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How I Made $19,000 on the App Store While Learning to Code

nathanbarry.com

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Re: How I Made $19,000 on the App Store While Learning to Code

#11

Post by JoeAltmaier »

nathanbarry wrote: post #3
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #2

This storey shows its not necessary to sell a million to make an app worthwhile. How many other niche apps are out there? Anything where you carry a computer or clipboard around is eligible. Specific to a task, or a general fill-in-a-spreadsheet-and-email-it app would fit the bill.

Exactly. Not a huge amount of money or customers, but a few people find what I made very valuable which makes it worth my time to create. I'm sure plenty of people have a moderate success story like mine.

My buddy did a basketball scoring app. Much nicer than what was there, certainly better than the NCAA DOS-based crap. Makes a little money. Had a ball writing it.

Re: How I Made $19,000 on the App Store While Learning to Code

#12

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Torn wrote: post #10

What made you decide on the $199 price point? Additionally, do you think the $199 price point might it out of reach for a lot of people who would benefit from the app but who have tights budgets?

Same people who bought thousand-dollar boat anchors. At 199 it has a known customer base.

Re: How I Made $19,000 on the App Store While Learning to Code

#13

Post by nathanbarry »

orky56 wrote: post #9

I have a similar non-technical background (UX/design) and was curious how you were able to not get frustrated and outsource the development work rather than doing it yourself. If I was in the same position, I would get too restless and want it built right away. Any advice on how you got through that situation? Thanks.

Well I started with the goal of wanting to learn programming, so outsourcing it wasn't planned at all. Though I did ask a lot of questions of some very talented friends and hired them to do some development of the things that I just couldn't understand.

My goal is to be both a designer and programmer, so that made it so I had to write code myself.

Re: How I Made $19,000 on the App Store While Learning to Code

#14

Post by nathanbarry »

Torn wrote: post #10

What made you decide on the $199 price point? Additionally, do you think the $199 price point might it out of reach for a lot of people who would benefit from the app but who have tights budgets?

I struggled a lot with how to price it. Initially I didn't think I would sell very many because I underestimated the size of the market. Because of the low volume I was going to price it at $99, but the speech language pathologists I talked to said that people were so used to paying so much, that $99 was too low.

There are definitely people who can't afford it, but this price allows me to spend more time on development. Also I do give away a fair number of copies.

Re: How I Made $19,000 on the App Store While Learning to Code

#15

Post by nathanbarry »

dangero wrote: post #7

Good job. I think one of the most important things you did is you knew who your customer was before you started your application. It seems obvious, but most apps in the app store have no target customer.

Yes, it was very targeted development.

Re: How I Made $19,000 on the App Store While Learning to Code

#16

Post by martinshen »

This is fantastic. I hadn't heard of many apps that target this niche specifically. What are you planning in terms of marketing?

PS. I love the UI I see in the screens... and would love to play with it. I wonder what type of animations you're using etc. Also, beautiful and simple website.

Re: How I Made $19,000 on the App Store While Learning to Code

#18

Post by gaustin »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #12
Torn wrote: post #10

What made you decide on the $199 price point? Additionally, do you think the $199 price point might it out of reach for a lot of people who would benefit from the app but who have tights budgets?

Same people who bought thousand-dollar boat anchors. At 199 it has a known customer base.

It's a $200 alternative to a $7,000 device. Seems like a bargain to me.

Re: How I Made $19,000 on the App Store While Learning to Code

#20

Post by jimbobimbo »

Torn wrote: post #10

What made you decide on the $199 price point? Additionally, do you think the $199 price point might it out of reach for a lot of people who would benefit from the app but who have tights budgets?

I'm not OP, but one way to reason is that he's not competing with $.99 fart-apps, but rather with an expensive specialized medical devices. From this perspective $199 is a very reasonable price point. Maybe he could charge even more for that, but it depends on what feedback he's getting from his customers.
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