successful indie app development
DESCRIPTION
A 25-minute talk about "Successful Indie App Development" by Michael Szumielewski.TRANSCRIPT
Successful Indie App Development
Michael Szumielewski
Structure• Indie Development
• App Creation
• App Marketing
• Long-Term App Success
• Q&A
About me
• App Developer since 2013
• Working on own apps only
• Health & fitness apps
• 17 apps on the App Store
Indie Development
Source: http://www.developereconomics.com/reports/developer-economics-q3-2014/
Why go Indie?• Complete autonomy over product development
• Constant learning, you never get bored
• Awesome, cutting-edge industry
• Great financial potential
Indie Development• Be sure, it’s a long-term decision
• Be ready, don’t quit your job (yet)
• Have a great work environment
• Eat healthy and work out
App Creation
App Ideas• You don’t need a great, revolutionary app idea
• Look for proven app ideas with real customer demand
• Build evergreen apps with long-term value
• Search for ideas with profit in mind
App Market Research• Pick a category to limit the search
• Go through the charts and categorize app ideas
• Thoroughly analyze the competition
• Evaluate every idea based on development effort, competition & earnings potential
App Development• Requirement: Deep understanding about apps
and how to develop
• Write clean, reusable code with best practices in mind
• Comment your code. Seriously!
• Don’t reinvent the wheel, use frameworks
• Test thoroughly, use your own apps daily
App Marketing
App Launch• The moment of truth
• Do ASO from the beginning for maximum effect on launch
• You get an ASO bump for the first 7 days
• Watch your analytics and bug tracking
• Get 5 reviews as fast as you can to get a visible app rating
ASO• ASO = App Store Optimization
• Improves your visibility and discoverability
• Huge factor for apps with no brand and/or limited marketing budget
• Key elements for iOS apps: title & keywords
• Not a one-time thing: continuous testing & improvement required
Customer Support• Great customer support makes a
huge difference
• Actively ask for feedback
• Answer every message, don't ignore a single mail
• Always be nice & friendly
• You will get a better understanding of your users & new ideas
• You will get better app reviews
App Reviews• You absolutely need a 5-star app, if not, something is
wrong
• Reviews are extremely important for ASO
• Ask your happy users politely for reviews, it works
• Don’t cheat the system, it’s lame & Apple is watching
• Prevent 1-star reviews (Examples: crash on start-up, forced login, ads after the app has been ad-free, …)
App Network
• Build more then one app
• Interlink your own apps
• Goal: Existing users download your other apps
• Techniques: nag alert, more apps view, house ad campaigns
App Localization• Potentially huge impact on downloads
• Not all languages have the same effect
• Check your analytics and the charts first
• Quality translations only
App Updates• Every update should improve your KPIs
• The big problem: you loose your ratings
• Avoid small, bug fix updates
• Optimize ASO on every update (title, keywords)
• Don’t f*ck up your app updates!
Long-Term App Success
How to Make Money• Ads are not evil! Ad-based apps allow users to try
apps for free
• Free apps have far more downloads then paid apps
• Users want free apps, but some are willing to pay for premium features
• Test your pricing, analyze your competition
• Adapt your business models if needed
Success
How to be Successful• You need more then one app
• Set clear performance goals and review them periodically
• Be in it for the long-term
• Winning daily habits: read news, learn new stuff, do market research, check your analytics
Final Thoughts• Always create great products with users in mind
• Get better every day
• Get out of your comfort zone
• Success doesn't come over night