Profitable but poor, am I doing it right?

39 points by shaunfs 15 years ago | 37 comments

I have recently released an iPhone app product that I am really proud of. So far it's been out for about 5 weeks and has consistently sold 5-10 units per day with no marketing behind it. I was wondering if this is a normal start or subpar for other iPhone app developers? It's generating income, although $15 a day obviously isn't going to retire me anytime soon. I plan on releasing some additional products soon but I wanted to ask some other developers their opinion.

Does advertising your iPhone app work on mass-market websites or is it better to advertise on other iPhone apps? Any additional marketing methods that you would recommend?

Did you find your app orders increased naturally over time as word-of-mouth spread or did it plateau and require marketing efforts on your part to increase order volume?

aaronbrethorst 15 years ago |

Try sending promo codes to people who work at: TSR (or WOTC or whatever it's part of these days); Steve Jackson Games; Palladium (or whomever owns it now).

If Dragon Magazine is still around, send them a few promo codes too. Get involved in D+D discussion forums and (politely) plug your app.

Maybe $1.99 is too high. Maybe not. I can't really judge that. I can tell you, though—from experience as a developer and consumer of iPhone apps—that $0.99 is much more of an impulse purchase than $1.99 is.

Heck, maybe you can mark the app as "ON SALE! $0.99 for two weeks only! And use that as part of your pitch to the aforementioned companies, magazines and web forums."

shaunfs 15 years ago | |

Thanks for the helpful suggestions, I'm looking into them now. The 0.99 sale sound like a good idea to test the waters. I tried to price it on the low end compared to most of the competition.

mortenjorck 15 years ago | | |

I can't agree enough with the importance of trying to reach the taste makers in the industry. You may never reach them, but if you do, and you make a good impression, it can completely transform your market presence.

No reason not to try, especially when the cost of doing so is so low.

aaronbrethorst 15 years ago | | |

sure thing, and good luck!

alain94040 15 years ago |

$15/day is not profitability. It's gross revenue. You incurred costs to develop the app (time).

That being said, it's a good start. Now spend a few hours promoting your app to review sites and other places. That won't hurt. Note how I didn't say advertise.

barmstrong 15 years ago | |

Sort of - if he hired an employee to develop it, then it'd be a cost but I don't think his time really counts here.

Opportunity cost? Sure. When reporting it to the IRS so they can get social security from what an equivalent employee would have cost? Yes. But I think most entrepreneurs would call that profit...and not count their own time (especially if it's nights/weekends).

shaunfs 15 years ago | | |

Unfortunately if I counted my time I would be in the hole about 4-6k right now.

anamax 15 years ago | | |

> Sort of - if he hired an employee to develop it, then it'd be a cost but I don't think his time really counts here.

Time counts if he eats, has living expensese, has a finite lifetime, etc.

einarvollset 15 years ago |

Some thoughts:

1. You don't have enough reviews. Your app store search rankings will improve once an actual rating is computed. Give away some apps, or even make it free for a few days. Note that free apps == crap ratings however..

2. The name: Was "dice roller" or "Die roller" taken? With the way the app store search works, the easiest way to get traffic is to have a name that has a high natural search volume. Basically, high search volume on google == high search volume on the app store (in my experience 1/10th-1/20th).

3. Do a free version supported by iAds. The CPM there is still high, I'm seeing $10-$20CPM, and with 5-10 units per day at $1.99, you should be looking at 2-300 units for a free version easily. Might also increase sales of full version.

shaunfs 15 years ago | |

Thanks for the feedback.

1. I will try to persuade some of my customers to submit app ratings. Unfortunately the ratio of purchases to review seems to be about 70 to 1, at least for this app.

2. Dice roller was taken although die roller I think is open. I'll try to tailor the name,description, and keywords to more heavily trafficked related search terms. I did include some game names in the description which seems to help with search some.

3. I have a free version with iAds waiting for Apple review now. I'm hoping that will help supplement the revenue and also drive sales to the paid version. $10-20 CPM sounds great. I'm from a web background and traditional website CPM is nowhere near that.

aaronbrethorst 15 years ago | | |

One way I've found to get more app ratings from users is to monitor the number of app launches and after, say, 5 of them, pop up a UIAlertView asking them to rate the app. Saying "OK" opens the App Store URL. Saying "no" prompts them once more later on, and then never prompts them again.

patio11 15 years ago |

Have a sale on me for good design and geekery.

There are a few RPG based startups here. Consider tapping (pun absolutely intended) their audiences for reviews. RPG sites have ungodly poor monetization, so you should be able to get nice ad deals with them. They get it because gamers are poor, which bodes ill for you, but still...

SEO prints free money, in this and other niches. You should rank for iPad/iPhone dice roll within a week or two of trying for it. Might as well, right?

Get email addresses of prospects if you are staying in this niche! Next time you launch app, hit list with a blast email. App store dynamics are very sensitive to early momentum.

If you want to get better compensated for your time, I suggest making things for people who have money and enjoy spending it. Middle aged women in suburbia, for example.

brianimmel 15 years ago |

Sorry no wisdom here, but looks really polished, great design.

I even like the nod to the low AT&T signal bars. :)

shaunfs 15 years ago | |

lol, sadly it's an actual screenshot from my phone. I'm lucky to get a bar or two.

Rickasaurus 15 years ago |

It looks pretty but there's already a bunch of dice rolling apps out there. Saved formulas does look cool though.

It might be worth it to take out an ad in a D&D mag or a site with high traffic.

shaunfs 15 years ago | |

That's true, there are quite a few dice rolling apps out there. This was my first time coding in objective-c so I wanted to keep the app concept simple yet still related to D&D.

I've started looking into the magazine ads and related websites recently although the minimum spend might require me to wait for a month or two since I want to try and keep this business completely self-funded.

AmitinLA 15 years ago |

So one of the major cake mix companies spent millions of dollars developing a no-mix no-stir cake mix product that, though a great product, ended up being a terrible failure largely because buyers of the mix felt like they weren't doing enough work.

Even though this may be an apocryphal story (I can't find a link on Google), I think it illustrates an important point about user experience. As someone who has played tabletop games, physically rolling dice was an integral part of the game because it was, to romanticize it, the closest physical analogue I was going to get to actually slaying that diamond spider. Pulling out an iPhone to roll dice doesn't have that same appeal, and in addition, you are trying to supplant a long-standing ritual that is inextricably associated with tabletop games.

This is, of course, merely a possibility to consider. Personally, I would talk to more customers, if you haven't, or even test them out at local gaming nights and see what people are reacting too. See what other products gamers and DMs need -- after all there are over 20 million of them out there for D&D alone according to Wiki, which is a big enough market to make money out of. Maybe DMs would like a way to manage characters or stats, for example. Build a brand out of related, high-quality products in the process.

nimblegorilla 15 years ago | |

From a player's perspective I think you are right that part of the fun is physically rolling dice. If you run one of these games as a GM you might tire of the romantic dice rolling.

d_r 15 years ago |

Good luck on your quest!

You get 50 promo codes for each version of your app. Share them with everyone! Number of daily downloads for your app affects the ranking (as may other factors). Then, update your app often to get more promo codes.

There are forums on MacRumors and TouchArcade where you can post promo codes of your app -- they'll be downloaded very quickly. You can ask people to leave an honest review/stars (although most people don't tend to leave reviews after downloading.) FWIW, on MacRumors you'll need to create an account and log in to see the "Code sharing" forum. (http://forums.macrumors.com/forumdisplay.php?f=136)

To get reviews you should do what aaronbrethorst wrote and make a popup after N launches. The top apps (say, Angry Birds or Doodle Jump) also employ this technique.

arn 15 years ago |

Trying to succeed in the App Store is a whole different world in itself.

In general advertising is tough for any $1.99 product. For this particular product I'd say it's even tougher. A dice roller is simply not a mass market product. So most of your advertising dollars are going to be wasted on people who don't care.

Asking sites for reviews and maybe even finding some D&D-type sites that would be willing to look at it and review it would be your best bet -- and just takes your time.

An ad-supported version may help visibility, but don't rely on iAds alone. The fill rates are not high enough. Alternatively, if there's a simple way to make a Lite version without giving away the whole thing, that can also be a way to get increased visibility.

shaunfs 15 years ago | |

It is definitely a very niche product, possibly to my detriment. I'm in the process now of requesting reviews from the larger related sites. I definitely agree with the lite version, I have one waiting in the app approval process now. It has some of the functionality and an ability to upgrade within the application.

Thanks for the feedback!

gte910h 15 years ago |

You might find the cost is too low.

The app store will buy more copies of an app at 4.99 than at 1.99 sometimes.

Try a 3.99 price point for a few weeks and see if your sales drop off at all. Make sure you get a weekend in.

I suggest something like AppFigures/AppNanny to track the dailies.

iworkforthem 15 years ago |

you are making some money from it, so you have to be doing something right. next there are a few options; - develop and grow existing user base. - create more apps. u have to decide which works best for you, i think marketing is over rated. unless i want to create a brand name which i want to keep, it can still pretty profitable focusing on the above 2 options.

but if u must market your app, make it worthwhile for your effort. e.g. i would give out coupons or version of my paid apps for users who give me feedback or ideas. it worked really well for me so far. i give something that they want, and if the idea is any good i can create something that solve a problem. that pays really well.

frossie 15 years ago |

Do you mind saying what the app is?

shaunfs 15 years ago | |

http://bit.ly/axJcJp

sliverstorm 15 years ago |

Perhaps (dare I say it) there just aren't enough table-top gamers left? It certainly seemed to be on a steep decline as I exited my teenage years :(

shaunfs 15 years ago | |

It's sad but true, with MMOs and epic single player RPGs for the desktop and consoles available tabletop gaming is on the decline. I'm hoping to build some tools to help make tabletop gaming less about the math and physical book/paperwork management and more about the social and imaginative experience that is difficult to replicate in the video game space. All I have at the moment is a dice roller though :)