bignoggins

Its in my HN profile

I'm a big fan of bootstrapping, allow me to add my own data point. I was the typical bored-at-BigCo guy but was afraid to completely jump into startups full time (I have a family). I decided to bootstrap my startup (mobile app) at the beginning of 2010, while working full time for 6 months. 6 months after that I quit my job full time as the income from the startup surpassed my SV engineering salary (made 75K in 6 months). In 2011, I traveled the world for 7 months with my wife while making my 2nd app, and my income went up to 340K. This year, I'm pretty much working ~20 hrs a week and I'm on track to hit at least 600K (already did 300K YTD). No full time employees, no VCs, no board, minimal expenses (macbook + iphone), no hassle.

I have friends and relatives who have done YC, gone the whole fundraising route, etc. Some who are fairly successful, but I wouldn't trade places with them in a second. I'm not saying bootstrapping is better, but if you are like me (risk averse and lazy) then it is definitely a legitimate option.

good stuff. always good to hear other app success stories.

out of all the posts on HN right now about this, this one is by far the most insightful.

More salary guides from the same company http://www.rhi.com/SalaryGuides (covers legal, tech, and others)

I have a similar experience. I actually traveled the world for 7 months last year working on my startup. It was exciting at first, but then the excitement became routine and I longed to get back to my SF home office.

I'm assuming his company actually makes revenues since they charge, so most of the salaries may be covered by revenues already and the funding will make up the rest.

It doesn't need to be an html5 app it can be a native app that uses Facebook login

heard you throw this figure around before. Can you break that out more? How much of that is salary, and how much is benefits? And this is location dependent, no?

I love how you are doing this literally the day after your microconf talk on collecting emails. On a side note you have an unhealthy obsession with red sweatshirts.

Fairly complex entertainment app

As a data point I have about 900,000 customers to service (iPhone apps). I've also had times in my career where I have had one customer (department of defense). I'm much happier with the 900,000. I think an assumption Jason makes that i would contest is that you need to provide the same level of service to 10,000 people that you would provide to 10. When your app is at a low price point, you aren't competing on customer service anymore. So why try? Just use a virtual assistant to handle level one service requests, have a FAQ, etc.

Absolutely see this for customers of iPhone apps. If. You're not careful the avalanche of customer service requests on a 99c app can sink you

Not sure if I'm the only one out there like this, but I'm actually a technical guy who wants to be a non-technical cofounder. I'm a decent programmer but I find myself much more drawn to the business and product side of things and would be more than happy to have someone else who is a much stronger programmer than me handle the bulk of the technical work.

+1 for rob walling. I read his book start small stay small a few years ago and it totally changed my strategy on how to build a business. I've gone the multiple apps route and on track to gross over 500k this year. And all the while I've travelled the world for 7 months and rarely spend more than 30 hrs a week on work. I have a few friends that went through YC and I wouldn't trade places with them for a second. Maybe I'm just lazy but working 80 hour weeks just for a shot at a large exit just isn't for me. Without rob's book I would never have known there was an alternative path.

Based on my own sales history (I've made 5 figures in one day on the app store before), I can guarantee you that based on their top grossing rankings, they are making much more than $100K. They are sandbagging when they say "more than 100K"

I believe it has both native as well as HTML5 elements, just like the LinkedIn app.

I've seen the opposite. Almost everyone I know uses the native facebook app versus going to m.facebook.com. Most people only use a few websites/apps on their phones, and I think it's just simpler to tap on the app icon rather than start up mobile safari and type m.facebook.com.

This pretty much describes exactly what I did. I worked on my idea nights and weekends for about 6 months (iOS app) before launching. 6 months after that I was profitable enough to quit my job and do it full time. Instead of going the typical startup route and seeking funding and hiring people, I decided to travel the world while building up my startup. After a year of doing this, I'm making many times what I was at my day job in silicon valley and really enjoying being my own boss. I think the army of one part-time idea really resonates with my personality. I like the idea of startups, but I have a family and am fairly risk averse.

Ported my top selling iPhone and android app to wp7 pretty recently. Can't say sales are stellar but I think you can never count Microsoft out. The new Nokia phones look very good.

11:00 in the video is a fascinating example of someone standing up to Jobs' reality distortion field.

I think that's a waste of time. Discoverability of apps is primarily through the store, not the web site, from my experience. I don't think it would be worth the effort. Cool idea though.

I don't really see this as a niche app. A niche app to me is an app that a particular segment of the population would be actively searching for. For example, runners would be searching for a "run timing" app. I think your app falls into the mainstream simply because people (I don't think) are going to be actively searching for it. And when they do find it on the new releases list or some other method, there is no instant recognition as to what it does, so your price will drastically affect your conversion rate. That said, 3.99 I think is way too high. I think 99c may even be too high. I would start off free with ads with in-app-purchase option to remove them.

This is quite different from the "Fuck Michael Dell" story posted by Gruber. Did Jobs in fact never say that?

Great speech. I graduated in 2005 from rival school Berkeley and we had Eric Schmidt. It was fascinating to see how the two of them would duke it out in the 6 years following my graduation. Eric was also a great commencement speaker.

a step back from what? I find iOS/Xcode/Obj-C to be a great dev environment.

I have a 4.3 inch windows phone, have slightly below average hands and can reach all the way across just fine. Maybe the OP has really small hands.

yup parse is one of the most exciting companies right now for mobile developers like myself.

Grew organically and was featured on some media outlets (PCMag, HuffPost, LifeHacker, etc) as a result.

nice app. can I ask what the price range of the acquisition was? Always wondered what apps go for when they are sold.