

AppFund - mikek
http://appfund.com/

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gyardley
I would be rather upset if I built a successful application, it started
bringing in substantial cash, and I couldn't put that in my pocket because I'd
taken some money from outside investors, who now expected me to use that cash
to scale up the application to something 'venture-capital-sized'.

Applicants to this sort of thing (assuming it works like a normal investment)
should be fully aware of what they're getting themselves into - this sounds
great for those you want to go big or go home, not so great for everybody
else.

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matthewer
Does this feel sketchy to anyone else? This is supposed to be a multi-million
dollar fund, but their website looks like that? It feels pretty
unprofessional.

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aaronblohowiak
Not if you check out who is involved: <http://appfund.com/who.html>

Financial sites aren't consumer sites. You wouldn't call berkshire-hathaway
sketchy, would you?

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matthewer
Berkshire-hathaway's core competency is not digital or web-based. This is not
a financial site. It is a site designed to entice entrepreneurs (its version
of consumers.) Berkshire-hathaway is 44 years old and a fortune 500 company.
Appfund is brand new and needs to build its brand/trust.

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numair
If you want your money to look pretty, you have it all wrong. And brands/trust
are based on reputations of principals in the finance world, not on the
website. Hell, I don't know why they have one in the first place...

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dylanz
Someone needs to start an Education suite of tools for the IPad. I would love
to pass my kids an IPad and let them go at it.

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jasonlbaptiste
can you give me an idea of some tools? im pretty passionate about this space.

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patio11
I think selling to parents for use in educating children is not the best idea
in the world. They're generally looking for edutainment, which means you can
#import all the reasons why game development sucks for a small developer (huge
asset budget, quick content rot, lack of a good search marketing hook) and
then add "And by the way, they will not under any circumstances pay more than
$20 for this."

However, there is a lot of opportunity in selling "boring" applications
directly to teachers. In particular, I'd suggest addressing pain points like
"Prep takes too much time." One idea I keep coming back to is "Keeping parents
in the loop takes too much time" but I don't know if I'm in a good position to
execute on that. I think it could potentially be a hit if done well, though.

Also, homeschool folks need a whole range of curricular/admin support services
and the portion of them which actually spend money have a much, much better
sales cycle than school districts would want for equivalent services.

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maxklein
That's pretty cool. There are some good ideas that can be implemented for the
iPad, and if several iPhone devs could get together and apply together, I
think this would be quite an opportunity.

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z8000
I am skeptical because none of the areas that they are concerned with seem
like they will lead to innovation. Do we need another Yelp app? It seems like
that's the type of thing they would (of course) love to fund (and make money
off of).

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maxklein
If you take an old idea an adapt it to a new device with new possibilities
(GPS, compass), then it's possible to innovate.

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z8000
touché!

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dkasper
I guess I can understand why they don't want to fund games, but, correct me if
I'm wrong, aren't they the largest grossing category in the app store?

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maxklein
Games are very competitive, appeal to only a a specific demographic, and most
of the time do not have in-built virality. I don't think games are a good
money maker if you're not already established there.

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kevingadd
have you ever heard of FarmVille or the Nintendo Wii? They're obvious counter-
examples (among many others).

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prbuckley
I would love to know what the terms on this look like. There is no mention of
how much equity they want for their investment.

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howcool
make an app that runs Windows 7

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tjoozeylabs
Looking for developer? Visit my portfolio @ tjoozey.com

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jasonlbaptiste
everyone goes apeshit crazy for iphone devs and one guy offers up his
portfolio and we downvote it?

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csomar
okay I think it's not the right place and the right moment. Why not create a
new thread for iphone developers seeking for work and iphone apps managers
seeking for developers?

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allenbrunson
i'd be all for that. who wants to start it?

