Last year around November(2016) I finally had the time to build my first mobile app. My goals are: to learn React Native and build a mobile app and publish it to Google Play. At my previous work I'm pretty much knowledgeable in integrating CRMs (ie.Salesforce, SugarCRM and Highrise.) into Gmail via chrome extension so building API backend wont be a problem. I noticed at that time that only Highrise CRM has no official Anroid/Ios app offering so I decided to implement it myself. Initially I implemented highrise tasks feature and figure out later what the users need via feedback. I completed the app within a month uploaded it to Google Play[0] and built a simple website[1] for it. Being a Highrise user who opt in for their new products announcement, one moring around December (2016) I got an email from Highrise announcing their official mobile apps for android and iOS. So that was it. I had no chance of competing with the official apps. I got around 5 install on Google Play which already had uninstalled my app.
Expenses:
$10 for the domain
$25 for Google Play Developer Fee
around $20 for few months api backend hosting (Digital Ocean $5/month) then I migrated the code and hosted to free Heroku plan to save cost.
[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.taskongo