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$80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything
- d_r 16y agoIt would be interesting to see more people chime in here about using sites like Elance. Have you had good/bad experiences with this approach? Outsourcing seemed to work great for these guys (good for them!) Is it because the apps were fairly simple, or did they get "lucky" with picking the right developer(s)?
- davidedicillo 16y agoWhen I started 39 (my company) I was outsourcing my iPhone development via Elance to a firm in Ukraine. We got some good simple apps out and made some money. But quickly they weren't reliable; they fit your job in a pipeline with other jobs, so you can't just tell them "today just stop whatever you are doing and work on this important stuff". Also you need to be very lucky with the people you hire.
- atleta 16y agoI hope it didn't come as a surprise. What you do when you outsource is not only you hire cheaper workforce from the other end of the world but you also spare on not having a permanent employee/consultant. It's cheaper because you only pay for what they do and not their availability (i.e. you don't pay if you don;t have anything to assign to them). Now on the other end of the business there are people who can only make a living if they are highly utilized. So they'll have a pipeline for sure. (I.e. they won't pay what you don't pay, the availability.) So if you want an employee or permanent contractor then hire one, even from the other end of the world. Most freelancers will be more than happy to have a longer term contract with a fixed income. But you have to pay the bill...
- chadp 16y agoI think outsourcing a simple $2k fart app is workable. A complex internet service with multiple technologies, web, multiple mobile platforms and your valuable IP is another matter and probably not advisable for outsourcing.
- stevenp 16y agoHey Andrew! Curious why your podcasts don't show up in the iTunes feed until a few days later. I'm having to manually download this one because I'm so excited about it. :)
- AndrewWarner 16y agoI didn't know that was happening. For some reason keeping my itunes up date has been a struggle. Thanks for telling me.
- kranner 16y agoThe RSS feed as it shows up in Google Reader is also delayed, just so you know.
- mise 16y agoI don't know what the RSS feed for the podcast is. The advertised one http://feeds.feedburner.com/Mixergy-blog http://feeds.feedburner.com/Mixergy-blog doesn't seem to have audio information, but I could be wrong.
- stevenwei 16y ago$80k a month in ad revenue by making the following apps for $2k a pop on Elance? Record Video for Free 911 Police Radio Free! Battery Box 3-in-1 Find Sex Offenders Free! Dash of Color FREE MovieFX for Free Convert Units for Free FilterFX HDR Fisheye in 1 Fisheye for Free FilterFX for Free Flash for Free HDR for Free Convert Units Free HD I know people are saying the gold rush is over, but that is ridiculous.
- AndrewWarner 16y agoFor me, this interview wasn't about creating another "iPhone gold rush" story. It was about understanding how they could build an app business without coding or designing. They even hire someone to write their descriptions for a few hundred bucks.
- colinplamondon 16y agoAnd they weren't afraid to make a slutty business. For every startupy person trying to 'change the world' and 'make a dent in the universe' with a me-too social network, there's five with a slutty free app business banking it each month.
- stevenp 16y agoThis is a great point. Looking at these apps, they're certainly not anything like ConvertBot or Instagram. As an app developer myself, I think I could have easily made most of these apps in my spare time without a ton of design skill, yet they're really successful. Definitely food for though.
- mattmanser 16y agoWhat food for thought? Choose to throw your life away on meaningless shit so you can say you made some money, or do something you care about? Most of us here could easily make a $200k consulting a year. Does it make you happy? No. Would making shite apps and essentially scamming people make most of the people here happy? No. You gotta remember that the kind of person who does this kind of shit is basically a bit of a social pariah, a social retard. They're no different from the internet 'marketers' or the online pharmacies or any of that crap. They don't care a bit about supplying shit and calling it gold. To me there's not even a moment's thought about this kind of stuff, I have no respect for people making crap like this, only pity. To waste your life conning other people is a tragedy, not a triumph.
- jbail 16y agoThat guy who was wondering how to spend $3,000 a month to generate income should talk to these guys.
- AndrewWarner 16y agoI'm actually getting a lot of requests for intros to these guys and I posted the interview less than an hour ago.
- AndrewWarner 16y agoAfter posting the interview I realized that the guy I was emailing about an interview was probably a virtual assistant. I assumed he was working in their office because he responded to my interview request so quickly. I wish I asked them about it.
- eru 16y agoI tried timesvr.com last year. They were usually quite quick, even with the standard account. If you throw more money at them, you can probably get arbitrarily good response times.
- jws7 16y agoHi Andrew, I'm no VA - just a buddy of Mike and Quoc's helping out with BD/Mktg/PR lol. Great interview btw!
- mahmud 16y agoDude, stop by the HN DC meetups will ya? People are gouging their eyes out looking for startup marketers. Email is in my profile if you want me to pass your contacts around.
- nikcub 16y agothey probably outsourced the entire interview
- qbui 16y agoLOL! we used indian virtual assistants in costume for the interview =)
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- Sindrome 16y agoAndrew I love you. I sent you an email a few months ago asking if you could get more videos about the mobile space and you have totally come through. I've seen a hearty amount of mobile interviews this month. Thanks.
- AndrewWarner 16y agoThanks. If you come across anyone I should interview, email me.
- mdolon 16y agoHere's a link to the e-book they wrote and mentioned in the interview: http://www.freetheapps.com/create-iphone-apps/ http://www.freetheapps.com/create-iphone-apps/ It makes sense that they seemed somewhat reserved at certain points of the interview, they don't want to give away too much and make their e-book less useful.
- epo 16y agoNow I know its snake oil, this page has all the wording and techniques of a classic get rich quick scam.
- BonesLF 16y agoIt's only a scam if you fail. Hell, most people give up even when the blueprint is right in front of them. It's time to stop making excuses and realize that there is so much money to be made on this here internets that the best idea is to TRY HARDER. caveat: Yes, this may be a bit slutty. But I don't know if you noticed this Halloween - slutty is in.
- smashing 16y agoDid anyone else get a popup trying to leave the webpage?
- dcanio 16y agoWhat a scam.
- danieldon 16y agoRegarding the outsourcing thing, it's clear that even they aren't getting high quality. I'm checking out their Convert Units app, for instance, and the drum scrolling and selection is totally broken, although it works just enough to still function. It's interesting, however, that the poor quality apparently isn't stopping people from using it. Part of it might be that people don't expect much out of a free app, so if it's broken they just deal with it.
- chc 16y agoEven the functionality of the drum is iffy. It seems like maybe a quarter of the time it will somehow mysteriously wind up on something other than what you selected.
- epo 16y agoThis sounds a bit too good to be true. How many ad impressions add up to $80,000 in a month? What is that in user hours per month for 12 or so apps? I'd be fascinated to see the financial statements, I bet we never will
- eob 16y agoI agree. $80,000 a month in mobile ads is a lot of impressions.
- dcanio 16y agoRight, these guys are scamming us all. It is impossible.
- qbui 16y agoIt's not as outrageous as you think. Although the first month we hit big numbers we were VERY VERY surprised. Check out the paper toss guys that make 500K a month with just 5 free apps!!! http://www.develop-online.net/news/36155/Paper-Toss-dev-makes-500k-per-month-with-ads http://www.develop-online.net/news/36155/Paper-Toss-dev-make... Now THAT'S something. We're not even close to that!
- iphoneedbot 16y agoNo need to defend yourself.. they'll always be doubters.. you guys keep on raking in the bucks!
- nhangen 16y agoWhy do you keep showing their numbers? Why not some of your own?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- ajg1977 16y agoI don't know what to think about stories such as these to be honest. My inner entrepreneur says "Wow, great job guys! I wish you every success". My inner software developer winces, and fears, both professionally and personally, that the ever-growing number of such low-quality apps will eventually make it pointless for developers to invest in creating a ConvertBot or Instagram. (FWIW I currently make $15k a month from sales of apps $1.99 or higher)
- lancebailey 16y agowhat are some of you apps
- faramarz 16y agoGreat comment. I just wanted to bring up a point about free-app/knock-off vs. paid quality app. I would draw a parallel with the fashion industry. Louis Vuitton, for example, will never go out of business because of Chinese knock-offs. Why? because the person who buys the knock off/cheaper product is not their target customer. Same I think is true with iPhone/iPad apps. Those users who only search for free apps and put up with disruptive ads (let alone click on those ads) are not the target audience of a premium application maker. Where the cheaper app maker has to churn out dozens of products to make decent revenue, a single app maker who focuses on quality and sustainable business model can really build a meaningful business in the App Store.
- revorad 16y agoExactly. The same is true in films too.
- callmeed 16y agoIt definitely creates a lot of noise and worries me as someone who is just about to enter the mobile app market. I just finished some iOS training and am working on my first paid app. What would you say is the key to getting where you are? Apps with true utility–or something else?
- 16y ago
- robryan 16y agoAnyone know any articles from people that run ads in these kind of apps talking about returns? They don't seem like the kind of apps that would drive any high quality traffic. Interesting to see if it's just an advertising bubble where because it's new there is many companies trying it out pushing up prices or there is actually a sustainable business here for advertisers.
- percept 16y agoThis sounds like some good advice to help prevent ideas from being taken: "We get that question a lot. It was kind of concern. So what we usually do in our first bid, in our first description we’re kind of vague. We say, ‘We’re looking for a developer for a simple photography app.’ And from all those people we’ll choose three to five that look kind of trustworthy, seem like they could do the job and then we’ll give them the wireframe bid. So we start off really vague so not everybody sees it. We’ll pick three to five people, we’ll give them the full details and then they’ll give us a more detailed proposal."
- faramarz 16y agoIs it me or does it sound like they are just winging the whole business? Andrew had to pretty much coach on what to do, and what to answer. That said, they still get A+ in my books for just doing it. That's the biggest differentiator between people who find success and people who don't. Kudos.
- qbui 16y agoWe are and have indeed been winging the whole business. We're no business experts, we've learned a lot going through the process. It hasn't even been 2 years yet. This was our first "face to face" interview. We're not great public speakers either haha. Just going with the flow and we've been very fortunate so far.
- PhrosTT 16y agoFML
- PhrosTT 16y agoFML
- klochner 16y agoI'm not a marketing expert, so correct me if I'm wrong here ... Let's assume an iphone app gets CPM of about $1 [1,2] So if their first app grossed $100k, that means about 100M impressions. That sounds insanely high to me - 100 impressions each for 1M users? 10 impressions for 10M users? When I then see that they're trying to sell books for $99 a pop so you can cash in on their winning techniques [3], it rings of late-night infomercials telling me how to get rich buying foreclosed homes. I don't have hard numbers, but my impression is that @tferriss took the same approach - making the bulk of his money off of book sales (and his prior supplements business), pitching virtual assistant techniques that never would have made that kind of money for him. So the real 4-hour work week strategy they're copying is to give the impression of success with little effort, and then sell people books detailing your special technique. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/24/greystripe-ups-the-ante-in-the-iphone-ad-network-wars-launches-guaranteed-cpm-program/ [2] http://blog.jwegener.com/2009/07/26/debunking-average-iphone-cpm-ad-rates/ [3] http://www.freetheapps.com/create-iphone-apps/?hop=tdrone
- qbui 16y agoLess than 10% of our sales numbers are from the ebook. The ebook was just a side project to see if we could share some information and make some extra money at the same time. You'd be surprised at how much ad revenue these apps make. Check out how much the paper toss guys make with just 5 apps - http://www.develop-online.net/news/36155/Paper-Toss-dev-makes-500k-per-month-with-ads http://www.develop-online.net/news/36155/Paper-Toss-dev-make...
- klochner 16y agoI'm not saying it isn't possible. I'd be interested in seeing how your numbers compare. They have ~2M daily users and 47M installs, generating 600M monthly impressions. That lines up pretty well with my estimate of about $1 CPM.
- spitfire 16y agoIf you go to the freetheapps site it is _so_ used-car salesman. When you go to leave the page it has a Javascript popup that begs you to stay with yes/no dialog. My already very low view of Andrew Warner just got even lower. slimy get-rich-quick guys give me the shivers.
- run4yourlives 16y agoDid anyone actually ask them to verify these numbers? Did a third party do so? Extraordinary claims ($80K a month) require extra-ordinary evidence. They don't even really seem to know what their revenue is like, but their fairly certain about the large size of the numbers... normally, that's the smell of bullshit. Tom Vu's girlfriend wants to see the proof of these claims.
- gregpilling 16y agoAhh, Tom Vu. Whatever happened to him and his late night infomercials? I remember his great quote - "Do you think these girls like me? NO, they like my money!"
- run4yourlives 16y agoApparently he plays poker these days.
- shard 16y agoCurious me googling... Surprised me: he is winning oodles at poker tournaments, https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Tom_Vu#Professional_poker_career https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Tom_Vu#Profes...
- fapi1974 16y agoScam, scam, scam. The e-book website could be selling anything from stock newsletters to - well - internet get rich quick schemes!
- scottchin 16y agoI'm curious about the ad networks that are used in these apps. I read the interview transcript and it says that AdMob was used at first and then they switched to "AdWorld" (which I assume was a transcription error and it meant AdWhirl). If Mike or Quoc are reading, or if anyone else has any insights, I'd be interested in hearing more.
- qbui 16y agoWe use Adwhirl to run in this order - iAd, Adsense, Admob. iAd has been making us the most money so we give it the highest priority. We also use transpera and greystripe in some of our apps.
- tyng 16y agoWho is this Ed Turner guy? Sounds pretty awesome
- maxklein 16y agoHe's some type of guy who sends emails to all app developers advertising his services. I've got at least 10 emails from him.
- pix30 16y agoI call BS - I don't believe they are making 80k a month. The numbers don't add up and their responses seem very ill informed and shaky on specifics.
- dcanio 16y agoI agree. Total BS.
- known 16y agoDamn outsourcing viz Chindia is destroying American Dream and Confidence. http://goo.gl/2PGOE http://goo.gl/2PGOE
- maxklein 16y agoWhy is the screenshot on the ebook page Adsense? Are they advertising in their mobile apps using adsense? Is that possible? I thought Apple disallows this.
- switch 16y agoLet's break it down. 1) Release a bunch of free apps. 2) Take the holiday season - the single month with the highest sales and traffic. 3) Round it up a little bit to get to $80K a month. 4) Find as many people as you can who're willing to believe the story. 5) Don't lie - just let people extrapolate - Say $80K in a month and let people assume that means $80K per month. Their website is the classic long form sales letter. Make it long so people get invested. Offer $2600 worth of value for just $300. Then knock another $200 off. Appeal to the total idiots who think a 'free' ready to go app that is included will start making them $5,000 a day. Quote examples like iShoot + kitchen table without telling the whole story i.e. the guy's programming experience and the actual number of months spent and the strategy he used. A fool and his money are soon parted. These two gentleman are taking upon themselves this painful task. If we set aside ethics it's just a strategy - One guy builds a super valuable product and sell it at high price to smart people who value it. Another person builds a house of cards and targets people's greed and laziness. Notice a few things - 1) Their insistence that they spend just 5 hours a week on this. 2) Their focus on showing earnings from a single month - the month in the year that has the most sales. 3) If you were to wish for a easy, no hassle way to make lots of money - You'd dream up exactly what they are claiming. It's absolutely perfect - you don't have to know coding, you need just 5 hours a week, and you'll start making $5,000 a day within 60 days.
- mibale 16y agoWhy would the guy still be a software engineer if they were making 80k a month? Something is not right with the story. Have you ever thought that these guys are inflating their #s to sell the ebook? What proof did the interviewer have of their revenue stream? Did they show you any of their live google revenue stats?
- mibale 16y agoI'm really disappointed in Andrew disseminating this bullshit. It hurts the reputation of your site badly. As an iPhone developer I can guarantee that ads cannot deliver that much revenue for the stats shown on iTunes. People, please don't waste your time with this ebook scam.
- dcanio 16y agoALL. We should all contact the Apple App team to alert them of the obvious fictitious revenue reporting by Thinking Drone LLC and the way they are trying to profit from this. Apple will not tolerate this. You can email support@apple.com and appreview@apple.com
- bhoung 16y agoI'm a little surprised at the relatively negative responses on this. Is this story not consistent with hacker culture and working smarter, not harder? [Pointing out to a bunch of programmers they can be outsourced is unlikely to be well received though]. The execution and success of their apps was brilliant. Sure they lose marks for immaturity, which is even more of an achievement, and their contribution low-quality apps which now plague the internet.