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Great story, I'm a long time lurker but created an account to comment/question. From what I could gather in the 3 posts, it looks like neither of you guys were technical at the very beginning. Did one of you eventually learn to code/design, or is that portion still hired out? What qualities did you look for when hiring coders?
Thanks!
Do you feel fulfilled? Do you feel like this is the most you can contribute to human civilization? If you could, how would you most like to make the world a better place?
I love these posts, and I am rooting for you guys, but find it a little depressing that you first started making real money by cloning someone else's crappy novelty fluff app.
That's when cloners come in and beat the living daylights out of them by copying and improving upon their innovation.
There's a fantastic book on this, 'Copycats':
http://www.amazon.com/Copycats-Smart-Companies-Imitation-Str...
Incredibly well-written for a HBS book, lots of solid case studies, and some interesting research into the nitty gritty numbers behind innovation vs imitation.
Please don't take this the wrong way, this is a serious question, and I hope you give it some serious thought before you answer. Do you feel fulfilled? Do you feel like this is the most you can contribute to human civilization? If you could, how would you most like to make the world a better place?
Most great philanthropists only dive in in their 50's and 60's.
Elon Musk started a mapping site in his 20's, which put him in position for PayPal, which gave him the capital to launch rockets into space.
If more people focused on making money in their 20's, real money, scalable money, there'd be more shoot for the stars entrepreneurs in their 30's and 40's, and more world class philanthropists in their 50's and 60's.
Anirudh/Rishi, Great story, I'm a long time lurker but created an account to comment/question. From what I could gather in the 3 posts, it looks like neither of you guys were technical at the very beginning. Did one of you eventually learn to code/design, or is that portion still hired out? What qualities did you look for when hiring coders? Thanks!
Great question, I'm pretty technical since I've was developing websites for several years before starting FIPLAB. At times, I even figure out how to code things when our programmer can't figure it out. I always look for the simplest way to build something, especially when we are under a tight deadline and need to ship before the competition does.
Also, I still do a lot of the design work myself (obviously not the 3d modelling/animation though) - but more UI/Icon design.
As for hiring coders, the number one thing we look for is a proactive and 'never give up' attitude. Can't stand it where in the past a programmer has given up after spending just 1 hour trying to code a particular feature. If they can't be bothered find/figure out the solution, then they'll never mix well with our team.
Please don't take this the wrong way, this is a serious question, and I hope you give it some serious thought before you answer. Do you feel fulfilled? Do you feel like this is the most you can contribute to human civilization? If you could, how would you most like to make the world a better place?
Isn't it hard enough figuring that out for your own life?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks. Paid advertising is pretty much useless, unless you have very deep pockets. We just splashed a bit of cash on it as we needed to do everything possible to break into the Top 25 'Golden Zone'. We also got a very good deal at $0.01 CPC and they matched our initial deposit of $250.
Thanks for confirming. Do you think the initial ad spend was worthwhile? (Do you think you would have gotten into the Top 25 without it?)
Curious what Mac App Store revenues are like. Can you share any rankings-to-downloads stats for FaceTab and some of your other Mac apps?