Congratulations! May I ask how did you reach out to developers and how long did the project take. I assume you designed it? Thanks! :-)
I still hang out on IRC and through the #macdev channel via one of the moderators i was put in contact with Jimmy.
Just goes to show, few things beat personal recommendations.
But please if you have any work please help out Jimmy he is a really good developer just caught in a shitty situation.
My impression when shopping around for a developer was that to get something like ghostnote built you'd have to spend around $50k+. This ultimately led me to just trying to build the app myself, but I'm finding that while I can achieve basic functionality with iOS, anything complex is far more time consuming (custom UIs, animations, integration 20 + apis).
It sounds simple but it's much harder than one would expect. I hired several developers most couldn't get it done and I had even talked to several developers about doing it as a split deal.
Its one thing to build an app that does what the framework is build for, but we are doing stuff that are kind breaking some fairly new grounds. On top of that having to deal with MASS and the Sandbox was a frustrating experience.
I do know how to program just not well enough to even remotely begin to solve some of the things you have to solve to make this work.
My best advice is make sure you have a pretty well polished idea, final (kind a) design and an interesting problem.
I managed to build this because we basically focused on the major challenge for Jimmy and not a lot of nice-to have stuff but ultimately not important to begin with.
Time learning programming is never wasted but it's just a different level we are talking about for this app.
Yeah I'm in the same boat. The app I'm building has some really complex interactions that involve building a "mini" language within the app. For example:
` <send me an email> <if I get a tweet from @whatever> <else> <compile all mentions into one email> `
^ It's something like IFTT meets the simplicity of a markup language. So the user would actually be able to define these workflows much like writing simple jquery.
There's more to it than that but as you can see it extends far beyond basic iOS application building.
I haven't specifically shopped for a developer cause forget $50k, I can't even spend $5k. So I guess sometimes, its not really about offsetting your potential earnings, than it is about whether you could afford one at all.
Still it will be interesting if ThomPete ever publishes his earning report of sorts :)
PS: Just wondering any specific course/book you are referring for iOS?
Also I always offer 50/50 split after I have recouped my investment. This is to pay for upgrading the app (an there will be many updates after launch believe me).
If the app is interesting then they might be a little more willing to invest their time too.
You wanna give the early adopters a better deal than the later ones.
I knew this app was unique (I frankly have never seen anything close to it) and i knew it was adding value because I use it all the time myself and it has some potential so I could go way higher and still make the same if not more.
But I decided to start at this price because i didn't know what kind of bugs would surface once many people started using it. That way people don't feel like they are overpaying even when they find bugs and I am kind of giving them a discount to provide me with valuable information.
I think that is fair to everyone.
It's really comprehensive but absolutely massive. If you have a demanding full time job it could easily take you a year to get through the full course.
> I haven't specifically shopped for a developer cause forget $50k, I can't even spend $5k.
The problem isn't really the initial dollar amount, it's spending what you think you can make back on the application in a reasonable amount of time (6 months). If you can't make $50k on an app then why spend the money to have it made?
On the other hand if you can spend 3-4 hours per week learning how to build the app then what you make back is really whatever you value your time at minus the upside of learning a new skill.
The problem is that it takes years of experience using these tools and programming in order to make anything complex. I'm learning that the hard way.
I guess that is where one needs to a fair bit of market analysis. One could argue that ghostnote might or might have a potential for $50k but who knows? Add the fact that some gurus say paid apps are dead while you can find numerous paid ones working fine, it is just confusing.
Then there is decision on pricing the app. I was reading up on some devs who put out their income figures. One might be inclined to think Dash for iOS at $10 might be a hard sell but it has done really good. On comparing to another app priced at $3.99 with same number of downloads, the returns have been much higher.
So the issue doesn't stop with whether I can make it back. But also, how do I make it back. I am too learning it the hard way :)
> I'm working through this course - http://bitfountain.io/courses/complete-ios8
My first impression after scrolling through the page is - It is too detailed. Maybe for complete beginners in programming.
I have started with free Udemy course - https://www.udacity.com/course/ud585
Following it up with the free Stanford classes. Currently need to start with the 3rd lecture.