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$80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

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Re: $80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

#51

Post by qbui »

jonhendry wrote: post #49
qbui wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Used to be SW devs. I used to do .NET programming for a big DOD contractor, then worked for a local internet startup for while, but why talk about my old career? That would have been boring. Plus as we tried to explain, at some point you have to let go and not micro manage every individual stat and app. I'm sure if we did that we could make some more money by optimizing, but that's not what our business approach was…

So about 5 years in software development?

I've actually been doing development since senior year high school. Started with ASP then PHP, .net, c#, java with gwt. I don't know if I'll ever do any of my own development again though. I do enjoy programming, but I enjoy doing other things more honestly =).

Re: $80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

#52

Post by klochner »

I'm not a marketing expert, so correct me if I'm wrong here ...

Let's assume an iphone app gets CPM of about $1 [1,2]

So if their first app grossed $100k, that means about 100M impressions. That sounds insanely high to me - 100 impressions each for 1M users? 10 impressions for 10M users?

When I then see that they're trying to sell books for $99 a pop so you can cash in on their winning techniques [3], it rings of late-night infomercials telling me how to get rich buying foreclosed homes.

I don't have hard numbers, but my impression is that @tferriss took the same approach - making the bulk of his money off of book sales (and his prior supplements business), pitching virtual assistant techniques that never would have made that kind of money for him.

So the real 4-hour work week strategy they're copying is to give the impression of success with little effort, and then sell people books detailing your special technique.

  [1] http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/24/greystripe-ups-the-ante-in-the-iphone-ad-network-wars-launches-guaranteed-cpm-program/
  [2] http://blog.jwegener.com/2009/07/26/debunking-average-iphone-cpm-ad-rates/
  [3] http://www.freetheapps.com/create-iphone-apps/?hop=tdrone

Re: $80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

#53

Post by kranner »

AndrewWarner wrote: post #15
stevenp wrote: post #13

Hey Andrew! Curious why your podcasts don't show up in the iTunes feed until a few days later. I'm having to manually download this one because I'm so excited about it. :)

I didn't know that was happening. For some reason keeping my itunes up date has been a struggle. Thanks for telling me.

The RSS feed as it shows up in Google Reader is also delayed, just so you know.

Re: $80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

#54

Post by mattmanser »

stevenp wrote: post #14
colinplamondon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they weren't afraid to make a slutty business. For every startupy person trying to 'change the world' and 'make a dent in the universe' with a me-too social network, there's five with a slutty free app business banking it each month.

This is a great point. Looking at these apps, they're certainly not anything like ConvertBot or Instagram. As an app developer myself, I think I could have easily made most of these apps in my spare time without a ton of design skill, yet they're really successful. Definitely food for though.

What food for thought? Choose to throw your life away on meaningless shit so you can say you made some money, or do something you care about?

Most of us here could easily make a $200k consulting a year.

Does it make you happy?

No.

Would making shite apps and essentially scamming people make most of the people here happy?

No.

You gotta remember that the kind of person who does this kind of shit is basically a bit of a social pariah, a social retard. They're no different from the internet 'marketers' or the online pharmacies or any of that crap.

They don't care a bit about supplying shit and calling it gold.

To me there's not even a moment's thought about this kind of stuff, I have no respect for people making crap like this, only pity. To waste your life conning other people is a tragedy, not a triumph.

Re: $80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

#55

Post by chc »

danieldon wrote: post #23

Regarding the outsourcing thing, it's clear that even they aren't getting high quality. I'm checking out their Convert Units app, for instance, and the drum scrolling and selection is totally broken, although it works just enough to still function. It's interesting, however, that the poor quality apparently isn't stopping people from using it. Part of it might be that people don't expect much out of a free app, so if…

Even the functionality of the drum is iffy. It seems like maybe a quarter of the time it will somehow mysteriously wind up on something other than what you selected.

Re: $80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

#56

Post by qbui »

klochner wrote: post #52

I'm not a marketing expert, so correct me if I'm wrong here ... Let's assume an iphone app gets CPM of about $1 [1,2] So if their first app grossed $100k, that means about 100M impressions. That sounds insanely high to me - 100 impressions each for 1M users? 10 impressions for 10M users? When I then see that they're trying to sell books for $99 a pop so you can cash in on their winning techniques [3], it rings of lat…

Less than 10% of our sales numbers are from the ebook. The ebook was just a side project to see if we could share some information and make some extra money at the same time. You'd be surprised at how much ad revenue these apps make. Check out how much the paper toss guys make with just 5 apps - http://www.develop-online.net/news/36155/Paper-Toss-dev-make...

Re: $80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

#57

Post by run4yourlives »

mattmanser wrote: post #54
stevenp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great point. Looking at these apps, they're certainly not anything like ConvertBot or Instagram. As an app developer myself, I think I could have easily made most of these apps in my spare time without a ton of design skill, yet they're really successful. Definitely food for though.

What food for thought? Choose to throw your life away on meaningless shit so you can say you made some money, or do something you care about? Most of us here could easily make a $200k consulting a year. Does it make you happy? No. Would making shite apps and essentially scamming people make most of the people here happy? No. You gotta remember that the kind of person who does this kind of shit is basically a bit of a…

I think making massive money on crap that enables you to spend time on things you actually do value - be they other apps, a family, hobby or passion to save the world - is a perfectly valid way to live life.

Your post sounds like nothing more than sour grapes.

Re: $80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

#58

Post by run4yourlives »

Did anyone actually ask them to verify these numbers? Did a third party do so?

Extraordinary claims ($80K a month) require extra-ordinary evidence.

They don't even really seem to know what their revenue is like, but their fairly certain about the large size of the numbers... normally, that's the smell of bullshit.

Tom Vu's girlfriend wants to see the proof of these claims.

Re: $80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

#59

Post by klochner »

qbui wrote: post #56
klochner wrote: post #52

I'm not a marketing expert, so correct me if I'm wrong here ... Let's assume an iphone app gets CPM of about $1 [1,2] So if their first app grossed $100k, that means about 100M impressions. That sounds insanely high to me - 100 impressions each for 1M users? 10 impressions for 10M users? When I then see that they're trying to sell books for $99 a pop so you can cash in on their winning techniques [3], it rings of lat…

Less than 10% of our sales numbers are from the ebook. The ebook was just a side project to see if we could share some information and make some extra money at the same time. You'd be surprised at how much ad revenue these apps make. Check out how much the paper toss guys make with just 5 apps - http://www.develop-online.net/news/36155/Paper-Toss-dev-make...

I'm not saying it isn't possible. I'd be interested in seeing how your numbers compare.

They have ~2M daily users and 47M installs, generating 600M monthly impressions. That lines up pretty well with my estimate of about $1 CPM.

Re: $80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

#60

Post by iphoneedbot »

qbui wrote: post #44
epo wrote: post #27

This sounds a bit too good to be true. How many ad impressions add up to $80,000 in a month? What is that in user hours per month for 12 or so apps? I'd be fascinated to see the financial statements, I bet we never will

It's not as outrageous as you think. Although the first month we hit big numbers we were VERY VERY surprised. Check out the paper toss guys that make 500K a month with just 5 free apps!!! http://www.develop-online.net/news/36155/Paper-Toss-dev-make... Now THAT'S something. We're not even close to that!

No need to defend yourself.. they'll always be doubters.. you guys keep on raking in the bucks!
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