Convert first month sales | Hacker News Reader

Convert first month sales

taptaptap.com

36 pointsscarface5488 comments

So 100000 people need a unit converter on their phone? Seriously? I "need" one perhaps once a year, and then I just use Google (which would be available on an iPhone, too). (Need as in "hmm, gee, I wonder what x is in y", not as in "oh my god, I need to know this ASAP!!!").

I think there is another story hidden there - taptaptap has become so famous that people just buy whatever they put out there. Good for them, but hardly something to draw parallels from.

Only being 99c helps. Who cares, if it is only 99c, you probably spent more on coffee in the last hour, or at least a lot of people have.

I think the big attraction is the great design. it is a beautiful looking app. There are plenty of free apps that do the same thing, but loop rubbish. People pay for beauty, otherwise that $10 hooker down the road would be laughing.

I think this is the first time I've understood some of the path to profitability for the iPhone App Store. It's not about making a great app and keeping it up forever. It's about having a hit, milking it for all it's got, then moving on to another app. Even if your app barely took off at all.

For another example, look at Tapulous. They started off with a bunch of small apps, and one of them, Tap Tap Revolution, took off. They've turned that into quite an app with numerous versions. Note that it's not just updates to the app but a bunch of more limited, artist/genre-focused apps. This kind of stuff is the key.

I think having the right PR chops is a huge benefit - visibility is so difficult. Building product anticipation is the key there I think. It is really hard to time things right with the app store approval process so I'm curious if they got their apps approved first and delayed the release date until building enough interest.

Regarding the milking/moving on - one of the most frustrating parts of iphone app dev is the incredibly long feedback loop. The app store means you aren't agile and can't respond to customer feedback as fast as you'd like. I think you're dead on with the model Tapulous used - cast a wide net, nurture what works, and milk the living hell out of it until it dies.

Surely you could use ad-hoc beta for feeback loop?

100% Yes you can and should use ad-hoc testers. I think the real problem isn't in finding bugs, but in changing direction/adding value which isn't always surfaced in QA.

The hard part is that if we assume the "live fast/die young" model it becomes increasingly difficult to change/grow the further we get from launch since we are falling further below the more recent apps, below more recent items on blog, social bookmarking, and pr sites, and our buzz is wearing off. Unless we can re-invigorate the buzz the work put in to updating the app might be better spent creating version 2 (w/ it's own buzz and launch) six months down the road.

I agree with you Tichy, it often seems hard to believe that what people spend their money on, but the numbers are nothing to scoff at. I'd be interested to know if the sales numbers for a hit and run product cycle are linear or asymptotic, as in, will they get $130k, and then $110k out of it in months 2 and 3, or will the falloff be much sharper, say $100k, $70k, $20k etc etc? It seems like if revenue diminishes rapidly, it's an absolutely brutal and cutthroat market, not one that I'd like to be in. However, if marketing efforts can keep the app riding high for a few months, the proposition looks a lot sweeter.

Regardless of the sales falloff, nice work guys, and congratulations.

Good article, I remember seeing these guys awhile back with their first couple apps. They definitely have it down, useful tools with user friendly designs.

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