

Why I'm Missing the iPhone gold rush - Harkins
http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-im-missing-iphone-gold-rush.html

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wallflower
The media (and some of us) tend to focus on the big hits, and I think the real
money (monthly, _potentially_ recurring income) is in a suite of small iPhone
apps.

This developer inspires me:

"I have 41 cheap and simple (but useful) apps on the App Store right now and
have been growing my catalog since late July. Each app took me less than a day
to do. Some days I've cranked out five apps (and no, they are not the stupid
"Countdown till Easter, Countdown till Christmas" apps). I easily have pulled
$10k/month for the last 6 months in a row, quit my day job, and now do iPhone
stuff full time. I have no employees, no costs (besides tax), minimal no-cost
marketing, and no time schedule. I work MAYBE five to ten hours per week on
this stuff."

[http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=621564&page...](http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=621564&page=3)

~~~
pxlpshr
Don't fool yourself, once your app is off the charts — sales are virtually
zero, there's very little trickle revenue. It will become increasingly
difficult to land (and hang on) to top chart positions as the appstore triples
in size this year, especially since the charts are governed by sales within
24-hour period.

I did a little research because I keep seeing that quote posted (which is from
Dec. 08, before another 10k apps were on the store). I found his company and
products:

<http://www.ethanproductions.com>

Mostly random saying generators, annoying sounds, picture shows, and a bunch
of useless shit that's just not sustainable in the long-term. It's obvious to
me his #1 intention was to rush a bunch of junk to the store simply to turn a
sale, and nearly every app is rated 1 or 2 stars. He may have been getting
$10k a month off unsuspecting customers in the past, but I highly doubt he'll
see annualized sales over $100k. And I doubt he's still getting $10k in
revenue.

If this is something that "inspires" you, then maybe you should reconsider
your priorities if you have hopes of being the type of entrepreneur/hacker
that wants to make a meaningful impact in the world.

~~~
wallflower
The idea of building a suite of modest revenue-producing apps is what inspires
me, not necessarily the implementation. Thanks for taking the time to do the
research to find his AppStore alter ago. (Yes, I double-posted the quoted
comment again).

I think inspiration does not always have to take 100% of the original story -
part of it can do it (e.g. it's hard to replicate someone's exact formula) -
this reasoning is along the lines of if you compare yourself to another person
- you should compare everything, not just the job, etc. (e.g. making it
logically absurd to compare yourself to another human being).

~~~
pxlpshr
We've bootstrapped our company since August of 08, so I can absolutely relate
to the desire of wanting a healthy, low maintenance revenue stream; sometimes
I'm awoken at night by nightmares of raising money. One of the reasons we are
bootstrapping this is because 1) we generate cash immediately, and 2) the
upside is a VERY NICE revenue stream (no dilution) if we can manage to make,
maintain, and keep our place as a premium app developer.

This is something that takes time to build and structure for true
sustainability, period. You have to plan for more than a years worth of work
if you're really interested in having that type of stream from the AppStore as
it matures and pollutes. There will be cases of one-hit wonders for indie
shops (especially in video games) and the major blogs will cover it, but make
no mistake about it — it takes work.

The developer who was making $10k a month is likely no longer making that
amount. He also has a reputation of producing 'junk' applications by his
former and future customers (star ratings mostly 1-2), and will have an
extremely difficult challenge in the coming months IMHO. So in a sense, his
greed and desire to cut corners has poisoned his long term sustainability.

My company and partners are looking at the upside of our product revenue
across 3-5 years, not 3-5 months. We're maintaining 4 premium apps (+ 1 junk
app), and have roughly 4 new apps we'd like to introduce this year. Our
existing products have features that will take over a year to build in and
mature, but we're in this for the long haul. This seems to be in line with the
thought and actions of the companies that inspire us such as TapTapTap,
AppCubby, Polar Bear Farm, Tapbots, Tapulous, and Smule to name a few.

It's two different approaches to building a revenue stream, I know our
approach will last longer once it's well established.

------
Shamiq
A request:

1\. Make a multi-player, network enabled version of Risk.

2\. Point me at the technologies I'll need to make it myself.

Currently, the only Risk in the market is called Lux Touch. As such, it's
great -- but there's a lot of room for improvement. It only supports a single
player vs computers, doesn't save game states, and only has the generic Risk
map.

~~~
dmv
Lux Delux exists for both PC and iphone (Lux DLX). The PC version is
multiplayer, networked, variable AIs, user generated maps. I think most of
that's true for Lux DLX. You have to pay for it, but it is worth it if you're
a risk player.

<http://sillysoft.net/lux/>

<http://sillysoft.net/lux/touch/>

(I am just a periodic addict)

~~~
Shamiq
I must have missed that. I'll see how it is before embarking on my own quest
:)

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jcromartie
I just bought an iPod Touch. I intend to get a developer license and _at
least_ make back the cost of the device and the license... but I don't have
any great ambitions of making a _living_ out of it. At best I can hope that I
come up with a simple but appealing idea in my spare time that will be catchy
enough to make some good money on the App Store. I also fully intend to give
away some of my work, since I'm really doing this _all_ for fun anyway!

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jballanc
What I really want to know is: Who's going to be the Levi Strauss of the
"iPhone Gold Rush"?

~~~
Harkins
Pinch Media, perhsps. [http://www.slideshare.net/pinchmedia/iphone-appstore-
secrets...](http://www.slideshare.net/pinchmedia/iphone-appstore-secrets-
pinch-media?type=presentation)

Or, more likely, one of the ad networks.

~~~
yef
Yup, ad networks and analytics are pretty straighforward platform plays.
Facebook had them too. On the web, Google owns one of each.

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ruslan
It's true, the iphone gold rush is missing gold in essense. There are tons of
farting like apps, but very very few of any value. And again, casino always
wins.

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TweedHeads
If you're developing Age of Empires for the iPhone then maybe you're missing
the boat, but for pong, pacman, collapse, tetris et all it is a great way to
make a buck in a week, so you have plenty of time to develop more games
instead of a couple of years and a huge team to develop the next Quake or duke
nukem.

The iPhone is the best platform to develop games right now and it will get
better.

Early settlers will get the best land.

See you in a couple of years looking for a 500 sqft one-bedroom flat in iPhone
land.

~~~
jcl
I think you may have missed the point of the article. This guy specializes in
making one very specific type of game, and he's pretty good at it. It earns
him enough money to live on. He doesn't think his genre will work on the
iPhone, but he believes it will continue to work on desktops, so he's going to
keep writing for desktops.

Where is the evidence that "early settlers get the best land"? To the
contrary, iPhone apps seem to be largely hit-driven; their revenue streams dry
up once they fall off the charts. I'm guessing that the author's contention is
true: that most iPhone games do not pay off for the time invested.

~~~
avdempsey
I like your point here. It sounds like Apple's MO for content sales to be hit-
driven. I suspect that the billboards built into iTunes drive a lot of music
sales too. The parallels between music revenue and app revenue might make a
good post.

