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Ask HN: How did everyone do with Launch an App Month?

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Re: Ask HN: How did everyone do with Launch an App Month?

#31

Post by carbon8 »

I put together Markup Converter http://markupconverter.com/

It's a simple web service for converting markup from one format to another. Most of the conversions in the app are done using the Haskell library Pandoc, but I'm also using Discount, Python's Docutils and Ruby's RedCloth. It was also an opportunity to use MongoDB a little more. Right now it just converts snippets to snippets, but I'm in the process of adding additional options, like autolinking URLs when outputting HTML and adding headers and footers for formats like RTF that require them for complete documents.

I really liked the November sprint idea and am going to try to launch at least one thing a month this winter, even if only a simple microapp.

Re: Ask HN: How did everyone do with Launch an App Month?

#32

Post by benologist »

I rolled out a series of huge updates for my site:

- released a JavaScript version of the API

- released an ActionScript 2 version of the API (AS2 is an antique I wasn't going to bother with but one of my users back-ported my API for me so I took it from there)

- added custom data for leaderboard scores, can't wait to see what my users do with that

- added some awesome new reports to help developers make their games more engaging and generally ease them into data-driven development, a lot of casual game developers "launch and forget" which is something I'd like to see phased out

- launched the level sharing API for user-created levels

- announced pricing, still haven't implemented it yet but that's coming ASAP

And I made the whole thing real time ... 8 billion events a month and growing!

Re: Ask HN: How did everyone do with Launch an App Month?

#33

Post by poincare »

tommizzle wrote: post #11

I launched the beta of my app in mid-November, although I must admit I did start mid-October so I'm hoping I still qualify! I decided to build a revenue generating URL shortener. This was one of the first full projects where I basically did everything myself - research, design, development etc, which was a bit frustrating a times. It's ridiculous how unproductive my design days were compared to my development days, b…

It looks like users can make money by having their affiliate codes embedded in (qualified) links they submit. But, how are you making money?

Re: Ask HN: How did everyone do with Launch an App Month?

#34

Post by percept »

kaffeinecoma wrote: post #23

Inspired by patio11 and Bingo Card Creator, I launched Quick Brown Frog: http://www.quickbrownfrog.com http://quickbrownfrog.wordpress.com It's at the MVP stage, and while a technical success (I think it's an awesome in-browser app), no one seems to be interested in paying for it. I reduced the price to $10 prior to launch, and I still haven't had a nibble. I burned through about $200 in Adwords/Bing/Facebook ads so…

I won't claim to have answers but I can share some impressions.

The number of clicks you mentioned isn't a lot to judge a PPC campaign on. In such a small sample you never know where the clicks may fall--sometimes you'll get a bunch later and be surprised. I don't mean to suggest you should continue your campaign (especially if you're paying a lot for clicks while lowering your price), just that I wouldn't measure its success based on such a small sample size.

Price drops like that just seem like a race to the bottom, and it doesn't appear you've generated enough traffic to know for sure whether it's necessary. If/when you do find someone who'll pay $9, maybe they would have been just as happy paying $29, or more.

If it does turn out you're "competing with free," there are articles out there discussing tactics you can use to compete. Can you white-label it and sell to businesses, such as temp firms (I assume they still do typing tests)? Or professional training programs?

If that doesn't work, can you give away the tests and sell something else? Use it to generate traffic and promote a broader/different product, etc.?

Re: Ask HN: How did everyone do with Launch an App Month?

#35

Post by europa »

patio11 wrote: post #16
europa wrote: post #8

I am still working on mine. It'll take a few more weeks before the MVP ready to be launched. I have my landing page up at http://www.serverfabu.com/ The inspiration for this project came from the feedback I've received for my ASK HN http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1815344

I am very interested in seeing what you come up with, even if I have no immediate use for it now. The last month taught me, again, why I am not a sysadmin.

Thanks for showing interest in this. I'll definitely post my launch here. Also notify you if you have signed up at my landing page

Re: Ask HN: How did everyone do with Launch an App Month?

#36

Post by kaffeinecoma »

patio11 wrote: post #29
kaffeinecoma wrote: post #23

Inspired by patio11 and Bingo Card Creator, I launched Quick Brown Frog: http://www.quickbrownfrog.com http://quickbrownfrog.wordpress.com It's at the MVP stage, and while a technical success (I think it's an awesome in-browser app), no one seems to be interested in paying for it. I reduced the price to $10 prior to launch, and I still haven't had a nibble. I burned through about $200 in Adwords/Bing/Facebook ads so…

That is a wonderful application technically. Chat me up sometime when I'm more coherent and I'll give you some marketing/conversion pointers. The only one I trust myself to be accurate on at 2:30 AM is that you need to charge radically more.

Thanks! I'll be in touch.

Re: Ask HN: How did everyone do with Launch an App Month?

#37

Post by dominostars »

koenbok wrote: post #3

Well, we did not launch but had two major updates to Kaleidoscope and Versions: http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com http://www.versionsapp.com We're especially happy with our changeset feature for git/svn/bzr/hg: http://vimeo.com/17363481 and would love to hear feedback.

You work on versions, do you? After using it at my last job, I've found that my work flow completely depends on it. You can tell it was an application designed for the mac, not just by the way it looks, but by the way it works ('Reveal in Finder'? Thank you!). I love how easy it is to see view my changes. I love how easy it is to see that there are changes in the repository, and view what those changes are. I love that you can view the full history of a file, along with who committed each change, the commit note for it, and the diff.

I have to say, though, that if the app was only $10 I probably would have bought it for personal use 9 months ago. As it stands, I'm still struggling with the price, even though I'll probably cave in and buy it after the trial ends on my new computer.

Re: Ask HN: How did everyone do with Launch an App Month?

#38

Post by poincare »

koenbok wrote: post #3

Well, we did not launch but had two major updates to Kaleidoscope and Versions: http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com http://www.versionsapp.com We're especially happy with our changeset feature for git/svn/bzr/hg: http://vimeo.com/17363481 and would love to hear feedback.

Those designs are absolutely awesome.

Re: Ask HN: How did everyone do with Launch an App Month?

#39

Post by zmitri »

Made an app to upload and play your music library online through the browser. Not only that, but enabled one click library sharing between friends with an access link.

for example: http://ymitrimusic.appspot.com/share/5ef46

You can login with your google account. The front end is based on the open source sound cloud player, and i've left some of the soundcloud functionality in for streaming.

Re: Ask HN: How did everyone do with Launch an App Month?

#40

Post by lionheart »

patio11 wrote: post #27
commiebob wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats! And will you be doing a final wrap up blog post about the process? If so, I am looking forward to it.

Sure. Anything you want me to cover in particular? I'm also in talks with Twilio about producing something with them about it. Preview of coming attractions: everybody should use Twilio. Oh goodness. It is freaking amazing. It is like email: add it to an application, just about any application, and it gets suddenly, radically better. ( And the existence of it makes possible applications that wouldn't be possible othe…

I've played around with Twilio and I'll second this statement 100%.

Now I just need to think of something to make that can take full advantage of their capabilities.

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