

Experiences Of A Newbie iPhone Developer - laktek
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/15/experiences-of-a-newbie-iphone-developer/

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pxlpshr
Great article, finally some commentary on the "other" side of the AppStore's
hit-driven economy. Just about every aspect in this article I can attest to
having delt with. We're having modest success but we've got a long road ahead
of us. Criticism aside and to Apple's credit, this is the most fun i've had in
a while — it's an great idea-to-consumer sandbox that can be piloted by a very
small and agile teams.

 _The iTunes App Store is a weird, wonderful and ever-changing beast. If a
developer launches an app and leaves it alone expecting it to earn money, it
won’t._

This is what I keep telling people looking to enter the market. You really
need to go in with long expectations and commit to your vision. It can be a
reality but there's no easy gold, it will likely be fool's gold for 80% of
those looking to make money. My advice to indie's is to partner up and don't
quit your day job just yet.

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patio11
You could try selling downloadable software:

1) People often do not balk at paying $5 for it. Substantially more, usually.
(There are all sorts of business models but common wisdom among a forum of
sellers I'm on is that $20 is about the lowest you'd want to ever sell
software for.)

2) You get to choose your customers. You could choose, for example, people
with a pressing problem who are willing to pay for a solution. (I suppose you
could do that on the iPhone too, but you'd have to deal with a distribution
scheme which rewards mass above all other things.)

3) Other people will make fantastically more money in software than you can
ever dream of and it will _never hurt you in the slightest_ because you do not
compete with them for resources, attention, or customers.

4) The sales curve generally goes up over time, as you get higher search
engine rankings, learn how to market, update your product, and have growth
from customers rebuying the product and recommending it to your friends. This
is a sharp contrast to the typical game or iPhone app sales curve, which one
can simulate by plotting Wile E. Coyote in the seconds after which he steps
into open air.

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wallflower
"At this point, we had read a few App Store Cinderella stories, and decided to
file them under 'unachievable'. In the 'possibly achievable' file were the
accounts of a plethora of developers making a little pocket money from their
efforts."

"We are starting to make money, almost enough to provide us with a basic
salary each."

Another honest account of the real iPhone app bazaar. +1 win for 'possibly
achievable'. Cheers to Noel Hartshorn and Dennis Harrison for sharing their
excellent, still on-going story. My expectations for my first iPhone apps will
be to sell in the double-digits to non-family, non-friends.

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matt1
There's an additional lesson here too: Writing about your experiences is a
great way to simultaneously educate others and promote your product. (The
author didn't mention the app's name in his original write up, but its all but
guaranteed to be the first question in the comments and if you're lucky, the
editor will also add a more prominent note.)

This article will probably do more for their product than all the marketing
they've done so far. Win win :)

