeing your original blog post when the iPad commercial featured a
piano and heard about the extra traction you received from that.

One thing I've learnt over and over with launching new apps is there are
always unexpected hurdles that you'd never have thought about when you first
started writing the software.

What are some you've run into, perhaps like IP for the songs in the app? Is it
a difficult legal process to get a melody for a popular song into the app?

~~~
ronyeh
What kinds of apps have you worked on? I'd love to check them out.

The biggest unexpected thing for me was that the simpler you make your app,
the more likely people will enjoy it! People always make fun of how the Angry
Birds game mechanic is so simple, but that's why it appeals to so many (kids
and adults alike). Tiny Piano is dirt simple to play, and that's why users
like it.

As developers, we like to always add features. Sometimes, removing features
(and making an app simpler) will actually improve the experience.

Regarding IP for the melodies, it is not clear who to contact to arrange a
license. Different parties own the copyrights to the lyrics, sheet music,
performance, etc. It turns out that my app includes none of those. It just
happens to have a collection of notes that, when you tap at the correct
tempo/rhythm, sounds very much like a song you may have heard before. ;-)

But really, I try to be a good citizen and link people to the iTunes version
of the song so that they can buy it and give money to the artists. With
LinkShare, you can even get a 5% commission for each sale you generate. This
comes out to about $40 a day of extra revenue for my app.

In the end, if the app becomes super successful (> 100 million DLs), I'm sure
the appropriate parties will contact me, and I'll be happy to make a deal with
them then!

~~~
rex_gsd
Having 8 million people use your app I find pretty amazing, let alone classing
>100M as super successful. I build SaaS web apps so for me, having > 100
paying customers I'd consider a project to be pretty successful.

The first commerical app I built myself was called Track My Ride,
<http://www.trackmyride.com.au>. It earns me a fair slice of pie each month
but nothing to retire on. Track My Ride was focused primarily on the local
market that I could direct market to. My second app Rocket Mail Merge
<http://www.rocketmailmerge.com> was actually born out of the need for easier
invoice creation for my first business. It is targetted at the international
market this time, primarily the US. I finished its coding at the end of last
month. It's fully functional but I can't release it out of it's 'open beta'
due to the abysmal lack of international credit card processing for Australian
startups. It has taken so far 6 weeks to get approval from the bank, and that
approval is still pending with no ETA in sight. I plan to write a topic on
that in due course but not before getting my approval haha. Once I launch it
I'll be writing a Show HN on it. It would be great if people found it as
useful as I do.

~~~
ronyeh
Your landing pages are nicely designed. Some small suggestions: on Track My
Ride, I found the "Get Protected Today" font not very readable and a bit
tacky. Also, I don't understand why "Chat with us" looks like a Christmas
present. On my 15" MBP, it actually overlaps with Contact Us. So it seems kind
of redundant.

You charge $30 for your products, so the scale of "success" will definitely be
different. If you can convince 100 true fans to love your product, you'll make
enough to survive, and iterate/improve.

When I shipped my first apps, charging $0.99, I had a really hard time
convincing users to download. The whole first year, I made about $1000. (And I
was happy!) I would have been ecstatic if I had ever reached 100K downloads @
99 cents. In the space of Free Apps, the scale of success is different. I
wouldn't be very happy getting 100K free downloads. :-)

Now I'm not saying I am not happy with 8 million DLs. It's pretty frickin'
awesome, and I had never predicted it. But it's really a psychological trick
to reset my bar at 10 million downloads, or 20 million, or even 100 million,
to convince myself to keep working hard. :-D

Good luck with your bank approvals!

~~~
rex_gsd
Thanks for the feedback. Regarding the presents; Ah the Christmas theme. Just
one of the small things that escape you when you're very busy. Have updated
that now. I'm still not quite happy with the design of the TMR page. The whole
thing needs to be scrapped when time permits and redesigned, fortunately
people like the software beneath so it hasn't been the highest priority
lately.

I just looked up your landing page for Tiny Piano. It's nice and informative
but the grey background is a bit striking for the black iphone. The contrast
would be better with a lighter color. You can pickup some really nice
templates from themeforest for a few $ if you're not a designer at heart.

Best of luck cracking 10M downloads! I'll add an extra download to your totals
shortly.

~~~
ronyeh
Thanks for your feedback as well! I definitely don't have a graphic design
background, so maybe I'll look on themeforest at some point. I just want to
keep the site as lightweight as possible though, in case iPhone users visit
it.

