Instapaper Founder Marco Arment On The App Business | Hacker News Reader

Instapaper Founder Marco Arment On The App Business

npr.org

75 pointsjacobjulius16 comments

I hate these fluff pieces. There's a huge infatuation with mobile apps these days that's not based on reality. The media either,presents them as super simple projects that are making people rich or gimmicks that can't possibly take too much time to build.

The fact is, no one wants to hear about how Marco's "super simple" service has quite a bit of engineering on the backend to handle load, or that he's not, in fact, a millionaire from Instapaper (even though it seems that he makes a very decent living).

The truth is that apps aren't a gold mine. It still takes hard work, dedication and luck to make it developing your own mobile apps. It just irks me that the public perception of apps are that they're simple and always make buckets of money in exchange for little effort.

It's true that making a successful app is hard work. It is, however, simple compared to how the software market used to work. You no longer need your own website and payment system, you need very little marketing, and development time is quicker allowing you to try many different ideas until you find one that sticks. You can create a living with time being the only investment (and you can invest your spare time so you can continue your day job).

Edit: Why the down vote? If you are going to down vote something at least reply with your reason/point of view.

> "...you need very little marketing... development time is quicker..."

I disagree with this. There's still quite a bit of effort involved marketing if you've not already got credibility/contacts/attention from something previous. Development time may be quicker in general but if you want to craft something unique I expect you still have to spend time on it.

Agree with the rest of your points though.

I suppose development time does depend on the app. It is possible to spend a few hours building an app and make a lot of money from it though but this is probably the exception not the rule.

I've always found marketing iOS apps to be very simple. You get marketing in the App Store new releases section, and then I push hard for downloads on social media. You only need to market hard until you get into the top 25 or so and then the App Store does it for you. This is what I have found anyway.

Would Marco make more money giving away his app for free and charging $1.99/month for the service? It's always seemed odd to me that you pay for the web service upfront with a one-time fee, though that seems to be working well for Pinboard.

It may be the case that a one-time upfront cost is the best way to attract paying customers.

If lack of a monthly fee made some sense in the early days of Instapaper, it makes plenty of sense now that Apple has "Reading List" installed on millions of Macs and iOS devices.

I don't have the link at hand, but he actualy bloged about it. He tried recurring billing, and gave up/couldn't because it was tailored for recurring publications, and not services like Instapaper.

Edit: this was his take on it: http://www.marco.org/2012/01/06/autorenewable-subscription-r...

Pinboard also has a $25/year plan for archiving of links, in addition to their one-time signup fee.

This interview repeats the common line of thought that Apple having credit cards stored and a frictionless buying experience as key to the success of the App Store, but I don't see why that is a commonly held belief. Doesn't hurt, of course, but simple ease of payment doesn't really strike me as the main hurdle in selling software (more than willing to be proved wrong here). It seems more likely to me that the iPhone was a device that begged for software. Hand anyone an iPhone with just the built in apps and I assure you they will soon be inquiring about what else can they do with it.

A great demand seems to be the real key to the App Store success. After all, how many credit cards that were entered in 2008 are still active today?

I definitely think that the seamless buying experience is one of the key, not the only one.

Yes, the device is begging for the software but let's imagine that you have to go through a regular 'checkout' experience. I really don't think I would have bought any of those 1$ games which I buy on a whim. In fact, if there is any app which is less than 5$ and looks even slightly interesting, I click on the 'Buy Now' button. [These days, I actually hate entering my iTunes password. I wish there was a setting for it to not prompt me password at all. I am the exclusive user of my phone.]

To relate to my retail experience, let me bring up my favorite Amazon Prime service. If I am interested in any particular item and it's available on Prime, I generally order it even if I am not 100% sure. If it was on some other website, I will think 5 times before decided to purchase it. I can't count how many times I have abandoned check out when the site does not let me do 'Guest Checkout'. I simply do not have the patience to create yet another account just to buy one item. It is actually surprising to me that so many websites still don't offer guest checkout. They are leaving some serious money on the table.

The difference between having to enter my CC every couple of years vs. every couple of days is huge. I'm guilty of a lot of quick, mindless expenses in the iTunes Store that I probably wouldn't have incurred in if I had to enter the CC every time.

It's all about reducing the friction to buy stuff, when the only thing you have to do is click a button you're most likely to consume (at least on my personal experience).

Can't you both be right?

I agree with Kyle in the observation that this is not the main reason for the App Store to be successful, but I think it contributes a lot. I'm only speaking from experience though so maybe other people can chime in and give us their opinions.

As a user it's often the difference between me buying and not buying (having to go through finding my card, entering the information) when buying online. If I can click "buy" and it's done then I spend much more money. I've spent what must be over $5,000 via itunes (the majority of it being music and film/tv though, not apps) and I would never have spent that much if I had to enter my information every time.

I don't think it makes a difference on desirable purchases -- things I actively decide "I want this!" and then seek out -- but on impulse buys it's the difference between a sale and no sale.

Any marketplace needs demand, ease of transaction, and trust. Arguing about which one is more important is like arguing about which leg of a tripod is more important.

It is a great success story but it is also a story of someone being in the right place at the right time. Instapaper was in the app store the very next day after store went alive. Seems like a typical story described in Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_%28book%29

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