Mobile app startups are failing like it’s 1999 (2012)
1–10 of 54 posts
Re: Mobile app startups are failing like it’s 1999 (2012)
#2I agree it's difficult on mobile having to support two platforms with many resolutions.
We have iOS and Android apps but our service is 100% web views from launch -> registration -> usage. We did this since we are still in the prototyping process and are not concerned about optimization/conversion rates.
It's been very useful for us. UX has been terrible but we've been able to gather valuable feedback, make a couple of big changes and a lot of small tweaks.
Now, we are on the cusp on rolling out to making everything native and starting heavier marketing.
Re: Mobile app startups are failing like it’s 1999 (2012)
#3What do people really expect though.. I don't understand how all of these people can just say i'm building an iPhone app! then try and start a company based around this basis. Come up with an original business model and maybe you can get somewhere. Instagram was an app, but the app was just the medium for the service. Think of an app as your store front, what really counts is the products you sell on a daily basis.
Re: Mobile app startups are failing like it’s 1999 (2012)
#4Is this not a symptom of the app standard set by the app store? It seems like your app store submission is going to be judged largely in light of the the other apps in the app store, and the design/interface standard there is already so high...
It seems like getting a "big" app in to the app store is a huge risk because it requires hiring the type of people that can polish an app to the point that it's app store acceptable, and those are expensive people. Going in to such an expensive process with a murky idea/business plan/value proposition seems suicidal.
Re: Mobile app startups are failing like it’s 1999 (2012)
#5What do people really expect though.. I don't understand how all of these people can just say i'm building an iPhone app! then try and start a company based around this basis. Come up with an original business model and maybe you can get somewhere. Instagram was an app, but the app was just the medium for the service. Think of an app as your store front, what really counts is the products you sell on a daily basis.
I'm building a calculator app! We're going to be the next Microsoft!
Re: Mobile app startups are failing like it’s 1999 (2012)
#6I was trying to have the conversation about "real mobile companies" today in this HN thread.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5911728
People don't seem to understand that building a company 99 cents at a time isn't going to work. Real companies have overhead. Sure someone in the Ukraine might be doing great with $1000/month in revenue but that's not going to cut it for most people.
Re: Mobile app startups are failing like it’s 1999 (2012)
#7I got brick walled by a request to sign-up to get posts emailed. That's a terrible way to welcome new readers.
Re: Mobile app startups are failing like it’s 1999 (2012)
#8I was trying to have the conversation about "real mobile companies" today in this HN thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5911728 People don't seem to understand that building a company 99 cents at a time isn't going to work. Real companies have overhead. Sure someone in the Ukraine might be doing great with $1000/month in revenue but that's not going to cut it for most people.
I don't think moving the goalposts from $30k/month to $1k/month out of thin air makes your argument more convincing.
"building a company 99 cents at a time isn't going to work"
Except when it does. You could say the same thing about any price point.
From your earlier thread:
"It doesn't sound like the economics are there to build the next EA, id Software, etc."
Is Rovio not many times bigger than id software?
Re: Mobile app startups are failing like it’s 1999 (2012)
#9Anyone who reads this and thinks this is what 1999 is like didn't live through it. In 1999 all these apps went IPO and the founders and VCs made a ton of money. Many wish it was like 1999.
Edit (please read for amusement value): http://www.sandspring.com/charts/cdj0214ipet.html
Re: Mobile app startups are failing like it’s 1999 (2012)
#10Since comments on the blog post are closed:
What we need to solve this problem depends exclusively on Apple / Google, since they chose to follow the native / app store path.
- Change App Store discoverability, removing the emphasis on Top ranks - Decrease delay times between approvals - Provide a way to discover from where your users come from
We're also locked to the native approach, which slows down the whole process. This is also a huge drawback for mobile as a whole. For instance, there isn't a easy way to crawl apps like Google crawl's pages.
In mobile, we're basically 'recreating the wheel' in many areas. All this effort could be directed towards supporting web technologies the best way possible, like webOS was doing in a great way.