Jiggy's comment[1] about why Coffee != Apps to be spot on. Your app is an unknown quantity, getting someone to spend anything on an unknown quantity is really r

Jiggy's comment[1] about why Coffee != Apps to be spot on. Your app is an unknown quantity, getting someone to spend anything on an unknown quantity is really really hard. When you go to McDonald's (or anyone for that matter) do you get something different every time, or do you get your favorite thing? Same goes for Olive Garden or Cheesecake Factory, did you get the burger last time and the fresh fish catch this time? Probably not. To some degree, those fart apps are a known quantity; they make fart noises, so they have the advantage over your app of having their foot in the door for everyone interested. It seems unfair, but there has to be a strategy there for riding that wave. Hollywood has always done it, did you enjoy Superman 7 or Harry Potter 14? It doesn't matter, it was a known quantity and eleventeen million people went and saw it. It seems like SJ is being forced to learn this lesson over-and-over again[2] and I've already shared my thoughts with you about that[3]. Your expectations of what you want SJ to do and exactly how you want it to do it may be too tight. You guys are clearly talented and I wonder if you need some step-back-and-get-a-better-perspective time. Tom's comment[4] is a great example of what I mean. Does ShiftyJelly want to get into the gun or fart-app business? Probably not... does SJ want $50k? Probably yes. It feels to me like there is some unexpected pivot in here for you guys to extract; one that you didn't see coming, but one that works out surprisingly well for you. NOTE: Make the two app references at the end of the article links to the appstore. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3285771 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3285771 [2] http://shiftyjelly.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/amazon-app-store-rotten-to-the-core/ http://shiftyjelly.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/amazon-app-store... [3] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2837439 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2837439 [4] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3284450 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3284450