My First Year in the App Store
Yesterday, exactly a year ago, I launched my first mobile app. It was a small side project with one clear wish: to break even on the rent.
As of yesterday, after Apple's cut, it has earned me $73,034 in pure profit. Although this is far from being an incredible success, I am still very happy with the result and proud of its current performance.
Today, I want to tell you a brief history of how I got into mobile app development and why I decided to pursue it.
Meeting Cameron
Last February, during a dinner at a friend's house, I learned that one of my relatives was making between $8,000 and $10,000 per month from the App Store. The surprising part? He didn't know how to code or design. Knowing that most programmers/designers struggle in the App Store, seeing a businessman succeed like this was truly astonishing.
But what I wanted to understand was, if he could do it, then so could I.
Over the next few weeks, I thought a lot about what to create. My next blog post will detail this decision-making process, but ultimately, I decided to make an iPhone app for a Spanish Bible.
Yes, you read that right – a Spanish Bible.
In fact, most existing Spanish Bible apps were pretty bad. (It’s worth noting that there are a few good ones, but their main issue is trying to be everything to everyone, which means Spanish speakers aren’t well served.)
My three reasons for proceeding were: (1) Current Spanish Bible apps were already generating decent revenue, (2) I could create a better and cheaper Spanish Bible app, and finally (3) competition wasn't too fierce, meaning my app would still be discoverable.
Who releases an app on Sunday?
Since I was selling a Bible, I chose to release it on a Sunday. All day, I kept checking the app ratings, which, frankly, did me no good since I still had no idea how high ratings translated to money.
The next morning (and every morning thereafter), I woke up and immediately checked my emails for the heart-pounding information from AppFigures. How much net revenue did the app generate in a day? $36.35. Clearly, not a lot.
But remember: My goal was just to cover my rent. I had invested around $500 in this app, so anything beyond breaking even was pure profit.
This average daily income of $36 was actually growing, and by the end of the first month, I made $1,475.99, which was $900 more than my rent at the time. While it wasn’t a huge amount, relative to the development time and initial investment, this side project was a success.
From that point on, I started scaling up.
I hired a professional recording studio to record the entire Bible in audio format. A few months later, I released it as a separate app, which further expanded my little business. At this point, the monthly income was around $4,000 to $5,000.
Low-cost market testing
From there, I slowly improved the product and expanded my range.
Here are screenshots of the first two versions of our app. I’m somewhat embarrassed to show them because they’re not particularly beautiful. But they were good enough, and at the time, having the app was more important than aesthetics.
I didn’t want to spend $10 million creating something super powerful that nobody wanted. I wanted to test the market reaction, and do so at a low cost.
Once the app started generating enough income, I could begin investing in a complete overhaul. The latest version looks cool. It's fast, has richer features, and I believe users will love it. I’ll be releasing this latest version mid-next month.
On May 1st, I'll be flying to Spain to attend ExpoLit, a Christian publishing conference held in Miami. My customers want me to provide some additional content, and I hope to meet people at the event who own the rights to this content. This won't just improve app sales, but also make our clients happier.
All of this stems from a small app with an initial investment of less than $500. That's my story.