Ask HN: How did everyone do with Launch an App Month? • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by ashraful » Thu, Dec 02, 2010, 5:44 PM UTC

It basically lets you meetup with other hackers. You post lunch plans and let others join in.

Its very buggy (I am not a coder, and I don't think I'll manage to become one) and at this point has a rather ugly interface (ironically I'm a web designer). I worked on this for two days and released it, which is a big deal for me since this is the first time I actually launched something.

I haven't received much feedback from the HN community, which is a bit discouraging, but I plan to keep working on this.

In the immediate next release, I will make it a bit more stable and improve the interface (new design: http://i.imgur.com/KOaA8.jpg). And after that, if I get any positive feedback, I'll add features like adding more personal (links to you social network profiles), filter by location, etc.

If anyone has any feedback on the site, the current version or the future plans, please share.

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

#42

Post by Timothee » Thu, Dec 02, 2010, 5:45 PM UTC

markkanof wrote: post #19

Terrible, although I am smack in the middle of selling my house and moving from the east coast to the west coast, so perhaps this wasn't a great time to try to build and launch an app. I really like the idea of setting a deadline to launch an app though. November wasn't really a workable time period for me personally, but it would definitely be helpful for me to set a deadline and possibly make it public so it would…

Same here. Except that I bought a house.

Even my similar submission to HN about the status of the apps launched didn't go so well (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1955031) :)

But, as I said there, I'll keep working on this.

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

#43

Post by kaffeinecoma » Thu, Dec 02, 2010, 5:46 PM UTC

percept wrote: post #34

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 it…

I was thinking the same thing, that 500 clicks was an awfully small sample size, and that I needed to collect more data. But I could go broke trying to get to a meaningful N. :-)

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

#44

Post by Yoms » Thu, Dec 02, 2010, 5:48 PM UTC

I launched the beta of http://babble.ly

A Twilio powered free disposable link generator for phone numbers. The goal is to enable users to be contacted by phone on the internet, quickly, easily and privately.

I'd love feedback!

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

#45

Post by hariis » Thu, Dec 02, 2010, 5:50 PM UTC

It is amusing with our app, we launched 'Can I afford it now?' http://caniafforditnow.com and when we showed it to friends, everyone got excited and started telling us how we could monetize it and how they might use it but they never actually went and used it.

We think it has potential and it is just a matter of finding motivated users and will push in that direction but we shall see....

If you have ideas, please share or email me

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

#46

Post by tommizzle » Thu, Dec 02, 2010, 5:50 PM UTC

poincare wrote: post #33

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?

We have the relationships with the merchants, the users don't. We take a small cut of each sale.

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

#47

Post by david_shaw » Thu, Dec 02, 2010, 5:52 PM UTC

I think I did really well for the Launch an App Month.

I launched http://sleepyti.me as a "weekend project" at the very beginning of November. It's a simple site designed to help users figure out the best time to go to sleep in order to wake up refreshed.

I have been working steadily on improving the user experience thanks to really helpful feedback that I've gotten from HN and reddit users (thanks!). The site is currently "profitable" from the standpoint that the money I'm scrapping together from ads pays for its share of the (cheapest) Linode plan I have.

I consider Sleepyti.me to be a success (not bad for a guy who doesn't know web design!), and I'm looking forward to building bigger, better and hopefully more monetizable projects in the future.

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

#48

Post by lionheart » Thu, Dec 02, 2010, 5:54 PM UTC

Almost, almost ready. Just putting on the final touches and planning on launching in 2 weeks.

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

#49

Post by steveklabnik » Thu, Dec 02, 2010, 5:55 PM UTC

I didn't reach my goal, but that's because I'm taking a break from most side projects to finish my grad school application, which unfortunately takes precedence due to hard deadlines. :/

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

#50

Post by jaxn » Thu, Dec 02, 2010, 5:55 PM UTC

I was planning to launch http://getbizen.com in November. In some ways it is a success. The site it up, I can accept new customers, there is a product (a BI dashboard for franchisees).

However, I got a little sidetracked because I had fundraising opportunities pop up. I ended up spending more time in the last two weeks of November talking to investors than I did talking to customers. I don't know that I should say that I was "sidetracked" because I am responding to investor inquiries, not seeking out potential investors.

My goal was to launch the app and have a paying customer. Instead the app is ready for customers, and I have customer interest, but I did not meet that goal. I was using the HN November push as a way to try and accelerate the execution of a business I had already started working on (in September).

I am not going to claim success in Launch an App Month, but it was great for me and I have been killing it all month. Now I am going to do "Close the funding December" so that I can get back to building the business. I am really excited by this opportunity.