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Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

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Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#21

Post by lukasb »

ipaddr wrote: post #18
lukasb wrote: post #15

He mentions that making a living from an indie app is like winning the lottery - that would make it much more unlikely than having a reasonably successful startup. Why is a successful indie app harder?

Having a successful startup is like winning the lottery too. Getting funded if you are not in a circle of reputation is like winning the lottery. Getting into ycombinator is like winning a lottery then you get to win another. Any business is like a lottery. But some have better odds like setting up a plumbing service in a growing underserved town.

Well, no, winning a lottery is one in a million. A successful startup - assuming you get funding - is more like one in ten (that's not exact but no more than an order of magnitude off.)

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#22

Post by pavlov »

lukasb wrote: post #21
ipaddr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a successful startup is like winning the lottery too. Getting funded if you are not in a circle of reputation is like winning the lottery. Getting into ycombinator is like winning a lottery then you get to win another. Any business is like a lottery. But some have better odds like setting up a plumbing service in a growing underserved town.

Well, no, winning a lottery is one in a million. A successful startup - assuming you get funding - is more like one in ten (that's not exact but no more than an order of magnitude off.)

There’s also the time and effort that you need to invest.

You can buy a lottery ticket every week and it costs $2 (just guessing — I don’t buy them). With that minimum spending over three years, you get 150 shots. You paid $300, but no time or effort.

A typical startup takes three years, and you pay for it in both real money and opportunity cost.

Let’s say your chance of getting funded is 1:100 (assuming you don’t have an existing network). And then your chances of success are 1:30 (a more realistic figure for first-time founders than one in ten, IMO).

That means the odds are 1:3000 with great personal investment, versus the lottery where in the same timeframe you get to take 150 shots at a 1:1,000,000 chance at no personal cost.

Looking at these numbers, it does feel a lot like lottery.

Of course I’m downplaying the career growth value of a startup. You learn nothing from the lottery, but going through the startup grind offers experience that you can’t get elsewhere.

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#23

Post by tonyedgecombe »

manx wrote: post #17

Can anyone recommend good learning material for the non-tech part? I'm good at building stuff, but not on the other parts.

Andy Brice has some great material at https://successfulsoftware.net/articles/

Including a list of books at https://successfulsoftware.net/reading-list/

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#24

Post by lukasb »

pavlov wrote: post #22
lukasb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, no, winning a lottery is one in a million. A successful startup - assuming you get funding - is more like one in ten (that's not exact but no more than an order of magnitude off.)

There’s also the time and effort that you need to invest. You can buy a lottery ticket every week and it costs $2 (just guessing — I don’t buy them). With that minimum spending over three years, you get 150 shots. You paid $300, but no time or effort. A typical startup takes three years, and you pay for it in both real money and opportunity cost. Let’s say your chance of getting funded is 1:100 (assuming you don’t ha…

Let's say I grant (though I don't believe it) that a startup is also a lottery ticket. What are the factors that make an indie app a lottery ticket? That's my question. Is it just that, absent the funding gate startups have, that there's a lot of competition?

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#25

Post by pavlov »

lukasb wrote: post #24
pavlov wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s also the time and effort that you need to invest. You can buy a lottery ticket every week and it costs $2 (just guessing — I don’t buy them). With that minimum spending over three years, you get 150 shots. You paid $300, but no time or effort. A typical startup takes three years, and you pay for it in both real money and opportunity cost. Let’s say your chance of getting funded is 1:100 (assuming you don’t ha…

Let's say I grant (though I don't believe it) that a startup is also a lottery ticket. What are the factors that make an indie app a lottery ticket? That's my question. Is it just that, absent the funding gate startups have, that there's a lot of competition?

Apps as a platform are at a disadvantage. The bar for entry is roughly as low as creating a website, but for users it’s a higher bar to install an app.

Yet the app doesn’t offer any intrinsic advantage in discovery or marketing over a website. (You’re not going to get any organic traffic from app stores, unless maybe if you have contacts at Apple who can get your app into their promotions — unlikely for an indie dev publishing their first app.)

So if you’re making an app, you need to be sure that users in your niche will see enough benefit that they’ll want to install an app when your competitor is probably just a website.

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#26

Post by wahnfrieden »

fakedang wrote: post #9
klabb3 wrote: post #4

What about marketing? I don’t mean necessarily traditional ads but more how to get the word out if you have a good product? I’ve personally find it easy to reach “tech enthusiasts” but much harder to penetrate towards normies who would really benefit from the product but don’t read HN, tech blogs etc.

Consumer app? Instagram Reels and TikTok. Especially TikTok.

Reels are friendlier to shorter form content these days

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#27

Post by fhd2 »

ipaddr wrote: post #18
lukasb wrote: post #15

He mentions that making a living from an indie app is like winning the lottery - that would make it much more unlikely than having a reasonably successful startup. Why is a successful indie app harder?

Having a successful startup is like winning the lottery too. Getting funded if you are not in a circle of reputation is like winning the lottery. Getting into ycombinator is like winning a lottery then you get to win another. Any business is like a lottery. But some have better odds like setting up a plumbing service in a growing underserved town.

More risk, more reward - it's usually that simple. That last example is closer to the security of a job than the lottery I'd say :) The likelihood of getting fired from a job is probably not that much lower than a plumbing business not working in an underserved area.

I've built a pretty low risk business to get cash flow going and am starting to tackle more high risk stuff. There's safe strategies to play the lottery in a way where you can afford to lose.

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#28

Post by BlueTemplar »

klabb3 wrote: post #4

What about marketing? I don’t mean necessarily traditional ads but more how to get the word out if you have a good product? I’ve personally find it easy to reach “tech enthusiasts” but much harder to penetrate towards normies who would really benefit from the product but don’t read HN, tech blogs etc.

The most important advertising step for smartphone apps is probably to put the app on the App Store / Play Store.

But of course only developer scum do that in this decade.

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#29

Post by deze333 »

As an indie developer for the last 10 years my key learning is writing apps for “under privileged” communities. Firstly, it’s a niche. Secondly, people really value your effort and appreciate giving. This creates a nice feeling.

I have created my major app, Time Nomad [1], out of pure curiosity. Don’t laugh, scientific minds… I wanted to see how astronomy and astrology coexisted for hundreds of years without all that new age nonsense that corrupted the ancient discipline.

So I made it different. It’s more of a toolkit to calculate and grok movements of celestial bodies and find moments of specific alignments. That is pure fun. I have enjoyed maths and computational challenges, while the users surprised me by liking the app’s ability to give quick answers about what (and equally importantly when) is happening in the sky — from an astronomical standpoint. No voodoo language needed, just pure geometry.

Why am I saying all this? Taking an old idea and giving it a new modern spin can win hearts. There are communities of people who are open to support that.

[1] https://timenomad.app

Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

#30

Post by Lukas_Petr »

indieofone wrote: post #11

I would add this advice: 1) start by working on your apps on the side while working another job, 2) while working said job, save and invest. Over time this can provide the cushion necessary to jump to full time indie.

That's a good advice. For me I was doing freelancing on the side for many years, and then naturally as my app was starting to make more money, I'd decrease the amount of freelancing I was doing, and then eventually I stopped freelancing altogether.
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