Why can't I sell this App? Be honest, please

Looking at your iTunes page, when it first loads the description I can see of the app does not make me want to buy it.

Because of the Christmas special text you've put in, all I see about the app is "Read is a beautiful and revolutionary app to consume your favorite news, blogs or stories. Flick left & right to jump"

Lots of people claim their apps are beautiful and revolutionary. I have no idea if your app is either of these things, but also neither of these points is particularly useful for me to decide whether to buy it.

"Read your favorite news, blogs and stories without adverts" would sell it more to me. You either need to convince me to spend the money with that one line, or at least to click the 'more' link to see the whole description.

When the description is expanded, the list of features needs to be adjusted. I have no idea what "Casual Google Reader Integration" is, rather than normal Google Reader integration.

Personally, I would re-order this and put "Get rid of all the Ads & Clutter with our Clear Read technology" at the top - say what the feature does before what it's called.

Second, I'd put your point about streams.

As the third point, I'd probably have "Read more easily with our hand-picked fonts." or something similar

The other points I'd probably split in to a separate list. They feel more like details that I'd kind of expect in a reader, rather than big selling points. However, I'm not an iPad user so I'm not comparing this to other apps I've seen.

Personally, I'd have thought mentioning Instapaper & Read it Later would just remind people they already have an app that makes it easy to read some content they are interested in. However, as I said I'm not particularly familiar with this space, so that could be good. I'd definitely have them down on the list of features though, as that sort of point starts confusing people who don't know about those services.

Moving to the website:

I can't see most of what's going on in the app when I click on the links as the mock iPad is mostly off the screen when I'm reading the text. Also, your tag line is going to be 'below the fold' for most people when they load the page.

What's with the weird eye in a ring?

The text doesn't sound particularly professional, e.g. "Going through articles is an estimated 170% faster than regular browsing. Since all the clutter is gone, Read will only load the most important stuff: content."

"Going through" and "stuff" doesn't fit with a pro reading app. Also, "estimated 170% faster" sounds made up.

Looking up forgotten words doesn't fit under "Personalized".

Under "Simple" you say "Don't think of Read as a feed browser", which I wasn't, as I can't tell what it does do on the website. I can guess it's an app to read stuff in, because of the name and the amount of text on the screenshots, but you don't actually tell me what the app does on the website.

Personally, I'd move the mock iPad over to the left, then put some text next to it on the right which tells me what the app does which is unique and why it's nice to use. You can do extra selling underneath, once people know what the app is.

I'm sorry if this comes across as a bit brutal, but you did ask. From what I can see you've done a load of work in the app. Getting the website and App Store description improved should be a whole lot less work, and should help you convert a little better.

This is an interesting problem. I have a few suggestions.

1. I echo the other people that the description needs some work. Its not very compelling above the fold. 2. I think you can get rid of the announcement about your Christmas sale and fill that space instead with a better description. Its doubtful the "80% off" text is a worthwhile marketing strategy compared to the space it takes up. That strategy usually works best when people know the price of what they are buying beforehand. But people probably don't know what your app was priced at beforehand, so they're unlikely to think they're getting any sort of deal. 80% off my favorite grocery item is huge. 80% off something I've just heard of? Not so big. You can use the space better. 3. Improve your screenshots. Marketing is about creating an image. You don't need the instructional shots with the hand in there prompting people how it works. You need amazing, awesome, cool pictures that make people go wow. They'll figure out how it works. Wow them first. 4. I would raise your price to match your competitors and keep it there. Or maybe just below them. People don't do a lot of price comparison on the App Store (at least I don't). I just bought a $400 phone, I'm not wasting time seeing which app is the best deal to save a few cents. I'm searching for the app that solves my problem and I'll buy it. If it solves my problem, its worth it. If I had to hazard a guess, dropping your price doesn't gain you any ground over your competitors as much as it loses you sales. I would put the price back up and leave it there. Don't put your app on sale again.

Lastly, I would say some people are right when they advise you to let this one go. You're stuck between some well funded, good competitors and free. Its not a good place to be. People buying apps like to go with the leader because they feel it must be good, because other people have bought it. Or they like to go free because they're cheap. Unless you have the marketing budget to convince people you're as good as Flipboard or all the other apps more popular than you, then its likely you can't put enough effort into this by yourself to make a big difference. In purely economic terms, if you put in 700 hours of marketing work, you would probably make less money than doing 700 hours of freelance developing. You've learned all the lessons you can learn from this app, use your time instead on other things with better returns.

I would advise putting in a bit of work to make everything look good and fixing any remaining bugs, then move onto something else. Its not a failure not to be #1 when you're a single person. Some business niches just require more capital, whether its a marketing budget or development time, and you might not have it.

Don't quit, just study your next project carefully. Pick the one requiring the least development time, having the easiest marketing strategy, with the highest return. Until you have a company with 50 people to do all your work, that should be your strategy.

Your app is actually more successful than most of the apps in the App Store: the median annual income per app is less than $1000. See http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/06/full-an... for a good analysis. Income in the app store is distributed according to a power law, which means that the most successful apps make thousands of times more than the average. They are the lottery winners, and nothing you do is likely to put your single app in that category.

On the bright side, you've created a cash cow. It requires little maintenance and generates about $100/month. To get that same return from an investment, you'd need a sizable chunk of cash, probably in excess of $25,000. So don't think of your app as a failure, think of it as a $25,000 trust fund. Now go out and create some more.

If you build it, they won't come. That generally only happens in Field of Dreams the movie. It's all about marketing. Putting your App inside the App Store alone isn't good enough. It'll get you some sales possibly but if you want to rocket your growth, you need to be more strategic about marketing.

Having said that, I don't see any real compelling reason why I would personally want your App. If you're going to compete with other reading Apps, whats your advantage? Do you even have a small number of people who love your App who can help drive feedback and promote the App without being asked (this is one of the first steps for any entrepreneur).

This is a crowded space as you mentioned. I don't know why this is any different then Flipboard from reading the description, only thing maybe is that you remove advertisements and make it easier to read. However, the big difference between you and Flipboard is that Flipboard has a brand that I know of, its free, and I know there is a large team behind it making it better all the time (or at least trying to).

Edit: One thing I forgot to say, is that the app actually looks pretty nice. Sadly, I don't think that is enough to break into the market.

I understand what you mean, many companies like Flipboard, Zite, FLUD are backed by teams and incredible high funding. I'm 19 and worked on this whole thing on my own, which makes me sad

If you knew this, and felt like you are at such a disadvantage (as evident by your tone), why are you surprised that it is not doing well?

Let this one go. Be more innovative on your next project.

Because I honestly believed, and still do, that my app provides a service that was missing on the iPad. About being more innovative - ideas do not come easy to me. Any suggestions?

My advice would be to use this app as your 'portfolio' for building other people's ideas on a contract basis. ODesk or Guru.com are decent places to start, although here in Chicago Craigslist has a suprising number of iOS contracts.

You will likely find people to partner with that have more niche markets to go after. One of your problems, IMO, is that you're product is very general and therefore has lots of competition. Once you are familiar with a smaller (but not too small) market, you will likely end up with many more ideas for products people will pay money for.

Contracting is underrated in the startup world, IMO. You can spend 6 months out of the year building other people's ideas, and the rest of the time building your own until your own products can support you.

> my app provides a service that was missing on the iPad.

That’s awesome! What is it? Is there a way you could tell people what that is in the description of the app?

Right now I have trouble telling what’s different about Read from, for instance, Instapaper.

Like paulsilver, I don’t think that “beautiful and revolutionary” means enough by itself.

Your description is a terse list of techno-babble that will baffle my mother. I still don't know what a stream is. Or clear read. Or "casual" reader integration. Basically every sentence is a mess. Explain your product to a non-technical human, then let her write the marketing blurb. This is why marketing people exist.

You are obviously talented, so I wouldn't give up. But marketing is also a skill.

I mean people are fighting hard to be in the top 25. That's where all the money is!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Tail

Clickable link: http://rdit.in/get

maybe you should offer a free version including advertisements

I'm planning to do that

Well, it looks nice and polished. Haven't tried it yet, I will later. If I was looking for such an app I would have considered it, have I known about it.

But: it's an RSS Reader.

Most people have already settled on one by now -- NetNewsWire or Reeder mostly, but there are tons of others out there.

I don't see any great differentiating factor from those two, so any success you can have can only come from:

1) being there first with that app (you weren't) 2) having more visibility (which you don't, ie. less money to spend on ads, less reviews for you app in re: Reeder and NNW, etc).

My suggestions:

1) Check the sore spots of other RSS Readers, especially the market leaders and try to correct some of those. Then post about how you corrected such and such.

2) Add some unique, your-app-only, feature. Or a bunch of them. Post about those again.

3) Engage the community of potential buyers. Setup a forum and ask people what they would like to see in an RSS Reader. Add the best/more popular of the suggestions.