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How I Made $19,000 on the App Store While Learning to Code
- JoeAltmaier 15y agoThis storey shows its not necessary to sell a million to make an app worthwhile. How many other niche apps are out there? Anything where you carry a computer or clipboard around is eligible. Specific to a task, or a general fill-in-a-spreadsheet-and-email-it app would fit the bill.
- nathanbarry 15y agoExactly. Not a huge amount of money or customers, but a few people find what I made very valuable which makes it worth my time to create. I'm sure plenty of people have a moderate success story like mine.
- JoeAltmaier 15y agoMy buddy did a basketball scoring app. Much nicer than what was there, certainly better than the NCAA DOS-based crap. Makes a little money. Had a ball writing it.
- xsmasher 15y agoWhen I released an exercise-tracking app for the iPhone I got contacted by a zookeeper who wanted to adapt it to manage animal's feeding schedules. I didn't take him up on it, but you never know what under-served niches are lurking at the fringes of the market.
- markazevedo 15y agoMoney aside, it's great you've created an awesome product for a group that really could use more assistance. Thanks for building something to better the human condition, and showing others they don't need to sacrifice everything to do it!
- nathanbarry 15y agoThanks for the kind words! You really can build a lot in your spare time.
- Breefield 15y agoWhoa, Nathan Barry was my first boss. He was 19 and designing websites—I was 14-15 writing PHP CMSs. We worked in an incredibly hot 2nd story office above a bike shop in Boise Idaho. Good times. Glad to see you've found success in the iOS realm, while helping improve people's lives in a real tangible way.
- nathanbarry 15y agoDustin, those were good times. Glad to see you frequent HN. Hope everything is going well for you now.
- Valien 15y agoNathan, Great story and way to find a niche that was unserved. There are so many out there (niches that is) with archaic products/services that are begging for right person to come along and improve them. Good luck with the dedicated venture!
- zackmorris 15y agoCool to see other developers who were/are in Boise. I wish we had a way to find each other besides linkedin (and not get sucked into pitching/getting pitched a job)
- nathanbarry 15y agoEmail me (nathan@thinklegend.com). I know quite a few developers in Boise.
- nathanbarry 15y agoAlso I think I was 16/17 at the time.
- Breefield 15y agoYeah, that actually sounds more correct.
- dangero 15y agoGood job. I think one of the most important things you did is you knew who your customer was before you started your application. It seems obvious, but most apps in the app store have no target customer.
- nathanbarry 15y agoYes, it was very targeted development.
- orky56 15y agoI have a similar non-technical background (UX/design) and was curious how you were able to not get frustrated and outsource the development work rather than doing it yourself. If I was in the same position, I would get too restless and want it built right away. Any advice on how you got through that situation? Thanks.
- nathanbarry 15y agoWell I started with the goal of wanting to learn programming, so outsourcing it wasn't planned at all. Though I did ask a lot of questions of some very talented friends and hired them to do some development of the things that I just couldn't understand. My goal is to be both a designer and programmer, so that made it so I had to write code myself.
- rokhayakebe 15y agoIf you are going to outsource you best have a lot of money. Remember you will go through several iterations or smaller changes before you get it right. That is extremely costly to you. You would be better off taking 3-6 months learning. This way, if your product fails (like the other 95% of all businesses), you won't come out empty handed.
- cwbrandsma 15y agoFrom experience...it also helps to have some patient programmer friends around to help (I'm one of the developers that helped Nathan build the app). :)
- nathanbarry 15y agoSo true. I recommend every get themselves some smart, patient friends. Makes all the difference.
- Torn 15y agoWhat made you decide on the $199 price point? Additionally, do you think the $199 price point might it out of reach for a lot of people who would benefit from the app but who have tights budgets?
- JoeAltmaier 15y agoSame people who bought thousand-dollar boat anchors. At 199 it has a known customer base.
- nathanbarry 15y agoI struggled a lot with how to price it. Initially I didn't think I would sell very many because I underestimated the size of the market. Because of the low volume I was going to price it at $99, but the speech language pathologists I talked to said that people were so used to paying so much, that $99 was too low. There are definitely people who can't afford it, but this price allows me to spend more time on development. Also I do give away a fair number of copies.
- robflynn 15y ago> Also I do give away a fair number of copies. I believe I have seen you do so on reddit quite a while back. :) You're doing great work and I am extremely happy for you.
- nathanbarry 15y ago
- martinshen 15y agoThis is fantastic. I hadn't heard of many apps that target this niche specifically. What are you planning in terms of marketing? PS. I love the UI I see in the screens... and would love to play with it. I wonder what type of animations you're using etc. Also, beautiful and simple website.
- newobj 15y agoReminds me, I should write my own story of how I made $190 on the App Store while exercising 15 years of coding experience.
- kirubakaran 15y agoHe made something people want. That trumps programming excellence.
- nupark2 15y agoKeep in mind -- $20k over 10 months is a pretty low return on the investment involved in an application. Perhaps the revenue will trend upwards ... but if we put our team on an application like this and only saw $20k in revenue in 10 months, we'd be out of business.
- randomdata 15y agoThough I think the point still applies. If the best computer scientists of the world had built this app, it still would have unlikely achieved greater success.
- k-mcgrady 15y agoFor 1 guy coding alone that is a good return. $2000 per month doing something you enjoy and that is changing peoples lives is great. It might not be the kind of project a team or company would take on because their main goal is profit but for an individual it is great.
- nupark2 15y agoOur average individual software engineer salary is around $10k/month, not factoring in insurance, payroll taxes, office space expenses, etc.
- k-mcgrady 15y agoBut he is working on your terms. It's a choice between working at home, without a boss, on anything you like. Or working for someone, on a specific project or piece of code. Also, I doubt you would pay a guy just getting started learning objective-c $10k/month :)
- cantbecool 15y agoNathan, that's a great market to develop applications in. There's a general need for your application, and you're helping society at the same time. I recently saw a short segment on 60 minutes, "Apps for Autism", which demonstrated and explained applications in your applications field, autistic children. Here's the video URL: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7385686n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7385686n&tag=cont...
- zeratul 15y agoThank you, Nathan. I'm glad to see an application for pediatric patients. Hopefully, the price will go down in a future. You could try to advertise it among neurologists: http://www.neurology.org/ http://www.neurology.org/
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- rokhayakebe 15y agoI want to see you super-succeed, and in a lot of ways you already have succeeded. The most important part is not that you made $19,000 while teaching yourself how to code, but that you are actually making the world a better place. I would angel fund this idea (if I had the money) the minute I would read gives a voice to anyone who cannot speak. I would venture fund your product that minute I would read replaces a $7,000+ medical device that is bulky and difficult to use.
- nathanbarry 15y agoThanks. It really has been a huge success. I haven't given funding much thought since the product is already developed, but it would definitely help with marketing.
- phil 15y agoCool. I've been noticing more of these apps (that virtualize an expensive custom device) lately. Here's another example, an app that replaces whatever gadget piano tuners used to carry: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tunelab-piano-tuner/id335568329?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tunelab-piano-tuner/id3355683...
- codesink 15y agoA good designer can score on the Appstore even if he is a novice programmer. Unfortunately that's not true for good programmers that suck at design.
- k-mcgrady 15y agoVery true. I think that it is because of the form factor (small screen, full touch) that design is essential. Fortunately there are some great designers out there for programmers to hire. I've had my most success with iOS apps where I hired a designer (I'm a programmer).
- nathanbarry 15y agoMaybe. Though Apple gives you a lot of tools to help you make good (though simple) looking applications. UIKit is pretty detailed. Here is my simple design advice if you don't know how to design: * Use the provided UI elements, they look great. * Choose a primary color and an accent color, don't get carried away. * Make sure everything lines up. Choose a number (10 pts) and align everything off of that. Aligning your UI elements will go a very long ways to make everything look good. * If you have paragraphs of text set the line height to around 1.5 (depending on the font). * The only thing provided by Apple that is Ugly is the UIButtons. Draw a simple, clean button or ask someone to make one for you. If you follow these simple ideas you can make a pretty good looking application without knowing how to design.
- nathanbarry 15y agoAlso, a programmer who can't design is able to release an ugly, but functional application. A designer who can't program will only make a beautiful but useless design. In this case I think the programmer has the advantage. Though my philosophy is to learn both.
- wallflower 15y ago> Though my philosophy is to learn both. How many of your friends are designers or artists?
- inuhj 15y agoAmazing. I'm so glad someone coded this. The price is a bit high for our institution(a struggling community hospital with 10 ICU beds) but hopefully I can get IT to consider it in our budget. The machine we use is a one-off and rarely works properly. I'm embarrassed to say that most of the time we avoid communicating with patients that are intubated. Coding a replacement has been on my to-do list for the last 2 months and I'm happy to strike it off.
- nathanbarry 15y agoPlease get in touch with me (nathan@thinklegend.com).
- inuhj 15y agoWill do.
- 16s 15y agoGreat story. You might market some to colleges and universities that have speech pathology areas. They would love this sort of app.
- yonasb 15y agoAmazing!
- evoltix 15y agoGreat job. Although, I'm particularly interested in how you made the decision to quit your full-time job and create a startup based on one-time sales? Is there a service behind this startup?
- nathanbarry 15y agoThere isn't a service behind the startup. You're right that one-time sales is the ideal model, but I haven't thought of a great way to do recurring revenue.
- jawngee 15y agoIn app picture pack/vocabulary expansion purchases? "New voices"?
- gawker 15y agoCongratulations Nathan! I'm extremely encouraged to hear about your success - especially since it's an application that addresses a real need and helps create value in society. I'm really inspired that you can do good in this world and make some money at the same time. Thanks so much!
- nivertech 15y agoPlease give us list of companies making these overpriced $7K+ devices. Any of them public?
- nathanbarry 15y agoDynavox is the largest of the companies. Just search for augmentative and alternative communication devices.
- rythie 15y agoHe's actually disrupting the market for the $7000+ device, I wonder how many the $7000+ people sell, presumably he could take most/all of their sales + a load on top who couldn't afford it in the first place. I assume at this point the $7000+ device people think they have some better features that make it worthwhile and are reluctant to do their own iPad app. (Innovators Dilemma).
- daemin 15y agoI think that the price paid for a $7000+ device is that they're buying the whole package, hardware, software, AND support as a whole package. So that when there's a problem there's one person that they need to contact to get it resolved (in the ideal case). I'm sure the author could go that way, buying iPads or other Android tablets (if the software gets ported), package up they software, make it auto boot, etc and form it into a complete package. The price then wouldn't be just the app, but the tablet, installation costs, and future support as well. It would be cheaper, but not by the same order of magnitude that the app is cheaper than the $7000+ device.
- lizzard 15y agoThat market desperately needs to be disrupted. No, they don't think they have some better feature, they think they can charge insurance companies and Medicare whatever they want for their crappy hardware and software, and the people who can't afford it are out of luck. They're like parasites on people who are as a class incredibly disempowered. There are efforts to open source this kind of project, but they're few and far between.
- pkamb 15y agoVery inspiring. Do you use AdWords or any other forms of advertising? What percentage of your sales are to people you contact personally?
- nathanbarry 15y agoI contact Speech Language Pathologists personally, and it is their clients that purchase the application. Maybe 20% come from personal contacts in some way. No, I haven't used AdWords yet.
- pkamb 15y agoThe rest primarily coming in from natural Google ranking + the app store pages then?
- nathanbarry 15y agoA lot from reviews that have been written on different industry sites and blogs. Also the Facebook page has 500+ fans.
- billpatrianakos 15y agoA lot of people will focus on the money and come away wondering if they can make a quick buck too. Hopefully people don't miss the point. You made a cool app for a really niche market that had a huge need for this inexpensive tool. And you helped some people really needed it. Kudos, man. You learned to code for iOS, helped people in need, and made a buck off it. Awesome.
- ajb 15y agoSo, why is it better than Proloqu2go? (My relatives have already bought that for their nonverbal son, so this we are unlikely to be a sale unless you're really convincing).
- nathanbarry 15y agoEase of use is the big difference. OneVoice is very user friendly compared to all the other applications. Also it uses realistic looking icons rather than stick figure / cartoon drawings.
- larrys 15y agoHere's what I would do. 1) Get a copy of it in the hands of special ed departments at schools (for free). And the people who oversee the IEP's, counselors etc. You will then get referrals to sell the full priced product after people see a demo. 2) Lower the price of your product so it's a no brainer for parents. Having the price so high is going to invite competition that will sell the same app at a lower price. While that can still happen with a lower price it is more likely at the price point you are at because people will be more motivated to compete (and anyway you will sell more at the lower price..) 3) Come up with a different name or buy onevoice.com. If the product is recommended you need people to be able to easily find your website. Not only don't you own the domain name onevoice.com but you don't come up (now) in any search results. Edit: "search results" - as in when someone hears about it and they google it not the app store.
- yesbabyyes 15y agoHe has http://onevoiceapp.com/ http://onevoiceapp.com/ redirecting to his homepage. I agree that it would probably be a good idea to use the domain instead.
- nathanbarry 15y agoYes, I do need to work on search rankings. I've been giving out free copies to educators and speech language pathologists to get them familiar with it. I also have a free demo copy coming out in the next couple weeks. Thanks for the advice.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- ohhmaar 15y agoSeems very inspiring. Thanks.
- kschua 15y agoVery impressive Nathan. I like that it is not just another one of those app products that is targeted at the masses. Instead, you found a niche, talk to customers and found a nice selling price, which from the user's perspective is a bargain. Congrats
- eliben 15y agoThis is a really great and inspiring story, IMO. Shows how modern technology can truly change people's lives. Sure, this kicks some speciality device companies out of the market (like I'm sure was done many times now by smartphone & tablet apps), but who cares about that?
- postscapes1 15y agoDoes this work well for people who have suffered strokes as well?
- nathanbarry 15y agoYes, it does.
- erikb 15y agoThis kind of story always reads like a financial fail. He should pay himself a normal programmers salary (something around 50k/year for a beginner might be fine, also he is not a beginner, because he knows a lot about presentation and UX design) and THEN calculate his profits. Probably this App is way in the minus. Also you must consider that he just has around 1k customers and all of them on the same plattform. Also these customers only paid him once and not regularily. That are 4 big risks: low number of customers, no guaranty to get any dollar next month and a high dependence on one plattform and high dependence on the success of this one app. Another risk, I nearly forgot about, is that the core feature of his app, the speach engine, is not even his own. What if Acapela decides they make their own App in this direction. Concluding everything I think he has a low income, unprofitable, high risk business. Not the position I want to be in, when I quit my dayjob. edit I just now see that you posted the link yourself, Nathan. Please read all "he"s as "you". ;-)
- nathanbarry 15y agoYou are right in a so many ways. From a business perspective it isn't the best model (I am looking for ways to add recurring revenue), I probably made minimum wage if you break down my time, and I don't have many customers. But here's what I do have: emails from customers every single week saying how what I built is changing the lives of their child. Does anything else matter beyond that? I'm working on something I care deeply about and am able to still provide for my family while doing it. That's the position I want to be in.
- marknutter 15y agoAnd there really is nothing to fear. You can supplement that income by building apps for other people in their spare time now that you have a valuable skill. There's no reason you can't have it both ways.
- erikb 15y agoAlso a valid argument. I think it's the first time in my whole life that I got valuable content from 2 counterarguments in the same thread. HN is awesome!
- code_duck 15y agoGreat story, and nice work! This happened because you decided to push ahead and make something you saw the need for clearly. Sometime soon I might share the story of how I made $100,000 on the (... what to call it?) browser while learning to code.