
My Android development income report - kreci
http://www.kreci.net/reports/android-developer-income-report/
======
maxklein
I think you are the person who has achieved the most here on hacker news. You
lack the ego of a lot of the people who are constantly writing advice articles
on how to run a startup (where they don't even have a startup). And you
started with small doable things, and worked your way up to a pretty high
income (for where you live).

The courage to go through this, and the lack of ego in selecting the products
is quite inspiring for me. I think people like you should be our real heros,
not the people who constantly write comments for upvotes and write fluffy
articles about startups.

Like I always say: making money on the internet is not hard! If you want to
make money on the net, there are many many ways to do so. But most people are
out there trying to do stuff that will impress hacker news users. Just keep
your mouth shut, make money and forget about all the critics here.

There are many, many people who really just care about being lauded by their
peers. These are people that are trying to insert themselves into a startupy
group of people. They are more interested in the social than in the money. The
ones interested in the money are not writing idle comments about various
unimportant stuff.

Kreci is doing it right. He has found ways to make money, he keeps finding new
ways and every month his income keeps growing. Is that not what this game is
all about?

~~~
jacquesm
Kreci is doing something right, but I don't think 'cracked screens', 'fake
x-ray scanners', 'beauty tips' or 'nuclear buttons' are pushing the envelope
on android development in ways that matter. All of them are clear rip-offs (or
should I say re-implementations) of similar (useless) apps for the iphone.

I'd put the bar a bit higher and say, ok, you've found the way, now make
something really impressive instead of a series of knock-offs of 0 utility
apps.

The virtual drums and the wp stats apps are more like it.

~~~
watty
Some HN users motivation for side projects is to impress other HN users, "make
something really impressive". Others are trying to make money and this is how
Kreci succeeded (a la Notch).

~~~
jacquesm
Let me reword that to 'useful' instead of impressive.

~~~
maxklein
Who defines what is 'useful'? I have a cousin, he sits at home all day,
watching TV. When he buys apps, he does not want or care for things like
'currency bot'. Why would he care about that, he never needs to convert
currency. But if he sees something like the x-ray stuff, he'd be quite
entertained by it.

For him, it's much more useful than a VIM clone for android. Your definition
of useful is not the same as most of the worlds definition.

~~~
CrazedGeek
_use·ful

1\. being of use or service; serving some purpose; advantageous, helpful, or
of good effect: a useful member of society.

2\. of practical use, as for doing work; producing material results; supplying
common needs: the useful arts; useful work._

Seems to me that his definition is spot on.

~~~
steveklabnik
The point maxklein was making is that these apps are useful to someone,
otherwise, kreci wouldn't be making money from them.

Just because we don't deem them useful here doesn't mean there aren't people
who do find them useful.

~~~
exit
> _... these apps are useful to someone, otherwise, kreci wouldn't be making
> money from them._

this logic only works out if you approach things myopically.

do you think drug dealers provide a useful commodity? they're certainly making
a lot of money.

the apps described take advantage of some neurological disposition to gimmicks
/ novelty - it's not a given that the world is a better place because of them.

~~~
steveklabnik
I guess you're calling capitalism myopic. I don't necessarily disagree with
you, but that's the framework we've set up.

(And yes, I do think drug dealers provide value. It's a service, people want
it. In any other context, we'd be writing articles about how a perceptive
entrepreneur rose up from a simple upbringing to rolling in cash, it's just
that we look down upon the product.)

There's a pretty decent sibling of mine who's dead. You may want to turn
showdead on temporarily.

~~~
exit
yes, capitalism is myopic and you can justify many myopic conclusions by
limiting yourself to its framework.

> _... it's just that we look down upon the product._

that's an amusing misdirection. it's actually more about the lives ruined and
suffering experienced by way of the product.

> _What is your definition of wealth? Paul Graham says, and I tend to agree
> with him, that wealth is "things people want". If people want these apps (or
> drugs), then the apps (and drugs) create wealth._

wealth is control over other people. having lots of money in a capitalist
system is a proxy for being able to control lots of other people in this
system.

taking advantage of neurological hooks (chemical in the case of drugs, or
sensual in the case of advertising / apps / etc) is certainly one way to gain
controller over others (by the proxy of money).

i suppose if your concerns are entirely contained within the bounds of playing
that game (very much the case for many entrepreneurial types) there's no
motivation to challenge its definition of "value".

~~~
steveklabnik
> it's actually more about the lives ruined and suffering experienced by way
> of the product.

This is an 'amusing misdirection,' to use your own words, about you forcing
your own morality on others. There are plenty of people that use drugs without
ruining their lives, no need to get high and mighty about it.

> wealth is control over other people.

Hey man, I'm an anarchist. I understand exactly what you're saying. But
regardless of my own personal thoughts on the subject, that's not the way that
this country is set up.

As I said over here[1], it's just that we're talking about two different
things. Within capitalism, kreci is creating value. If you'd like to discuss a
different system, then you need to tell everyone that you're talking about
something else. When on a forum about startups, I assume people are discussing
the current system by default.

1: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1882865>

------
DanielBMarkham
These are great numbers!

I'm not going to get into blowing smoke up your ass or tell you that you
should be saving the world. Remember, there are three types of apps: useful,
popular, and money-making. Unless you are independently wealthy, #3 is a must-
have: the others are optional.

Now -- take what you've learned with these apps and figure out where the next
level is.

On a side note, I've found that the best projects to launch are projects that
turn other programmers off -- much less likely to have competition there and
much more likely to find a need to fill. "Programmers don't like it" is
quickly moving up my list of tags for a successful startup. It's probably
around #4 or so now.

Totally awesome. Very well done.

~~~
dpcan
That's an interesting tip about what turns programmers off. I've been
operating under a similar motto, if it's hard to do, keep doing it.

My best apps in the Market do some stuff that takes a lot of work and talent
to complete, and those are the things that have the least amount of
competition and make the most money.

There are developers looking to make a business of the Android Market, and
there are some that just want a quick buck. Do something hard to avoid the
quick-buckers in my opinion.

------
greyman
Seems like kreci just discovered a new way of making money: 1\. find some easy
to implement iPhone app 2\. rewrite it to Android 3\. profit!

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Many of these apps were ported _to_ the iPhone on the basis of previous
success on dumbphones. I don't know what it's like in the US, but these were a
big business in Europe. Jamba/Jamster was a big name and their adverts on
music television have been bugging me for years:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamster>

------
atleta
The most interesting part of the post for me was that how these totally non-
useful apps had a lot of downloads and how the only meaningul one had a
fraction of the others. (OK, one can say that the virtual drum is also a
meaningful one.) I mean no offense at all, as (unlike with the post from a few
days ago with the 4-hour work-week iphone guys) these apps are free and of
course anyone is free to sell or buy anything.

However it tells a lot about this market. I mean the newly found smart phone
market. People run to buy and download totally meaningless apps most of which
could have been done (and probably has been done) on other smart phone
platforms (or plain j2me) at least 5 years ago. But this is just a small
market disturbance, now as iphone opened the eyes of a lot of people that
these gadgets are not merely (or mainly...) phones they download every stupid
app. But this will go away soon.

------
rmc
How did you get users? Did you do any promotion or marketing? Or did you just
upload to the android market with a 'build it and they will come' attitude?

~~~
kreci
If app is good (funny or useful) people will come. As I have been
experimenting most of online promotion is not worth efforts/time or money that
it may cost.

------
es
It's interesting that WP Stats is the least popular app. Even simple Big Red
Button ("Don't push this button" app) beats it!

Actually it's a bit sad to see that market is more favorable to some "cool"
simple apps rather to useful, but more complex.

------
wgj
Kreci, you used to do monthly income reports. It looks like you're not doing
those anymore? I'm probably not alone in being curious how your photography
and other streams are doing lately. Thanks for the interesting Android report!

~~~
kreci
I will make a total income report next month - stay tuned ;)

~~~
garply
Wait, so this was Android-only money? I thought this was total income.

~~~
kreci
As the title say it was my Android Income report ;)

------
bignoggins
Just as a point of reference from the iOS world. My free apps have < 80K
downloads total but last month I generated 4K from ads. You really can't beat
the eCPMs from iAds. Android is a great platform, but the app market really is
miles behind iOS. Rampant piracy, poor app market organization, and difficulty
for most users to purchase paid apps means that if you want to actually make a
living developing apps, iOS should still be far and away the #1 choice imo.

------
kreci
Comments welcome and very desired =)

------
rmc
What do you use to sell ads?

~~~
jakerocheleau
I'm curious on this too. I wasn't even aware it was possible to implement ads
into an Android app. How would views be tracked? Is it a pay-per-click system?
Passing just over $1k for October is impressive in such a small (but rapidly
growing) mobile market.

~~~
kreci
Yes. Ads are paid per click. I just implement a library provided by a paying
company and it loads banners from their servers.

~~~
punjabisingh
That ad network could have used all this publicity to get more customers, if
you would just share that information.

But I understand it is totally your call.

~~~
natep
Just downloaded Virtual Drums, and he uses AdMob, according to the ads
themselves.

------
Nemisis7654
Nicely done. I recently released my first app in the app store, EasySal
Calculator. As I live in America, I uploaded both a paid (adfree) version and
a free (with ads) version. I noticed that my free version makes more money as
well.

I like to hear stories like these. I have been gaining a strong interest in
Android Development and these stories make me think that maybe I can be semi-
successful at it as well. I don't expect to make loads of cash, not even close
to what you're making, but even a little bit makes me feel good.

------
sigzero
Is it a good model that all the money is actually coming from ads?

~~~
kreci
I am not able to sell via Android Market as I am not allowed to do it by
Google (developers from Poland still can not sell their apps...).

~~~
joshuacc
Would it be possible to form a US corporation, of which you are the sole
employee/contractor in order to sell in the app store?

~~~
kreci
I think it would be possible but this is not my current business model anyway.
Apps I make may do much more as free with ads in it (I do not consider
changing it until google add my country to the list...).

------
jrockway
This just goes to show how worthless mobile ads are. Eventually advertisers
are not going to want to pay for the presumably pitiful conversion rate.

~~~
netcan
How does it show that?

~~~
jrockway
They paid $1000 to put their ad on a cracked screen?

------
tocomment
What do you mean by updating apps? Do you have to make minor changes every few
days to make sure it's at the top of a list somewhere?

~~~
estel
Apps in the Market will naturally get more attention after they've been
updated and appear in the "Just in" lists. So yes, it's a crude way of bumping
the app a bit.

~~~
megablast
This used to happen on the Apple app store as well, but they stopped it to
prevent spurious updates. It was getting out of control. Expect to see this
happen in the google marketplace as well.

------
ompemi
Good article, it is good to show that there are lots of indie devs that earn
money with Android.

We started last year with Android, and we are making around $2000/month (1M
downloads in total) with really simple applications. The majority of the
revenue comes from ads, but more and more paid apps revenue is higher!

------
robryan
I'd be interested in the difference in CPM for something like this in
comparison to similar download stats for the iphone. My hunch based on figures
we have seen on here from time to time that similar numbers would monetize
better on the iphone.

~~~
greengarstudios
What makes the biggest difference on the iPhone is the sheer number of
downloads. There are more iOS users, and each user uses a lot more apps.

So an app that gets 200,000 downloads on Android, might get 2,000,000
downloads on iPhone. (These numbers are roughly based on actual figures for my
apps, like Brain Tuner [a simple game I created], which are available on both
iOS and Android.)

Even if the CPM stays the same, revenue would be 10x because there are about
10x the impressions.

------
avgarrison
It would be interesting to see how your profits may differ if you were able to
sell the apps on the Android Marketplace (without ads). I've been leery about
trying ad-based monetization, but it looks like it is working fairly well for
you.

------
eapen
You wrote the "Cracked Screen App". I installed it and love it... it is so
realistic. Haven't really had to install it and I didn't notice any ads in it
- oh wait... that's probably because I have an adblocker installed on my
phone.

------
gtdminh
i wish he will earn more money doing this way. there is a news here about Quoc
Bui and Mike Moon from thefreeapps.com who did earn 80k/month by ads from
their iphone apps. i hope android apps will yield the same.

Thanks Kreci, you inspire me

------
tomjen3
Nice to see some numbers, but those seem to be more "fluffy" apps (I mean,
really it doesn't enable you to see xray does it?).

Apps that have some greater utility might be more popular.

~~~
kreci
This apps are made to entertainment and what I have discovered from my
experience this kind of apps is most popular.

~~~
tomjen3
Okay, then that makes sense.

Thanks.

------
yatsyk
Did you evaluate different ad networks and which performed best?

~~~
kreci
I stay with one ad network that I am 100% sure about making their payment in
time and without cheating on clicks and payments...

------
gcb
how do you serve ads on "cracked screen"?

also, i'd love to see an ad implementation that would ask "Did you clicked the
ad on purpose? YES NO" before opening the browser. ha!

------
revoltingx
This is good news. Even with simple apps that aren't games he's making a
decent amount of money off ads alone.

Too bad he didn't mention what ad network he's using. I'm getting ready to
launch my game/app (<http://developingthedream.blogspot.com/>) in the next few
months and I'm going into it with no expectations.

Good to hear i may gain a bit of extra cash from this project. I'm using
mobclix and it was really easy to integrate into my app. However, I don't like
that the view doesn't auto resize or fill the parent.

~~~
SteD
I've downloaded the crack screen app and he's using adMob on that one.

