Nanaimo Studio

These days there have been many talks on how App Store has reached 100,000 apps and it's getting very hard to get exposure.  These are all true sentiments, indeed, the gold rush is over.  No longer can you hope to make $200k just off of a crappy piece of software.  In addition, because of the sheer number of apps fighting for attention, the need to market your app has to be an integral part of your app development plan.  It's sad but true -- a mediocre app that has a powerful marketing engine is likely going to do better than a good app without marketing behind it.  The next question naturally becomes: can I still make a living off of developing for iPhone if I don't have the marketing might like those of the big corporations?

The answer is YES, but with a few conditions.  Firstly, your app has to be the best in its class.  If you can't make it the best in its category, try it narrow it down until you can.  For example, if you can't beat EverNote in trying to be the do-it-all note-taking app, narrow it to be the best simple note-taking app or the best quick note-taking app.  Unless you are confident that you can make your app the best there is in the category that you define, don't do it.  Secondly, you have to be patient.  It takes time for your app to get noticed and it will also take more effort than you like (esp. for the less business-minded people) to market it.  You also have to be patient in order for luck to strike, if ever.  Maybe Apple notices your app, maybe a few hugely popular press or blogs notice your app and report about it.  Thirdly, you have to continually improve your app, and to do this, you must have a good feedback loop.  Make sure your app provides a way for users to submit feedback to you.  Make sure you take the time to reply to all your users' feedbacks and concerns.  They may only pay you $0.99 for your app, but you must give no less than $99.00 worth of customer service back.  If they are not happy with your app, try to come up with a way that will make them happy.  If they are still not happy, try to find a way to refund the $0.99 - the money should be spent somewhere else, just not on your app.

The truth is, even though there are 100k apps on App Store today, the very nature of bell curve is very much at work here.  That is, most of the apps on App Store are simply noises, only a very handful of them offer true values to its users.  If you can use this fact and make sure your app doesn't fall into the first two standard deviation (99% of the apps out there), you have a good chance at making it big.  Judging from the stats we have gathered from selling Idea Organizer, as long as you have 3+ apps that are in Top 100 in its own category, you will make more money that working for just about any company out there, and that's not a difficult goal to hit at all.