
Ask HN: Anyone making a living from Desktop apps?what had been changed? - umenline
I asked the same question 854 days ago .. i still love desktop app&#x27;s wander if small indies can make a living from it ?
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sireat
Let's assume Desktop includes Mac, Windows and Linux.

First You need an app that solves a need (doesn't matter if other commercial
or open source alternatives exist) and does not completely suck.

That's the easy part.

Then you need a channel to display your app. That also does not seem so hard
these days. Mac, Windows both have stores, we can consider Synaptic and Ubuntu
store thing to be a channel too(setting aside money question for now).

Unfortunately channel is not going to suffice.

The hard part is getting a funnel, that is a way to guide your prospective
customers to your product.

One method perfected by patio11 was to create SEO friendly content for one
audience, but use the SEO juice to sell to completely different audience. This
is very very hard to do.

Of course, if you already have your own channel(nice e-mail list), then you
can push your apps too.

But building an e-mail list is again very hard.

The days of late 1980s shareware boom have been over for a long time, but I
suspect with razor sharp focus there are still some success stories(paging
Patio11 and his Bingo Card Creator).

Disclaimer: I write internal apps at mediumcorp for a living and have no
personal indie success stories.

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tabulatouch
I am making a living with my windows only projection mapping application
[http://www.facadesignage.com](http://www.facadesignage.com) It started in
2006 but went online 2 years ago, and that was my best idea ever (i mean going
online). I learned a lot about software, products, funnels, marketing and
niches. And best of all: narrowing down the user pain and solving it at the UI
level.

~~~
umenline
Great application and great idea This is what I ment Wish you more success in
your niche

~~~
tabulatouch
Thanks!

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sebg
This is the canonical article I point people to when this question comes up:
[http://www.evanmiller.org/why-i-develop-for-the-
mac.html](http://www.evanmiller.org/why-i-develop-for-the-mac.html)

Evan is a frequent contributor here on HN and it's also worth reading most of
his other articles/posts as well.

~~~
vram22
I read a few of his posts after seeing your comment. They are quite
interesting, thanks.

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mike_hearn
You mean other than Notch, or anyone in the video games business, or the iLife
team at Apple, or the Microsoft Office team?

Sure. Lots of people are making money from desktop apps. Just because it's not
hip or cool these days doesn't mean it's useless.

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vram22
>You mean other than Notch, or anyone in ...

Heh, good comment about Notch, and the others you mention too. For those who
don't know, from the Wikipedia article about Notch -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Persson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Persson)
:

"He is planning to stop working on this game after a recent deal with
Microsoft to sell Minecraft for 2.5 billion dollars."

A huge outlier, of course, but the potential exists.

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umenline
Example of someone or small team ( i guess ) that doing useful desktop apps
[http://www.hkvstore.com/](http://www.hkvstore.com/) someone knows something
about them ?

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razster
The company I work for makes a living off Enrollment software and Demographic
software for Windows. A lot of our clients do not wish to have their systems
connected/cloud.

I do not see a change anytime soon.

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dragonbonheur
There's a much higher probability of getting that question answered on the
Business of Software Forum which can be accessed through joelonsoftware.com

~~~
umenline
Its dead , Almost no one there ( used to love Business of Software Forum)

~~~
dstpierre
I guess you have your question answered than. I was also a BoS forum user
since 2008.

With the XYZ (Apple, Microsoft) stores these days I wonder if a $39-99 desktop
software can truly have success on these compare the the average < $9 app.

High-end B2B software can certainly be profitable, I would guess the $500-2500
software coming with support, integration, training etc.

~~~
colinbartlett
My wife recently became familiar with the Mac AppStore after only ever using
the iOS AppStore. Her first comment upon seeing the initial screen was "$19
for an app?? That's crazy!" I cringed a bit. Has the $0.99 app ruined
everything for us?

~~~
tonyjstark
I sometimes get mails from (not really) customers like: 'can you add feature x
of the paid version to the free version?'. The paid version is $4.99 by the
way.

If you have decent app that solves problems well and you have enough energy
left to do some marketing then probably you can make a decent living. Or you
have a lot of luck, then no problems at all. But if you hope that customers
find you by themselfes, maybe you shouldn't bet on the business.

~~~
umenline
This very very sad ... I really don't understand how someone can Live from 0.9
- 4.9 $ apps

~~~
vram22
There are tons of companies and even microISVs that make a good living or
more, from desktop apps, in both the developed and less developed worlds. (But
they are not 5$ apps.) Hell, there are many small and medium software
companies in India (for example) that were doing good business (and probably
still are) with Clipper / XBase apps for small businesses, on (gasp!) DOS, to
take just one area (of both tech and domain). VB and VB.NET too. Delphi too,
probably. C++/Qt too. C++/wxWidgets. ... I see the (XBase or other) apps
myself in many shops, malls, doing the accounts, sales, POS, etc. Seen such
apps in many factories too (I was on the field for a while, earlier). Its just
that they are not mentioned much here on HN. (See the recent thread about the
Rails jobs). And I'm sure it must be so in many other less developed countries
too, not just in the US, Europe, Canada, Australia, etc. (which are highly
computerized). HN is not the whole universe, only a quite small part of it,
though we techies sometimes tend to think otherwise.

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europa
My cousin in fact makes his application looks like a desktop application to
sell to his customer base. He makes pos/accounting software with a windows
application(skin) that talk to his php backend over http. He sells these apps
mainly to his customers in middle east.

~~~
vram22
Pretty interesting, thanks.

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umenline
This is also good example for great niche:
[http://www.collectorz.com/](http://www.collectorz.com/)

