There is a pervasive delusion that launching an app means immediate access to a lucrative market, but the reality is that it's highly competitive with extremely low returns.
If you are looking to make money off a mobile app (not establish saas mobile extension) rapidly launch MVPs of your apps to see if there is any demand. Don't invest in perfect designs and ux until you've validated that there is a user base worth investing in.
Let's put it this way: Had I invested the same number of hours begging for change at a freeway off-ramp, instead of coding, I would have made vastly more money. How is that for a cold hard reality? I wonder how many published app authors feel the same way.
I'd further suggest that creating apps for clients is incredibly profitable. You don't necessarily need sales on apps to make money. Businesses, organizations, and people have problems that they are willing to pay to get solved with an app. Take your time selecting the right problem and you can make a good living and enjoy what you're creating at the same time.
It's a pity that the app market is such a wasteland now because the platform has so much potential.
I always tell people to note down the amount of money spent in hardware, digital certificates and development time. Then check how many times they would need to sell their app to recover the investment.
Most of the time the conclusion is that at the current prices, it would seldom pay off.
That advice is how you create shovelware. You can't validate a market if you don't meet the demands of that market, and that means producing something that can compete in a space of well-made and well-designed applications.
edit: I'll add too that "real money" does not mean riches. I make an adequate salary making apps and am very happy.
Getting into the paid mobile app market was never a viable long-term strategy, but it was certainly capable of making someone extremely wealthy for a while.
Repeated past observations imply that years after the bubble pops they'll still be .edu's offering classes to prepare noobs into the bubble, which no longer exists anymore.
- much lower barriers to entry (Apps are much less complex than websites that need to work on many different browsers, especially with iOS)
- micropayments are built-in, users will pay for additional content/features much more often
- scales much better (most of the functionality is in the client)
On the other hand, it's relatively unlikely that an App released today will work or be useful in 10 years - so it's an even faster market than websites.
I can't really agree with this. I did web dev for ten years before I got into iOS and iOS development is far more difficult. You have to deal with threading, pointers, tight resource limits, crufty persistence APIs, flaky network connections, etc etc. A typical web app is far easier to build and maintain.
Most of the apps that Agant has produced appear to be aggressively priced (seems most are around £9.99, the most recent at £24.49). Though, they do target a rather niche market. I'm very curious as to whether the apps did not sell well or simply did not cover the cost of operation. Whatever the case, now that Dave is the sole employee the revenue of the existing apps will not hurt.
Finally, I'm also wondering if Dave ended this adventure simply because he was not enjoying it, or if Agant was spiraling into debt. I can't really tell from this post. He does mention that making it in the App Store is difficult, but that some of the apps were created for clients (some being partners). I can't imagine that there wasn't enough good work out there for a talented team of proven developers+designers.
Because I know for a fact there are a number of agencies in the UK that have managed to build sustainable businesses off up front costs. I don't know of any (and I'd love to be proved wrong on this) that have done it through revenue share. I've definitely lost pitches to companies that proposed revenue shares though...
>I can't imagine that there wasn't enough good work out there for a talented team of proven developers+designers.
I alluded to this in another post, but the problem now is more that the companies prepared to pay top dollar for apps tend to be those that aren't going to pick a small agency, even one with good creds. They're looking for big, established players that can service all of their digital needs in a single go.
"I can't imagine that there wasn't enough good work out there"
Toward the end of a bubble the work goes away no matter how good you are. As far as I know he was pretty good. Which has pretty dire implications for the rest of the marketplace. The worlds best finish carpenter got fired in 2007. The worlds best multimedia cdrom designer got fired around 1996ish. The world best atari 2600 programmer got fired in 1983ish. Its the bubble that caused the problem, not the man.
The problem is that as time has gone on, more traditional agency suppliers have entered into the marketplace. This makes it really difficult for small players to compete. All the big digital agencies are doing app dev in house, and even the big consultancies are getting in on the action (Accenture, Deloitte, etc). I don't think Agant were helped by the fact they weren't based in London either.
Hypothetically, let's say you're a large retailer looking to get an app built. Who do you go with: the small player with great creds, or the well established agency that you already used to build your eCom site? I can tell you which one your procurement department will recommend you go with.
This isn't really an app specific issue, but one that occurs generally in the agency space (be it traditional print, digital, etc): mid-tier agencies find it very hard to compete. On the one hand they're getting their toes snapped at by one and two man shops who can undercut them, on the other they're not big enough to command attention at RFP stages against vast agency conglomerates.
That being said, many app builds that I see being put to tender (at least in the UK) are often 'one shot' in combination with an advertising campaign or marketing effort. For better or for worse, many builds aren't designed to be sustainable or have a long-term presence.
I do not agree they're not profitable, but they're NOT going to be "set it and forget it" style successes.
I know on smartphones everything is an app, but these from Agant are mostly auxiliary content plays, interactive titles to accompany other printed work. I was reminded of the glory days of the CD-ROM browsing their portfolio. Content like this has often been beautiful and compelling, but rarely profitable.
The problem on the content front is that you are competing with (1) print / Kindle, (2) the huge library of existing movie and TV content already available for tablets and phones, and (3) the entire internet, where most of the content is free to the reader.
Most of the paid apps that do well add specific functionality to your phone: managing files in the cloud, controlling physical devices, exercise companions, etc. Often they are tied with hosted services: Evernote and Dropbox, for example.
For this reason, I'd imagine Agan saw bigger success with UK Train Times rather than Explore Shakespeare.
That being said, some of their apps look beautiful. Wish them all the best of luck on their next venture.
I don't know whether the title is fair. The article doesn't say 'we're not profitable', it just says it's a risky market to make high value, premium products, but making that kind of product in any market is inherently risky.
It's a shame, their apps are nice, but I think it's more a developer wants to develop, not chase down the next contract to keep the wages going so hopefully we'll see more work appearing.
I have two kinds of clients: Ones with hardware as part of the product, where Android is an embedded component and the software is specialized to work with the hardware; and ones with business models that do not depend on the end user paying a one-time retail price.
