

Selling Apps: What am I doing wrong? Need outside perspective - mmackh

Hi HN,<p>As a side job, I've taken up developing, designing and trying to sell apps. The market is crowded and there seems to be no room for my apps. I had a pretty good first week selling an app that I've spent seven months of my free time on, making $200 on the highest day. Now, it's down to about $2 or $3 a day - barely selling any copies, constantly slipping in the charts.<p>Are there any people on HN with serious experience, willing to help out a beginner? Together we could come up with a list that can really help people. I feel like I'm the only person in the room who doesn't get get the joke. Should I just quit?<p>p.s. I've tried some things already, which unfortunately didn't work for me:<p>- Bamify Ads 
- Getting my Designer to dribbble the app
- Writing bloggers
- Having Sales $2.99 -&#62; $0.99
- Improving the app
- Adding features that were requested
- Having a nice website
- I don't think being young helps you either
- Trying to get some exposure on HN
- Being in the Instapaper App Direcoty
- Having a Youtube video
- Having a great name: Read
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nathanbarry
I've had some success with higher priced apps ($200), but my $1 and $2 apps
haven't made much traction. I just released Commit yesterday:
<http://thinklegend.com/commit>

Hopefully it will do a little better than my last app.

I'll answer whatever I can (nathan@thinklegend.com), but I think we are in a
similar position. I'd love to hear what you learn.

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mmackh
I really love the design of your new app. I'll email you later

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nathanbarry
I like the name of your app (Read), short simple names (Draft, Fluent, Commit,
Brushes) are really nice.

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mmackh
It is pretty nice, but I'm starting to think that it does more harm than good.
The trouble is the commonality of the name. It's also really hard keep track
on the web, i.e. if someone blogs about it, etc.

~~~
nathanbarry
Good point. I use Google Alerts for OneVoice (my expensive app), but I
couldn't for Fluent and Commit.

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rooster8
Both your site and the screenshots from your app look beautiful. It looks like
you've done great work. But I personally do not feel inclined to try your app
because I do not see anything it does that I'm not already getting from
Reeder, Flipboard, and Instapaper. For people in my position, is there
anything you can tell me that will make me want to try your app?

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tudorizer
You're posting a question about how to get traction here and not even a link
to the said app? :( Do I have to google your username, or check your profile
then see that you have a twitter account in the hope that I will find
something there ? Not good. You're on a pretty good position on HN and maybe
going higher. Take advatange of that.

~~~
mmackh
Again - didn't want to make the thread look like an advert -App Store:
<http://rdit.in/get>

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tudorizer
No prob. Now the link is present :)

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soho33
i'm not sure what your apps do but one method to promote them is to implement
a referral service within your app.

For example if it's a game, maybe if the user refers 10 people they get some
sort of credit in the game to help them advance etc. (however i'm not sure how
you can track referals through app store. maybe someone else can chime in).

~~~
nathanbarry
I think if your app is inexpensive and has some good offers as in-app
purchases this could work well. Similar to what DropBox did for extra storage.

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pknerd
Be thankful atleast you made this one and still making it. I could not get the
figure even in months!

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coryl
Link to said app?

~~~
mmackh
Sorry about that, I didn't want to make this look like an ad:
<http://readapp.net>

App Store: <http://rdit.in/get>

~~~
rooster8
Perhaps it's telling that you intentionally left the links out because you
didn't want your genuine question to look like a veiled sales pitch? I know
personally I'm not a good salesman, and I also would have been inclined to
leave out the link for the same reason.

Perhaps the problem is that you haven't been doing a good job of selling your
product to the people you talk to?

Your app looks beautiful, and if it's as good as it looks, it deserves to be
used. It will help people. It will be worth the cost to them. You'll be doing
them a favor by selling to them. But people don't realize that, and
(unfortunately) products cannot always sell themselves. So what you might need
right now is to learn salesmanship or hire someone to help you with that. Get
that person in contact with bloggers. If you have an amazing product but can't
convince people why they need it, it's a real shame.

This is just speculation. Best of luck to you!

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billpatrianakos
Being young is a double edged sword. I know from experience. The best I can do
for you is tell you that persistence pays off. You'll find success just after
you're ready to quit. If you resist that urge you'll be alright. Also, great
design has a lot to do with how people judge whether to buy an app or not.
Male sure the previews are beautiful and are actual screenshots, not those
stupid ad-type things. Actually show the app working. Having a site dedicated
to the app that links to the app store is also good.

Features and eradicating bugs are important but when two apps are of equal
quality I've seen the prettier one win every time. So make sure everything
from the UI to the app icon is beautiful and fits with the iOS experience. I'm
embarrassed to say even I'm guilty of deleting apps because of their icon
alone! And I'm a programmer! Imagine how regular users must be.

~~~
mmackh
Thanks, that was insightful. I think you would be able to judge the app just
by looking at the screenshots in the App Store, here's a link:
<http://rdit.in/get>

~~~
billpatrianakos
It actually looks really beautiful! I have some criticisms though.

First off, the app itself is beautiful and so is the website for it. The
preview Images in the app store aren't so great though. Those are the types of
preview photos that I was talking about that turn people off. Just show the
app in use instead of images with how to use it superimposed on top of it. My
opinion is that you should just use screenshots of your most marketable
features and leave out the diagrams. The one exception would be the photo of
the white iPad that shows the feature that looks kind of like mobile Safari's
Reader feature.

Otherwise I'm stumped. It looks really good to be honest and at only $0.99 I
don't know why people wouldn't buy it. Maybe you just need to get on some more
blogs and do more marketing. The app store is very competitive and apps like
yours are everywhere. Your UI is a feature though - don't forget that!

