n9com

17 ms·

121.
by n9com 15y ago
Great app, but you need to drop the price to below $8 - I think this will help you maximise revenue. (based on my experience of having several top 50 apps on the mac app store over the past few months).
122.
by n9com 15y ago
This is really dangerous advice
123.
by n9com 15y ago
Web apps just don't have the same fast and slick feel as native apps. We've tried making them work, but mobile browsers just aren't good enough yet to process the JS at a reasonable speed.
124.
by n9com 15y ago
The screenshot of the app is terrible (make it front on, and in high quality) and after looking at the webpage, I still have no clue what your app is about. Is it a food app?
125.
by n9com 15y ago
I agree with the 'release fast and often' approach. However, this is just an example of really poor testing. If a key button on your app causes it to crash, then there is no justification for that. You also pissed off a bunch of your users
126.
by n9com 15y ago
The bug at Christmas actually happened the year before too, and it was hell for a lot of developers when the same bug happened again last year. But I guess you learn to get used to it.
127.
by n9com 15y ago
Not currently accepting new projects, hit us up in the middle of October - we might have more time on our hands then.
128.
by n9com 15y ago
Will do in Part 4!
129.
by n9com 15y ago
probably could have broken into the Top 25 without it, but didn't want to risk not advertising, just in case we didn't.
130.
by n9com 15y ago
Cool, glad we got you to sign up to HN :) Great question, I'm pretty technical since I've was developing websites for several years before starting FIPLAB. At times, I even figure out how to code things when our programmer can't figure it o
131.
by n9com 15y ago
Perhaps, but unless you're someone like Steve Jobs you're not going to come out with a TOTALLY new idea that no one in the world hasn't done or thought of already. Even Disney ripped off Kimba to make Lion King. http://www.hemmy.net/2007/0
132.
by n9com 15y ago
Thanks. Paid advertising is pretty much useless, unless you have very deep pockets. We just splashed a bit of cash on it as we needed to do everything possible to break into the Top 25 'Golden Zone'. We also got a very good deal at $0.01 CP
133.
by n9com 15y ago
if people complain, you know you have something worth complaining about :)
134.
by n9com 15y ago
paid apps are great, we have a few: FaceTab Pro, MailTab Pro, Disk Doctor, London Cycle Pro etc... about 50% of our income is from paid apps.
135.
Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 3)(blog.fiplab.com)
153 points by n9com 15y ago|36 comments
136.
by n9com 15y ago
For our cycle app alone, we have 300k downloads and at least several thousand active users per day (when it's not raining). Scaling is definitely an issue if you're getting a lot of complaints, but this is certainly great early on when each
137.
by n9com 15y ago
Thanks dude, from experience, a lot of angry customers change their tune after they receive a quick and helpful response. This was just one particular example. As for auto-refresh, we couldn't do this as it would trigger TfL abuse systems.
138.
How we turned angry users into our biggest fans(blog.fiplab.com)
3 points by n9com 15y ago|4 comments
139.
by n9com 15y ago
We could probably kick up a bit of trouble for their app, but frankly speaking, is it really worth it? We've moved on to bigger and better things, and despite their app launching, we've still got by far the biggest user base of cycle hire a
140.
by n9com 15y ago
It's not so much that we felt pressurised by our friends, but more to do with the fact that we were disappointed in failing to live up to our OWN expectations. Simply put, we graduated from two of the best Universities in London, and here w
141.
Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 2)(blog.fiplab.com)
166 points by n9com 15y ago|17 comments
142.
by n9com 15y ago
I'd say around $80k-100k plus bonus, but tbh, without a CS (or physics/maths) degree, you're pretty lucky to even get an offer as most hedge funds won't even consider you for a programming position without one.
143.
by n9com 15y ago
Yes, it was our first app. We engaged them by involving them in design decisions, naming the characters, selecting the various islands (country side, city, desert, snow), picking the app icon from a selection of 3 choices etc...
144.
by n9com 15y ago
Our apps do make money whilst we sleep. bootstrapping is using your own money to start a business and reinvesting the revenues to fuel growth - that's exactly what we are doing.
145.
by n9com 15y ago
exactly :) - hence the point "Lesson #3: Don't put all your eggs in one basket"
146.
by n9com 15y ago
we are going to explain all our successes, it's actually not that hard for someone to find out which ones they are if they take the time to check out our portfolio.
147.
by n9com 15y ago
you guys are so cynical, CopterKid isn't the app that is making us $30k profit/month. We have a lot of other very successful iOS and Mac apps (and their profit combined adds up to $30k profit/month) - check out our main website before jumpi
148.
by n9com 15y ago
that's awesome, thanks - will hit you up once all the 'parts' are out.
149.
by n9com 15y ago
It's not James Long, but you'll learn about James later (he's American and played an instrumental part in the early days of our business). The german CS graduate was a guy called Mike Weller - who afaik decided to live a less stressful life
150.
by n9com 15y ago
Thanks Scott. It's a very long story about how we got FIPLAB to the stage it is at today. There is so much advice we want to give and it would just be information overload if we tried to fit it into one post. I'll write up Part 2 over the w

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