Show HN: We made 1 app this year
lentor.io
lentor.io
Kudos.
Hopefully people continue to release their stats.
Seriously though, we actually do hope to make enough to pay off some of the bills. The revenue model is freemium, most users will not need to pay, and there is a one time IAP for users who end up using/needing the app enough.
Essentially, our philosophy is that we want to prove that we are providing value to people before we expect or want revenue from users. We might put more revenue options in the future, but it would be based on the same philosophy of providing actual value.
We're still beginners at this, so thanks for all the comments, good comments make us smile, and criticisms are even better so we can make the app better throughout the year.
Some how this impresses people compared to single guy doing 30 apps in a year?
My Bet is Single Guy with 30 apps will make real money over next year.
You're being very mean towards a fellow human being who is likely still an active HN participant and might read your comment.
It's also mistaken. ~99.9% of people can't.
I'm pretty sure those were young kids. Sure, I've seen people complaining about those types of posts in the past but I think being negative about someone's desire to learn and (perhaps) eventually build something that solves real problems is a caustic attitude.
It does take time and skill to develop good apps. In this case, the company that provides that as a service is showcasing it through the app itself. In the case of the 15 year old, he/she is learning how to do so him/herself. I fail to see the issue surrounding this. They are both doing well.
Now, the OP took recent thread titles from HN and spinned it to its own benefit. That is good a good way to get attention on HN.
I disagree with this point. When developing (relatively simple) apps the biggest resource is time - something a teenager has A LOT of. As someone who started developing apps when I was 17 I know that I was able to develop 5x the number of apps then that I can now. Simply because I had more time. Also because I was living with my parents as most people at that age are and money isn't really an issue it doesn't matter if apps fail, you can keep building. You don't need to spend time on paying projects or evaluate the risk of developing a new project of your own.
You and I were lucky. And for that I'm grateful.
The majority of my expenses and income are very predictable, such that I get paid every N days, I get billed X every Y days, etc. I would like to see an application that tracks my balance for every day, from now and into the future, such that I can see my predicted balance on, say, February 21st.
It could also tie into my bank account and track current and past spending, both to recognize recurring events and to update the current balance, which also cascades into all the future predictions.
I have pretty good credit card projections implemented as well, including the rules for computing minimum payments.
Beyond that, some minimal mobile access would be nice for things like adding/modifying recurring events, updating the balance, or entering a new one-off debit/credit.
I stress this because I think for a lot of people budget applications provide a peace of mind, and it's nice to be able to check in on and confirm these things while you're on the go.
I find if I have to input every little thing into it every day manually, I'm just going to get bored with having to interact with the app so much and then stop using it.
The Android version of Dollarbird is actually already in the pipeline, most probably coming out sometime in February. So if you'd like to be updated about this you can sign up to our newsletter here: http://dollarbirdapp.com/contact/ Cheers!
I want to see my transactions grouped by the excursions I've made to see which events I spent the most on.
The pain of budgeting is in tracking outflows, at least for me. I make a combination of debit, credit, and cash purchases, and even just through those three channels it's easy to lose track of what went where.
As you note in your app description, people typically give up "tracking expenses... because it was too much effort." So how does your app solve this pain? Would be nice if it were explained.
1) The ones that collect the data automatically require me to violate my bank's online TOS to gather the data (e.g. Mint), which potentially leaves me with no recourse should my bank account be compromised.
2) The ones that require me to input the data are just too much work.
I've been using YNAB (You Need A Budget) for a few months, and it makes you input everything. I initially resisted and thought the same thing as you. However I forced myself to try it because so many people recommended it so highly.
It is at it's core a glorified spreadsheet, but it's a very well designed spreadsheet with great support and a solid budgeting methodology behind it. Entering transactions manually has not been that painful, and the big benefit of doing this is that you are actively participating with your budget. WIth mint you spend money and then see how it fits into your budget. With YNAB you give that dollar a job as soon as you get it, and you manually input it when you spend it. It really keeps you aware of your budget and where you are in it and in my experience makes it much easier to stick to it.
I found every time I tried to use Mint to budget (privacy issues aside) it never worked out because it was a very passive thing. Set up some categories. Spend money. Wait for email to tell me I'm over budget, oops.
YNAB is very active so it keeps you honest. And unlike mint, YNAB is designed to be a fluid budget. You can and are encouraged to adjust budget amounts and categories on the fly as life happens, which is something painful to do in mint or other apps.
It is a bit of a pain to have to manually handle transactions (though you can import CSV) but I find the benefits of doing that outweighs the hassle.
> 4.0 and up
This cuts out pretty big portion of the userbase, doesn't it? Around 25% according to developers' dashboards[1].
I'm also interested in how this makes money? Or how it could make money. I'm not sure ads are viable alternative for apps you don't need to engage a lot with (i.e. games, readers, ..).
I begin all of my new Android projects with compatibility for 4.0 and later only, because my target market doesn't include people with small budgets buying budget smartphones with years-old OS versions, because they're less likely to do what I want them to: pay me money.
Gets better with zooming though, at 120 % it looks nicer: http://i.imgur.com/d0GkKcq.png
Do you know of any android/web app that can do that?
I'm on firefox, windows 7.
When you think about planning for the future, I don't think a mobile app is really a good way to go about it. When I was setting up YNAB, I used the desktop app. It took me a while to enter all my budget information and set it up the way I liked it. This wasn't because of YNAB's UI, which is pretty good, but because monthly finances can be complicated. I couldn't imagine doing all of this on a mobile device. It would be incredibly frustrating.
YNAB has mobile and desktop applications. This is nice. You use the desktop application for setting things up and the mobile application for recording purchases (and checking your budget status when considering a purchase) while you are out.
All that said, I was never hooked. The system forces you to think about and record every purchase you make. This is probably great for people living paycheck to paycheck trying to get ahead, or people unable to meet their savings goal. If this isn't you, then you'll probably just find the system to be an unnecessary annoyance.
So the difference is with YNAB you would indeed budget $1667 when you get your paycheck, but you wouldn't carry that out 12 months in the future and plan your income/expenses to determine how much money you'll have at that point.
I've taken an approach of manual entry for a few "important" categories of discretionary spending. It's been good to leave everything else for the less frequent review of my bank statements.