How I Made $19,000 on the App Store While Learning to Code • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by erikb » Wed, Nov 16, 2011, 7:34 PM UTC

nathanbarry wrote: post #134

erikb wrote: post #130

This kind of story always reads like a financial fail. He should pay himself a normal programmers salary (something around 50k/year for a beginner might be fine, also he is not a beginner, because he knows a lot about presentation and UX design) and THEN calculate his profits. Probably this App is way in the minus. Also you must consider that he just has around 1k customers and all of them on the same plattform. Also…

You are right in a so many ways. From a business perspective it isn't the best model (I am looking for ways to add recurring revenue), I probably made minimum wage if you break down my time, and I don't have many customers. But here's what I do have: emails from customers every single week saying how what I built is changing the lives of their child. Does anything else matter beyond that? I'm working on something I c…

I see what u mean. Maybe there is not the money, but u have a purpose for doing what u do.

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

#142

Post by wallflower » Thu, Nov 17, 2011, 2:55 AM UTC

ja27 wrote: post #81

wallflower wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a crap-app story per se, but I and many other developers I know have made all of our money from client work, not a dollar from the app store. Since we manage the provisioning etc. for the client and walk them through the initial paperwork, no one ever knows who built the (admittedly sometimes faddy) app. We do build our own apps but just for fun and personal use.

I'm curious how the mechanics work for publishing an app to the iTunes store for a client? Does the client create the account and handle publishing the app? (Do they need to sign the package, deal with XCode, etc.?) Or does the client create the account and turn it over to you to publish the app(s)? Or do you - the developer - publish the app yourself and pass the money through (which doesn't seem good)?

We manage everything. We hold their hand through the initial paperwork for company registration with Apple. They never deal with Xcode. Services like TestFlight are really their only point of interaction pre-App Store.

For financials, developers can be given only development level privileges.

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

#143

Post by erikb » Fri, Nov 18, 2011, 7:28 PM UTC

marknutter wrote: post #138

nathanbarry wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right in a so many ways. From a business perspective it isn't the best model (I am looking for ways to add recurring revenue), I probably made minimum wage if you break down my time, and I don't have many customers. But here's what I do have: emails from customers every single week saying how what I built is changing the lives of their child. Does anything else matter beyond that? I'm working on something I c…

And there really is nothing to fear. You can supplement that income by building apps for other people in their spare time now that you have a valuable skill. There's no reason you can't have it both ways.

Also a valid argument. I think it's the first time in my whole life that I got valuable content from 2 counterarguments in the same thread. HN is awesome!