

Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our undergrad internship earnings - n9com
http://blog.fiplab.com/bootstrapping-a-company-straight-out-of-unive

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dpcan
The most interesting part to me was that they are designers who considered the
programming to be the most important part. As a programmer, I find the design
to be the most important part.

The perspectives are very interesting.

From a programming standpoint, I can pound out the code to just about
anything, but when it comes time to create the awesome graphics for the game,
well, that's where I either have to cut corners or pay a lot of money.

I liked the cliff-hanger he left us with too. Day 4: Disaster! And that it was
Apple's fault ...

But what happened? Did the glitch get fixed? Did sales pick back up? Where's
his Twitter feed so I can see when the next post comes out?

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jbp
>> they are designers who considered the programming

I got the impression that they are bankers from the post, where do they say
they are designers?

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dpcan
You are right, I read that they finished the graphics first but read right
over the part where they hired someone.

So, also interestingly, they found the process of having graphics designed
easier than finding programmers. I've found it very difficult to find a good
designer-for-hire when it comes to games.

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scottkrager
Interesting post, but I'm not a fan of these multi-part blog posts, I rarely
end up seeing the 'Part II' post that I really wanted to read about in the
first place.

Why not just write the whole story in one post?

~~~
n9com
Thanks Scott. It's a very long story about how we got FIPLAB to the stage it
is at today. There is so much advice we want to give and it would just be
information overload if we tried to fit it into one post.

I'll write up Part 2 over the weekend, which is going to be a lot more
interesting, covering how we got mainstream media coverage for our 2nd app
(London Cycle: Maps & Routes), including a large front page banner feature on
the iTunes App Store itself.

The really good stuff is still to come, but we had to start at the beginning
to add context to everything else.

~~~
swombat
Well, don't forget to let us know when the full article is out. I'll happily
post it up on swombat.com - it's a great story - but I have to say I'm not too
fond of the multi-part post format either.

~~~
n9com
that's awesome, thanks - will hit you up once all the 'parts' are out.

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rudiger
If two incredibly talented Indians can't find a way to outsource their
development to India, I doubt any small team can. I've also had good luck with
finding top programming talent in Germany. Great job, guys!

~~~
todsul
I think it's hit and miss like everything else, but maybe a little more 'miss'
in this case. I just spent 5 months in India working on my startup. I'm not
Indian, but I absolutely loved it. New York is a bore compared to the sensory
overload of most Indian cities. I hit the railroad for 2 weeks and
circumnavigated the country. Used a GSM dongle to work from my train berth.
There was some 3G, but mostly slow going up in the Northern states (lots of
time to write code). Can't wait to go back.

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bignoggins
I'm skeptical of the 30k profit/month title. I think it's just linkbait to
promote their game. If you look at their app ranking history (registration
needed):

[http://www.appannie.com/copterkid/ranking/history/#start_dat...](http://www.appannie.com/copterkid/ranking/history/#start_date=2009-07-26&end_date=2011-09-01)

they are nowhere to be found in the overall rankings, and even their rankings
in the games category tops out at 700ish. Plus, they only sell the game for
99c. I've had apps that sell for 2.99 that are in the top 200 overall paid
list on iphone, and I've never come close to 30K/month for a single app.

My most recent sales data (for an app that has gone as high as #97 on the
iPhone top paid list) indicates that the #200 top paid app on iphone gets
about 300 sales per day. If you factor in Apple's 30% thats about $210/day. So
even if their app was in the top 200 (which they were never even close to), it
would only generate $6300/mo in revenue at 99c.

It just doesn't add up. Unless the 30K/month is talking about a completely
different app?

~~~
dpcan
There are so many more factors than just rank alone. Such as competition,
search results, web exposure, sales, and more. They also have a lot of those
"talking" apps that people with kids gobble up at one point or another once
they have a smartphone.

He didn't explicitly mention that CopterKid did very well, but I'm sure he's
wise enough not to give away where he's directly seeing his successes because
who needs MORE competition?

~~~
bignoggins
rank is a direct measurement of total downloads, so it's straightforward to
extrapolate.

~~~
dpcan
Is it? there are no other factors?

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marknutter
I don't find this as interesting as an app or website that makes money while
you sleep. In fact, I don't even consider it bootstrapping. By this metric, I
"bootstrapped" a similar business myself, along with every other freelancer
out there.

~~~
n9com
Our apps do make money whilst we sleep. bootstrapping is using your own money
to start a business and reinvesting the revenues to fuel growth - that's
exactly what we are doing.

~~~
marknutter
My bad, I thought you were just a software development shop.

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marcuswestin
Nothing worth doing is easy - inspirational stories like your's always seem to
involve near crash-and-burn dips (whether that part of the story actually gets
told, or not).

Here's to not giving up - keep up the great work guys!

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ja27
Was CopterKid your first app? You talk about building a following of 1000
FIPLAB fans before CopterKid's launch. How did you engage them if that was the
first app?

~~~
n9com
Yes, it was our first app. We engaged them by involving them in design
decisions, naming the characters, selecting the various islands (country side,
city, desert, snow), picking the app icon from a selection of 3 choices etc...

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georgieporgie
No name-drop for the German?

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fjordan
My guess is James Long.

If you look at their "About Us" page it names who they have worked with.

<http://www.fiplab.com/aboutus/>

~~~
n9com
It's not James Long, but you'll learn about James later (he's American and
played an instrumental part in the early days of our business). The german CS
graduate was a guy called Mike Weller - who afaik decided to live a less
stressful life with his girlfriend at an organic farm.

~~~
MaysonL
He seems to still be doing iOS stuff, and is active on stackoverflow.

