4 ms·

Well done! $500/mo, though not crazy money, is significant. How did you market your app and how long did it take you to build out the app? I've built an app a

by allenu 4y ago

Well done! $500/mo, though not crazy money, is significant. How did you market your app and how long did it take you to build out the app? I've built an app as well while I was doing my regular day job and recently quit the day job, mostly due to being burned out working in big tech as well. During my break from work, I decided to try to get my app sales up, but it's challenging. (During my best month, I think I got up to $200/mo but it's more like $100/mo right now.) As many others before me have found, marketing is the key, and I'm still learning that game. So, $500/mo is really good stuff. That said, building the app and making my users happy is something that is incredibly gratifying, and something that was missing in my previous 9-5.

dheera 4y ago
Yep, all money is money and can make a difference to anyone. I live in the bay area, and though my rent is a lot more than $500/mo, if I put $500/mo more toward rent I really could have a much nicer apartment, for example. Or it could be the monthly payment for an EV. $500/mo can be a nice quality of life boost even in the most expensive parts of the world even if it's not enough to live on just that. Back when I was doing my PhD, on a $2300/mo research assistantship salary in Boston, I also built a webapp that got me ~$200-300/mo for several years and close to $900/mo for one of those years. That alone allowed me to do lots of things I wanted to do at the time (e.g. ~2 overseas vacations a year and several self-supported long distance bike trips). Savings wasn't a huge concern at the time because I knew I could get a decent-paying job post-graduation.
strongpigeon 4y ago
Thank you! I feel you 100% when you say that keeping user happy is incredibly gratifying. The app took me about 300-400 hours to build. Regarding marketing, I've said it elsewhere in the thread but here it is again: - Created an instagram account for the app and started following some tags. I liked post on the tags and started following some users to get them to look at my profile. Got about 150 downloads from that. - Made a 5/3/1 Calculator website. The goal was to make something useful to boost the SEO of my domain. What really ended up happening is the calculator ranks usually number 2 on Google and then users see the link to the app in there and click on it. Got about 200 downloads from that. - Apple Search Ads gives you $100 credit. Got a bunch of downloads with this - I used Bing Ads credits but wasn't too impressed with what I was getting from there though
- sureglymop 4y ago
  One thing you should know is this. Never advertise through Instagram and their ad platform. Instead, use the Facebook ad platform which will more effectively advertise on Instagram as well (if you even want to advertise).
  - strongpigeon 4y ago
    That’s really good to know. To you mind expanding on why?

by allenu 4y ago

dheera 4y ago

Yep, all money is money and can make a difference to anyone. I live in the bay area, and though my rent is a lot more than $500/mo, if I put $500/mo more toward rent I really could have a much nicer apartment, for example. Or it could be the monthly payment for an EV. $500/mo can be a nice quality of life boost even in the most expensive parts of the world even if it's not enough to live on just that. Back when I was doing my PhD, on a $2300/mo research assistantship salary in Boston, I also built a webapp that got me ~$200-300/mo for several years and close to $900/mo for one of those years. That alone allowed me to do lots of things I wanted to do at the time (e.g. ~2 overseas vacations a year and several self-supported long distance bike trips). Savings wasn't a huge concern at the time because I knew I could get a decent-paying job post-graduation.

strongpigeon 4y ago

Thank you! I feel you 100% when you say that keeping user happy is incredibly gratifying. The app took me about 300-400 hours to build. Regarding marketing, I've said it elsewhere in the thread but here it is again: - Created an instagram account for the app and started following some tags. I liked post on the tags and started following some users to get them to look at my profile. Got about 150 downloads from that. - Made a 5/3/1 Calculator website. The goal was to make something useful to boost the SEO of my domain. What really ended up happening is the calculator ranks usually number 2 on Google and then users see the link to the app in there and click on it. Got about 200 downloads from that. - Apple Search Ads gives you $100 credit. Got a bunch of downloads with this - I used Bing Ads credits but wasn't too impressed with what I was getting from there though

sureglymop 4y ago
One thing you should know is this. Never advertise through Instagram and their ad platform. Instead, use the Facebook ad platform which will more effectively advertise on Instagram as well (if you even want to advertise).
- strongpigeon 4y ago
  That’s really good to know. To you mind expanding on why?