Ask HN: What is the best way to distribute an iOS app to Kickstarter Backers? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is the best way to distribute an iOS app to Kickstarter Backers?

6 pointsj2bax8 comments

I'm looking at launching a Kickstarter campaign in the near future partially for some extra funds to push the project through completion and partially for marketing purposes. The product we are developing is an App that will be available on both iOS and Android. My first concern is distributing the iOS app on the iTunes App Store. I don't have a problem with Apple taking their 30% commission on my Kickstarter orders, in fact, I fully understand it and would expect the same if I provided a storefront for someone to host and distribute their apps. The problem is, I don't think there is any mechanism for doing this currently. One possibility that I've considered is buying a $10.00 gift card for every backer and mailing it to them and then hoping that they use it on the app when it releases. The only major problem with this solution is I'm not sure if I can find a supplier that can sell me that many $10.00 gift cards in short order. I'm definitely looking into it though. If anyone else has any ideas of how best to accomplish this task, I would be very grateful for your thoughts!

Solutions I've seen in the past before are:

* Buying copies of your app as gifts (you get 70% back eventually), getting the codes, and sending those. However, gifts are per national App Store, so you have to know the store their Apple ID is associated with in advance. Additionally, you'd probably need a method of payment with a billing address in the countries you wanted to buy gift codes in ...

* Setting the cost of the app to free for 24-48 hours, with advance notification of the app being on the store / when it will be released, plus an email on the day of release with a direct app link for the store. The problem here is dissatisfaction if they "missed it" for some reason (thus the really really really early notification to the backers).

There's obviously an automated gift mechanism of some sort. IGN, Sephora, Starbucks - they all have mechanisms for generating gift codes for non-free apps when they do a giveaway. But I don't know if that mechanism is "pre-purchase a ton of codes" or an on-demand private API Apple has available.

What about the easiest way?

1. Add a low price for the first days, ie: 0,99.

2. Then tell a bunch of your backers that you want to give them 1$ via paypal or similar.

3. As you get responses and the application has been bought jump to the next bunch of packers.

4. Repeat.

5. When finish, raise the price you consider fair.

It will cost you around 30 cents * N. of backers and you will get a bit of traction from some early users thanks to the low price.

Thats a great idea. I'm looking into the overall implications of this. So far its the best idea I haven't thought of already! I guess the only potential concern is if some backers don't have/use Paypal. I could look into sending via Amazon Payments as well, since thats the payment system that Kickstarter uses.

Be my guest =)

How about distributing the app for free on the app store.

When the app is opened, prompt the user to enter a secret code that you've distributed only to Kickstarter backers.

And for non-backers, set up an in-app purchase as an alternative method of unlocking the app.

It's possible though that an app that isn't functional without an unlock code or without making an in-app purchase might violate Apples' rules in some way.

See http://journal.darkskyapp.com/2012/kickstarting-part-1/. Essentially, it might be easiest to just buy copies of the app as gifts for each backer, but there are some caveats to consider.

http://testflightapp.com/

We use Test Flight internally and with clients but unfortunately its not viable for extensive distribution like this. From what I understand an Enterprise Developer Account with Apple would allow us to distribute to more than 100 devices, but distributing an app like this to what are essentially paying customers would be against Apple's terms and they'd most likely shut our enterprise developer account down pretty quickly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com