13. App Market Funnel + Numbers
Target Audience = Outdoor Navigation users
1% of 1.3 million activations per day = 13,000 per day
Prospect = see my app listing
????? - figures not available
Lead = installs demo product
500 per day
Customer- bought paid app
20% =>100 per day
Loyal Customer= bought an addon
22 per day
Advocate= 5 star
2 per day
14. Target Audience
Focusing your App Idea
Target Audience
(potentially interested)
Prospect
(aware product exists)
Lead
(has tried product)
15. The Secret Idea
• Email from stranger:
• Hey, I have a great an idea for an app that will
make lots of money. I will let you develop it for
a split of the profits.
16. “Good ideas are common - what's
uncommon are people who'll work
hard enough to bring them about”
Ashleigh Brilliant
17. But not all good ideas
are equally valuable . . .
• Top Grossing Apps: 500
• Ranked in a category:
about 34,000
• >1 million apps
• 64% have <10 ratings
• 89% have <100
ratings
18. Should your idea be
your passion ...
• Yes.
• Doesn’t change the market.
• But it does change you
• Find passion or choose to be passionate.
• Avoid something you don’t care about
19. Your Skills or Background
• What you (or your organization) are good
at
• Or choose to be good at
• Not just programming
• Understanding the market
20. Should your idea be a
hobby or interest?
• Not if you are the only one with the hobby.
• Yes if it has mass market appeal
• Long tail products may not pay off in apps -
yet.
21. What do they buy
now?
Ex: Garmin’s outdoor/fitness division
had sales of $400 million last year
22. How unique should
your idea be?
Book Amazon Sales Rank
All New Square Foot
Gardening, 2nd Edition
#4,629 in Books
Greenhouse Gardeners
Companion #23,593 in Books
The Pack Goat #678,394 in Books
Practical GoatPacking #3,054,219 in Books
23. Should your idea be
innovative?
• Innovation is great!
• Innovation involves both risk and reward.
• Innovation is not always rewarded in the
marketplace.
• Can you build on something that is already
popular?
24. Profit Potential
• Try to find exact dollar value of future app.
• Come up with your ten best ideas.
• Find out their revenue potential
• Look at the cost to produce them
• Pick the best of them in terms of profit potential.
30. How Do Apps Make
Money?
• Paid App
• In App Purchase
(Freemium)
• Advertising
• To choose your
model:
• Use knowledge of target
market
• See what successful apps
in the category are doing
• Guess
31. Paid Apps
• Post Gold Rush
(Android never had
one)
• Only get paid once
• Don’t have to implement
your own checkout code
• Best for low
maintenance
• Estimate by: Top Paid
Charts
!
32. In App Purchases
• Must implement
purchase code
• Can buy multiple times
• Can be recurring
• Appropriate for some
categories
• Estimate by: Top
Grossing Charts
!
33. In App Purchases
Unmanaged
(consumable)
Managed Subscription
Virtual
Currency
Gems/
Coins
Credits
Content Feature Content Service
34. Advertising
• Can grow over time if
installs stick
• Proportional to usage
(offset server resources)
• Estimate: Top Free
Charts plus tricks
• Not available offline
• Bad where there is not
an opportunity for
impressions.
35. To make money with
advertising
• 1000 impressions/week
• * $1 eCPM (cost per thousand
impressions)
• =$1 per week
36. Make a copy of this
spreadsheet on Google
Drive
http://bit.ly/1cwrX7E
41. Top Paid/Free
• Based on downloads
• From the last several days - not a lifetime
achievement award
• A LOT less downloads are needed to get in
top paid than top free.
51. Cost to provide?
• Revenue(App) != k*Cost(App)
• There is no law that states that Revenue
from an app is proportional to cost
• Unless it is a work for hire with an hourly
contract.
52. Can you have a million in
revenue and still worry?
53. What is cost effective?
hundreds
thousands
tens of thousands
hundreds of thousands
Cost
0 25000 50000 75000 100000
54. Revenue
Profit
Cost
Optimize
Marketing
Funnel
Labor Complexity
Leverage
Process/Plan
To o l s
Effective Hiring
56. 1. Complexity
Faucet
Everything but the
kitchen sink app
Engineering effort
You wrote it in a
weekend
Several engineering
years
Lines of code 300 70,000
Number of features 1 100
Number of features
requested by users
0 300+
What to do when done Work on another app Never done
Bragging rights “My 400th big hit”
“Still working on the
same app I told you
about last year”
57. 2. Labor
• Won’t be a problem, because you are doing
everything yourself, right?
59. 1. Leverage and Reuse
• Can you take advantage of existing code?
• Yours or some you can license.
• Leverage - needs more work
• Reuse - intact
• Reuse is cheaper than leverage
60. 1. Leverage and Reuse
• Library
• presumably closed source
• Framework
• Cross platform
• Open Source
• Apache 2.0 vs LGPL vs GPL
• Complete Source Code
61. ReSkinning
• License complete source code
• Change all graphics, themes, names
• Release as new game/app
• Rinse and repeat if desired. . .
63. 2. Process and Planning
• As opposed to making it up as you go
along.
64. 3. Tools
• Are great to have in the cloud for a dispersed team
• Not just software development
• Communication: Skype
• Project Management: basecamphq.com
• Tech support: Zendesk
• Design and mockups: LucidChart.com
65. 4. Effective Hiring
• You can hire someone to do:
• Programming
• Design/graphics
• Writing/Content creation
• Internet marketing tasks
• Tech Support
66. 4. Effective Hiring
• You can hire someone:
• For a fixed price job according to a quote
• As a part time, hourly freelancer
• As a full time worker.
• Which is ideal?
67. So... do you need an
office building and
some venture capital?
68. Where to hire
• A number of online site
• ODesk
• Hourly, fixed price
• eLance
• Hourly, fixed price
• onlinejobs.ph
• full or part time, philippines
69. What is cost effective?
reskinning:
hire one guy for a month:
hire a team for a few months:
work on full time for a year
Cost
0 25000 50000 75000 100000
70. Conclusions:
• Find your top ten ideas
• Research the revenue potential
• Research the potential cost
• Go out and make some money
• Followup at http://eepurl.com/d9tZj
