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$80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

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Re: $80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

#21

Post by Splines »

stevenwei wrote: post #9
AndrewWarner wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, this interview wasn't about creating another "iPhone gold rush" story. It was about understanding how they could build an app business without coding or designing. They even hire someone to write their descriptions for a few hundred bucks.

Yeah, the most interesting takeaway for me is how far these guys got with a relatively small amount of effort by picking the right apps to work on. For example, there are literally hundreds of unit converters in the App Store right now, and they shipped another one anyway to great success, because the demand for such apps are still so high. It does illustrate that there is still tons of money to be made in the App St…

FWIW, I have the myConvert iPhone app and am very pleased with it. I've looked at the free unit conversion that go by, but haven't found one that shows multiple conversions on a single screen like myConvert does.

Re: $80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

#22

Post by mdolon »

Here's a link to the e-book they wrote and mentioned in the interview: http://www.freetheapps.com/create-iphone-apps/

It makes sense that they seemed somewhat reserved at certain points of the interview, they don't want to give away too much and make their e-book less useful.

Re: $80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

#23

Post by danieldon »

Regarding the outsourcing thing, it's clear that even they aren't getting high quality. I'm checking out their Convert Units app, for instance, and the drum scrolling and selection is totally broken, although it works just enough to still function.

It's interesting, however, that the poor quality apparently isn't stopping people from using it. Part of it might be that people don't expect much out of a free app, so if it's broken they just deal with it.

Re: $80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

#24

Post by Sindrome »

stevenwei wrote: post #2

$80k a month in ad revenue by making the following apps for $2k a pop on Elance? Record Video for Free 911 Police Radio Free! Battery Box 3-in-1 Find Sex Offenders Free! Dash of Color FREE MovieFX for Free Convert Units for Free FilterFX HDR Fisheye in 1 Fisheye for Free FilterFX for Free Flash for Free HDR for Free Convert Units Free HD I know people are saying the gold rush is over, but that is ridiculous .

These guys struck me more like frat boys than SW Devs. They both said they are SW Eng but they totally shied away from going into any details about that. They didn't know any of their stats. Andrew had to walk them through their profitability numbers, wtf?

Re: $80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

#25

Post by mahmud »

jws7 wrote: post #18
AndrewWarner wrote: post #7

After posting the interview I realized that the guy I was emailing about an interview was probably a virtual assistant. I assumed he was working in their office because he responded to my interview request so quickly. I wish I asked them about it.

Hi Andrew, I'm no VA - just a buddy of Mike and Quoc's helping out with BD/Mktg/PR lol. Great interview btw!

Dude, stop by the HN DC meetups will ya? People are gouging their eyes out looking for startup marketers. Email is in my profile if you want me to pass your contacts around.

Re: $80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

#26

Post by eob »

AndrewWarner wrote: post #11
colinplamondon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they weren't afraid to make a slutty business. For every startupy person trying to 'change the world' and 'make a dent in the universe' with a me-too social network, there's five with a slutty free app business banking it each month.

Colin, they didn't say much about their marketing. Do you think they're doing any app store SEO?

How does app-store SEO work? I sell some apps on the app store, but I've never tried to market them (and have pretty anemic sales as a result).

Does SEO tend to be black hat (hire people to rate it?) or ad-driven?

Re: $80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

#28

Post by nikcub »

AndrewWarner wrote: post #7

After posting the interview I realized that the guy I was emailing about an interview was probably a virtual assistant. I assumed he was working in their office because he responded to my interview request so quickly. I wish I asked them about it.

they probably outsourced the entire interview

Re: $80,000 a Month in App Sales by Outsourcing Everything

#30

Post by ajg1977 »

I don't know what to think about stories such as these to be honest.

My inner entrepreneur says "Wow, great job guys! I wish you every success".

My inner software developer winces, and fears, both professionally and personally, that the ever-growing number of such low-quality apps will eventually make it pointless for developers to invest in creating a ConvertBot or Instagram.

(FWIW I currently make $15k a month from sales of apps $1.99 or higher)

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