It IS possible to change your life

Hi, Just a quick post to offer a little inspiration:

I have several apps but make 99.9% of the money through 2 apps. $1400 a day, 18k downloads per day. Over 1 million active users.

No tricks, just 3 years of sticking with my apps, updating them and responding to emails promptly. You can either go for the copy/paste route and make a quick buck or concentrate, do better than the competition and consistently make over $30,000 a month. The apps I mention are tools, not games. I think a lot of people see the app stores as a get rich quick scheme but there is just as much chance of making it by offering quality applications.

Believe me, $30,000 a month DOES change your life. I don’t need millions. :slight_smile:

I currently only use Admob banners and interstitials but are looking out for a good mediation technique to boost further.

Great to be part of the community.

J.

Thank you for this, I completely agree with spending time on developing a quality app opposed to creating spam crappy apps.

I also strongly believe you need a marketing budget as well, otherwise your app/game will go nowhere unless you get very lucky and some big website finds it and shares it.

Well, this is something I have read time and time again and spent a LOT on Admob advertising along with reviews with very little success. Would you mind sharing some of your marketing techniques? I do cross promote my own apps (this works).

I have always thought that there is no better marketing technique than a great app or game. Congratulations for your success, we are still struggling to find it!

Hey bakasiapps how u doing man. I thought ur games tap the box and a recent one don’t remember it’s name were above average success. Seeing ur reply above looks like I m wrong

Unfortunately you are wrong indeed. We have had some success with Tap the Box but had many failures afterwards. Color Fill 2 is doing just decently, but just to cover the expenses and have a small income (currently generating $30-35/day). We started working now on a big, ambitious project that hopefully will make us reach our 1MM downloads game. Will start a thread once we got more substance to show :wink:

Good luck, I’ve read the thread you mentioned and I wait for it:) Sounds big and impressive.

Great inspiration for us! Can I ask what type of apps? Utilites, productivity, tools?

Thanks

No problem. Ah I never got the difference between utilities and tools :slight_smile: I would consider them to be utilities.

Try to think of something people use EVERY day. Thats been the key to the apps succeeding - growing audience that builds and builds. What apps would you use every day? Think beyond whats there on the store, what do you wish there was to use every day. I believe there is loads of untapped opportunities. Copying works and is easy but it would be better if developers were thinking out of the box and bringing something fresh to the store. People stick with games and hope for the big win, personally I believe there is just too much competition. Make something useful instead. Maybe not as fun but much more rewarding.

Anyways, I’m thinking out loud :slight_smile:

How do you deal with the stiff competition for these tools? I use a flashlight app every day but when I was looking for one, there were 100’s. I ended up picking the one with the least permissions needed. But I ran into this problem with an app i just released, even though it’s better (IMO) then others and I’m getting downloads, all the apps ahead of me have 100K to 10 million downloads, and seems impossible to move up.

Good question and the answer is simple. Don’t. There is VERY little point in producing yet another Flashlight application when there are apps that have been on there for years with as you say, tens of millions of downloads. I would say 50,000 to 100,000 shows potential but research into how long the apps have been on the store for. If only weeks or months there is certainly a market. If they have been there for years the market is slow. Don’t look for apps with no downloads and don’t look for those with tens of millions. Go in between. Think differently and forget the obvious choices. Also think about what people in other countries do and start doing some keyword research. A great example is hunting. In the UK hunting isn’t popular at all but go to the US - its huge and along with that audience is a bunch of apps. Go to the Play store and check them out. A consistent audience. Do some researching around the topic of hunting and see if you could produce anything. Its only an example to show that there are many niches with untapped audiences. You just have to find them.

You may be wondering … hang on, he only has two apps making money. This is true, I’m changing my game and using the above method along with my stable user base to move to the next step. A lot of research has got me this far. Read, read, watch, watch and listen to every podcast you can above good quality, app businesses. Not get quick rich schemes all saying how to break the rules. It could be a longterm business model - why not? :slight_smile:

I agree with all of what you are saying but how do you find out how long an app has been on the store? On the store listing it only says the date when it was last updated. I check the comments to see the dates on them to find the oldest comment, is that what you use?

Almost all traditional categories are full of loads of apps. People who enter early into a category are the best earners. The best place is to look at top new 30 days category. OP has flashlight and digital stopwatch apps. He got early into them. Now if u try entering into them, will take years to reach 1M downloads.
From Chad Mureta’s book: Frequently check the top new 30 days category to see what all new niches are building up and be quick to enter into that niche.

Thanks for giving me inspiration. I’m not at your level (yet!). I do have made crappy apps with crappy results of course. Thanks for your tips.

Yes this is generally what I do. You can also use Appbrain’s Changelog tool for an individual app which will give a little history too.

So what did you do to rise up and stay at the top of the charts? Was it a slow rise or did you pop up after some promoting? How many apps did you go through till you found the 2 that work?

These were the two apps that I originally started with three years ago. Despite making no income for a year and a half I stuck with them. Listened to the small audience and kept improving. It was certainly a slow rise and I am no where near the top of the charts! I am yet to use any promotion techniques although it seems this is necessary these days. Once you gain some traction it seems to stick. I produce apps that people want and don’t buy into passing fads.

What did you do to get their feedback? Just reading comments? You said you didn’t make money for a year and a half, what happened after that?

Hi would you mind sharing your App, it’s really inspiring.

Hey, great story. That type of income is definitely life changing. Would you mind sharing which ad networks that you use? Thanks