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$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 S

$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 ago
For 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 ago
  And 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 ago
    This 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 ago
      What 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.
      - run4yourlives 16y ago
        I think making massive money on crap that enables you to spend time on things you actually do value - be they other apps, a family, hobby or passion to save the world - is a perfectly valid way to live life. Your post sounds like nothing more than sour grapes.
        mattmanser 16y ago
        Well, have fun doing your human exploitation startups. It's not for me, I can't do it. It's just not in me. It's not sour grapes, it's just utter incomprehension on why anyone would spend their life exploiting others. I just don't understand the motivation behind it. I actually do not think it's a perfectly valid way of life, I think it's evil and sociopathic. But that's my opinion and you have yours. Happiness is different for everybody.
        kiba 16y ago
        Well, have fun doing your human exploitation startups. It's not for me, I can't do it. Exploiting what exactly?
        deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
        TGJ 16y ago
        How is it evil exploiting stupid people? A fool and his money are soon parted are they not?
        fredBuddemeyer 16y ago
        so is a fool and his potential, however slim.
        atleta 16y ago
        Depends... making money on crap (that the market and people want) is OK as long as you use it to spend time on things that you think would be useful for people, the society. Spending this time (i.e. money) on yourself (family, hobby, whatnot) is not ethical.
  - AndrewWarner 16y ago
    Colin, they didn't say much about their marketing. Do you think they're doing any app store SEO?
    - colinplamondon 16y ago
      At a glance, for sure- there's a few where they didn't, but for the most part they did a solid job of it. For the ones where they didn't, I'd guess (based on nothing but a glance) that they depended on cross-selling to get rank traffic, instead of search to get rank traffic.
    - eob 16y ago
      How does app-store SEO work? I sell some apps on the app store, but I've never tried to market them (and have pretty anemic sales as a result). Does SEO tend to be black hat (hire people to rate it?) or ad-driven?
      - vaksel 16y ago
        i think it has more to do with having possible search terms as your app title
- stevenwei 16y ago
  Yeah, the most interesting takeaway for me is how far these guys got with a relatively small amount of effort by picking the right apps to work on. For example, there are literally hundreds of unit converters in the App Store right now, and they shipped another one anyway to great success, because the demand for such apps are still so high. It does illustrate that there is still tons of money to be made in the App Store for building the right apps. (Thanks for posting this interview by the way.)
  - Splines 16y ago
    FWIW, I have the myConvert iPhone app and am very pleased with it. I've looked at the free unit conversion that go by, but haven't found one that shows multiple conversions on a single screen like myConvert does.
gatsby 16y ago
It is. One of the reasons I posted this interview is that on top of doing $80k in monthly revenue, the founders are big Tim Ferriss fans and only spend an average of five hours per week on this project - one of the founders still works a full time job.
- coffee 16y ago
  Wait, what? They do $80k in monthly revenue yet "one of the founders still works a full time job" That makes no sense...
  - Psyonic 16y ago
    Maybe he likes his job?
    - solutionyogi 16y ago
      Doesn't matter if I like my job or not, if I am making 80k/month from my side business, I am definitely going to quit my day job and concentrate on my full business.
      - kranner 16y ago
        There's something to be said for getting out of the house though.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
Sindrome 16y ago
These guys struck me more like frat boys than SW Devs. They both said they are SW Eng but they totally shied away from going into any details about that. They didn't know any of their stats. Andrew had to walk them through their profitability numbers, wtf?
- qbui 16y ago
  Used to be SW devs. I used to do .NET programming for a big DOD contractor, then worked for a local internet startup for while, but why talk about my old career? That would have been boring. Plus as we tried to explain, at some point you have to let go and not micro manage every individual stat and app. I'm sure if we did that we could make some more money by optimizing, but that's not what our business approach was about. We wanted simple, stress free which gives us time to do other things. We're not experts, we don't have a degree in business or anything like that. Just 2 27 year old guys from San Diego who wanted to make a couple iphone apps.
  - jonhendry 16y ago
    So about 5 years in software development?
    - qbui 16y ago
      I've actually been doing development since senior year high school. Started with ASP then PHP, .net, c#, java with gwt. I don't know if I'll ever do any of my own development again though. I do enjoy programming, but I enjoy doing other things more honestly =).

AndrewWarner 16y ago

For 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 ago
And 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 ago
  This 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 ago
    What 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.
    - run4yourlives 16y ago
      I think making massive money on crap that enables you to spend time on things you actually do value - be they other apps, a family, hobby or passion to save the world - is a perfectly valid way to live life. Your post sounds like nothing more than sour grapes.
      - mattmanser 16y ago
        Well, have fun doing your human exploitation startups. It's not for me, I can't do it. It's just not in me. It's not sour grapes, it's just utter incomprehension on why anyone would spend their life exploiting others. I just don't understand the motivation behind it. I actually do not think it's a perfectly valid way of life, I think it's evil and sociopathic. But that's my opinion and you have yours. Happiness is different for everybody.
        kiba 16y ago
        Well, have fun doing your human exploitation startups. It's not for me, I can't do it. Exploiting what exactly?
        deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
        TGJ 16y ago
        How is it evil exploiting stupid people? A fool and his money are soon parted are they not?
        fredBuddemeyer 16y ago
        so is a fool and his potential, however slim.
      - atleta 16y ago
        Depends... making money on crap (that the market and people want) is OK as long as you use it to spend time on things that you think would be useful for people, the society. Spending this time (i.e. money) on yourself (family, hobby, whatnot) is not ethical.
- AndrewWarner 16y ago
  Colin, they didn't say much about their marketing. Do you think they're doing any app store SEO?
  - colinplamondon 16y ago
    At a glance, for sure- there's a few where they didn't, but for the most part they did a solid job of it. For the ones where they didn't, I'd guess (based on nothing but a glance) that they depended on cross-selling to get rank traffic, instead of search to get rank traffic.
  - eob 16y ago
    How does app-store SEO work? I sell some apps on the app store, but I've never tried to market them (and have pretty anemic sales as a result). Does SEO tend to be black hat (hire people to rate it?) or ad-driven?
    - vaksel 16y ago
      i think it has more to do with having possible search terms as your app title
stevenwei 16y ago
Yeah, the most interesting takeaway for me is how far these guys got with a relatively small amount of effort by picking the right apps to work on. For example, there are literally hundreds of unit converters in the App Store right now, and they shipped another one anyway to great success, because the demand for such apps are still so high. It does illustrate that there is still tons of money to be made in the App Store for building the right apps. (Thanks for posting this interview by the way.)
- Splines 16y ago
  FWIW, I have the myConvert iPhone app and am very pleased with it. I've looked at the free unit conversion that go by, but haven't found one that shows multiple conversions on a single screen like myConvert does.

gatsby 16y ago

It is. One of the reasons I posted this interview is that on top of doing $80k in monthly revenue, the founders are big Tim Ferriss fans and only spend an average of five hours per week on this project - one of the founders still works a full time job.

coffee 16y ago
Wait, what? They do $80k in monthly revenue yet "one of the founders still works a full time job" That makes no sense...
- Psyonic 16y ago
  Maybe he likes his job?
  - solutionyogi 16y ago
    Doesn't matter if I like my job or not, if I am making 80k/month from my side business, I am definitely going to quit my day job and concentrate on my full business.
    - kranner 16y ago
      There's something to be said for getting out of the house though.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]

Sindrome 16y ago

These guys struck me more like frat boys than SW Devs. They both said they are SW Eng but they totally shied away from going into any details about that. They didn't know any of their stats. Andrew had to walk them through their profitability numbers, wtf?

qbui 16y ago
Used to be SW devs. I used to do .NET programming for a big DOD contractor, then worked for a local internet startup for while, but why talk about my old career? That would have been boring. Plus as we tried to explain, at some point you have to let go and not micro manage every individual stat and app. I'm sure if we did that we could make some more money by optimizing, but that's not what our business approach was about. We wanted simple, stress free which gives us time to do other things. We're not experts, we don't have a degree in business or anything like that. Just 2 27 year old guys from San Diego who wanted to make a couple iphone apps.
- jonhendry 16y ago
  So about 5 years in software development?
  - qbui 16y ago
    I've actually been doing development since senior year high school. Started with ASP then PHP, .net, c#, java with gwt. I don't know if I'll ever do any of my own development again though. I do enjoy programming, but I enjoy doing other things more honestly =).