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Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are

davesapien.com

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Re: Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are

#11

Post by ktrgardiner »

DaveSapien wrote: post #4
ktrgardiner wrote: post #2

Good for you for accomplishing and creating so much. Congrats on that. But good god, the background of your site is an eyesore. It literally hurt my eyes as I read through your list. You're going to deter a lot of people with such a bright background. Beyond that you're detracting so much attention away from your content. Feel free to completely ignore this, but I would change the background to something subtler or a…

Thanks!! Yeah wasn't sure myself, changed it to something more blue sky. Thanks again for the feedback!

That's much better. You're welcome.

Re: Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are

#12

Post by velcro »

Very nice work Dave - one thing thats probably a more interesting question - can you make a living on that? Making many small apps?

Have also been toying with an idea to start doing apps for a while now and rather than do a major idea, instead do many small apps. Like for example if 1 app brings 100$ per month - then making 20 could make 2000$ and so on - but does 1 app make 100$ on average at all?

Re: Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are

#14

Post by timthorn »

fit2rule wrote: post #10
tlarkworthy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urgh, #makgammon is every November :( The lab has a public open night every Tue and Thurs though. General hacking then. The game things is a once a year special event. (check out the Doodle app for this year) Join the mailing list, or just email me if you want to visit. Oh there are bitcoin talks on the 3rd of Jan I think. (check the mailing list)

Maybe you can answer a question for me - why is that the hackerspaces in the UK are not open to the public all the time? I've been quite surprised at how difficult it is to get involved in the hackerspace scene in the UK - but I guess I'm kind of spoiled with the Metalab/Vienna situation. Is there some law in the UK that makes it difficult for hackerspaces to maintain an open door policy for the public, or is it more…

Our funding model relies on subscriptions, and public access all the time would severely erode the value. In addition, we need to make sure that everyone using "dangerous" kit is properly trained, which is more practical with a closed door model.

Re: Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are

#16

Post by tlarkworthy »

fit2rule wrote: post #10
tlarkworthy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urgh, #makgammon is every November :( The lab has a public open night every Tue and Thurs though. General hacking then. The game things is a once a year special event. (check out the Doodle app for this year) Join the mailing list, or just email me if you want to visit. Oh there are bitcoin talks on the 3rd of Jan I think. (check the mailing list)

Maybe you can answer a question for me - why is that the hackerspaces in the UK are not open to the public all the time? I've been quite surprised at how difficult it is to get involved in the hackerspace scene in the UK - but I guess I'm kind of spoiled with the Metalab/Vienna situation. Is there some law in the UK that makes it difficult for hackerspaces to maintain an open door policy for the public, or is it more…

There are no laws.

What city you in? Some cities are more vibrant than others. London Hackerspace is huge (>300 members??), with a pay-what-you-want policy for membership.

London Hackerspace seems to be modelled a bit like noisebridge. Lots of people, maybe too many people to make socializing all that easy because there are so many subsets.

Edinburgh Hacklab open to public twice a week. Edinburgh is a relatively small city (~800k people), so distributing everyone over the week would not be so good. Also our membership is relatively expensive (£25). So our model is about a smaller group of dedicated hackers with stronger social ties. Small means we can keep our expensive equipment running without feeling like a public service.

Newcastle Hackerspace is pretty awesome too. They are bigger than Edinburgh with a pay-what-you-want. They have a mobile CNC they bring to field events!

Maybe we in the UK are not as good as Austrians at organising regular events ("an average of 1 event per night at Metalab"). But equipment wise metalab has a similar standard of tooling as all the above have.

Re: Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are

#18

Post by shuaib »

velcro wrote: post #12

Very nice work Dave - one thing thats probably a more interesting question - can you make a living on that? Making many small apps? Have also been toying with an idea to start doing apps for a while now and rather than do a major idea, instead do many small apps. Like for example if 1 app brings 100$ per month - then making 20 could make 2000$ and so on - but does 1 app make 100$ on average at all?

Agreed. Dave, can you please share your income statistics if any. That would be interesting insight.

Re: Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are

#19

Post by DaveSapien »

velcro wrote: post #12

Very nice work Dave - one thing thats probably a more interesting question - can you make a living on that? Making many small apps? Have also been toying with an idea to start doing apps for a while now and rather than do a major idea, instead do many small apps. Like for example if 1 app brings 100$ per month - then making 20 could make 2000$ and so on - but does 1 app make 100$ on average at all?

In a word, no. All that these apps have been doing (finically) is to pay for over heads. The most important thing for me is getting back on my creative horse this year, You'd need to produce 3x that amount to bring in a small living unless one is some kind of hit. The more you do the more likely you'll have that hit, and thats really down to experience and your community knowing who you are. Thanks for taking a look!!
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