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Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 3)

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Re: Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 3)

#11

Post by wyldstallyn26 »

doomlaser wrote: post #8

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.

Thanks doomlaser. With little money (especially back in September), it's incredibly risky to innovate, and in today's world, everything is a derivative of the other in some form. e.g., Facebook from MySpace, Lamborghini from Ferrari. Talking Gremlin was exactly this, on a smaller scale.

This is our philosophy: Find a successful business -> Discover as much as possible about it -> Re-implement it all -> Then battle them for supremacy. Having an enemy brings out our primal instincts. Boom. :)

Re: Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 3)

#13

Post by n9com »

mluiten wrote: post #10
rmason wrote: post #6

There's a real nugget of wisdom in listening to angry customers. So many customers will say something nice to not offend. When someones passionate and says you've got it wrong and here's where - you should pay careful attention. Perhaps 20% are trolls you can safely ignore but the rest will tell you what people were thinking but were too polite to say. So many fellow entrepreneurs tell me breathlessly about this pers…

I believe Erik Ries said much of the same thing in a talk I saw once (can't find it now, of course). The gist of it was that nobody likes to get angry, and angry customers are therefor especially important because they actually care enough about your product to get angry at you for screwing it up.

if people complain, you know you have something worth complaining about :)

Re: Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 3)

#14

Post by stevenwei »

Great series, thanks for sharing.

I am especially curious how effective you guys found paid advertising to be - the conventional wisdom I've heard is that it's pretty pointless for advertising App Store apps.

Are you guys still doing any paid advertising these days, or is it mostly organic/word of mouth/cross promotion at this point?

Re: Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 3)

#16

Post by doomlaser »

wyldstallyn26 wrote: post #11
doomlaser wrote: post #8

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.

Thanks doomlaser. With little money (especially back in September), it's incredibly risky to innovate, and in today's world, everything is a derivative of the other in some form. e.g., Facebook from MySpace, Lamborghini from Ferrari. Talking Gremlin was exactly this, on a smaller scale. This is our philosophy: Find a successful business -> Discover as much as possible about it -> Re-implement it all -> Then battle th…

Cloning a fluff entertainment app doesn't really bother me, but I come from a games background, and the app store is rife with shady cloning of full games that follow a monetization model similar to yours.

I have a couple that have had two of their games completely cloned, and filled with cheap 'casual appeal' graphics (one of which made it to #7 on the app store). I find this a kind of dirty way to make money.

http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/221862/hey-thats-my-fish...

Re: Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 3)

#17

Post by n9com »

stevenwei wrote: post #14

Great series, thanks for sharing. I am especially curious how effective you guys found paid advertising to be - the conventional wisdom I've heard is that it's pretty pointless for advertising App Store apps. Are you guys still doing any paid advertising these days, or is it mostly organic/word of mouth/cross promotion at this point?

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.

Re: Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 3)

#18

Post by gravitronic »

wyldstallyn26 wrote: post #11
doomlaser wrote: post #8

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.

Thanks doomlaser. With little money (especially back in September), it's incredibly risky to innovate, and in today's world, everything is a derivative of the other in some form. e.g., Facebook from MySpace, Lamborghini from Ferrari. Talking Gremlin was exactly this, on a smaller scale. This is our philosophy: Find a successful business -> Discover as much as possible about it -> Re-implement it all -> Then battle th…

Very smart. Your goal is not to innovate, it's to succeed.

This is very important as it's counter to the common belief that success is based on having a "new" idea instead of just taking over an existing market.

Re: Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 3)

#19

Post by n9com »

wyldstallyn26 wrote: post #11
doomlaser wrote: post #8

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.

Thanks doomlaser. With little money (especially back in September), it's incredibly risky to innovate, and in today's world, everything is a derivative of the other in some form. e.g., Facebook from MySpace, Lamborghini from Ferrari. Talking Gremlin was exactly this, on a smaller scale. This is our philosophy: Find a successful business -> Discover as much as possible about it -> Re-implement it all -> Then battle th…

Perhaps, but unless you're someone like Steve Jobs you're not going to come out with a TOTALLY new idea that no one in the world hasn't done or thought of already. Even Disney ripped off Kimba to make Lion King. http://www.hemmy.net/2007/04/28/disney-lion-king-ripped-off-...

If someone is stealing your ideas and executing better than you, then maybe you need to find out what they are doing right, so your next game does just as well or better than the clones.

Re: Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 3)

#20

Post by stevenwei »

n9com wrote: post #17
stevenwei wrote: post #14

Great series, thanks for sharing. I am especially curious how effective you guys found paid advertising to be - the conventional wisdom I've heard is that it's pretty pointless for advertising App Store apps. Are you guys still doing any paid advertising these days, or is it mostly organic/word of mouth/cross promotion at this point?

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?)
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