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Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

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Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#232

I make ~$2,000 a month with an iPad game for cats. My co-founder and I were working on a "more serious" game and it was taking a long time. We needed a quick win, so I agreed to do it if we spent less than 4 weeks on it. We completed the game from idea to app store in 3.5 weeks and it is now, by far, our most popular game. * face palm * EDIT: We split the revenue 50/50, so the revenue (after apple's cut) on this game…

I'm impressed. Super clever, and I dig the website. How did you get the game in front of jungle animals?

A friend of mine joked that we should get a tiger to play our ipad game. I immediately became obsessed with this idea. We worked for a couple weeks calling animal shelters etc with no luck. But we told everyone we knew that we wanted to do this.

My sister ended meeting someone at starbucks who's daughter worked for a shelter and the rest is history: http://conservatorscenter.org

They love us because it brought a good amount of exposure to their center. They've already asked us to make more apps specifically for them. They use it as a way for kids to interact with the animals.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait a second, the iPad app is free. Are you making money from cats clicking on ads ? If so, I salute you.

From the perspective of the advertiser that would be, at least, on the border of being a con job. But the fine print on http://www.ipadgameforcats.com/ says that one level/theme is free and another is $1.99 as an in-app purchase.

Right. And sorry, I need to clarify. That number is the sum of our two cat apps. Our second app is a painting game (for cats). The code is essentially the same, just with a bit of GL painting + facebook sharing. (Yup, people post their cat's paintings on facebook.)

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#234
post #190

I make ~$2,000 a month with an iPad game for cats. My co-founder and I were working on a "more serious" game and it was taking a long time. We needed a quick win, so I agreed to do it if we spent less than 4 weeks on it. We completed the game from idea to app store in 3.5 weeks and it is now, by far, our most popular game. * face palm * EDIT: We split the revenue 50/50, so the revenue (after apple's cut) on this game…

FYI my dog likes to play this game too.

I'm thrilled that you've actually played our game.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.ipadgameforcats.com/

If this makes money, then anyone can make money.

Not quite true.

This app makes money because anyone that owns a cat and an iPad looks for apps that their cat(s) can play with.

The same is true for baby apps. There are some super simple apps that babies enjoy, and those apps make very good money considering the development effort.

That being said, not everyone can pull it off. This particular cat app is fairly well done in my opinion. One must also keep in mind that just cause it makes $4k/month right now, it doesn't mean it'll continue to make that much 6 months from now.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm impressed. Super clever, and I dig the website. How did you get the game in front of jungle animals?

A friend of mine joked that we should get a tiger to play our ipad game. I immediately became obsessed with this idea. We worked for a couple weeks calling animal shelters etc with no luck. But we told everyone we knew that we wanted to do this. My sister ended meeting someone at starbucks who's daughter worked for a shelter and the rest is history: http://conservatorscenter.org They love us because it brought a good…

Absolutely brilliant work. Site is perfectly aimed to the target market, polished, the way you made it initially free with an upgrade, and working with the zoo? Spot on.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#237
post #116

About $2K-$6K a month from my blogs. (Plug: I'm writing a book that will help people do the same: http://technicalblogging.com )

Yes, I can't wait! [I make about $800 - $1200 / month on my blog, hoping to increase it with Antonio's help :)]

how are you making money with it?

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With such a vast shift away from desktop downloadable applications, I'm curious to see what you've done from a marketing standpoint to get those numbers. How did you promote your application and drive sales?

The overwhelming majority of my customers are on the online version now, since I've exiled the downloadable version to electronic Siberia. If no customer ever found it again I would be happy. With regards to marketing, see my blog (www.kalzumeus.com), but the short answer is I use organic SEO and AdWords. My one trick pony for organic SEO is scalable content generation, and what a beautiful, loyal pony it is.

Can you describe what you mean by "scalable content generation"? Sounds very interesting!

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Experiment with 10x the license fee just for one month. This is clearly targeting bigger teams / enterprises / SMEs rather than home users. $19 -- what were u thinking?!

I just started this in January so I thought I would give it some time to spread the word out with the low-pricing, then maybe make it more stable with a monthly fee. Unfortunately I was selling this for about $200 and I wasn't getting any buyers at all, so I was forced to switch to a lower price.

looks pretty interesting, but I think your homepage needs some more explanations. Is this for local networks only, or can I use it to install software across the internet? We have staff in 6 cities, many working from home with company supplied computers. I would like a solution like this to keep the virus software etc, up to date. You may want to look at a monthly charge instead ($9.95 per month) or a charge for an account with so many licenses - 10 PCs for $10, 50 PCs for $25 per month, etc.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this makes money, then anyone can make money.

Not quite true. This app makes money because anyone that owns a cat and an iPad looks for apps that their cat(s) can play with. The same is true for baby apps. There are some super simple apps that babies enjoy, and those apps make very good money considering the development effort. That being said, not everyone can pull it off. This particular cat app is fairly well done in my opinion. One must also keep in mind tha…

I have two cats and it would NEVER have occurred to me to search for an app that my cats can play with. I am not a crazy cat woman and don't buy $1,000 cat toys. I mean, good on them for the success -- but I think anyone who actually stops and thinks "I wonder if there's a toy my cats can play with on my expensive electronic device" must be mental.
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