6 ms·

$100K in 4 months: A niche app's path to App Store success

105 points by jawngee 16y ago

rorrr 16y ago
100K in 4 months is impressive. Keep in mind that that app was featured by Apple though. It makes a huge difference.
- nhangen 16y ago
  Still requires a decent app to be featured, and furthermore, to back up the feature. I don't think it's fair to caveat every app store success story with a comment about being featured.
- modmax 16y ago
  If you look at the chart, you'll notice the 3rd feature didn't affect our sales much at all. We've pushed out 12 major feature updates since launch and I believe that had an impact on our sales as people can feel confident that we stand by our product.
lennysan 16y ago
Thanks for sharing, very informative.
lordmatty 16y ago
Great stuff. I've always thought that the way to crack the App Store is to create a brand associated with a number of apps in the same segment. If you can do this with Developer Tools or similar, then I'm sure there is money to be made!
stephenou 16y ago
Are there any apps that aren't featured get as many sales as the featured ones? Can any apps be considered "success" without Apple's promotion? I found it interesting that almost all App Store success stories mentioned their sales went up when the app was featured by Apple, which indirectly makes me time that getting Apple's attention is the #1 priority for an app developer.
- kmfrk 16y ago
  Was the relaunch of Tapbots' Camera+ featured? I don't think so, and it would seem weird for Apple to do it, after they initially blocked it - considering that it would look like a concession on their part - but I'm not completely sure. Tapbots is one of the really big guys on the app scene, and I wouldn't put it past them to pull something like this off without Apple's help. But people obviously shouldn't assume that they could follow in their footsteps.
  - garryseto 16y ago
    I don't recall Camera+'s relaunch being featured and I agree, I don't see Apple featuring it after they pulled it from the store. However, Taptaptap (not Tapbots) has a massive mailing list that they leverage whenever they have a product launch. That definitely helps!
garryseto 16y ago
All other marketing efforts pale in comparison to the dramatic effect that an Apple feature has - at least that's how it was when we launched last April. In some ways, this has diminished (more avenues for app discoverability) but I'd say it still has the biggest effect. However, it should be noted that iMockups has not been featured since June of last year and still is able to maintain a Top 50-60 ranking in Productivity in the US. As noted in the article, some of the key post-launch factors have helped us keep iMockups in the rankings.
chanri 16y ago
If the author is here, could you comment on how often people use your app? Are these statistics commonly measured for iOS apps?
- michaelbuckbee 16y ago
  I'm not the author, but time and frequency usage statistics are commonly collected from application statistics packages.
- modmax 16y ago
  Last time I looked it was averaging about a 1000 active users a day.
  - chanri 16y ago
    Congratulations! $100k in 4 months is definitely a success. Also, thanks for sharing your numbers and crafting an excellent writeup.
  - kschua 16y ago
    Congrats! IMHO, that is a success
alexro 16y ago
I understand this isn't really comprehensive, but money wise, 2 people spent about 1.5 years on the apps and finally made 100k. Seems like they are just starting to get decent ROI and the battle for profitability is yet ahead.
- modmax 16y ago
  Technically speaking, we'd made about $40K in app revenue from our previous apps before we launched iMockups. That $100K is just iMockups revenue, not total for the company. But you are correct that it was the best ROI so far for any of our apps.
- tzs 16y ago
  Note, though, the app is now generating a fairly steady income. If the app does not require much maintenance effort on their part they can go on and work on their next app. I think that might be the path for most app developers to profitability--having many apps that generate steady income, rather than having a big hit.
- nhangen 16y ago
  That's a nice return compared to many startups that spend years without being profitable at all. They built, learned, and re-built. They're now ahead of the game. I admire that.
dazzla 16y ago
The single biggest weakness (or gap) in our ability to provide amazing customer service is that a lot of people still use iTunes App Store reviews to communicate their issues but there is no way for us devs to contact those people to help them resolve it. Apple needs to fix this one-way channel. This is very frustrating. I don't think users realize there is no way for developers to get back to them and so many questions go unanswered. In the end I wrote a script to pull all the reviews into my apps site so I can post comments there and I let the users know that in the app. Plus now it's also easy for me to send myself a notification for a new/updated review. Seams to be working so far as some users have come back and added comments.
- megablast 16y ago
  Would love to get that script, Apple really needs to improve in this area, although I guess for the big sellers it is not so important.
  - dazzla 16y ago
    I based it of this blog post. The last comment is me with a slightly updated PHP version http://blogs.oreilly.com/iphone/2008/08/scraping-appstore-reviews.html http://blogs.oreilly.com/iphone/2008/08/scraping-appstore-re.... My site is Drupal 6 based and I wrote a module to do the scrapping and populate a CCK content type that I display with a Drupal view. I configured Triggers and Actions for the notifications. If there are any other Drupal people out there I'm happy to share the code. Just needs a little polish before I could submit it.
stretchwithme 16y ago
I'm curious how the app in the last five months not covered.
- modmax 16y ago
  Sales have slowed down as our niche market got a bit saturated. We've hit almost $180K total so far.
  - stretchwithme 16y ago
    thanks
faramarz 16y ago
Congratulations are in order. You can are off to a good start, now you need to build a sustainable model ontop of this successful deployment. Are you guys based in downtown T.O? would love to connect and drop by the office to say hello.
dangrover 16y ago
My app Etude sold about $100K in maybe 8 months. http://etudeapp.com http://etudeapp.com
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
Concours 16y ago
Could you comment on how often you update your app and how this affects the sales?
fbailey 16y ago
I think iPad Apps are difficult breed - I bought your app because I thought it sounded interesting, but I didn't actually use it. -do you know how many users start using it regularly?

105 points by jawngee 16y ago

rorrr 16y ago

100K in 4 months is impressive. Keep in mind that that app was featured by Apple though. It makes a huge difference.

nhangen 16y ago
Still requires a decent app to be featured, and furthermore, to back up the feature. I don't think it's fair to caveat every app store success story with a comment about being featured.
modmax 16y ago
If you look at the chart, you'll notice the 3rd feature didn't affect our sales much at all. We've pushed out 12 major feature updates since launch and I believe that had an impact on our sales as people can feel confident that we stand by our product.

lennysan 16y ago

Thanks for sharing, very informative.

lordmatty 16y ago

Great stuff. I've always thought that the way to crack the App Store is to create a brand associated with a number of apps in the same segment. If you can do this with Developer Tools or similar, then I'm sure there is money to be made!

stephenou 16y ago

Are there any apps that aren't featured get as many sales as the featured ones? Can any apps be considered "success" without Apple's promotion? I found it interesting that almost all App Store success stories mentioned their sales went up when the app was featured by Apple, which indirectly makes me time that getting Apple's attention is the #1 priority for an app developer.

kmfrk 16y ago
Was the relaunch of Tapbots' Camera+ featured? I don't think so, and it would seem weird for Apple to do it, after they initially blocked it - considering that it would look like a concession on their part - but I'm not completely sure. Tapbots is one of the really big guys on the app scene, and I wouldn't put it past them to pull something like this off without Apple's help. But people obviously shouldn't assume that they could follow in their footsteps.
- garryseto 16y ago
  I don't recall Camera+'s relaunch being featured and I agree, I don't see Apple featuring it after they pulled it from the store. However, Taptaptap (not Tapbots) has a massive mailing list that they leverage whenever they have a product launch. That definitely helps!

garryseto 16y ago

All other marketing efforts pale in comparison to the dramatic effect that an Apple feature has - at least that's how it was when we launched last April. In some ways, this has diminished (more avenues for app discoverability) but I'd say it still has the biggest effect. However, it should be noted that iMockups has not been featured since June of last year and still is able to maintain a Top 50-60 ranking in Productivity in the US. As noted in the article, some of the key post-launch factors have helped us keep iMockups in the rankings.

chanri 16y ago

If the author is here, could you comment on how often people use your app? Are these statistics commonly measured for iOS apps?

michaelbuckbee 16y ago
I'm not the author, but time and frequency usage statistics are commonly collected from application statistics packages.
modmax 16y ago
Last time I looked it was averaging about a 1000 active users a day.
- chanri 16y ago
  Congratulations! $100k in 4 months is definitely a success. Also, thanks for sharing your numbers and crafting an excellent writeup.
- kschua 16y ago
  Congrats! IMHO, that is a success

alexro 16y ago

I understand this isn't really comprehensive, but money wise, 2 people spent about 1.5 years on the apps and finally made 100k. Seems like they are just starting to get decent ROI and the battle for profitability is yet ahead.

modmax 16y ago
Technically speaking, we'd made about $40K in app revenue from our previous apps before we launched iMockups. That $100K is just iMockups revenue, not total for the company. But you are correct that it was the best ROI so far for any of our apps.
tzs 16y ago
Note, though, the app is now generating a fairly steady income. If the app does not require much maintenance effort on their part they can go on and work on their next app. I think that might be the path for most app developers to profitability--having many apps that generate steady income, rather than having a big hit.
nhangen 16y ago
That's a nice return compared to many startups that spend years without being profitable at all. They built, learned, and re-built. They're now ahead of the game. I admire that.

dazzla 16y ago

The single biggest weakness (or gap) in our ability to provide amazing customer service is that a lot of people still use iTunes App Store reviews to communicate their issues but there is no way for us devs to contact those people to help them resolve it. Apple needs to fix this one-way channel. This is very frustrating. I don't think users realize there is no way for developers to get back to them and so many questions go unanswered. In the end I wrote a script to pull all the reviews into my apps site so I can post comments there and I let the users know that in the app. Plus now it's also easy for me to send myself a notification for a new/updated review. Seams to be working so far as some users have come back and added comments.

megablast 16y ago
Would love to get that script, Apple really needs to improve in this area, although I guess for the big sellers it is not so important.
- dazzla 16y ago
  I based it of this blog post. The last comment is me with a slightly updated PHP version http://blogs.oreilly.com/iphone/2008/08/scraping-appstore-reviews.html http://blogs.oreilly.com/iphone/2008/08/scraping-appstore-re.... My site is Drupal 6 based and I wrote a module to do the scrapping and populate a CCK content type that I display with a Drupal view. I configured Triggers and Actions for the notifications. If there are any other Drupal people out there I'm happy to share the code. Just needs a little polish before I could submit it.

stretchwithme 16y ago

I'm curious how the app in the last five months not covered.

modmax 16y ago
Sales have slowed down as our niche market got a bit saturated. We've hit almost $180K total so far.
- stretchwithme 16y ago
  thanks

faramarz 16y ago

Congratulations are in order. You can are off to a good start, now you need to build a sustainable model ontop of this successful deployment. Are you guys based in downtown T.O? would love to connect and drop by the office to say hello.

dangrover 16y ago

My app Etude sold about $100K in maybe 8 months. http://etudeapp.com http://etudeapp.com

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

Concours 16y ago

Could you comment on how often you update your app and how this affects the sales?

fbailey 16y ago

I think iPad Apps are difficult breed - I bought your app because I thought it sounded interesting, but I didn't actually use it. -do you know how many users start using it regularly?