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Comment by jkira | Hacker News Reader

I'd be interested to hear how you marketed the app. Just building an app seems to be only half (or less) of the battle these days, as far as App Store success goes.

I've got seven apps on the App Store, and combined they usually don't even bring in $200/mo. Discouraging.

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I'll talk about that in one of the upcoming posts, but basically:

I started with an app niche that I knew people were already searching for. And I knew that because there were crappy Spanish Bible apps already making money in the App Store.

Since then I have started collecting users' email addresses which helps with promotions and new app launches, but initially all my traction was through search.

Sounds like any successful business I've ever heard of. Find a niche with an unsatisfied need, then grow organically. Good for you.

Thanks!

> And I knew that because there were crappy Spanish Bible apps already making money in the App Store.

How did you know that? Just judging by the reviews or did you actually buy some to try them out?

All of the above. I bought quite a few of them.

It doesn't take too long to get a feel for how good an app is.

But how did you know they were making money?

Doesn't Apple only let those who have purchased write a review? If so, the gross number of reviews may give some idea of how many have purchased the app (ignoring price fluctuations, etc)

Some developers have told me this is a good rule of thumb, but for others it's way off. Mine # of reviews is not really indicative of how many downloads.

From what I've read it's:

(# reviews * 30)

My apps are more like (n * 100). But that is on Android...

AppAnnie (http://www.appannie.com/) gives some good insight in how well apps are doing.

Gross rank for apps reveals a lot. Any top 25 app by gross rank is doing well by "niche" standards.

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