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How We Built iTeleport into a Profitable Business on the App Store

63 points by jsherwani 16y ago

CamperBob 16y ago
If there's a killer app for the iPad, this is it. I'm not surprised to see them doing well at a $25 price point. It's worked well for me for a long time, on both the iPhone and iPad.
maukdaddy 16y ago
This is excellent data to see. I'm tired of paying for crappy $1 apps and will gladly pay extra for something that works well and looks great. Good to see that niche markets exist in the app ecosystem that support pricier apps.
chc 16y ago
What they don't mention: They got in during the "gold rush" period on both platforms. That is a huge competitive advantage that can't be replicated. I'd be surprised to see someone who released an iPhone app a year ago who could show similar numbers. Though I do think it's very cool that they're posting these stats. This kind of openness is uncommon.
- hboon 16y ago
  But someone who made it in during the gold rush period should only have an advantage if they made it into the top 100 category or store-wide chart. What kind of advantage would they have otherwise?
  - jerrell 16y ago
    There are some App Store sales advantages which stem from simply having sold a large number of copies. For example: 1. More ratings (shown as numbers next to 1-5 star ratings) - Help convince potential buyers that your app is significant 2. More reviews - advantage as with #1, but also higher chance of having at least 1 review in a larger number of countries. 3. Recommendations in iTunes - On the iTunes interface to the App Store, users are shown 'People who bought X also bought Y'-type recommendations. High sales increase the chance of your app featuring in these. So by getting in early, you sell copies through being the main/only product choice in your area. Then, when competitor apps arrive there are some residual advantages like these which place you ahead of the pack.
  - chc 16y ago
    They credit their success to word-of-mouth. Getting in during the gold rush means they have users to spread that word of mouth. Getting in after the gold rush means your app is more likely to languish in obscurity.
jacquesm 16y ago
What strikes me is this though: Ok, they are making good money and that's fine with me. But if this would be an open platform they would not have been able to compete with some open source port of the VNC client for that machine. The only reason this works is because the platform is somewhat closed. Closed platforms => closed source => profits Open platforms => open source => no profits (or at least not for 'utility' level stuff like this). Once you've shelled out the money for that ipad you're good to go and spend some more on applications, but an open source developer is not expecting a return on his investment so will not be shelling out money for development tools. If it works like that, we'll see what happens when android powered pads are going to be available, I expect that 'apps' like this will not be making any money at all.
- mechanical_fish 16y ago
  they would not have been able to compete with some open source port of the VNC client That depends on the culture of your open platform. The Mac OS is an open platform -- in the sense that you can compile and run any open source software you want on a Mac -- but there are quite a few Mac apps that successfully compete against open source "equivalents". Consider Transmit: An FTP/SSH/EC2 app. Or Textmate: A text editor for programmers. It's not the platform that matters. It's the customer base. It doesn't matter how many users the platform has; what matters is whether they have money and are willing to spend it for higher quality, less wasted time, greater ease of use, or some other value that your software provides. I'm not sure there's any first-order reason why people couldn't develop a really polished VNC client for, say, Linux and make money on it. There are just second-order reasons: Linux is a fragmented software platform (many distros, many moving parts), running on incredibly diverse hardware, with a culture that actively discourages charging money for software and has therefore built little or no infrastructure or culture to support such business. Most difficult of all, Linux must compete with the Mac, which has built a culture of paying for quality and has used it to vacuum up many of the most valuable desktop-software customers.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Transmit I would consider 'at risk', of having their lunch eaten one of these days, textmate (like ultraedit) has a loyal following and will be here for the time being. If it was as easy to apt-get some package on to the mac as it is to install stuff on most linuxes (or 'yum' if that's your flavour) I think that would change matters considerably. The initial hurdle to deployment is the hard one, if there would be a package manager with a sizeable repository installed by default on OS/X I think it would make life much harder for those earning a living writing software. Just like 'tucows' changed the world of closed source utilities for sale on the PC platform, only then a bit more dramatic because the vanguard would already be pre-installed. Openness includes removing barriers to getting at stuff, not just that it is 'open' to modification, I suspect the majority of the 'hackers' on this forum have never modified a line of code in most of the stuff they download and install.

63 points by jsherwani 16y ago

If there's a killer app for the iPad, this is it. I'm not surprised to see them doing well at a $25 price point. It's worked well for me for a long time, on both the iPhone and iPad.

maukdaddy 16y ago

This is excellent data to see. I'm tired of paying for crappy $1 apps and will gladly pay extra for something that works well and looks great. Good to see that niche markets exist in the app ecosystem that support pricier apps.

chc 16y ago

What they don't mention: They got in during the "gold rush" period on both platforms. That is a huge competitive advantage that can't be replicated. I'd be surprised to see someone who released an iPhone app a year ago who could show similar numbers. Though I do think it's very cool that they're posting these stats. This kind of openness is uncommon.

hboon 16y ago
But someone who made it in during the gold rush period should only have an advantage if they made it into the top 100 category or store-wide chart. What kind of advantage would they have otherwise?
- jerrell 16y ago
  There are some App Store sales advantages which stem from simply having sold a large number of copies. For example: 1. More ratings (shown as numbers next to 1-5 star ratings) - Help convince potential buyers that your app is significant 2. More reviews - advantage as with #1, but also higher chance of having at least 1 review in a larger number of countries. 3. Recommendations in iTunes - On the iTunes interface to the App Store, users are shown 'People who bought X also bought Y'-type recommendations. High sales increase the chance of your app featuring in these. So by getting in early, you sell copies through being the main/only product choice in your area. Then, when competitor apps arrive there are some residual advantages like these which place you ahead of the pack.
- chc 16y ago
  They credit their success to word-of-mouth. Getting in during the gold rush means they have users to spread that word of mouth. Getting in after the gold rush means your app is more likely to languish in obscurity.

jacquesm 16y ago

What strikes me is this though: Ok, they are making good money and that's fine with me. But if this would be an open platform they would not have been able to compete with some open source port of the VNC client for that machine. The only reason this works is because the platform is somewhat closed. Closed platforms => closed source => profits Open platforms => open source => no profits (or at least not for 'utility' level stuff like this). Once you've shelled out the money for that ipad you're good to go and spend some more on applications, but an open source developer is not expecting a return on his investment so will not be shelling out money for development tools. If it works like that, we'll see what happens when android powered pads are going to be available, I expect that 'apps' like this will not be making any money at all.

mechanical_fish 16y ago
they would not have been able to compete with some open source port of the VNC client That depends on the culture of your open platform. The Mac OS is an open platform -- in the sense that you can compile and run any open source software you want on a Mac -- but there are quite a few Mac apps that successfully compete against open source "equivalents". Consider Transmit: An FTP/SSH/EC2 app. Or Textmate: A text editor for programmers. It's not the platform that matters. It's the customer base. It doesn't matter how many users the platform has; what matters is whether they have money and are willing to spend it for higher quality, less wasted time, greater ease of use, or some other value that your software provides. I'm not sure there's any first-order reason why people couldn't develop a really polished VNC client for, say, Linux and make money on it. There are just second-order reasons: Linux is a fragmented software platform (many distros, many moving parts), running on incredibly diverse hardware, with a culture that actively discourages charging money for software and has therefore built little or no infrastructure or culture to support such business. Most difficult of all, Linux must compete with the Mac, which has built a culture of paying for quality and has used it to vacuum up many of the most valuable desktop-software customers.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Transmit I would consider 'at risk', of having their lunch eaten one of these days, textmate (like ultraedit) has a loyal following and will be here for the time being. If it was as easy to apt-get some package on to the mac as it is to install stuff on most linuxes (or 'yum' if that's your flavour) I think that would change matters considerably. The initial hurdle to deployment is the hard one, if there would be a package manager with a sizeable repository installed by default on OS/X I think it would make life much harder for those earning a living writing software. Just like 'tucows' changed the world of closed source utilities for sale on the PC platform, only then a bit more dramatic because the vanguard would already be pre-installed. Openness includes removing barriers to getting at stuff, not just that it is 'open' to modification, I suspect the majority of the 'hackers' on this forum have never modified a line of code in most of the stuff they download and install.